One Hundred and Thirty-Eighth Day:
Friday, 24th May, 1946
[Page 399]
And on the last page of the English text, for Sunday the
19th of July - I think it is Page 179 of your text - the
motto for the day is "Our service to Germany is divine
service." And that was a slogan you used on other Sundays,
and as the Tribunal has pointed out, on Page 70 of your
text, you say
[Page 400]
A. Will you please indicate the passage that you quoted just
now.
Q. It is on Page 70, right at the bottom of your Page 70.
A. Yes, it says here
Q. Let us see if you did. In your book Revolution of
Education, on Page 148, do you remember this statement: "The
flag of the Third Reich" - we will begin the whole sentence:
Q. All right.
A. Here I write:
Q. All right, if that is your answer - I see it differently.
Let us go on to something else so that we can get through. I
do not want to neglect to show you, if you care to be shown,
that communication to Streicher. It has already been
presented to the Tribunal by the British Delegation, the
British Prosecution. I think it was read from, but not put
in, I am told.
In any event, do you know about that, witness? Do you know
about the letter that the boys and girls of the Youth Hostel
at Grossmullen wrote to Streicher in April of 1936, when
they told him about seeing the Jews:
A. I should like to say in this connection that the National
Socialist Youth Home at Grossmullen, which is mentioned
here, was not a Hitler Youth institution but was, I believe,
a kindergarten run by the National Socialist Public Welfare
Organization (NSV) or some other organization.
This is typical of the letters ordered by the publisher of
Der Sturmer for recruiting purposes.
[Page 401]
A. Yes.
Q. Well, what do you mean by saying that in 1936 this
National Socialist Youth Hostel at Grossmullen was not a
part of the Hitler Youth Organization?
A. It says here Youth Home (Heimstatte) not hostel
(Herberge). I am not familiar with the expression
"Heimstatte." That must refer to a home run by the National
Socialist Public Welfare Organization or the National
Socialist Women's League. We had only "Jugendheime" and
"Herbergen."
Q. Well, does it not strike you as being strongly
coincidental that in your programme for one of your youth
camps you suggest a show which portrays a Jewish man with a
great nose and ridicules him and teaches children to dislike
him and laugh at him, and that from a youth camp a youngster
writes to Streicher saying that she and other children saw
such a show?
A. This letter was not written from any Youth Camp.
Q. Well, I accept it if that is your answer.
A. I do not deny that this puppet play was shown and that
this letter was written, but I believe the connection is too
far-fetched, so to speak. The connection is a very remote
one.
Q. You think the connection with the ridiculing of the Jews
is very far-fetched?
A. No. I dispute the statement that this is a Hitler Youth
institution. I believe actually it is a day nursery run by
the National Socialist Public Welfare Organization or
something similar.
Q. Well, maybe the explanation is that all the young people
in Germany saw one of those shows. But, in any event, I want
to take up the last matter on this subject with you.
This morning your counsel examined you about the
confiscation of a monastery, I believe it was in Austria
while you were there, Klosterneuburg. Do you remember?
A. We discussed Count Schwarzenberg's palace this morning.
That was not a monastery. It was the property of a private
citizen.
Q. Well, the document that Counsel Dr. Sauter referred to
was R-146, Exhibit USA 678. It was a letter from Bormann to
all Gauleiter, and it began by saying valuable Church
properties had to be seized in Italy and in Austria. It was
signed by Bormann. And then also on that document was a
letter from Lammers saying that there had been some dispute
as to whether the seized Church property should go back to
the Reich or should remain in your Gau. You remember that,
do you not? Well, now, you seized the monastery down there,
did you not, in 1941, the Klosterneuburg? Klosterneuburg,
you know what I am referring to. I may mispronounce it.
A. Yes. The well-known foundation Klosterneuburg, the famous
monastery, served as a receiving office for collections of
works of art, taken from our art museum.
Q. Yes. Now, what excuse did you have for seizing the
monastery at that time?
A. I can no longer give you exact details with regard to
this. I believe there were very few people in the monastery,
that the large building was not being used to the fullest
possible extent and that we urgently needed more space for
the expansion of the experimental station run in conjunction
with our State school of vinegrowing. I believe that is why
this monastery was confiscated.
Q. All right. I am going to ask that you look at the
Document 3927-PS, and I wish you would remember that this
morning you told the Tribunal that you stopped the
confiscation of churches and Church property in Austria.
When you look at this document I wish you to recall your
testimony.
THE PRESIDENT: Did you offer M-25 in evidence or not?
MR. DODD: I wish to do so, Mr. President. It is Exhibit USA
861. And this one, Document 3927-PS, becomes Exhibit USA
862.
[Page 402]
Q. Now, the first page of this document shows that it is
marked secret. It is dated the 22nd of January, 1941. It is
a letter addressed to Dellbruegge in your organization in
Vienna.
He says that he hears there is a possibility of getting a
Hitler School, which the City of Hamburg is also trying
to get, and that he wants the monastery Klosterneuburg
considered as the place for the Hitler School in Vienna.
This letter is written by Scharitzer, your deputy, as you
described him yesterday.
Now, he enclosed a communication, a teletype letter, from
Bormann, and if you turn the page you will see that it is
dated the 13th of January. Bormann says it is strictly
confidential:
Now, turn another page, and you will find a Gestapo report
on the monastery, dated the 23rd of January, 1941, addressed
to your assistant Dellbruegge. I wish you would look where
it says: "Oral order of 23rd January; 1941." Apparently
somebody in your organization, you or your assistants,
orally asked the Gestapo to get up a report on this
monastery the very day that you wrote to Berlin asking that
it be considered as a Hitler School.
There are some charges against the inhabitants of that
monastery in this Gestapo report, but I ask you to turn over
farther sand you will find where you wrote an order for the
taking over of the monastery as an Adolf Hitler School on
the 22nd February, 1941. I will show it to you if you like
to see it, but that order bears your initials, the original
does, Pages 15 to 17 of the photostat that you have.
Now, you framed up an excuse to seize that monastery, did
you not, when you really wanted it for a Hitler School, and
you did not have any just grounds for seizing it. And you
get the Gestapo to write a report and then you never
referred to the reason that the Gestapo framed up for you.
A. I myself, as head of these schools, was naturally
extremely anxious to have such a school established in
Vienna. At one time the idea expressed here of taking
Klosterneuburg and housing one of the Adolf Hitler Schools
in it did occur to me, and I probably did discuss it with
Herr Scharitzer; but I dropped the idea completely.
Klosterneuburg was never converted into an Adolf Hitler
School.
Q. No. But it never was turned back to the Church people,
either, was it?
A. No. As the museum space available in Vienna was not
sufficient for the very large collections, we wanted to make
this monastery into an additional large museum which would
be open to the public. We began to carry out this plan; and
a great part of the collections were transferred to the
building. In addition, we needed the strongly built cellars
of this monastery for the safe-keeping of the many art
treasures which we had to protect against bombing attacks.
It occurred to me that we might house an Adolf Hitler School
in this building and I discussed the possibility with one or
two of my colleagues and then abandoned it, firstly, because
it would have caused some ill-feeling if we had housed an
Adolf Hitler School in a building which had formerly been
consecrated ground, and secondly, because we badly needed
the monastery for these other purposes.
I have nothing to add to my explanation.
Q. You will notice the date of that whole transaction and
the communication from Bormann. When did you first discover
that Bormann was so anti-religious and anti-Church as you
told the Tribunal he was?
A. Bormann -
[Page 403]
A. I was just about to. Bormann showed his anti-religious
views most clearly in 1943; but they had already begun to
appear in 1937.
Q. And this telegram from him was when? 1941?
A. 1941.
Q. Witness, when did you first start to do business with
Himmler
A. I met Hitler -
Q. (Interposing) Himmler?
A. I met Himmler in 1929 when I visited the offices of the
Party Leadership. At that time he was the propaganda chief
of the party. That was our first meeting.
Q. I did not really want to know, although it is of
interest, when you first met him. What I really wanted to
know was when you with your youth groups started to really
do business with him for the first time. And by "business" I
mean arrangements such as the recruitment of young men into
the Death's Head brigade of the SS.
A. I think I explained that this morning. One of the first
agreements laid down was, I think, contained in the
agreement regarding the patrol service, the date of which I
do not recall. This was not, by the way, a pledge to supply
reinforcements for Death's Head units, but for police units
generally. These were special troops to be at the disposal
of the police.
Q. How long did you continue to channel or divert young men
from your youth organization to the SS? When was the last
time that you remember this programme being effective?
A. I did not forcibly drive young people into the SS, but I
permitted the SS to seek recruits among the young people,
like any other organization.
Q. I did not ask you that. I asked you when you would say
was the latest date when you were effectively helping
Himmler to get young candidates from the young people of
Germany through your Hitler Youth Organization. I do not
expect an exact date. Approximately?
A. From 1940 on I tried constantly to have the youth taken
into Army units. The SS, Waffen SS, carried on a very active
recruitment among the youth up to the last days of the war.
I could not prevent this recruitment.
Q. And you knew what use they were being put to in the last
days of the war and in the mid-days of the war, did you not?
A. I did know that all young people who were taken in or who
volunteered had to fight.
Q. I am talking about something other than fighting. You
knew what was going on in the East, and you knew who the
guards were in the concentration camps; did you not?
A. This morning I testified on what I knew about events in
the East. I did not know that young men who volunteered to
go into the Waffen SS were used during the war to guard
concentration camps.
Q. You did not know who were the guards there, although you
visited two of them yourself?
A. Those guards did not belong to the Waffen SS.
Q. I know, but your agreement with Himmler provided
specifically for recruitment for SS Death's Head troops.
A. When I concluded that agreement, I did not know that he
effected the supervision of concentration camps chiefly by
means of Death's Head units. Besides, I thought at that time
that concentration camps were something quite normal. I said
so this morning.
Q. You told the Tribunal yesterday that it was in 1944, I
think, that you found out about the exterminations. And I
want to talk to you about that a little bit, and ask you
some questions. And the first one is, how did you find out?
Was it only through this man Colin Ross?
A. I said that I heard of it through Colin Ross -
Q. All right.
[Page 404]
Q. Really I asked you if, from any other source, you found
out? And you can answer that pretty simply. We know that you
found out through Ross. Was there anyone else from whom you
found out?
A. I was just going to repeat what I said this morning -
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(Part 10 of 11)
[MR. DODD continues his cross examination of Baldur von Schirach] " - that this Sunday morning ceremony does not aim at
presenting arguments or conflicts with confessional
points of view, but at imbuing life and men with courage
and strength to fulfil their greater and lesser tasks
through unqualified faith in the divine power and the
ideology of the Fuehrer and his movement."
Now, in no place where you made any reference to God did you
ever fail also to mention Hitler or the leaders of the
Party, did you? "It does not aim at presenting arguments or conflicts
with confessional points of view, but at imbuing life and
men with courage and strength to fulfil their greater and
lesser tasks through unqualified faith in the divine
power and the ideology of the Fuehrer and his Party."
That does not, after all, mean that Hitler is compared to
God, but I believe that in the answer I gave a few minutes
ago, I did define my attitude.
"On the contrary, the service of Germany appears to us to
be ... the service of God. The banner of the Third Reich
appears to us to be this banner; and the Fuehrer of the
people is the Saviour whom He sent to save us from the
calamity and peril into which we were actually plunged by
the most pious parties of the defunct German Republic."
A. I should like to see the original of this text, please.
"We consider that we are serving the Almighty when with
our youthful strength we seek to make Germany once more
united and great. In acknowledging loyalty to our
Homeland we see nothing which could be construed as a
contradiction of His eternal will. On the contrary, the
service of Germany appears to us to be genuine and
sincere service of God; the banner of the Third Reich
appears to us to be His banner; and the Fuehrer of the
people is the Saviour whom He sent to rescue us from the
calamity and peril into which we were actually plunged by
the most pious parties of the defunct German Republic."
This refers to the Central Party of the old Republic and
other similar organizations of a confessional and political
nature. I wrote this. I really do not see anything in that
which could be construed into a deification of the Fuehrer
For me, service to my country was service to the Almighty.
"Every Sunday our leader shows a play about the Jews with
his puppet theatre."
I just want to know if you are aware of it.
"It is learned that the population does not show any
indignation when monastery buildings are used to serve
what appears to be a generally appropriate purpose."
He goes on to say:
"Their conversion into hospitals, convalescent homes,
educational institutes, Adolf Hitler Schools, may be
considered as serving a generally appropriate purpose."
Now, that communication was dated the 13th of January, and
your deputy wrote the letter on the 22nd.