November 20, 1945 Nuremberg Tribunal: On day 1 of the historic trial, the prosecutors take turns reading the indictment in court. Unfortunately, no one had given any thought to the prisoners lunch break, so, for the first and only time during 218 days of court, the defendants eat their midday meal in the courtroom itself. This is the first opportunity for the entire group to mingle, and though some know each other quite well, their are many that have never met. The defendants do not speak much about the charges, but a few mention the improved quality of the food. "I suppose we'll get steak the day you hang us," comments Schirach. (Tusa)
November 21, 1945 Nuremberg Tribunal: On day 2, the defendants enter their pleas: "The President: I will now call upon the defendants to plead guilty or not guilty to the charges against them. They will proceed in turn to a point in the dock opposite to the microphone ... Schirach: I declare myself in the sense of the Indictment not guilty."
November 21, 1945 Nuremberg Tribunal: Immediately following the pleas of the defendants, Justice Jackson delivers his opening statement:
Jackson: In the prisoners' dock sit twenty-odd broken men. Reproached by the humiliation of those they have led almost as bitterly as by the desolation of those they have attacked, their personal capacity for evil is forever past. It is hard now to perceive in these men as captives the power by which as Nazi leaders they once dominated much of the world and terrified most of it. Merely as individuals their fate is of little consequence to the world. What makes this inquest significant is that these prisoners represent sinister influences that will lurk in the world long after their bodies have returned to dust.
We will show them to be living symbols of racial hatreds, of terrorism and violence, and of the arrogance and cruelty of power. They are symbols of fierce nationalism and of militarism, of intrigue and war-making which have embroiled Europe generation after generation, crushing its manhood, destroying its homes, and impoverishing its life. They have so identified themselves with the philosophies they conceived and with the forces they directed that any tenderness to them is a victory and an encouragement to all the evils which are attached to their names. Civilization can afford no compromise with the social forces which would gain renewed strength if we deal ambiguously or indecisively with the men in whom those forces now precariously survive. What these men stand for we will patiently and temperately disclose. We will give
you undeniable truths...
November 21, 1945 Nuremberg Tribunal: On Day 3, Major Frank B. Wallis, Assistant Trial Counsel for the United States, presents the prosecutions case known as the Common Plan or Conspiracy:
Wallis: As a means of implementing their master race policy and as a means of rallying otherwise discordant elements behind the Nazi banner, the conspirators adopted and publicized a program of relentless persecution of Jews. This program was contained in the official, unalterable 25 points of the Nazi Party, of which 6 were devoted to the master race doctrine. The Defendants Goering, Hess, Rosenberg, Frank, Frick, Streicher, Funk, Schirach, Bormann, and others, all took prominent parts in
publicizing this program...
November 29, 1945 Nuremberg Tribunal: The prosecution presents as evidence a film shot by US troops as they were liberating various German concentration camps.
November 30, 1945 Nuremberg Tribunal: On the day 9, defendant Rudolf Hess makes a statement before the court:
At the beginning of the proceedings this afternoon I gave my defense counsel a note saying that I thought the proceedings could be shortened if I would be allowed to speak. I wish to say the following: In order to forestall the possibility of my being pronounced incapable of pleading, in spite of my willingness to take part in the proceedings and to hear the verdict alongside my comrades, I would like to make the following declaration before the Tribunal, although, originally, I intended to make it during a later stage of the trial: Henceforth my memory will again respond to the outside world. The reasons for simulating loss of memory were of a tactical nature. Only my ability to concentrate is, in fact, somewhat reduced. But my capacity to follow the trial, to defend myself, to put questions to witnesses, or to answer questions myself is not affected thereby. I emphasize that I bear full responsibility for everything that I did, signed or co-signed. My fundamental attitude that the Tribunal is not competent, is not affected by the statement I have just made. I also simulated loss of memory in consultations with my officially appointed defense counsel. He has, therefore, represented it in good faith.
From The Case of Rudolf Hess by J. R. Rees: [The reactions of Hess's fellow defendants to the above statement are noted] Von Schirach felt that such behavior was not the action of a normal man, and while he enjoyed Hess's jest upon the world, felt that it was not a gesture expected of a good German whose position was as important as that of Hess.
December 11, 1945 Nuremberg Tribunal: On the trial's 17th day, prosecution presents as evidence a four-hour movie, 'The Nazi Plan,' compiled from various Nazi propaganda films and newsreels.
December 11, 1945 Nuremberg Tribunal: On the trial's 17th day, prosecution presents as evidence a four-hour movie, 'The Nazi Plan,' compiled from Nazi propaganda films and newsreels. Schirach becomes very excited watching himself dedicating groups of Hitler Youth to Hitler. Immediately following this film, which has an uplifting effect on many defendants as a reminder of their glory days, the prosecution follows with three days of Holocaust and atrocity evidence, enough to shatter the composure of most. Shrugging, Schirach states: 'It's all over. I wouldn't blame the court if they just said, "Chop off all their heads!" Even if there are a couple of innocent ones among the twenty, it wouldn't make a bit of difference among the millions who were murdered.' (Conot)
December 14, 1945 Nuremberg Tribunal: The tendency of some of the defendants to denounce, or at least criticize Hitler on the stand, leads to an outburst by Goering during lunch: "You men knew the Fuehrer. He would have been the first one to stand up and say "I have given the orders and I take full responsibility." But I would rather die ten deaths than to have the German sovereign subjected to this humiliation." Keitel fell silent, but Frank was not crushed: "Other sovereigns have stood before courts of law. He got us into this..." Schirach, Doenitz, Funk and Keitel suddenly get up and leave Goering's table." (Tusa)
December 20, 1945 Nuremberg Tribunal: After this days session, the trial adjourns for a Holiday break until Wednesday, the 2nd of January.
December 23, 1945 Nuremberg Tribunal: Many of the defendants, most of whom are Protestant, attend Christmas Eve services conducted by Pastor Gerecke.
January 15, 1946 Nuremberg Tribunal: On day 34, the prosecution presents its case against Schirach:
Hitler, in February 1938, mentioned that 7,000 Hitler Youth leaders were engaged in training German youngsters in rifle shooting, Schirach and Keitel, in their agreement of August 1939, note the following: "... 30,000 Hitler Youth leaders are already being trained annually in field service. The agreement with the Wehrmacht gives the possibility of roughly doubling that number. The billeting and messing of the Hitler Youth leaders is done, according to the regulations for execution already published, in the barracks, drill grounds, et cetera, of the Wehrmacht, at a daily cost of 25 Pfennig." Just as Schirach dealt with the head of the SS in obtaining zealous recruits for organized banditry and the commission of atrocities, so also he dealt with the head of the Wehrmacht in furnishing young men as human grist for the mill of aggressive war. The training of German youths runs through the Nazi conspiracy as an important central thread. It is one of the manifestations of Nazism that has shocked the entire civilized world. The principal responsibility for the planning and execution of the Nazi Youth policy falls
upon this defendant... From the notes of the Nuremberg Prison psychologist, Dr. Gilbert:
Von Schirach's attitude of remorse before the trial has completely disappeared since he came under Goering's influence again in the first weeks of the trial. The essential moral weakness of this narcissist has been clearly shown in the manner in which he has subdued his indignation at the "betrayal" of German Youth by Hitler, under the influence of Goering's aggressive cynicism, nationalism, and pose of romantic heroism . . . . His original intention to write a denunciation of "Hitler's betrayal" to leave behind with me after he is executed, fizzled out, in spite of efforts by Major Kelly (the psychiatrist) and myself to encourage him to write it. He has acted as Goering's messenger to lay down the 'Party Line' to recalcitrant defendants like Speer . . . . After yesterday's argument in which Goering impatiently attacked both Fritzsche and von Schirach as "young weaklings" while he was by implication a more heroic nationalist, I decided the time was ripe to make another attempt to draw out von Schirach. (Taylor)
February 15, 1946 Nuremberg Tribunal: Colonel Andrus tightens the rules for the defendants by imposing strict solitary confinement. This is part of a strategy designed to minimize Goering's influence among the defendants. (Tusa)
February 22, 1946 Nuremberg Tribunal: In a further move to minimize his influence, Goering is now required to eat alone during the courts daily lunch break. The other defendants are split up into groups, with Schirach sharing a room with Fritzsche, Funk and Speer. (Speer)
March 5, 1946 Nuremberg Tribunal: Winston Churchill (now a private citizen) introduces the phrase Iron Curtain into the English language during his famous Cold War speech at Fulton, Missouri. Speer recorded his fellow defendants' reactions: (The defendants showed) tremendous excitement. Hess suddenly stopped playing the amnesiac and reminded us how often he had predicted a great turning point that would put an end to the trial, rehabilitate all of us, and restore us to our ranks and dignities. Goering, too, was beside himself; he repeatedly slapped his thighs with his palms and boomed: "History will not be deceived. The Fuehrer and I always prophesied it. This coalition had to break up sooner or later." (Speer II)
March 16, 1946 Nuremberg Tribunal: On day 83, defendant Hermann Goering is cross-examined by various defense counsel:
Dr Fritz Sauter: Mr. President, if you will permit me, I have a few brief questions on behalf of the Defendant Schirach. [Turning to the witness.] Do you know whether the so-called "Flying HJ," a subdivision of the Hitler Youth, ever received flying training?
Goering: The Flying HJ pursued the sport of gliding exclusively. After this training was completed, these men were taken into the National Socialist Flier Corps, the former Reich Air Sports League, and there continued their training in aircraft flying.
Dr Fritz Sauter: Then another question: Did any conferences take place between you and the Defendant Schirach, especially while he was Reich Youth Leader, which were concerned with the question of military training, or pre-military training of youth in flying? Did such conferences take place or not?
Goering: Whether we discussed these matters occasionally I do not know. There was no need for official conferences, because the situation was entirely clear. The Flying Hitler Youth were interested in gliding, and after they had received preliminary training they were taken into
the flying corps...
March 16, 1946 Nuremberg Tribunal: From the notes of the Nuremberg Prison psychologist, Dr. Gilbert:
Von Schirach was very pleased with his hero (Goering). He thought it would be political madness to sentence him, because he was so popular, even in America, "and now you can see why he was so popular." He thought that Ribbentrop was far guiltier for the war. (Taylor)
March 20, 1946 Nuremberg Tribunal: From the diary of the British Alternate Judge, Mr. Justice Birkett:
The trial from now on is really outside the control of the Tribunal, and in the long months ahead the prestige of the trial will steadily diminish...
April 18, 1946 Nuremberg Tribunal: On day 111, Hans Frank delivers his controversial testimony. The defendants in the dock had listened to Frank's testimony intently, leaning forward and following every word. At lunch, Papen and Seyss-Inquart gave him some words of encouragement. But most of the others had been horrified by what they heard. Fancy saying that Germany had been disgraced! Frank, however, was delighted with his testimony, proud that he had stood out from the other defendants who always claimed ignorance of what was going on. "I DID know what was going on. I think that the judges are really impressed when one of us speaks from the heart and doesn't try to dodge the responsibility." Schirach had certainly been impressed. Having wavered for so long he was now inspired to make a clean breast of things himself; to declare that everyone had been misled by Hitler on the racial question. As Schacht noticed, Schirach's mood was the first sign that Goering had lost control over the other defendants. Frank had damaged the united front. Schacht himself was prepared to go further. He wanted to make accusations against fellow defendants--Goering, Ribbentrop, Keitel and Raeder were his chosen targets. "My people must be shown," he declared "how the Nazi leaders plunged them into an unnecessary war." So by mid-April the defendants were clearly divided. (Tusa)
May 21, 1946 From the letters of Thomas Dodd:
I am continually shocked at the appearance of former German admirals, generals, cabinet officers, bankers, etc., who get on the witness stand under oath and proceed to lie in the most shameful manner. Little wonder that catastrophe attended them. Justice Jackson returned from London and Paris yesterday and looked more rested than when he left. This morning we continued with Raeder and finally got him off the stand a little after noontime. It has been much too long a defense--much of it irrelevant and of no value. I have the next defendant, Schirach, former youth leader under the Nazis and I intend to see that no time is wasted on a mass of irrelevancies. Strange--isn't it--that I should be cross-examining the Nazi youth leader? I, who devoted three years and more to the National Youth Administration in the USA.
May 23, 1946 Nuremberg Tribunal: On day 137, Schirach testifies on his own behalf:
Schirach: Of course, I do not know what my comrades read, with the exception of one book which I shall give you directly I know only what I read myself; I was interested at that time in the writings of the Bayreuth thinker, Chamberlain, in The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century, in the writings of Adolf Bartels, in his Introduction to World Literature and History of German National Literature. There were works ...
The President: I have already told you that we do not want to know the full story of the defendant's education. He is now giving us a series of the books that he has read, but we are not interested.
Dr Fritz Sauter: Very well, Mr. President.
Schirach: I shall only say in one sentence that these were works which had no definite anti-Semitic tendencies, but through which anti-Semitism was drawn like a red thread. The decisive anti-Semitic book which I read at that time and the book which influenced my comrades ...
Dr Fritz Sauter: Please . . .
Schirach: ... was Henry Ford's book, The International Jew; I read it and became anti-Semitic. In those days this book made such a deep impression on my friends and myself because we saw in Henry Ford the representative of success, also the exponent of a progressive social policy. In the poverty-stricken and wretched Germany of the time, youth looked toward America, and apart from the great benefactor, Herbert Hoover, it was Henry Ford who to us represented America.
The President: Dr. Sauter, the Tribunal thinks, as I have said twice now, that the educational influences of the defendant are quite irrelevant to us. I do not want to say it again and, unless you can control the defendant and keep him to the point, I shall have to stop his evidence.
Dr Fritz Sauter: But, Mr. President, is it not of interest to the Tribunal when judging this defendant and his personality that they know how the defendant became a National Socialist and how the defendant became anti-Semitic? I had thought ...
The President: No, it is not of interest
to the Tribunal...
From The Nuremberg Trial by Ann and John Tusa: One newspaper described his testimony as "wearying the court." Lawrence (President of the Tribunal) intervened several times and threatened to stop the case unless Schirach stuck to the point, but he had difficulty finding a point to stick to . . . . When the judges withdrew at lunch time they held what Biddle called "a stormy discussion ... I and the Russians think we ought to stop this hogwash." But other judges would not allow an intervention: "De Vabres thinks we must have 'psychological' background. Parker doesn't want the world to get the impression we are stopping freedom of speech." So that afternoon Schirach was left relatively undisturbed to try to persuade his listeners . . . .
Schirach gave testimony for a day and a half. He did not impress his audience. Many people, such as Ossian Goulding, were alienated by the tall, pallid man's "supercilious accents." Most people viewed him with a prejudice which, after the manner of the time, they hid in euphemism. Schirach might behave like the eternal scoutmaster, but he exuded the whiff of the kind of scoutmaster who ends up in the Sunday newspapers. But no one could bring themselves to use the word "homosexual." Instead an interrogator had written of his "rather unpleasant good looks," and the way his "tendency to puffiness seems to have been held in check." Someone else compared him to Ivor Novello, "anxious to keep up his youthful appearance."
Gilbert's report to Andrus was even more circumspect and talked of Schirach as "a curious aesthete with a narcissistic streak." Gilbert had gone on to say that Schirach's early rise to power had gone "to his romantic head" and that he was now "disillusioned at what he feels to be the betrayal of German youth by the elder leaders." Gilbert had actively nurtured this disillusionment in recent months; tried to wean Schirach from his hero worship of Goering; given encouragement to his flickering wish to condemn Hitler's abuse of German youth.
It is hard to believe that Gilbert was acting purely on his own initiative. Others beside must have seen an advantage in persuading the former leader of those young people to reject the training they had received and set them on a less dangerous path for the future. Should German youth come to share Schirach's disillusion, Germany would be easier to settle and incorporate into the European community. But there is no evidence to show that Gilbert discussed his strategy with others. Nor is there a hint anywhere that a bargain was considered. On the contrary, the prosecution records suggest that every effort was made to secure the maximum sentence. Gilberts diary shows Schirach struggling with his conscience, until deciding in early May that he had one last mission to the young people of Germany--to denounce Hitler before he died. He got his courage to the sticking point in the witness box around mid-morning on 24 May. He was noticeably ashen-faced.
May 24, 1946 Nuremberg Tribunal: On day 138, Schirach undergoes cross-examination:
Dodd: Mr. Witness, we understood you this morning to make a statement in the nature of a confession with respect to, at least, the persecution of the Jews; and while that part of it that you gave was perhaps bravely enough said, I think there is much of it that you neglected to say, perhaps through oversight. Now, I wish you would tell the Tribunal whether or not it is a fact that your responsibility for young people in Germany under the National Socialists was fundamentally concerned with making really good National Socialists out of them, in the sense of making them fanatical political followers.
Schirach: I considered it my task as educator to bring up the young people to be good citizens of the National Socialist State.
Dodd: And ardent followers and believers in Hitler and his political policies?
Schirach: I believe I already said this morning that I educated our youth to follow Hitler. I do not deny that.
Dodd: All right. And while you said to us that you did not have the first responsibility for the educational system, I am sure you would not deny that for all of the other activities with which young people may be concerned you did have first responsibility?
Schirach: Out-of-school education
was my responsibility...
May 24, 1946 Nuremberg Tribunal: Reactions to Schirach's second morning of testimony from
The Nuremberg Trial by Ann and John Tusa:
During the statement Gilbert had noticed the tension in the dock: Frank, Funk and Raeder dabbing their eyes, Streicher sneering. When Schirach went down to lunch he was congratulated by Fritzsche, Funk and Speer, and in their own room Papen, Neurath and Schacht agreed he was perfectly right in his judgement of Hitler. Goering had not been in court; he was excused on grounds of indisposition. Gilbert suspected that Goering was unwilling to sit through the embarrassment of hearing what Schirach was going to say. That evening Goering complained in equal measure of "treachery" and "sciata"--evidently suffering from all kinds of stabs in the back.
During the weekend Schirach mulled over what he had said. He talked now of Hitler's ingratitude, the way he himself had been rejected from 1943 and put in constant fear of arrest. He hinted that Hitler had never been at ease among women. He was pleased that Gilbert had taken the notes for his statement to two former Hitler Youth leaders who were being held in the witness wing of the jail and that they had been impressed, and promised to circulate it among former members. Speer was delighted by what had happened. He suggested that he and Schirach should now call each other by the intimate 'du.' This invitation held out the prospect of an additional pleasure: "Goering will have a stroke." The Times considered that Schirach's statement had been expressed in "the bitterest terms the court has heard yet." But no newspaper treated it as particularly sensational, let alone a turning point. Any good impression it might have had was soon wiped away by Schirach's inept witnesses and his response to cross-examination. (Tusa)
May 27, 1946 Nuremberg Tribunal: On day 139, Schirach undergoes cross-examination:
Schirach: Very often probably--and I once said this here--I supported the policy of the Fuehrer out of erroneous loyalty to him. I know that it was not right.
Dodd: That is what I want to know. You were, weren't you, acting under an impulse of loyalty to the Fuehrer. Now you recognize it to be erroneous, and that is all I am inquiring for, and if you tell the Tribunal that, I shall be perfectly satisfied.
Schirach: Yes, I am prepared
to admit that...
From The Anatomy of the Nuremberg Trials by Telford Taylor: On cross-examination, Tom Dodd spent nearly an entire afternoon trying to breathe some life into the charge that Schirach had conspired to initiate aggressive war. He was able to show from songs, books, and other sources that the HJ was much more militant, anti-Jew, and anti-church than Schirach had described it . . . . But with regard to Count One of the Indictment, all this was wasted effort. There was no evidence involving Schirach in plans or intentions of starting or waging aggressive war...even if the HJ had engaged in extensive military training under military supervision, such factors would have provided no basis for Schirach's conviction on Count One. Schirach’s admissions had left him on much shakier ground on Count Four, especially in the light of his public support for the expulsion of Jews from Vienna to Poland. Dodd had evidence which further strengthened the prosecutions case.
May 27, 1946 Nuremberg Tribunal: On day 139, Schirach's defense calls
Hartmann Lauterbacher to the witness stand.
May 27, 1946 Nuremberg Tribunal: On day 139, Schirach's defense calls
Gustav Dietrich Hoepken to the witness stand:
May 28, 1946 Nuremberg Tribunal: On day 140, Schirach's defense calls Fritz Wieshofer to the witness stand and Sauter again incurs the Courts impatience:
The President: Dr. Sauter, can you indicate in what way you will submit this document has any relevance at all? We have read the document. It does not appear to have any striking relevance.
Dr Fritz Sauter: Mr. President, we have submitted this document because it is to prove, or at least indicate, that the Defendant von Schirach, together with this Dr. Colin Ross, continuously worked to maintain peace, and later on to limit the war. Therefore it is submitted only to show that the Defendant Von Schirach worked for peace.
The President: The document does not mention Von Schirach or in any way indicate that he had worked for peace.
Dr Fritz Sauter: But it says in the document, "We have done everything in our power to prevent this war, or. .."
The President: Dr. Sauter, the word "We" must mean the people who "leave this world by our own will," namely Dr. Colin Ross and his wife. It does not refer to von Schirach.
Dr Fritz Sauter: We do not know that. Why should it not also refer to von Schirach?
The President: Well, because there is such a thing as grammar. The document begins "We leave this world by our own will."
Dr Fritz Sauter: As to that, Mr. President, may I remind you that this name, Dr. Colin Ross, has been mentioned very often during this trial in connection with the peace efforts of the Defendant von Schirach, and that Dr. Colin Ross, together with his wife, was living in Schirach's apartment when they committed suicide.
The President: Well, very well, Dr. Sauter, if you wish to draw our attention to it, you
may do so...
July 17, 1946 Nuremberg Tribunal: On day 180, Schirach's defense begins its closing argument:
Dr Fritz Sauter: Now Schirach is not denying at all that already in his very early years he came completely under the influence of Hitler, that he placed himself with his whole young personality at the service of these ideas, and that at the time, as stated quite correctly in the Indictment, he was devoted to Hitler with unconditional loyalty. If this was a crime on the part of young Schirach, a crime which millions of older, more experienced, mature Germans have committed with him, then you, as his judges, may condemn him for this if our code of law furnishes a legal basis for it. That would be but a further disappointment in addition to the many others which he has been experiencing for years. Schirach knows today that he gave loyal support unto the end to a man who did not deserve it; and he also knows today that the ideas, about which he was enthusiastic in his young years and for which he sacrificed himself, led in practice to ends of which he himself
had never dreamed...
From The Face Of The Third Reich by Joachim C Fest: Schirach's defense counsel emphasized in his closing speech at Nuremberg that there was no blood on his client's hands. However true this may be in a strictly legal sense, it obscures certain relevant facts about the person and career of the Third Reich's Youth Leader. We misconstrue the problems and also the possible meaning of a figure such as this if we argue, from whatever point of view, for or against his guilt as a murderer; in fact what is involved is suicide in response to an irrational emotional impulse. Not the adversary's death, but one's own death, was the burden of Schirach's intoxicated utterances, and with him--and long before him--one of the major themes of the younger generation. This, far more than the brown Hitler Youth uniform he wore, makes him the representative of one type, or one widespread attitude--how widespread this investigation, in spite of its restricted frame of reference, has I hope already shown. "We were born to die for Germany," was written over the entrance to one Hitler Youth center; but the sentence might also have come from the diary of a member of the Wandervogel or one of the countless publications of the Bundische Jugend. What linked them all, along with numerous other common features, was their rapturous suppression of the instinct of self-preservation, their faith in the magic of self-sacrifice. It was a romantic attitude that was described and construed as heroic, when in truth it was only an ineptitude for life and a readiness to die.
July 17, 1946 Nuremberg Tribunal: On day 181, Schirach's defense concludes its closing argument:
Dr Fritz Sauter: Since the Prosecution could not prove that the Defendant von Schirach had ever promoted Hitler's war policy before the war, he is being charged with having had various connections with the SS and SA, and especially with the fact that the SS, the SA, and the Leadership Corps of the Party obtained their recruit from the Hitler Youth. This last fact is quite correct, but it proves nothing as to Schirach's attitude toward Hitler's war policy and is equally pointless as regards the question of his participation in Hitler's war conspiracy. For since 90 or 95 percent or more of German youth belonged to the Hitler Youth movement it was only natural that the Party and its formations as the years went by should receive their young recruits in an ever-increasing measure from the Hitler Youth. Practically no other
youth was available...
July 22, 1946 Nuremberg Tribunal: On day 187, US Justice Jackson details Prosecutions closing arguments against Schirach.
Justice Jackson: ... Von Schirach, poisoner of a generation, initiated the German youth in Nazi doctrine, trained them in legions for service in the SS and Wehrmacht, and delivered them up to the Party as fanatic, unquestioning executors of its will
.
July 23, 1946 Nuremberg Tribunal: On day 188, Sir Hartley Shawcross, Chief Prosecutor for the United Kingdom, details Prosecutions closing arguments:
Shawcross: Von Schirach. What need one say of him? That it were better that a millstone had been placed round his neck? It was this wretched man who perverted millions of innocent German children so that they might grow up and become what they did become-the blind instruments of that policy of murder and domination which these
men carried out...
July 29, 1946 Nuremberg Tribunal: On day 189, M. Charles Dubost, Deputy Chief Prosecutor for the French Republic, details Prosecutions closing arguments:
Dubost: They stopped at nothing in order to achieve their end: Violation of treaties, invasion, and enslavement in peacetime of weak and peaceful neighbors, wars of aggression, and total warfare, with all the atrocities which these words imply. Goering and Ribbentrop cynically admitted that they took both a spiritual and a material part in it; and the generals and admirals did their utmost to help matters forward. Speer exploited to the point of exhaustion and death the manpower recruited for him by Sauckel, Kaltenbrunner, the NSDAP Gauleiter, and the generals. Kaltenbrunner made use of the gas chambers, the victims for which were furnished by Frick, Schirach, Seyss-Inquart, Frank, Jodl, Keitel, and the rest.
But the existence of the gas chambers themselves was only made possible through the development of a political ideology favorable to such things; there, inextricably merged, we find the responsibility of all of them--Goering, Hess, Rosenberg, Streicher, Frick, Frank, Fritzsche, down to Schacht himself, the pro-Jewish Schacht. Did he not say to Hirschfeld: "I want Germany to be great; to accomplish this I am prepared to ally myself with the very devil." He did enter into this alliance with the devil and with hell. We may include Papen, who saw his secretaries and his friends killed around him and still continued to accept official missions in Ankara and Vienna because he thought he could appease Hitler
by serving him...
July 29, 1946 Nuremberg Tribunal: On day 189, General Rudenko, Chief Prosecutor for the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, details Prosecutions closing arguments:
Rudenko: In his deposition before the Court the Defendant Schirach, in his efforts to evade the responsibility for the education of German youth in the spirit of National Socialist ideas, made frequent references to the fact that the Hitlerjugend was a youth organization independent of the Nazi Party and the Hitlerite Government. To defend himself, the Defendant Schirach considered it both possible and relevant to refer to the great Goethe whose words 'youth itself educates young people" he quoted with open cynicism. Goethe was, of course, right when he said that "youth itself educates young people.' But he meant the healthy, normal, joyful youth, and not youth morally corrupted with the obscurantism
of the Hitlerites...
August 30, 1946 Nuremberg Tribunal: On day 216, the defendants make their final statements.
Final Statement of Baldur von Schirach: On 24 May I made a statement here for which I answer before God and my conscience and which I fully uphold, even today at the end of the Trial, because it is in accordance with my honest innermost conviction. In their final speech the British Prosecution made the following statement: "Schirach corrupted millions of German children so that they became what they really are today, the blind instruments of that policy of murder and domination which these men have carried but." If this charge were justified I would not say a word in my defense. However, it is not justified; it is untrue. Whoever in any way takes into consideration the results of the evidence in this Trial, and honestly appraises it, can never under any circumstances raise the accusation against me that I "had corrupted the youth and poisoned their souls through my educational work."
The principles and aims which I set for youth, and which were binding on the community which our youth built up with their own strength under my leadership, were the following: self-sacrificing love of the fatherland, the overcoming of social snobbery and class hatred, planned health supervision, physical training by means of hiking, games and sports, promotion of professional education, and particularly, comradely understanding with the youth of other countries. Ever since my own youth I have kept these principles and aims before my eyes as the ideals of a national German education. These principles and aims were not dictated to me by the Party or by the State, and if Hitler were present here this would be completely unimportant for my defense, because as German Youth Leader I do not appeal to his authority, but to my own. These educational principles, however, which were demonstrated a thousand times in all my speeches, writings, and directives, and to which as Reich Youth Leader I have always remained faithful, are, according to my firm conviction, the principles of every leader of youth who is conscious of his duty toward his people and its youth. The achievements of our youth and its moral attitude have proved me right, and prove that it was never corrupt, and was not corrupted by me either.
German youth was and is industrious and decent, honest and idealistic. In peace it contributed honorably toward its higher education, and in war it bravely did its duty towards our nation, for our German fatherland, to the utmost. In this hour, when I can speak for the last time to the Military Tribunal of the four victorious powers, I should like, with a clear conscience, to confirm the following on behalf of our German youth: that it is completely innocent of the abuses and degeneration of the Hitler regime which were established during this Trial, that it never wanted this war, and that neither in peace nor in war did it participate in any crimes. As the leader of German youth for many years, I know the development, the opinions, and the conduct of our younger generation. Who could know it better than I? I always had my friends amongst this youth; in their midst I was always happy and at all times I have been proud of them. I knew that in all the years when I was Reich Youth Leader, in spite of the fact that its membership counted millions, the youth, as a matter of principle and without exception, kept itself apart from any actions of which it would have to be ashamed today. It knew nothing of the innumerable atrocities which were committed by Germans; and just as it knew of no wrongs, it did not wish any wrong. It cannot and must not be overlooked that even during the greatest embitterment of the period following the war, nobody could consider indicting the organization of German youth and its leaders as criminal.
Unselfish comradeship in a youth movement which showed the greatest love for the poorest children of the people, loyalty to the homeland, pleasure in sport, and honest understanding with the youth of other nations, that was the aim of our youth and the content of its training from the first to the last day of my term as Reich Youth Leader. This Youth has not deserved the hard fate which has come upon it. My personal fate is of secondary importance, but youth is the hope of our nation. And if I may express a wish in this last moment, then it is this: Will you, as judges, help to remove the distorted picture of German youth which the world still has today in many places and which cannot stand up under historical investigation?
Tell the world in your judgment that the libelous writings of a Gregor Ziemer used by the Prosecution contain nothing but the evil slanders of a man who has extended his hatred against everything German to German youth also. Will you, as judges, also help so that the youth organizations of your nations will once more resume their co-operation with the German youth at the point where, through no fault of the younger generation, it was interrupted in 1939? With a grateful heart our youth has listened to the words of Lord Beveridge who has advocated, with farsightedness and passion, that German youth be declared free of guilt. Joyfully it will grasp the hand which is stretched out to it across the ruins and debris. May you, Gentlemen of the Tribunal, contribute through your judgment towards creating an atmosphere of mutual respect among the younger generation, an atmosphere which is free of hatred and revenge. That is my last request, a heartfelt request on behalf of our German youth.
September 2, 1946 Nuremberg Tribunal: As the defendants await the courts judgement, Colonel Andrus somewhat relaxes the conditions of confinement, allowing those prisoners with wives or children limited visitation. Goering, who had refused to speak to Schirach after Schirach had joined Speer and Fritzsche and "confessed," held out his hand and said: "Let's bury it, Schirach. I know you are a patriot. Let's not spoil these last days before were hanged." (Conot)
September 29, 1946 Nuremberg Tribunal: From notes by Dr Pfluecker, Nuremberg Prison's German Doctor: "Yesterday, the defendants said farewell to their relatives." (Maser)
September 30, 1946 Nuremberg Tribunal: On the penultimate day of this historic trial, the final judgements are read in open court.
Final Judgement: Von Schirach is indicted under Counts One and Four. He joined the Nazi Party and the SA in 1925. In 1929 he became the Leader of the National Socialist Students' Union. In 1931 he was made Reich Youth Leader of the Nazi Party with control over all Nazi youth organizations including the Hitler Jugend. In 1933, after the Nazis had obtained control of the Government, von Schirach was made Leader of Youth in the German Reich, originally a position within the Ministry of the Interior, but, after 1 December 1936, an office in the Reich Cabinet. In 1940, von Schirach resigned as head of the Hitler Jugend and Leader of Youth in the German Reich, but retained his position as Reichsleiter with control over Youth Education. In 1940 he was appointed Gauleiter of Vienna, Reich Governor of Vienna, and Reich Defense Commissioner for that territory.
Crimes against Peace: After the Nazis had come to power von Schirach, utilizing both physical violence and official pressure, either drove out of existence or took over all youth groups which competed with the Hitler Jugend. A Hitler decree of 1 December 1936 incorporated all German youth within the Hitler Jugend. By the time formal conscription was introduced in 1940, 97 percent of those eligible were already members. Von Schirach used the Hitler Jugend to educate German youth "in the spirit of. National Socialism" and subjected them to an intensive program of Nazi propaganda. He established the Hitler Jugend as a source of replacements for the Nazi Party formations. In October 1938 he entered into an arrangement with Himmler under which members of the Hitler Jugend who met SS standards would be considered as the primary source of replacements for the SS.
Von Schirach also used the Hitler Jugend for pre-military training. Special units were set up whose primary purpose was training specialists for the various branches of the service. On 11 August 1939, he entered, into an agreement with Keitel under which the Hitler Jugend agreed to carry out its pre-military activities under standards laid down by the Wehrmacht, and the Wehrmacht agreed to train 30,000 Hitler Jugend instructors each year. The Hitler Jugend placed particular emphasis on the military spirit, and its training program stressed the importance of return of the colonies, the necessity for Lebensraum, and the noble destiny of German youth to die for Hitler. Despite the warlike nature of the activities of the Hitler Jugend, however, it does not appear that Von Schirach was involved in the development of Hitler's plan for territorial expansion by means of aggressive war, or that he participated in the planning or preparation of any of the wars of aggression.
Crimes against Humanity: In July 1940, von Schirach was appointed Gauleiter of Vienna. At the same time he was appointed Reich Governor for Vienna and Reich Defense Commissioner, originally for Military District 17, including the Gau of Vienna, Upper Danube, and Lower Danube and, after 17 November 1942, for the Gau of Vienna alone. As Reich Defense Commissioner, he had control of the civilian war economy. As Reich Governor he was head of the municipal administration of the City of Vienna and, under the supervision of the Minister of the Interior, was in, charge of the governmental administration of the Reich in Vienna. Von Schirach is not charged with the commission of War Crimes in Vienna, only with the commission of Crimes against Humanity.
As has already been seen, Austria was occupied pursuant to a common plan of aggression. Its occupation is, therefore, a "crime within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal," as that term is used in Article 6(c) of the Charter. As a result, "murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and other inhumane acts" and "persecutions on political, racial, or religious grounds" in connection with this occupation constitute a Crime against Humanity under that Article. As Gauleiter of Vienna, von Schirach came under the Sauckel decree dated 6 April 1942, making the Gauleiter Sauckel's plenipotentiaries for manpower with authority to supervise the utilization and, treatment of manpower within their Gau. Sauckel's directives provided that the forced laborers were to be fed, sheltered, and treated so as to exploit them to the highest possible degree at the lowest possible expense.
When von Schirach became Gauleiter of Vienna the deportation of the Jews had already been begun, and only 60,000 out of Vienna's original 190,000 Jews remained. On 2 October 1940, he attended a conference at Hitler's office and told Frank that he had 50,000 Jews in Vienna which the Government General would have to take over from him. On 3 December 1940, von Schirach received a letter from Lammers stating that after the receipt of the reports made by von Schirach, Hitler had decided to deport the 60,000 Jews still remaining in Vienna to the Government General because of the housing shortage in Vienna. The deportation of the Jews from Vienna was then begun and continued until the early fall of 1942. On 15 September 1942, von Schirach made a speech in which he defended his action in having driven "tens of thousands upon tens of thousands of Jews into the ghetto of the East" as "contributing to European culture." While the Jews were being deported from Vienna, reports, addressed to him in his official capacity, were received in von Schirach's office from the office of the Chief of the Security Police and SD, which contained a description of the activities of Einsatzgruppen in exterminating Jews. Many of these reports were initialed by one of von Schirach's principal deputies.
On 30 June 1944, von Schirach's office also received a letter from Kaltenbrunner informing him that a shipment of 12,000 Jews was on its way to Vienna for essential war work and that all those who were incapable of work would have to be kept in readiness for "special action." The Tribunal finds that von Schirach, while he did not originate the policy of deporting Jews from Vienna, participated in this deportation after he had become Gauleiter of Vienna. He knew that the best the Jews could hope for was a miserable existence in the ghettos of the East. Bulletins describing the Jewish extermination were in his office.
While Gauleiter of Vienna, von Schirach continued to function as Reichsleiter for Youth Education and in this capacity he was informed of the Hitler Jugend's participation in the plan put into effect in the fall of 1944 under which 50,000 young people between the ages of 10 and 20 were evacuated into Germany from areas recaptured by the Soviet forces and used as apprentices in German industry and as auxiliaries in units of the German Armed Forces. In the summer of 1942, von Schirach telegraphed Bormann urging that a bombing attack on an English cultural town be carried out in retaliation for the assassination of Heydrich which, he claimed, had been planned by the British.
Conclusion: The Tribunal finds that von Schirach is not guilty on Count One. He is guilty under Count Four.
October 1, 1946 Nuremberg Tribunal: On the 218th and last day of the trial, sentences are handed down: "Defendant Baldur von Schirach, on the Count of the Indictment on which you have been convicted, the Tribunal sentences you to twenty years' imprisonment." When Gilbert comments to Schirach that his wife will be happy he was not sentenced to death he replies, "Better a quick death than a slow one." (Tusa)
October 16, 1946: Those defendants sentenced to jail time endure a sleepless night as the condemned men’s' names are called off one floor below, one by one, and led to the gallows.
October 17, 1946: From Spandau Diary by Albert Speer:
In the afternoon brooms and mops are handed to Schirach, Hess, and me. We are told to follow a soldier who leads us into an empty gym. This is where the executions took place. But the gallows has already been dismantled, the spot cleaned. Nevertheless, we are supposed to sweep and mop the floor. The lieutenant watches our reactions closely. I try hard to keep my composure. Hess comes to attention in front of a dark spot on the floor that looks like a large bloodstain; he raises his arm in the party salute. (Speer II)
November 18, 1946 Spandau Diary:
Schirach and I load a cart with boards and pull it for a few hundred meters. Work that makes us warm in spite of the rain. The lumber must be fresh from the sawmill, for it smells wonderfully of forest. (Speer II)
December 6, 1946 Spandau Diary:
During the morning's work in the corridor, Raeder's, Doenitz's and Schirach's dislike of me for my attitude toward the Nuremberg Trial came out in the open. Schirach, who always looks to someone to lean on, is now following the two grand admirals; during the trial he belonged to my faction, together with Funk and Fritzsche. Today he came up to me in a deliberately challenging manner and declared: "You with your total responsibility! The court itself rejected this charge, as you may have noticed. There is not a word about it in the verdict." The other five prisoners nodded approvingly. I had long been observing them whispering together and drawing aside when I approached. "I stick to it," I answered heatedly. "Even in the management of a company, every individual is responsible for the conduct of the business." There was an awkward silence. Then the others turn on their heels without a word and left me standing therev. . . . In the afternoon I swept up fallen leaves with Schirach. (Speer II)
June 3, 1947: Henriette Schirach, as well as the wives of Funk, Hess and Goering, are arrested and taken to Goggingen internment camp in Bavaria.
July 8, 1947 Spandau Diary:
The wives of Hess, Funk, Schirach, and Goering are being held along with the wives of other prominent officials in a Bavarian prison camp. The wives of Doenitz, Neurath, and Raeder, as well as my own wife, have so far been let alone. To judge by letters, the women get along with one another even worse than we do. Not hard to see why. Whereas we here are playing a historic part, though one reduced to banality, they are really just prisoners and nothing more. They don't even have any guilt to their credit. Moreover, in the past each of them was socially a focal point, ruler of a circle that was held together by her husbands power. That, too, is over now. So they have nothing left. The bickering we hear about probably concerns place in a by-now imaginary hierarchy. But then again, it isn't very different among us. (Speer II)
July 19, 1947: The prisoners are moved to Spandau, near Berlin.
December 14, 1947 Spandau Diary:
Today Schirach brought up my quarrel with Doenitz. In our uneventful world that minor disagreement seems to have been the subject of extensive discussion. Doenitz has Neurath entirely on his side, and for once Raeder also; Hess is completely indifferent; this time Funk sides with me; Schirach vacillates. He admits that the entire Third Reich was founded more upon Hitler's personal fascination than upon the attractiveness of an idea. That particularly struck him about his fellow Gauleiter’s. Powerful satraps though they might be in their own provinces, he says, in Hitler's presence they all seemed small and crawling. He reminded me of how they would grovel before Hitler when he came to the capital of their Gau, how they would concur with his every phrase, even when the context was completely beyond them. That was true for everything from staging an opera to the planning of a building or a technological problem.
Surprisingly, Schirach decides on the basis of these facts that in a sense Doenitz was right in his quarrel with me. The identity of Hitler and the State was so complete, he contends, that it would have been impossible to turn against one for the sake of preserving the other. In conclusion he threw at me, as his strongest argument: "Don't you see, with Hitler's death it wasn't so much the government as the State itself ceased to exist. The State was indissolubly bound up with Hitler." I replied, "Just tell that to Doenitz. As Hitler's successor and the Reichs last head of state I'm sure he'll be delighted to hear it." (Speer II)
May 11, 1948 Spandau Diary:
For all the closeness that living together enforces, we have hitherto not exposed our private lives. As a general principle, we do not talk about matters relating to our families. An attempt to keep a measure of privacy. Today, for the first time Schirach infringed upon this unwritten rule. While we were preparing a hotbed together, he talked about his parental home in Weimar and his childhood. His father was manager of the theater there; Hitler's passion for the theater led to acquaintance with his father. Before long, Hitler called at the Schirach home whenever he visited Weimar. And as an adolescent Schirach sometimes accompanied the visitor to the theater. Watering can in hand, Schirach recalled Hitler's amazing knowledge of stagecraft . . . . Schirach's and my conversation, although conducted in a murmur because of the guards, had become quite lively. Kneeling side be side in the hotbed, we thought of more and more anecdotes illustrating Hitler's mania for the theater, which we had once taken as proof of his universal genius, but which now strikes us as peculiar and immature. (Speer II)
August 26, 1948 Spandau Diary:
Since our tete-a-tete in the hotbed a few months ago, my relationship with Schirach has become more relaxed. Today he told me about a remarkable affront Hitler delivered to the Hitler Youth in the summer of 1938. After a visit to Dessau for the dedication of a new opera house, Hitler had watched a parade. Shortly before, for reasons of foreign policy, he had ordered that the Hitler Youth were no longer to take part in public parades. Allegations had been repeatedly published abroad that the Hitler Youth was a paramilitary organization.
Now, after the march-past of other organizations, Hitler saw units of the youth group approaching. In the presence of all the dignitaries, Schirach said, he shouted at his adjutant, Julius Schaub. Then he ordered Gauleiter Jordan to have the Hitler Youth turn back at once. Barely a hundred meters from Hitler's car thousands of young people who had come great distances from the countryside and small towns and had waited hours were stopped and sent back. The scandal, the offense to the Gauleiter, the disappointment of the boys--all that left Hitler completely cold. Schirach saw the act as evidence of Hitler's intemperateness, but I disagreed. It rather seems to me that once more Hitler was putting on a calculated outburst. His purpose was to drive home a lesson; from now on his orders were to be obeyed meticulously. For he could well assume that word of the incident would spread like wildfire through the leadership of the Party. Compared to the salutary results, what did a few disappointments and a scandal in a small town in Saxony amount to! (Speer II)
August 29, 1948 Spandau Diary:
Book distribution today at a quarter after five. The library, an empty cell, is unlocked. On one side are shelves with our personal books, which we brought with us from Nuremberg. Schirach returns Bernauer's Theater meines Lebens. (Speer II)
April, 1949: US IMT prosecutor Telford Taylor, in
International Conciliation, writes: Nuremberg's influence on world politics is of a high order, both now and in the long term . . . . It is undoubtedly a dim but growing awareness that we have deeply committed ourselves to the Nuremberg principles by undertaking to judge men under them and punish men for their violation that explains the comment one so often hears today that "Nuremberg has established a dangerous precedent."
July 20, 1949: Schirach's wife divorces him.
December 3, 1949 Spandau Diary:
Today I learned from Pease that more than a year ago Frau Schirach broke with her husband and has entered on a new relationship. But after all, theirs was a marriage in which she was partly after his power and he was partly after her money. The children are supposed to have taken their fathers side. (Speer II)
October 11, 1950: From the
Chicago Daily News: Telford Taylor proposed yesterday...creation of a UNO tribunal to punish all war crimes committed in Korea--by Koreans, the UN Allies and even the Russians. The prosecutor said in an interview...that trials must not be run on the lines of those at Nuremberg when only the defeated Germans were in the dock. "If international law is to have meaning," he said, "we must bring both sides to court or alternately admit that extenuating circumstances are valid for both sides and let everyone go their own way."
November 1, 1950 Spandau Diary:
After three years of vainly searching the cells every day, this afternoon the Russians found something in Schirach's bed: a ball of horse manure, carefully wrapped in paper, presumably from the manure we use in the garden. (Speer II)
April 20, 1952 Spandau Diary:
Each of us has spells of bad temper and prison psychosis. At the moment Schirach seems to have gone into a tailspin. He has openly broken with me and no longer even responds to my greetings. Why, I don't know. (Speer II)
June 14, 1952 Spandau Diary:
I suspect Schirach, Funk, and Raeder, Inc., of playing a cunning game. On the one hand they are supporting Hess in his obstinacy, on the other hand inciting the guards against "the malingerer" and disturber of their night's sleep. But when Hess is harshly treated, Funk writes reports to the outside in which he exaggerates Hess's suffering. This morning when I told him that by adroit questioning I had more or less established that Hess was pretending, Funk replied tersely that it was too late now, that he had already communicated the whole story to his liaison man. (Speer II)
October 5, 1952 Spandau Diary:
The new Russian director, energetic as they always are at the start, confiscated Schirach's 'Watchwords,' a calendar with Bible texts for every day. Schirach used it to keep a record of medicines prescribed and family birthdays. (Speer II)
April 11, 1953 Spandau Diary:
Doenitz has heard the results of a (July 1952) survey . . . . He himself stands at the head of the list of formerly prominent personages (former Nazis) whom the Germans still have a good opinion of. Doenitz has 46 percent; he is closely followed by Schacht with 42, Goering with 37, myself with 30, Hitler with 24 percent. Schirach and Hess lag behind with 22 percent. Seven percent have a bad opinion of Doenitz, 9 percent of me, 10 of Schacht, 29 of Schirach and Hess, 36 of Goering and 47 percent of Hitler. (Speer II)
May 9, 1953 Spandau Diary:
For his birthday Schirach drank half a bottle of cognac. I see him sitting on his bed in a daze. (Speer II)
August 1, 1954 Spandau Diary:
The food program for the Russian month has scarcely changed in the last seven years...This month the meat smells and tastes abominable. Schirach commented in disgust, "When I find a cat's whisker in the goulash, the truth will be out." Some of the others suspected that it was horsemeat or dog. (Speer II)
October 26, 1954 Spandau Diary:
At the Paris Conference it was decided to admit the new German army into NATO. Die Welt has a report on the structure of this new army and its methods of training. Doenitz took a critical view: "A mistake not to build the Bundeswehr on the traditions of the Wehrmacht. They are cutting off the limb they are sitting on." And Schirach exclaims, "Outrageous! Saluting officers only once a day! And no more high boots! I can't understand it. The best part of the army." Doenitz was more interested in what all this might portend for us. "I've never ventured to prophesy, but this time I predict that all of us will be going home next spring. The Western Powers simply cannot keep us prisoners longer than that. My naval officers simply wouldn't go along with it." (Speer II)
September 17, 1955: Raeder is released from Spandau due to ill health.
August 24, 1956 Spandau Diary:
Schirach's only reaction to a picture of Neurath's funeral in Die Welt: "Did you see Papen's morning coat? Perfect fit; he must have a first-class tailor. Probably done by Knize in Vienna." (Speer II)
March 21, 1958 Spandau Diary:
Today--I could scarcely believe my ears--Schirach suddenly began whistling 'Lili Marlene' again. He had let up on it for some eight months. If only this isn't a new outbreak. (Speer II)
November 28, 1958 Spandau Diary:
A speech and note of Khrushchev on Berlin. He demands that the Western Powers withdraw from Berlin within six months. The one firm Four Power agreement on Berlin concerns, so I read today, Spandau Prison; on everything else the arrangements are vaguely formulated. Thus Spandau has become a kind of juridical Rock of Gibraltar for the Western Allies. They cannot give it up under the circumstances. Schirach remarked bitterly, "Maybe the city of Berlin will actually make the three of us honorary citizens." "We'll be that in any case someday," Hess offered. (Speer II)
May 10, 1960 Spandau Diary:
An American reconnaissance plane, a so-called U-2, has been shot down deep inside the Soviet Union. This morning the newspapers report that Khrushchev now considers the Paris summit conference wrecked before it has started. Schirach is once more in despair. (Speer II)
July 5, 1960 Spandau Diary:
Together with Schirach, Hess, who months ago was complaining of acute circulatory weakness with unbearable cardiac pain, has been tramping for hours around the garden at a brisk pace without pause. Both men have again made contact with each other, and Schirach has since seemed somewhat more relaxed. With Hess he feels superior; taking the lead with Hess suits his disposition. But Hess, too, seems more balanced. Sometimes I think that something like a friendship is slowly developing between them. If so, it would be the first that has come about in Spandau. (Speer II)
July 7, 1960 Spandau Diary:
Schirach and Hess have recently been occupying themselves in the garden again, but only when they expect the Russian director to come by. Their gardening area in any case amounts to only a thirtieth of mine. At the moment they are leveling out a small lawn area there . . . . Soon afterwards they paused in their walk and stood beside me with condescending looks. "What's up? What have you two got to say?" Hess hesitated somewhat, but finally came out with it: "Schirach just commented that in mental hospitals they usually set the feeble-minded to gardening." (Speer II)
September 27, 1961 Spandau Diary:
Abruptly, Schirach has aggravated his ailments, while Hess laconically declares, "A work schedule! Don't make me laugh. The doctors have all certified my illness. That doesn't apply to me at all." (Speer II)
Mr. Francis Biddle, IMT Member for the United States of America (1962): We were an international Bench and looked at our legal and political obligations from different angles. Diplomatic horse-trading was combined with the duties of the judge. It necessarily played some part in certain decisions since an agreed judgement would not have been possible otherwise...In our deliberations we could not leave out of account the effect of our decisions on public opinion.
July 12, 1962 Spandau Diary:
In the Frankfurter Allgemeine the Schirach family announces the engagement of one of their sons. Our fellow prisoner signs his name Baldur Benedict von Schirach. Hess comments, "Schirach told me that all male descendants of the family have received the name Benedict for ever and ever; all females are named Benedicta." Then he adds sarcastically, "Did you know that? In the past he withheld from us this Catholic appendage to the Aryan Baldur." (Speer II)
April 24, 1963 Spandau Diary:
Today at breakfast Schirach and Hess refuse to eat their eggs because the shells are cracked. They demand replacements, which are amazingly enough provided. In response to my question as to what all the fuss is about, Hess informs me: "Water on the inside of eggs is unhygienic. Think of all the people who may have handled the egg. Then all that penetrates through the crack into the egg, enters the stomach when consumed, and naturally has devastating effects. Now do you understand?" I nod, at once grateful and intimidated. At noon Long whispers to me behind his hand that the rejected eggs are served in chopped egg salad--which Schirach and Hess devour with pleasure. (Speer II)
December 4, 1963 Spandau Diary:
Schirach is limping badly today: the American doctor came in the afternoon to look at him. Toward evening Pease brought word that Schirach has an embolism in a vein. Pease said he has already been given an injection to inhibit clotting of the blood. Now, watched by Mees, he has bee put in the infirmary for the night. His temperature and blood pressure are taken every four hours, so I have just heard. The doctor in the hospital is on call. Tomorrow morning Schirach is to be x-rayed. George Reiner, the new guard, a German-American, frequently comes to my cell to discuss Schirach's illness, as does Long. (Speer II)
December 6, 1963 Spandau Diary:
Godeaux [a guard] came rushing into my cell with the news that Schirach is going to the hospital at once. I asked Hess whether I should go to see Schirach and say goodbye. His reaction to such unexpected gestures is to assume right off that his last hour has come, Hess replied. "Beside, your visit would give him no pleasure." But Hess visited Schirach and brought him news of his impending transfer. Schirach had known nothing about it. (Speer II)
December 17, 1963 Spandau Diary: This morning I went to the infirmary to greet Schirach, back from the hospital but still bedridden. We shook hands for the first time in years. He extended his as though he were granting a boon. (Speer II)
November 12, 1964 Spandau Diary:
During the noon recess today I was having a lively, hour-long chat with Gobeaux when Schirach suddenly made his signal flap drop. Indignantly, he demanded quiet; he wanted to sleep, he said. His lordly tones offended the Frenchman, who told Schirach that it was not the prisoners business to decide when and how the guards should converse. Schirach self-righteously referred Gobeaux to the prison rule forbidding guards to speak with prisoners. "Very well, then shut your trap now!" Gobeaux replied; he added that singing and whistling were also, incidentally, against the rules. But Schirach refused to be intimidated. "If you don't stop talking to Number Five right this minute, I'll report you to the Russian director," he threatened. We would not let him bully us, but all the fun had gone out of our chat. Soon we ended it. (Speer II)
January 27, 1965 Spandau Diary:
This morning Schirach told British director Procter that he could no longer see anything with his right eye. ... Schirach is suffering from detached retina. An hour later he was transferred to the infirmary. (Speer II)
January 28, 1965 Spandau Diary:
Last night Schirach was taken to the hospital. Colonel Nadysev was shocked because in spite of all the secrecy television crews appeared at the gate with searchlights mounted precisely at the minute Schirach was to leave. (Speer II)
February 3, 1965 Spandau Diary:
The silence in the cellblock is growing more and more uncanny. I almost begin to miss Schirach's nervousness, his restlessness, his singing and whistling. I go walking with Hess more often, but it quickly becomes apparent that I cannot replace Schirach. Once Hess even forgot whom he was talking with. "Did you read," he asked triumphantly, "that they have painted swastikas on a Social Democratic Party shop?" (Speer II)
May 13, 1965 Spandau Diary:
Schirach's case has again become critical . . . . Procter, the British director, and a squad of military police accompanied Schirach, who wore prison garb with his number on his back and two trouser legs, to the operating room in the German hospital.
June 6, 1965 Spandau Diary:
A few days ago Schirach returned from the hospital. He reported on his first meeting with Germans in eighteen years. The doctors were extremely constrained, he said; curious nurses and other staff members had posted themselves in hallways, and he had been looked at rather like a fabulous beast than with sympathy. (Speer II)
September 4, 1965 Spandau Diary:
Hess has been in bed for two days. The doctor could find nothing wrong. Schirach commented to the guards that Hess was laying the grounds for another suicide attempt. By chance I heard Pease tersely reproving Schirach: "After all, it's the last right Hess has; if he makes up his mind to it, it should not be taken from him." (Speer II)
October 25, 1965 Spandau Diary:
Today I told Schirach that in preparation for release Doenitz had a suit made, which was brought to the prison for him; his tailor had kept the measurements all these years. "Good idea," Schirach said. "My children will have to find out whether Knize in Vienna still has mine. No doubt he has." "I'd be inclined to ask about prices first," I said. "I imagine it would come to four or six hundred marks nowadays." "I would expect eight hundred or a thousand," Schirach replied. "Assuming a thousand, and then five suits and a dinner jacket and three coats and some casual clothes as well, sports jackets, custom made shirts, of course . . . . So, all together, maybe around twelve thousand. What am I saying! Tails, an evening coat, all sorts of other things have to be added in. And then the shoes, the underwear, only the best--let's say, reckoning roughly, twenty." I was thunderstruck. "But,'" I said, to do him a kindness, "with the million you'll have for the book you can easily afford that, after all." Schirach gave me a pitying look. "A million you say? That's ridiculous. It will be much more. You see, I'm going to write three books." (Speer II)
September 30, 1966: Schirach and Speer are released from Spandau at midnight. This leaves Hess as the one solitary remaining prisoner maintained at the facility.
Sir Hartley Shawcross, former Chief Prosecutor for the United Kingdom (1967): The point now is what effect this trial will have on the future course of history. In this I must confess to great disillusionment. During the trial we had close friendly relations with our Russian colleagues despite the fact that we raised violent objection to their inclusion of the Katyn massacre in the Indictment. We thought that we were on terms of confidence with the Russians and would keep them as friends. But when the trial was over they went back to Russia, we lost all contact with them. All attempts to gain touch with them again failed. This communist veto on normal relationships is a sad fact. Even sadder were the cynical violations of international as created at Nuremberg which we have had to witness meanwhile--Korea, Hungary, Kashmir, Algeria, Congo, Vietnam. Our Nuremberg hope that we had made some contribution to transition to a peaceful world under the rule of law has not been fulfilled.
1974: Schirach publishes his memoirs,
Ich glaubte an Hitler (
I believed in Hitler).
August 8, 1974: Schirach dies in Germany.
Twitter: @3rdReichStudies
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