dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
FRANK: I learned that the Dachau concentration camp was being established in connection with a report which came to me from the Senior Public Prosecutor's Office in Munich on the occasion of the killing of the Munich attorney, Dr. Strauss. This Public Prosecutor's Office complained to me, after I had given them orders to investigate the killing, that the SS had refused them admission to the Dachau concentration camp. Thereupon I had Reich Governor, General Von Epp, call a meeting where I produced the files regarding this killing and pointed out the illegality of such an action on the part of the SS and stated that so far representatives from the German Public Prosecutor's Office had always been able to investigate any death which evoked a suspicion that a crime had been committed and that I had not become aware so far of any departure from this principle in the Reich. After that I continued protesting against this method to Dr. Guertner, the Reich Minister of Justice and at the same time Attorney General. I pointed out that this meant the beginning of a development which threatened the legal system in an alarming manner. At Heinrich Himmler's request Adolf Hitler intervened personally in this matter, and he used his power to quash any legal proceedings. The proceedings were ordered to be quashed I handed in my resignation as Minister of Justice, but it was not accepted.
DR. SEIDL: When did you become Governor General of the occupied Polish territories, and where were you when you were informed of this appointment?
FRANK: On 24 August 1939, as an officer in the reserve, I had to join my regiment in Postdate. I was busy training my company; and on 17 September, or it may have been 16, I was making my final preparations before going to the front when a telephone call came from the Fuehrer's special train ordering me to go to the Fuehrer at once. The following day I traveled to Upper Silesia where the Fuehrer's special train was stationed at that time; and in a very short conversation, which lasted less than ten minutes, he gave me the mission, as he put it, to take over the functions of Civil Governor for the occupied Polish territories. At that time the whole of the conquered Polish territories was under the administrative supreme command of a military commander, General Von Rundstedt. Toward the end of September I was attached to General Von Rundstedt's staff as Chief of Administration, and my task was to do the administrative work in the Military Government. In a short time, however, it was found that this method did not work; and when the Polish territories were divided into the part which was incorporated into the German Reich and the part which then became the Government General, I was appointed Governor General as from 26 October.
DR. SEIDL: You have mentioned the various positions which you held over a number of years. I now ask you: Did you, in any of the positions you held in the Party or the State, play any vital part in the political events of the last 20 years?
FRANK: In my own sphere I did everything that could possibly be expected of a man who believes in the greatness of his people and who is filled with fanaticism for the greatness of his country, in order to bring about the victory of Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist movement. I never participated in far-reaching political decisions, since I never belonged to the circle of the closest associates of Adolf Hitler, neither was I consulted by Adolf Hitler on general political questions, nor did I ever take part in conferences about such problems. Proof of this is that throughout the period from 1933 to 1945 I was received only six times by Adolf Hitler personally, to report to him about my sphere of activities.
DR. SEIDL: What share did you have in the legislation of the Reich?
FRANK: I have already told you that, and there is no need to give a further answer.
DR. SEIDL: Did you, as a Reich Minister or in any other State or Party post want this war, or did you desire a war in violation of treaties entered into?
FRANK: War is not a thing one wants. War is terrible. We have lived through it; we did not want the war. We wanted a great Germany and the restoration of the freedom and welfare, the health and happiness of our people. It was my dream, and probably the dream of every one of us, to bring about a revision of the Versailles Treaty by peaceful means, which was provided for in that very treaty But as in the world of treaties, between nations also, it is only the one who is strong who is listened to; Germany had to become strong first before we could negotiate. This is how I saw the development as a whole: the strengthening of the Reich, reinstatement of its sovereignty in all spheres, and by these means to free ourselves of the intolerable shackles which had been imposed upon our people. I was happy, therefore, when Adolf Hitler, in a most wonderful rise to power, unparalleled in the history of mankind, succeeded by the end of 1938 in achieving most of these aims; and I was equally unhappy when in 1939, to my dismay, I realized more and more that Adolf Hitler appeared to be departing from that course and to be following other methods.
THE PRESIDENT: This seems to have been covered by what the Defendant Goering told us, by what the Defendant Ribbentrop told us.
DR. SEIDL: The witness has already completed his statement on this point. Witness, what was your share in the events of Poland after 1939?
FRANK: I bear the responsibility; and when, on 30 April 1945, Adolf Hitler ended his life, I resolved to reveal that responsibility of mine to the world as clearly as possible. I did not destroy the 43 volumes of my diary, which report on all these events and the share I had in them; but of my own accord I handed them voluntarily to the officers of the American Army who arrested me.
DR. SEIDL: Witness, do you feel guilty of having committed crimes in violation of international conventions or crimes against humanity?
THE PRESIDENT: That is a question that the Tribunal has got to decide.
DR. SEIDL: Then I shall drop the question. Witness, what do you have to say regarding the accusations which have been brought against you in the Indictment?
FRANK: To these accusations I can only say that I ask the Tribunal to decide upon the degree of my guilt at the end of my case. I myself, speaking from the very depths of my feelings and having lived through the 5 months of this trial, want to say that now after I have gained a full insight into all the horrible atrocities which have been committed, I am possessed by a deep sense of guilt.
DR. SEIDL: What were your aims when you took over the post of Governor General?
FRANK: I was not informed about anything. I heard about special action commandos of the SS here during this trial. In connection with and immediately following my appointment, special powers were given to Himmler, and my competence in many essential matters was taken away from me. A number of Reich offices governed directly in matters of economy, social policy, currency policy, food policy, and therefore, all I could do was to lay upon myself the task of seeing to it that amid the conflagration of this war, some sort of an order should be built up which would enable men to live. The work I did out there, therefore, cannot be judged in the light of the moment, but must be judged in its entirety, and we shall have to come to that later. My aim was to safeguard justice, without doing harm to our war effort.
DR. SEIDL: Witness, did the police, and particularly the Security Police and SD, come under your jurisdiction in the Government General?
FRANK: The Higher SS and Police Leaders were in principle subordinate to the Reichsfuehrer SS Himmler. The AS did not come under my command, and any orders or instructions which I might have given would not have been obeyed. Witness Buehler will cover this question in detail. The general arrangement was that the Higher SS and Police Leader was formally attached to my office, but in fact, and by reason of his activities, he was purely an agent of the Reichsfuehrer SS Himmler. This state of affairs, even as early as November 1939, was the cause of my first offer to resign which I made to Adolf Hitler. It was a state of affairs which made things extremely difficult as time went by. In spite of all my attempts to gain control of these matters, the drift continued. An administration without a police executive is powerless and there were many proofs of this. The police officers, so far as discipline, organization, pay, and orders were concerned, came exclusively under the German Reich police system and were in no way connected with the administration of the Government General. The officials of the SS and Police therefore did not consider that they were attached to the Government General in matters concerning their duty, neither was the police area called "Police Area, Government General." Moreover the Higher SS and Police Leader did not call himself "SS and Police Leader in the Government General" but "Higher SS and Police Leader East." However, I do not propose to go into details at this point.
DR. SEIDL: Witness, did the concentration camps in the Government General come under you, and did you have anything to do with their administration?
FRANK: Concentration were entirely a matter for the police and had nothing to do with the administration. Members of the civil administration were officially prohibited from entering the camps.
DR. SEIDL: Have you yourself ever been in a concentration camp?
FRANK: In 1935 I participated in a visit to the Dachau concentration camp, which had been organized for the Gauleiters. That was the only time that I have entered a concentration camp.
DR. SEIDL: Witness, in 1942, by a decree of the Fuehrer, a State Secretariat for Security in the Government General was created. The date is 7 May 1942. What was the reason for creating that State Secretariat?
FRANK: The establishment of this State Secretariat was one of the many attempts to solve the problem of the police in the Government General. I was very happy about it at the time, because I thought now we had found the way to solve the problem. I am certain it would have worked if Himmler and Krueger had adhered to the principle of this decree, which was co-operation and not working against each other. But before long it transpired that this renewed attempt, too, was merely camouflage; and the old conditions continued.
DR. SEIDL: On 3 June 1942, on the basis of this Fuehrer decree, another decree was issued regarding the transfer of official business to the State Secretary for Security. Is that true?
FRANK: I assume so, if you have the document. I cannot remember the details of course.
DR. SEIDL: In that case I shall ask the witness Bilfinger about this point.
FRANK: But I should like to add something to that. Wherever the SS is discussed here, the SS and the police are considered as forming one body. It would not be right of me if I did not correct that wrong conception. I have known during the course of these years so many honest, clean, and upright soldiers among the SS, and especially among the Waffen-SS and the police, that when judging here the problem of the SS in regard to the criminal nature of their activities, one can draw the same clear distinction as in the case of any of the other social groups. The SS, as such, behaved no more criminally than any other social groups would behave when taking part in political events. The dreadful thing was that the responsible chief, and a number of other SS men who unfortunately had been given considerable powers, were able to abuse the loyal attitude which is so typical of the German soldier.
DR. SLIDE: Witness, another question. In the decree concerning the creation of the State Secretariat for Security, it is ordered that the State Secretary-which in this case was the Higher SS and Police Leader-before making basic decisions, had to ask you for your approval. Was that done?
FRANK: No, I was never called upon to give my approval and that was the reason why before long this, my last, attempt proved to be a failure.
DR. SEIDL: Did the Higher SS and Police Leader and the SS Obergruppenfuehrer Krueger, in particular, obey orders which you had given them?
FRANK: Please, would you repeat the question? It did not come through too well. And please, Dr. Seidl, do not speak quite so loudly.
DR. SEIDL: Did the Higher SS and Police Leader Krueger, who at the same time was the State Secretary for Security, obey orders which you gave him in your capacity as Governor General?
FRANK: Not even a single order. On the strength of this new decree I repeatedly gave orders. These orders were supposedly communicated to Heinrich Himmler; and as his agreement was necessary, these orders were never carried out. Some special cases can be confirmed by the State Secretary Buehler when he is here as a witness.
DR. SEIDL: Did the Reichsfuehrer SS and Chief of the German Police, before he carried out security police measures in the Government General, ever obtain your approval?
FRANK: Not in a single case.
DR. SEIDL: The Prosecution has submitted a document, L-37, as Exhibit Number USA-506. It is a letter from the Commander of the Security Police and SD of the District Radom, addressed to the branch office at Tomassov. This document contains the following: "On 28 June 1944 the Higher SS and Police Leader East issued the following order: "The security situation in the Government General has deteriorated so much during the recent months that the most radical means and the most severe measures must now be employed against these alien assassins and saboteurs. The Reichsfuehrer SS in agreement with the Governor General, has given order that in every case of assassination or attempted assassination of Germans, not only the perpetrators shall be shot when caught, but that in addition, all their male relatives shall also be executed, and their female relatives above the age of sixteen put into a concentration camp."
FRANK: As I have said that I was never called upon by the Reichsfuehrer SS Himmler to give my approval to such orders, your question has already been answered. In this case, I was not called upon either.
DR. SEIDL: Witness, were you at least informed of such orders from the Reichsfuehrer SS Himmler or from the Higher SS and Police Leader East before they were carried out?
FRANK: The reason why this was not done was always the same. I was told that as Poles were living not only in the Government General but also in those territories which had been incorporated into the Reich, the fight against the Polish resistance movement had to be carried on by unified control from a central office, and this central office was Heinrich Himmler.
DR. SEIDL: Witness, what jurisdiction did you have in the general administration?
FRANK: I think it would accelerate the proceedings if the Witness Buehler could testify to these details. If the Tribunal so desires I will of course answer this question now. In the main I was concerned with the setting up of the usual administrative departments, such as food, culture, finance, science, et cetera.
DR. SEIDL: Were there representatives of the Polish and Ukrainian population in the Government General?
FRANK: Yes. The representation of the Polish and Ukrainian population was on a regional basis, and I united the heads of the bodies of representatives from the various districts in the so-called subsidiary committees. There was a Polish and an Ukrainian subsidiary committee. Count Ronikie was the head of the Polish committee for a number of years, and at the head of the Ukrainian committee was Professor Kubiowicz. I made it obligatory for all my offices to contact these subsidiary committees on all questions of a general nature, and this they did. I myself was in constant contact with both of them. Complaints were brought to me there and we had free discussions. My complaints and memoranda to the Fuehrer were mostly based on the reports from these subsidiary committees. A second form in which the population participated in the administration of the Government General was by means of the lowest administrative units, which throughout the Government General were in the hands of the native population. Every ten to twenty villages had as their head a so-called Wojt . This Polish word Wojt is the same as the German word "Vogt"-V-o-g-t. He was, so to speak, the lowest administrative unit. A third form of participation by the population in the administration was the employment of about 280,000 Poles and Ukrainians as government officials or civil servants in the public services of the Government General, including the postal and railway services.
DR. SEIDL: In what numerical proportion did the German civil servants stand to the Polish and Ukrainian civil servants?
FRANK: The proportion varied. The number of German civil servants was very small. There were times when, in the whole of the Government General, the area of which is 150,000 square kilometers-that means half the size of Italy-there were not more than 40,000 German civil servants. That means to one German civil servant there were on the average at least six non-German civil servants and employees.
DR. SEIDL: Which territories did you rule as Governor General? FRANK Poland, which had been jointly conquered by Germany and the Soviet Union, was divided first of all between the Soviet Union and the German Reich. Of the 380,000 square kilometers, which is the approximate size of the Polish State, approximately 200,000 square kilometers went to the Soviet Union and approximately 170,000 to 180,000 square kilometers to the German Reich. Please do not ask me for exact figures that was roughly the proportion. That part of Poland which was taken over into Soviet Russian territory was immediately treated as an integral part of the Soviet Union. The border signs in the east of the Government General were the usual Reich border signs of the Soviet Union, as from 1939. That part which came to Germany was divided thus: 90,000 square kilometers were left to the Government General and the remainder was incorporated into the German Reich.
THE PRESIDENT: I don't think there is any charge against the defendant on the ground that the civil administration was bad. The charge is that crimes were committed, and the details of the administration between the Government General and the department in the Reich are not really in question.
DR. SEIDL: The only reason, Mr. President, why I put that question was to demonstrate the difficulties with which the administration had to cope right from the beginning in this territory, for an area which originally represented one economic unit was now split into three different parts. [Turning to the he defendant.] I am coming now to the next question. Did you ever have hostages shot?
FRANK: My diary contains the facts. I myself have never had hostages shot.
DR. SEIDL: Did you ever participate in the annihilation of Jews?
FRANK: I say "yes;" and the reason why I say "yes" is because, having lived through the 5 months of this trial, and particularly after having heard the testimony of the witness Hoess, my conscience does not allow me to throw the responsibility solely on these minor people. I myself have never installed an extermination camp for Jews, or promoted the existence of such camps; but if Adolf Hitler personally has laid that dreadful responsibility on his people, then it is mine too, for we have fought against Jewry for years; and we have indulged in the most horrible utterances-my own diary bears witness against me. Therefore, it is no more than my duty to answer your question in this connection with "yes." A thousand years will pass and still this guilt of Germany will not have been erased.
DR. SEIDL: Witness, what was your policy for the recruiting of laborers for the Reich when you were Governor General?
FRANK: I beg your pardon?
DR. SEIDL: What policy did you pursue for the recruiting of labor for the Reich in your capacity as Governor General?
FRANK: The policy is laid down in my decrees. No doubt they will be held against me by the Prosecution, and I consider it will save time if I answer that question later, with the permission of the Tribunal.
DR. SEIDL: Witness, did Hitler give you any instructions as to how you should carry out your administration as Governor General?
FRANK: During the first 10 minutes of the audience in his special train Adolf Hitler instructed me to see to it that this territory, which had been utterly devastated-all the bridges had been blown up; the railways no longer functioned, and the population was in a complete turmoil-was put into order somehow; and that I should see to it that this territory should become a factor which would contribute to the improvement of the terribly difficult economic and war situation of the German Reich.
DR. SEIDL: Did Adolf Hitler support you in your work as Governor General?
FRANK: All my complaints, everything I reported to him, were unfortunately dropped into the wastepaper basket by him. I did not send in my resignation 14 times for nothing. It was not for nothing that I tried to join my brave troops as an officer. In his heart he was always opposed to lawyers, and that was one of the most serious shortcomings of this outstandingly great man. He did not want to admit formal responsibility, and that, unfortunately, applied to his policy too, as I have found out now. Every lawyer to him was a disturbing element working against his power. All I can say, therefore, is that, by supporting Himmler's and Bormann's aims to the utmost, he permanently jeopardized any attempt to find a form of government worthy of the German name.
DR. SEIDL: Which departments of the Reich gave instructions to you regarding the administration of the Government General?
FRANK: In order to expedite the proceedings I should like to suggest that the witness Buehler give the whole list.
DR. SEIDL: Did you ever loot art treasures?
FRANK: An accusation which is one that touches my private life and affects me most deeply, is that I am supposed to have enriched myself with the art treasures of the country entrusted to me. I did not collect pictures and I did not find time during the war to appropriate art treasures. I took care to see that all the art treasures of the country entrusted to me were officially registered, and had that official register incorporated in a document which was widely distributed; and, above all, I saw to it that those art treasures remained in the country right to the very end. In spite of that, art treasures were removed from the Government General. A part was taken away before my administration was established. Experience shows that one cannot talk of responsibility for an administration until some time after it has been functioning, namely, when the administration has been built up from the bottom. So that from the outbreak of the war, 1 September 1939, until this point, which was about at the end of 1939, I am sure that art treasures were stolen to an immeasurable extent either as war booty or under some other pretext. During the registration of the art treasures, Adolf Hitler gave the order that the Veit Stoss altar should be removed from St. Mary's Church in Krakow, and taken to the Reich. In September 1939 Mayor Liebel came from Nuremberg to Krakow for that purpose with a group of SS men and removed this altar. A third instance was the removal of the Duerer etchings in Lvov by a special deputy before my administration was established there. In 1944, 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.