Now, what you are presenting here is not in my text. Follow the text:. How can one reconcile this part of your report which mentions Auschwitz and Maidanek, where mass murder took place, with your. Well, your report is dated June ; you mentioned there both Maidanek and Auschwitz. The extermination of Jews in Maidanek became known to me during the summer of Up to now the word "Maidanek" has always been mentioned in connection with extermination of Jews.
I heard about the extermination of the Jews at Maidanek in from the official documents in the foreign press. Do you know this document, are you acquainted with it? I assume that the wording agrees with the text of the original decree. In any case your defense counsel can follow the text and will be able to verify it. I have to ask you one question.
What do you think of this law signed by you? From the standpoint of the most elementary standards of law, what do you think of this law signed by you? It provides that the proceedings should take place in the presence of a judge, that a document should be drawn up, and that the proceedings should be recorded in writing. Apart from that I had the power to give pardons, so that every sentence had to be submitted to me.
Would you please pay attention to Paragraph 3, Point 1 of Paragraph 3? Why then did you give the SD the right to exert oppression on the Polish population? If I had not published this decree, there would have been no possibility of control; and the Police would simply have acted at random. Would you please note Paragraph 6 of this law. I remind you that a verdict of a summary court-martial by the SD was to be put into effect immediately according to the text.
I remind you again that there was only one possible verdict: "death. FRANK: Those were the general instructions which I had issued in connection with the power given me to grant reprieves, and the committee which dealt with reprieves was constantly sitting. Files were sent in Do you remember the AB Action?
FRANK: It came within the framework of the general action of appeasement and it was my plan to eliminate, by means of a properly regulated procedure, arbitrary actions on the part of the Police This was the meaning of that action. How did you treat persons who were subject to the AB Action? What happened to them? At least, that is what I intended.
You certainly remember this meeting with the Police on 30 May , when you gave final instructions to the police before carrying out this action? FRANK: I do not remember it, but you must take into account all the circumstances which spread over several weeks.
You must consider the statement in its entirety and not seize upon one single sentence. This concerns a development which went on for weeks and months, in the course of which the reprieve committee was established by me for the first time.
That was my way of protesting against arbitrary actions and of introducing legal justice in all these proceedings. That is a development extending over many weeks, which you cannot, in my opinion, summarize in one sentence. You wrote:. This is a purely internal action for quieting the country which is necessary and lies outside the scope of a normal legal trial. FRANK: At that particular moment; but if you follow the further development of the AB Action during the following weeks you will see that this never became effective.
That was an intention, a bad intention, which, thank God, I gave up in time. Perhaps my defense counsel will be able to say a few words on the subject later. Did you renounce your right of pardon while carrying out this operation or not? It is a remark which was made on the spur of the moment and was then negotiated on for days. But one must recognize the final stage of the development, and not merely the various motives as they came up during the development.
But I would like to ask you, was this statement made during a conference with the Police and did you instruct the Police in that matter? I assume it came up in some other connection. Here we discussed only this one action. After all, I also had to talk to State Secretary Buehler.
While discussing the AB Action with the Police you stated that the results of this action would not concern the reprieve committee which was subordinated to you, is that right? It is not, however, the final result, but rather an intermediate stage. Perhaps you can recall this part which I will put to you. You stated the following:. We must simply liquidate matters in the country, and in the simplest way.
What you mean is that this would simply be a question of liquidation in the simplest form, is that not so? What do you mean by saying that this was not carried out? Obviously this was carried out, for the persons were executed. I will remind you of another excerpt connected with this AB Action. If you did not agree with the Police with regard to certain police actions it would be difficult to explain the.
Does this not mean that you were at least on friendly terms with the Police? FRANK: In connection with political relations many words of praise are spoken which are not in keeping with the truth. You know that as well as any other person. You said:.
By that I do not suppose you to mean that you did not have them collected ant registered; you did have them collected and registered, isn't that so. The book has been submitted here in Court. DODD: Yes. These were the Duerers which were removed in Lvov before the civilian administration was set up there.
Herr Muehlmann went to Lvov at the time and took them from the library. I had never heel in Lvov before that. These pictures were then taken directly to the Fuehrer headquarters or to Reich Marshal Goering, I am not sun which.
DODD: And were there not some other art objects that were collected by the Reich Marshal, and also by the Defendant Rosenberg, at the time you told the Tribunal you were too busy with tasks to get involved in that sort of thing?
The Einsatzstab Rosenberg had no jurisdiction in the Government General; and apart from the collection of the composer Elsner and a Jewish library from Lublin I had no official obligaton to demand the return of any art treasures from Rosenberg.
DODD: But there were some art treasures in your possession when you were captured by the American forces. They were not in my possession. I was safeguarding them but not for myself. They were also not in my immediate safekeeping; rather I had taken them along with me from burning Silesia.
They could not be safeguarded any other way. They were art treasures which are so widely known that they are Numbers 1 to 10 in the list in the book-no one could have appropriated them. You cannot steal a "Mona Lisa. I knew you had said on interrogation there were some in your possession. I am not trying to imply you were holding them for yourself, if you were not. However, I think you have made that clear.
FRANK: I should like to remark in this connection, since I attach particular importance to the point, that these art treasures with which we are concerned could be safeguarded only in this way. Otherwise they would have been lost. I understood you also to say this morning that you had struggled for some time to effect the release of the Krak6w professors who were seized and sent to Oranienburg soon after the occupation of Poland. Now, of course, you are probably familiar with what you said about it yourself in your diary, are you?
Quite apart from what is said in the diary, what I said this morning is the truth. You must never forget that I had to speak among a circle of deadly enemies, people who reported every word I said to the Fuehrer and Himmler. DODD: Well, of course, you recall that you suggested that they should have been retained in Poland, and liquidated or imprisoned there.
I never did that. On the contrary, I received the professors from Krakow and talked to them quietly. Of all that happened I regretted that most of all. DODD: Perhaps you do not understand me. I am talking about what you wrote in your own diary about these professors, and I shall be glad to read it to you and make it available to you if you care to contest it.
You are not denying that you said they should either be returned for liquidation in Poland, or imprisoned in Poland, are you? You do not deny that? Nothing more happened to them after that. Were you also talking for special purposes when you gave General Krueger, the SS and Higher Police official, that fond farewell? Permit me to say, sir, that I admit without reservation what can be admitted; but I have also sworn to add nothing.
No one can admit any more than I have done by handing over these diaries. What I am asking is that you do not ask me to add anything to that.
DODD: No, I am not asking you to add anything to-it; rather, T was trying to clear it up, because you've made a rather difficult situation, perhaps, for yourself and for others.
You see, if we cannot believe what you wrote in your diary, I don't know how you can ask us to believe what you say here. You were writing those things yourself, and at the time you wrote them I assume you didn't expect that you would be confronted with them. It wasn't that I put myself in a difficult position; rather the changing course of the war made the situation difficult for every administrative official.
DODD: Finally, do you recall an entry in your diary in which you stated that you had a long hour and a half talk with the Fuehrer and that you had Would you stand by that today? FRANK: No, but I might say the following: The Fuehrer's approval was always very spontaneously given, but one always had to wait a long while for it to be realized. DODD: Yes, I know; but on this occasion did you make many complaints and did you have the approval of the Fuehrer, or.
DODD: Well, that isn't really an answer. You've entered in your diary that you talked it out with him and that he approved everything, and you make no mention in your diary of any disappointment over the filing of a complaint. Surely, this wasn't a speech that you were recording in your diary; it seems to be a factual entry on your conversations with the Fuehrer.
And my question is simply, do you now admit that that was the situation, or are you saying that it was a false entry? I never said that, and I'm not going to argue about words. I am merely saying that you must judge the words according to the entire context. If I emphasized in the presence of officials that the Fuehrer received me and agreed to my measures, then I did that to back up my own authority. I couldn't do that without the Fuehrer's agreement.
What my thoughts were, is not made clear from this. I should like to emphasize that I'm not arguing about words and have not asked to do that. The Party as an organization in that sphere was, of course, only nominally under my jurisdiction, for all the Party officials were appointed by Bormann without my being consulted. There is no special Fuehrer decree for the spheres of activity of the NSDAP in the occupied territories, in which it says that these spheres of activity are directly under Reichsleiter Bormann's jurisdiction.
It is the Decree on Drumhead Courts-Martial of It states in Paragraph 6: "Drumhead court-martial sentences are to be carried out at once. I am thinking in particular of the security situation. FRANK: Looking back from the more peaceful conditions of the present time, I cannot think of any reason which might have made such a demand possible; but if one recalls the events of war, and the universal conflagration, it seems to have been a measure of desperation. Is it true that in a court-martial decree was issued providing for considerably greater legal guarantees than that of ?
SEIDL: Is it also true that all sentences of these courts were, as you saw fit, to be passed on to the competent reprieve committee under State Secretary Buehler? SEIDL: The prosecutor of the United States has laid it to your charge that in Neuhaus, where you were arrested after the collapse of the German Armed Forces, various art treasures were found, not in your house, but in the office of the Governor General. Is it true that you sent State Secretary Dr.
Buehler with a letter to Reich Minister Dr. Lammers, and that this letter contained a list of these art treasures? FRANK: Yes, not only that, I at once called the attention of the head of the Pinakothek in Munich to the fact that these pictures were there and that they should at once be safeguarded against bombing. He also looked at the pictures and then they were put in a bombproof cellar.
I am glad I did so, for who knows what might otherwise have happened to these valuable objects. The Prosecution has submitted Document PS. This is a document which has been made to have a bearing on the activities of the. Academy for German Law, of which you were president. I'm having this document submitted to you. Please, will you tell me whether you've ever had this document in your hands before? Was there a Ministry of Justice in Kassel in ?
Apparently some entries from Frank's diary have already been offered in evidence; others have not. Are you wishing to offer this in evidence? Have these entries which you have in this document been submitted under USSR? You see, the PS number does not necessarily mean that the documents have been offered in evidence. The PS numbers were applied to documents. In the autumn of and in I was head of the department "Administration and Law" attached to the commander of the Security Police and SD in Krakow.
New spheres of activity were merely added to the State Secretariat for Security. The application of this decree called forth another decree dated 3 June , which dealt with the transfer of official business to the State Secretary for Security. Do you know the contents of that decree? To this extent the decree did not bring about a change, but was merely a confirmation. Jewish matters are also mentioned specifically? Whether Paragraph 21 or another paragraph was worded this way I don't remember.
SEIDL: Is it also true that on the basis of this decree the last remains of the administrative police were removed from the administration of the Government General and handed over to the State Secretary for Security, who was directly under Himmler. But, contrary to the wording of that decree, only a few branches were taken away from the administration; concerning the remainder a fight ensued later.
The result was, however, that all branches of the police administration were taken away. SEIDL: Witness, did the administration of the Government General have anything to do with the establishment and administration of concentration camps? When did you yourself hear of concentration camps at Maidanek, Treblinka, and Lublin for the first time? The reasons were partly questions of organization and of the use of the Police, and partly essential differences of opinion.
Do you mean different opinions regarding the treatment of the Polish population? I opposition to Krueger's opinion, he either failed to confirm a number of sentences or else mitigated them considerably. In this connection I remember such differences of opinion. Witness, the Prosecution states that the State Police was a circle of persons formed in accordance with a common plan, and that membership in it was voluntary. Since you had an especially high position in the RSHA, I ask you to tell me briefly what you know about these questions?
The former officials, the officials of the former political department of the headquarters of the Commissioner of the Police, constituted the nucleus of the membership of the Secret State Police.
The various local police head of flees were created from these former political departments of the central police headquarters, and at the same time practically all the officials from these former political departments were taken over. View the list of all donors. Trending keywords:. Featured Content. Tags Find topics of interest and explore encyclopedia content related to those topics. Browse A-Z Find articles, photos, maps, films, and more listed alphabetically.
Mary's Church in Krakow, and taken to the Reich. In , shortly before the collapse, art treasures were removed to the Reich for storage. In the Castle of Seichau, in Silesia, there was a collection of art treasures which had been brought there by Professor Kneisl for this purpose. One last group of art treasures was handed over to the Americans by me personally.
I do not remember the date. As to the reasons and the necessity for that I shall have to answer the Prosecutor's questions. FRANK: Forced labor and compulsory labor service were introduced by me in one of the first decrees; but it is quite clear from all the decrees and their wording that I had in mind only a labor service within the country for repairing the damage caused by the war, and for carrying out work necessary for the country itself, as was of course done by the labor service in the Reich.
The reopening of the universities was prohibited by order of Adolf Hitler. I supplied the needs of the Polish and Ukrainian population by introducing university courses of instruction for Polish and Ukrainian students?
The fact that there was an urgent need for native university? Did you yourself, as Governor General, close the secondary schools? We helped to solve the problem by permitting secondary school education in a large number of private schools. The Prosecution accuse you of having plundered the country ruled by you as Governor General. What do you have to say to that?
FRANK: Well, evidently by that accusation is meant everything that happened in the economic sphere in that country as a result of the arrangements between the German Reich and the Government General.
First, I would like to emphasize that the Government General had to start with a balance sheet which revealed a frightful economic situation. The country had approximately twelve million inhabitants. The area of the Government General was the least fertile part of the former Poland. Moreover, the boundary between the Soviet Union, as well as the boundary between the German Reich, had been drawn in such a way that the most essential elements, indispensable for economy, were left outside.
The frontiers between the Soviet Union and the German Reich were immediately closed; and so, right from the start, we had to make something out of nothing. Galicia, the most important area in the Republic of Poland from the viewpoint of food supplies, was given to the Soviet Union. The province of Posen belonged to the German Reich. The coal and industrial areas of Upper Silesia were within the German Reich. The frontier with Germany was drawn in such a way that the iron works in Czestochowa remained with the Government General, whereas the iron?
The town of Lodz, the textile center of Poland, came within the German Reich. The city of Warsaw with a population of several millions became a frontier town because the German border came as close as 15 kilometers to Warsaw, and the result was that the entire agricultural hinterland was no longer at the disposal of that city.
A great many facts could be mentioned, but that would probably take us too far. The first thing we had to do was to set things going again somehow. During the first weeks the population of Warsaw could only be fed with the aid of German equipment for mass feeding. The German Reich at that time sent , tons of grain, as a loan of course, and that created a heavy debt for me.
I started the financial economy with 20 million zlotys which had been advanced to me by the Reich. We started with a completely impoverished economy due to the devastation caused by the war, and by the first of January the savings bank accounts of the native population had reached the amount of 11, million zlotys, and we had succeeded by then in improving the feeding of the population to a certain extent. More than two million fully paid workers were employed; the harvest had increased to 1.
All this is only a sketch which I submit here to describe the general development. SEIDL: Witness, in your capacity as Governor General did you persecute churches and religion in the areas which you had under your administration? He told me of all his sufferings and worries, and they were not few.
I myself had to rescue the Bishop of Lublin from the hands of Herr Globocznik in order to save his life. But I may summarize the situation by quoting the letter which Archbishop Sapieha sent to me in , in which, to use his own words, he thanked me for my tireless efforts to protect the life of the church.
We reconstructed seminaries for priests; and we investigated every case of arrest of a priest, as far as that was humanly possible. The tragic incident when two assistants of the Archbishop Sapieha were shot, which has been mentioned here by the Prosecution, stirred my own emotions very deeply.
I cannot say any more. The churches were open; the seminaries were educating priests; the priests were in no way prevented from carrying out their functions. The monastery at Czestochowa was under my personal protection. The Krak'w monastery of the Camaldulians, which is a religious order, was also under my personal protection. There were large posters around the monastery indicating that these monasteries were protected by me personally. But for years there had been contradictory rumors about the camp near Lublin, or in the Lublin District, if I may express myself in such a general way.
Governor Z'rner once told me, I believe already in , that the SS intended to build a large concentration camp near Lublin and had applied for large quantities of building materials, et cetera.
At that time I instructed State? SS to manufacture clothes, footwear, and underwear in large SS? This camp went under the name of "SS Works," or something similar. We out there were more independent, and I heard quite a lot through enemy broadcasts and enemy and neutral papers. In answer to my repeated questions as to what happened to the Jews who were deported, I was always told they were to be sent to the East, to be assembled, and put to work there.
But, the stench seemed to penetrate the walls, and therefore I persisted in my investigations as to what was going on. Once a report came to me that there was something going on near Belcec. I went to Belcec the next day. Globocznik showed me an enormous ditch which he was having made as a protective wall and on which many thousands of workers, apparently Jews, were engaged.
I spoke to some of them, asked them where they came from, how long they had been there, and he told me, that is, Globocznik, "They are working here now, and when they are through--they come from the Reich, or somewhere from France--they will be sent further east.
The rumor, however, that the Jews were being killed in the manner which is now known to the entire world would not be silenced. When I expressed the wish to visit the SS workshop near Lublin, in order to get some idea of the value of the work that was being done, I was told that special permission from Heinrich Himmler was required.
I asked Heinrich Himmler for this special permission. He said that he would urge me not to go to the camp. Again some time passed. On 7 February I succeeded in being received by Adolf Hitler personally--I might add that throughout the war he received me three times only. They are heard everywhere. No one is allowed in anywhere.
Once I paid a surprise visit to Auschwitz in order to see the camp, but I was told that there was an epidemic in the camp and my car was diverted before I got there. Tell me, My Fuhrer, is there anything in it? Apart from that I do not know anything. Why don't you speak to Heinrich Himmler about it?
The Maidanek Camp must have been run solely by the SS, in the way I have mentioned, and apparently, in the same manner as stated by the witness Hoess.
Did Treblinka belong to Maidanek, or is that a separate camp? Auschwitz was not in the area of the Government General. I was never in Maidanek, nor in Treblinka, nor in Auschwitz.
Before that action was initiated, did you know anything about it and did you ever come across this report? FRANK: I was surprised when the American Chief Prosecutor said in his opening speech, while submitting a document here with pictures about the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto, that that report had been made to me.
But that has been clarified in the meantime. The report was never made for me, and was never sent to me in that form. And, thank Heaven, during the last few days it has been made clear by several witnesses and affidavits that this destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto was carried out upon direct orders of Himmler, and over the head of all competent authorities of the Government General. When in our meetings anybody spoke about this Ghetto, it was always said that there had been a revolt in the Warsaw Ghetto which we had had to quell with artillery; reports that were made on it never seemed to me to be authentic.
FRANK: An abundance of measures were taken to get agriculture going again, to import machinery, to teach farmers improved farming methods, to build up co-operative associations, to distribute seeds in the usual way. The Reich sent seeds to the value of many millions of marks, agricultural experts, breeding cattle, machines, et cetera. The Prosecution, however, has charged you with a number of statements which they found in your own diary, and which seem to contradict that.
How can you explain that contradiction? You can not go through 43 volumes and pick out single sentences and separate them from their context. I would like to say here that I do not want to argue or quibble about individual phrases. It was a wild and stormy period filled with terrible passions, and when a whole country is on fire and a life and death struggle is going on, such words may easily be used.
I myself must admit that I was shocked at many of the words which I had used. I shall have the document handed to you and ask you to tell me whether the report of that man, as it is contained in the document, agrees with what you have said. It is on Page 1, at the bottom, the second paragraph.
This could only be done by ruthless exploitation of the country. Therefore, it would be necessary to recruit manpower to be used in the Reich, and so on. FRANK: Moreover, what actually happened seems to me to be more important than what was said at the time.
It can be said that it was the resistance movement, which started from the very first day and was supported by our enemies, which presented the most difficult problem I had to cope with during all these years. For this resistance movement perpetually supplied the police and the SS with pretexts and excuses for all those measures which, from the viewpoint of an orderly administration, were very regrettable.
In fact, the resistance movement--I will not call it guerrilla activity, because if a people has been conquered during a war and organizes an active resistance movement, that is something definitely to be respected--but the methods of the resistance movement went far beyond the limits of an heroic revolt.
German women and children were slaughtered under the most atrocious circumstances. German officials were shot; trains were derailed; dairies were destroyed; and all measures taken to bring about the recovery of the country were systematically undermined. And it is against the background of these incidents, which occurred day after day, incessantly, during practically the entire period of my activity, that the events in that country must be considered.
That is all I have to say to that. What part did the administration of the Government General have, and what part did you have in putting down that revolt? It was a sort of combined operation, and, as it seems to me, also a national Polish action, as the Poles at the last moment wanted to carry out the liberation of their capital themselves and did not want to owe it to the Soviet Russians.
They probably were thinking of how, in Paris, at the last moment the resistance movement, even before the Allies had approached, had accomplished the liberation of the city.
The operation was a strictly military one. The civil administration, therefore, did not have any part in the fighting. The part played by the civil administration began only after the capitulation of General Bor, when the most atrocious orders for vengeance came from the Reich. A letter came to my desk one day in which Hitler demanded the deportation of the entire population of Warsaw into German concentration camps. It took a struggle of 3 weeks, from which I emerged victorious, to avert that act of insanity and to succeed in having the fleeing population of Warsaw, which had had no part in the revolt, distributed throughout the Government General.
During that revolt, unfortunately, the city of Warsaw was very seriously damaged. All that had taken years to rebuild was burned down in a few weeks. SEIDL: Witness, you are also accused of having suppressed the cultural life of the population of the Government General, especially as regards the theater, broadcasting, films.
What have you to say about that? We do not have to look far from this court room to see what cultural life is like in an occupied country. We had broadcasting in the Polish language under German supervision. We had a Polish press which was supervised by Germans, and we had a Polish school system, that is, elementary schools and high schools, in which at the end, 80, teachers taught in the service of the Government General.
As far as it was possible Polish theaters were reopened in the large cities, and where German theaters were established we made sure that there was also a Polish theater at the same time. After the proclamation of the so-called total war in August , the absurd situation arose in which the German theater in Krakbw was closed, because all German theaters were closed at that time, whereas the Polish theaters remained open.
I myself selected composers and virtuosos from a group of the most well known musicians of Poland I found there in and founded the Philharmonic Orchestra of the Government General. This was in being until the end, and played an important part in the cultural life of Poland. I believe that is sufficient on this point. Any measures taken with that intention would be sheer nonsense. SEIDL: Is it correct that as far as it was in your power you did everything to avoid epidemics and to improve the health of the population?
I can say that everything humanly possible was done. Apparently, if the diary is correct, you said On 5 November before my arrival, the SS and the police, as I found out later, called the Krakow professors to a meeting. They thereupon arrested the men, among them dignified old professors, and took them to some concentration camp. I believe it was Oranienburg. I found that report when I arrived and against everything which may be found there in my diary, I want to emphasize here under oath that I did not cease in my attempts to get every one of the professors released whom I could reach, in March That is all I have to say to this.
Human rights lawyer Philippe Sands came across this unsettling coincidence while researching a book about his own family, to be published in On a wall at his home beside Hampstead Heath in London hangs a map of the small town of Zhovkva, whence his great-grandmother came, from the same street as Hersch Lauterpacht. Frank was a man of letters, a talented pianist and friend of Strauss. You loved Beethoven.
You were friends with Richard Strauss. A magnificent evening of consecration. With indescribable emotion, I felt theyears I have experienced pass before me, accompanied by this glorious music. Frank may have heard in these glorious chorales an assertion of the collective, the rights of nation over those of the individual, which was the basis for his defence, such as it was.
This is the individual celebrant communing with the deity, which opposes the Catholic idea of communion through celebration. Which is strange: he must have known that Bach and his intellect were Lutheran.
They were incomparable, of course, and we assume they converted in good faith, but in a way, Catholicism is the easy way out to self-absolution, and that is one of the things Bach takes issue with in this music. Sands explains how he and Laurent Naouri had to choose a section from the St Matthew Passion to illustrate the obsession of each man. But did Hans Frank believe his own defence? Frank was a courtroom lawyer too, and in a courtroom there can be this suspension of disbelief.
I think Frank as a defendant may well have gone through that process, of not necessarily believing his own argument, but believing it enough to think it might get him off the hook. Niklas Frank is a man of wit and charm; the dry humour that charges his book with bitterness makes his conversation agreeable.
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