7196 - Baldur von Schirach Document Signed at Nuremberg: "The Hitler Youth, on principle, never had anything to do with the use and training of agents and spies"

Baldur von Schirach Document Signed at Nuremberg: "The Hitler Youth, on principle, never had anything to do with the use and training of agents and spies" Partly-printed DS, in German, signed “v. Schirach,” one page, 8 x 12.25, February 23, 1946. Document headed (translated), "The International Military Tribunal, Defendant's Application for Summons for Witness," made while preparing his defense for the Nuremberg trials. Schirach and his defense lawyer request testimony from "Heinz Schmidt (formerly consultant for foreign countries in the Reich Youth Leadership," explaining: "He is to confirm that the assertion made by the representative of the Russian prosecution during the session of the International Military Tribunal is incorrect: the assertion was that members of the Hitler Youth were used as agents and spies in the East, especially in Poland, that they were sent to Germany for courses lasting several months where they were trained as parachutists." Schirach further states: "The Hitler Youth, on principle, never had anything to do with the use and training of agents and spies and, on principle, it trained none of its members as parachutists; rather did it refuse any kind of military training of the Hitler Youth for a war of aggression. The assertion of the use and training of agents and parachutists arose from the fact that the Reich Leader of the Hitler Youth, v. Schirach, took part in the preparation and direction of a war of aggression; it therefore does not correspond to the facts. The witness, Heinz Schmidt, belonged to the Hitler Youth for years as a consultant for foreign countries and, were the assertion true, he would naturally know all there was to know about the use and training of members of the Hitler Youth as agents and spies, or as parachutists." Signed at the conclusion in fountain pen by Baldur von Schirach, and countersigned by his defense counsel. Backed by lightweight cardstock and in fine condition, with a band of toning across the top. Accompanied by a contemporary English translation. Von Schirach argues the Hitler Youth, "never had anything to do with the use and training of agents and spies" and refused any military training for a war of aggression, insisting the accusation arose only because he personally, as Reich Youth Leader, had taken part in preparing and directing a war of aggression, not because the organization itself trained child operatives. This was the core of von Schirach's defense strategy at trial, an attempt to recast the Hitler Youth as a sports and cultural movement rather than a militarized pipeline into the Wehrmacht and SS. It failed. The Tribunal rejected the premise outright, and while von Schirach was acquitted on Crimes Against Peace, his central role as Gauleiter of Vienna, where he oversaw the deportation of roughly 65,000 Austrian Jews to ghettos and camps in Poland, brought a conviction on Crimes Against Humanity and a twenty-year sentence, served in full at Spandau until his release in 1966.