Frank was born in Munich on 9 March 1939 to Hans Frank and Brigitte Herbst as the youngest of five siblings. His brothers and sisters were Sigrid (1927), Norman (1928), Brigitte (1935), and Michael (1937). When Niklas was about eight months old, his father was appointed Hitler's 'Governor-General' of the General Government in Poland. In this position, Hans Frank became responsible for the Nazi policy of enslaving the Poles and exterminating the Polish Jews. Niklas grew up in Cracow, Poland. He was seven years old when his father received the death penalty and was executed (16 October 1946). His mother died in 1959. Niklas studied German literature, sociology, and history, and became a journalist, working for the German edition of "Playboy" and for the weekly "Stern". Over the course of the years, his initial embarrassment about his father developed into a "burning, obsessive hatred" as he uncovered minute details of his father's life during a 40-year search. In the early 1990s, Frank was still working as a journalist, after a distinguished career during which he interviewed, among others, the Polish trade-union leader, Lech Wałęsa.