Though three of his four grandparents were from America and the first
language he learned at home was English, Baldur von Schirach became one
of the Third Reich's most influential individuals. He joined the Nazi
Party as early as 1925 at the age of eighteen and three years later
became a member of its National Leadership. He also married Henriette,
the daughter of Hitler's personal photographer, Heinrich Hoffmann.
Von Schirach continued to rise through the ranks of the Nazi Party,
reaching the rank of SA-Gruppenführer. It was as the leader of the
Hitler Youth organization, however, for which von Schirach is best
remembered, becoming Reichsführer of the Hitler Youth on 16 June 1932,
and the following year was given responsibility for all youth
organizations in Germany. He also became a member of the Reichstag as a
representative of the Party.
Despite his influential position, he was called up for military service
and served in the French campaign of 1940. Following this he became
Reich Governor and the Nazi's Gauleiter Reichsstatthalter in Vienna -
powerful positions he retained until the final collapse of the Third
Reich in May 1945. His responsibilities as Gauleiter and
Reichsstatthalter included overseeing the deportation of Vienna's Jews
to ghettos and concentration camps in occupied Poland. Though a
confirmed anti-Semite, later in the war he pleaded for a moderate
treatment of the eastern European peoples and criticized the conditions
in which Jews were being deported. This caused a breach with Hitler and
the Nazi leadership, though he managed to retain his position in
Vienna.
Following his capture by US troops, von Schirach was among the major war
criminals put on trial at Nuremburg. Found guilty of crimes against
humanity on 1 October 1946, von Schirach was sentenced to twenty years
imprisonment. He served out his time in the company of Rudolf Hess and
Albert Speer in Spandau prison. He admitted his crimes and his role in
the deportations and in his autobiography, I Believed in Hitler, he
explained how he was drawn into the world of the Nazis. He also said
that his aim was destroy any belief in the rebirth of Nazism as well as
blaming himself for not having done more to prevent the concentration
camps.
This detailed and balanced analysis of Baldur von Schirach reveals the
true and ambivalent nature of a complex and fascinating individual who
played a key role in the events leading up to, and during, the Second
World War.
