[1]: Ch 1  A member of the noble Schirach family, of Sorbian West Slavic origins, three of his four grandparents were from the United States, chiefly from Pennsylvania.

Schirach considered this the strongest speech he ever heard from Hitler, and paid attention to the sound of his voice, "deep and raw, resonant like a cello.

The Hitler Youth also published various magazines, and organised leisure excursions including militaristic activities such as flying, reconnaissance, motorised and mounted "units".

[1]: Ch 5  On 17 May 1938, Schirach said, "The real, great educational act for a people lies in ingraining in youth blind obedience, unshakeable loyalty, unconditional comradeship and absolute reliability.

Schirach set the militaristic tone of the youth organisation, which participated in military-style exercises, as well as practising use of military equipment such as rifles.

(Baldur, Liebling, sei dir darüber im klaren: Wenn ein neuer Geist sich rührt, wirst du schleunigst abserviert.

Rommel attempted to subordinate the Hitler Youth to the Wehrmacht instead of the NSDAP, and managed to trick Schirach into signing a document to that effect.

[1]: Ch 10  In a December 1933 speech he opposed proposals to make the Hitler Youth an explicit alternative to Christianity, saying "They say of us that we are an anti-Christian movement.

His deputy Hartmann Lauterbacher met Robert Baden-Powell, founder of the Boy Scouts, and Hitler Youth made cycling trips to England.

He declared his "love for this blessed and gifted city with its immeasurable cultural treasures", but stressed its position in the greater German Volksgemeinschaft ("people's community").

Schirach also made presents of public property to other people, such as a valuable table to Galeazzo Ciano, and an Italian Renaissance box to Renato Ricci.

[1]: Ch 13 [21] Beginning in October 1940, Schirach was assigned to organise the evacuation of 2.5 million children from cities threatened by Allied bombing, sometimes to foster parents, but increasingly to purpose-built camps.

The association was actually formed in September 1942 in Vienna, under the joint presidency of Axmann and Aldo Vidussoni, with representatives from numerous European states and Japan.

Hitler wrote, "party offices must never forget that the tenets and knowledge of National Socialist ideology correspond to the essence of German blood and hence cannot be transposed onto foreign peoples...

[1]: Ch 9 On 16 November 1942, the jurisdiction of the Reich Defense Commissioners was changed from the Wehrkreis to the Gau level, and Schirach retained control of civil defence measures over only Reichsgau Vienna.

In 1943 Hitler ordered its closure, and Schirach's main cultural advisor [General-Kulturreferent] Walter Thomas [de], who had previously been criticised by Goebbels, was dismissed.

"[1]: Ch 10, 11 According to Frederic Spotts, Schirach "was a man who thought of himself as a National Socialist poet laureate; he had great cultural pretensions but no political ambitions.

"[1]: Ch 7 On Whitsun 1943, two Austrian NKVD agents, Josef Angermann and his radio operator Georg Kennerknect, were parachute-dropped into Vienna, with a mission to assassinate Schirach.

Schirach ignored recommendations by Albrecht Schubert, Ludwig Merker, Hans Dellbrügge [de] and Hanns Blaschke to declare Vienna a "free city".

Otto Skorzeny described the atmosphere: "On the floor lay splendid rugs, on the walls hung paintings of battles and portraits of generals from the eighteenth century.

After news came of Hitler's suicide, he fled west with his adjutant and close colleague Fritz Wieshofer,[30] and their chauffeur Franz Ram.

"[1]: Ch 7 In a speech on 6 June 1942, shortly after the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich by Czechslovak agents, Schirach declared, When I came here in 1940, I told our Führer that I consider my main task to be making this city free of Jews.

Strauss's personal appeal to Schirach saved them,[1] allowing him to take them back to his estate at Garmisch-Partenkirchen, where they remained under house arrest until the end of the war.

[33][better source needed] Martin Bormann told Schirach to use deportation of Jews as a means to alleviate housing shortages, rather than diverting resources from the war effort to the building of new apartments.

He was indicted for crimes against humanity for his role in the deportation of the Viennese Jews to certain death in German concentration camps located in German-occupied Poland.

Sauter argued that Schirach had confessed to his mistakes and was determined to rectify them: "Such a defendant must be given consideration for trying to repair as far as he can the damage which he caused in good faith.

[36]Dodd also presented a telegram from Schirach arguing for a violent air attack on a British cultural town in response to the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich.

However, regarding his deportation of Vienna's Jews, the court found that Schirach knew they would face a miserable life at best, and that bulletins describing their extermination were in his office.

However, she travelled to London in 1958, with financial support from the Daily Mail, to lobby British Foreign Secretary Selwyn Lloyd for a reduction of his prison sentence.

In 1968 he moved to an estate in Deibhalde, Trossingen, owned by Fritz Kiehn (1885–1980),[43] a businessman who had been a Nazi member of the Reichstag and an SS-Hauptsturmführer on Heinrich Himmler's personal staff.