This week in the War, 21–27 June 1943: Baldur von Schirach falls from grace

This week in the war, on 24 June 1943, the one-time Hitler Youth Leader (Reichsjugendführer) Baldur von Schirach quarreled with Hitler over the need to make peace with the Allies. Although Hitler did not dismiss him from his post of Gauleiter of Vienna, the rift between the two men was permanent.

Von Schirach had been appointed head of the Hitler Youth in 1933 and had featured prominently in the Nazi hierarchy and in the Nuremberg rallies. When he left Germany to fight in the Battle of France, he lost his Reichsjugendführer position to Artur Axmann but returned home to be appointed Nazi chief in Vienna.

After the war, during his trial at Nuremberg, he condemned Hitler and the Nazi regime. (As did Albert Speer.) Even so, he served over twenty years in prison for his role in sending Viennese Jews to the extermination camps in the east.