dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
DR. SEIDL: Witness, did you introduce ghettos, that is, Jewish quarters in the Government General?
FRANK: I issued an instruction regarding the setting up of Jewish quarters. I do not remember the date. As to the reasons and the necessity for that, I shall have to answer the Prosecutor's questions.
DR. SEIDL: Did you introduce badges to mark the Jews?
FRANK: Yes.
DR. SEIDL: Did you yourself introduce forced labor in the Government General?
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.
DR. SEIDL: Did you, as was stated by the Prosecution, plunder libraries in the Government General?
FRANK: I can answer that question plainly with "no." The largest and most valuable library which we found, the Jagellon University Library in Krakow, which thank God was not destroyed, was transferred to a new library building on my own personal orders; and the entire collection, including the most ancient documents, was looked after with great care.
DR. SEIDL: Witness, did you as Governor General close down the universities in the Government General?
FRANK: The universities in the Government General were closed because of the war when we arrived. 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-which were actually on a university level-in such a way that the Reich Authorities could not criticize it. The fact that there was an urgent need for native university-trained men, particularly doctors, technicians, lawyers, teachers, et cetera, was the best guarantee that the Poles and Ukrainians would be allowed to continue university teaching to the extent which war conditions would allow.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will adjourn for 10 minutes. [A recess was as taken.]
DR. SEIDL: Witness, we were last speaking of the universities. Did you yourself, as Governor General, close the secondary schools?
FRANK: My suggestion to reopen the Gymnasiums and secondary schools was rejected by Adolf Hitler. We helped to solve the problem by permitting secondary school education in a large number of private schools.
DR. SEIDL: Now, a basic question. 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-ore basins which were 10 kilometers from Czestochowa were incorporated into the German Reich. 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 600,000 tons of grain, as a loan of course, and that created a heavy debt for me.
FRANK: I started the financial economy with 20 million zlotys which had been advanced to me by the Reich. We started zenith a completely impoverished economy due to the devastation caused by the war, and by the first of January 1944 the savings bank accounts of the native population had reached the amount of 11,500 million zlotys, and we had succeeded by then in improving the feeding of the population to a certain extent. Furthermore, at that time the factories and industrial centers had been reconstructed, to which reconstruction the Reich authorities had made outstanding contributions; Reich Marshal Goering and Minister Speer especially deserve great credit for the help given in reviving the industry of the country. More than two million fully paid workers were employed; the harvest had increased to 1.6 million tons in a year; the yearly budget had increased from 20 million zlotys in the year 1939 to 1,700 million zlotys. All this is only a sketch which I submit here to describe the general development.
DR.SEIDL: Witness, in your capacity as Governor General did you persecute churches and religion in the areas which you had under your administration?
FRANK: I was in constant personal contact with the Archbishop, now Cardinal, Sapieha in Krakow. 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.
DR. SEIDL: You mean the SS Gruppenfuehrer Globocznik?
FRANK: Yes, that is the one I mean. But I may summarize the situation by quoting the letter which Archbishop Sapieha sent to me in 1942, 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 Krakow 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.
DR. SEIDL: Witness, when did you hear for the first time about the concentration camp at Maidanek?
FRANK: I heard the name Maidanek for the first time in 1944 from foreign reports. 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 Zoerner once told me, I believe already in 1941, 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 Secretary Buehler to investigate the matter immediately, and I was told, and I also received a report in writing from Reichsfuehrer SS Himmler, that he had to build a large camp required by the Waffen-SS to manufacture clothes, footwear, and underwear in large SS-owned workshops. This camp went under the name of "SS Works," or something similar. Now, I have to say I was in a position to get information, whereas the witnesses who have testified so far have said under oath that in the circles around the Fuehrer nothing was known about all these things. 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." I did not make any further inquiries in that same area.
FRANK: 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 1944 I succeeded in being received by Adolf Hitler personally-I might add that throughout the war he received me three times only. In the presence of Bormann I put the question to him: "My Fuehrer, rumors about the extermination of the Jews will not be silenced. 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 Fuehrer, is there anything in it?" The Fuehrer said, "You can very well imagine that there are executions going on-of insurgents. Apart from that I do not know anything. Why don't you speak to Heinrich Himmler about it?" And I said. "Well, Himmler made a speech to us in Krakow and declared in front of all the people whom I had officially called to the meeting that these rumors about the systematic extermination of the Jews were false; the Jews were merely being brought to the East." Thereupon the Fuehrer said, "Then you must believe that." When in 1944 I got the first details from the foreign press about the things which were going on, my first question was to the SS Obergruppenfuehrer Koppe, who had replaced Krueger. "Now we know," I said, "you cannot deny that." And he said that nothing was known to him about these things, and that apparently it was a matter directly between Heinrich Himmler and the camp authorities. "But," I said, "already in 1941 I heard of such plans, and I spoke about them." Then he said that was my business and he could not worry about it.
FRANK: 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. That is the only explanation that I can give.
DR.SEIDL: Therefore you did not know of the conditions in Treblinka, Auschwitz, and other camps? Did Treblinka belong to Maidanek, or is that a separate camp?
FRANK: I do not know; it seems to be a separate camp. Auschwitz was not in the area of the Government General. I was never in Maidanek, nor in Treblinka, nor in Auschwitz.
DR. SEIDL: Witness, the Prosecution has presented under Number USA-275 the report of the SS Brigadefuehrer Stroop on the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto. 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.
DR. SEIDL: What measures did you take to see that the population in the Government General was fed?
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.
DR. SEIDL: The Witness Buehler will speak about that later.
FRANK: Moreover the Reich helped a great deal in that respect. The Reich sent seeds to the value of many millions of marks, agricultural experts, breeding cattle, machines, et cetera.
DR. SEIDL: Witness, you have told us what you did for the welfare of the population of the Government General 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?
FRANK: One has to take the diary as a whole. 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.
DR. SEIDL: Witness . . .
FRANK: Some of the words are terrible. I myself must admit that I was shocked at many of the words which I had used.
DR.SEIDL: Witness, under Number USA-297 the Prosecution has submitted a document which deals with a conference which you apparently had in 1939 or 1940 with an office of the Chief of the Administration Ober-Ost. 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.
FRANK: That is a shortened summary of a speech, which perhaps in an address...
THE PRESIDENT: What is the PS-number?
DR. SEIDL: Dr. Frank, what is the number?
FRANK: 297, I believe.
DR. SEIDL: No, on the cover, please.
FRANK: On the cover it says 344. I will return the document to you. Would you kindly ask me about individual phrases. It is impossible for me to read all of its contents.
DR. SEIDL: The number is 297, Mr. President.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, it is USA-297. It is EC-344, (16) and (17), is that right?
DR.SEIDL: Yes. [Turning to the defendant.] It says here that during the first conversation which the chief of the central department had with the Reich Minister Dr. Frank-on 3 October 1939 in Posen, the latter explained the task which had been given him by the Fuehrer and the economic-political principles on which he intended to base his administration of Poland. 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. I have summarized it, Mr. President.
FRANK: I am sure that these utterances were not made in the way it is put here.
DR. SEIDL: But you do not want to say that you have never spoken to that man?
FRANK: I cannot remember it at ale
DR. SEIDL: Then, I come to the next question.
FRANK: Moreover, what actually happened seems to me to be more important than what was said at the time.
DR. SEIDL: Is it correct that your actions as Governor General, and undoubtedly also many excesses by the police and the SD, were due to the guerrilla activities?
FRANK: Guerrilla activities? 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.
DR. SEIDL: Witness, in the year 1944 a revolt broke out in Warsaw under the leadership of General Bor. What part did the administration of the Government General have, and what part did you have in putting down that revolt?
FRANK: That revolt broke out when the Soviet Russian Army had advanced to within about 30 kilometers of Warsaw on the eastern bank of the Vistula. 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. As Senior Commander of the German troops used to quell the revolt, I believe, they appointed SS General Von dem Bach-Zelewski. 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. However, State Secretary Buehler, in order to save time, will probably be in a better position to give us more details.
DR. 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?
FRANK: The Government General presented the same picture as every occupied country 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, 80,000 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 1944, the absurd situation arose in which the German theater in Krak6w 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 1939 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 established a Chopin Museum in Krakow, and from all over Europe I collected relics of Chopin. I believe that is sufficient on this point.
DR. SEIDL: Witness, you deny, therefore, having taken any measures which aimed at exterminating Polish and Ukrainian culture.
FRANK: Culture cannot be exterminated. Any measures taken with that intention would be sheer nonsense.
DR. 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?
FRANK: That State Secretary Buehler will be able to confirm in detail. I can say that everything humanly possible was done.
DR. SEIDL: Witness, the Prosecution, under Number USSR-223, has submitted an excerpt from the diary, which deals with the report about a police conference of 30 May 1940, and we find here in Pages 33 to 38 the following...
FRANK: [Interposing.] Unless the Court orders it, it is not necessary to read that.
DR. SEIDL: No, I only want to read one sentence, which refers to the Krakow professors. "Apparently, if the diary is correct, you said . . .
FRANK: [Interposing.] May I say something about the Krak6w professors right away?
DR. SEIDL: Yes.
FRANK: On 7 November 1939 I came to Krakow. On 5 November 1939 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 1940. That is all I have to say to this.
DR. SEIDL: The same police meeting of 30 May 1940 also dealt with the so-called "AB Action," that is, with the Extraordinary Pacification Action. Before I put to you the question which is concerned with it, I would like to read to you two entries in the diary. One is dated 16 May 1940, and here, after describing that extraordinary tension then existing, you stated the following: That, first of all, an action for pacification would have to be started, and then you said: "Any arbitrary actions must be avoided; in all cases the safeguarding of the authority of the Fuehrer and of the Reich has to be kept in the foreground."-I omit several sentences and quote the end-"The action is timed for 15 June." On 12 July a conference took place with the Ministerialrat Wille, who was the chief of the Department of Justice, and there you said in your own words: "Regarding the question as to what should happen to the political criminals who had been arrested during the AB Action, there is to be a conference with State Secretary Buehler, Obergruppenfuehrer Krueger, Brigadefuehrer Streckenbach and Ministerialrat Wille." End of quotation. What actually happened during that AB Action?