dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
LT. COL. BALDWIN: I now quote briefly from the decree: "It is the task of the Academy for German Law to further the reorganization of legal procedure in Germany. Closely connected with the agencies competent for legislation, it shall further the realization of the National Socialist program in the realm of the law. This task shall be carried out by approved scientific methods. "The Academy's task shall cover primarily: "1. The formulation, initiation, judging, and preparing of drafts of law; 2. collaboration in rejuvenating and unifying the training in jurisprudence and political science; 3. the editing and supporting of scientific publications; 4. financial assistance for work and research in specific fields of law and political economy."
THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): Do you have to read all this? We will take judicial notice of it.
LT. COL. BALDWIN: Among the early tasks which Defendant Frank set for himself, as policy maker in the field of law, were the unification of the German State, the promotion of racial legislation, and the elimination of political organizations other than the Nazi Party. In a radio address given on 20 March 1934 he announced success in these matters. Our partial English translation of this speech appears as Document 2536-PS, at Page 64 in the document book. The official text of this speech appears in Dokumente der Deutschen Politik, Volume II (first edition), Pages 294-298. In the German text the extracts which I shall quote appear at Pages 296 and 298, and I will ask the Court to take judicial notice of these passages: "The first task was that of uniting all Germans into one State. It was an outstanding historical and legislative accomplishment on the part of our Fuehrer that by boldly grasping historical development he eliminated the sovereignty of the various German states. At last we have now, after 1,000 years, again a unified German State in every respect. It is no longer possible for the world, based on the spirit of resistance inherent in small states, which are set up on an egoistical scale and solely with a view to their individual interest, to make calculations to the detriment of the German people. That is a thing of the past for all times to come." I pass on now to the second excerpt: "The second fundamental law of the Hitler Reich is racial legislation. The National Socialists were the first in the entire history of human law to elevate the concept of race to the status of a legal term.
LT. COL. BALDWIN: The German Nation, unified racially and nationally, will in the future be legally protected against any further disintegration of the German race stock." I pass now to the mention of the sixth law: "The sixth fundamental law was the legal elimination of those political organizations which within the State, during the period of the regeneration of the people and the reconstruction of the Reich, were once able to place their selfish aims ahead of the common good of the nation. This elimination has taken place entirely legally. It is not the coming to the fore of despotic tendencies, but it was the necessary legal consequence of a clear political result of the 14 years' struggle of the NSDAP. "In accordance with these unified legal aims" Frank continues "in all spheres, particular efforts have for months now been made regarding the work of the great reform of the entire field of German law. "As the leader of the German jurists, I am convinced that,. together with all strata of the German people, we shall be able to construct the legal state of Adolf Hitler in every respect and to such an extent that no one in the world will at any time be able to dare to attack this constitutional state as regards its laws." In his speech on the occasion of the day of the Reich University Professors of the National Socialist Lawyers' League on 3 October 1936, the Defendant Frank explained to the gathering of professors the elimination of Jews from the legal field, in accordance with the Nazi plan. Our partial translation of this speech appears as Document 2536-PS, at Page 62 of the document book. The official text appears likewise in Dokumente der Deutschen Politik, in Volume IV, Pages 225 to 230. I ask the Tribunal to take judicial notice of this. It deals, to summarize...
THE PRESIDENT: I do not think you need it because we have already had documents of the same sort.
LT. COL. BALDWIN: As the leading Nazi jurist, the Defendant Frank accepted, condoned, and promoted the system of concentration camps and of arrest without warrant. He apparently had no hesitancy in subverting his professional ethics, if any he had, while subverting the legal framework of the German State to Nazi ends. He explains the outrageous departure from civilization that were concentration camps in an article on "Legislation and Judiciary in the Third Reich," published in 1936 in the official journal of the Academy of German Law, of which' of course, he was the editor. The partial translation of this article appears as our Document 2533-PS, at Page 61 of the document book. The official German text of the extract appears in Zeitschrift der Akademie fur Deutsches Recht, 1936, at Page 141, and I will ask the Tribunal to take judicial notice of this. Since the extract is short, I will ask permission to read it. Frank says: "Before the world we are blamed again and again because of the concentration camps. We are asked: Why do you arrest without a warrant of arrest? I say: Put yourselves into the position of our nation. Don't forget that the very great and still untouched world of Bolshevism cannot forget that here on our German soil we have made final victory for them impossible in Europe." It can be seen, therefore, that just as other defendants mobilized the military, economic, and diplomatic resources for aggressive war, the Defendant Frank, in the field of legal policy, geared the German juridical machine for a war of aggression, which war of aggression, as he explained in 1942 to the NSDAP political leaders of Galicia at a mass meeting in Lvov - and I now quote from the Frank diary, our Document 2233(s)-PS, at Page 50 in the document book, the original of which I offer in evidence as Exhibit Number USA - 607 - had for its purpose, and I quote: "... to expand the living space for our people in a natural manner." The distortions and warpings of German law, which Defendant Frank engineered for the Party, gave him, if riot the world, vast satisfaction.
LT. COL. BALDWIN: He reported this to the powerful Academy for German Law in November 1939, 1 month after becoming Governor General of occupied Poland. This speech is partially translated in our Document 3445-PS, at Page 73 in the document book. The official text of the speech appears in Deutsches Recht, 1939, Volume 2, the week of 23-30 December 1939, beginning at Page 2121; and we ask the Court to take judicial notice of this, but would ask permission to read the excerpt, as it is very short. Frank stated: "Today we are proud of having formulated our legal principles from the very beginning in such a way that they need not be changed in the case of war. For the maxim - that which serves the Nation is right, and that which harms it is wrong, which stood at the beginning of our legal work and which established this idea of the community. of the people as the only standard of the law - this maxim shines out also in the social order of these times." If this sentiment has a familiar ring to it, it is because it is a restatement of a Party commandment tailored and furnished by the Party lawyer to fit the Party's concept of law. I allude, of course, to the Party commandment, commented upon at Page 1608 (Volume IV, Page 38) of the official English transcript of these proceedings in the treatment of the Leadership Corps, which commandment stated and I quote, "Right is that which serves the Movement and thus Germany." It follows, I think, that the Prosecution conceives the Defendant Frank to be jointly responsible for all those cruel and discriminatory enabling acts and decrees through which the Nazis crushed minorities in Germany and consolidated their control over the German State and prepared it for its early entry upon aggression. It matters not, in our view, that the signature of this lawyer does not appear at the foot of every decree. Enough has been shown, in our submission, to indicate culpability in this regard.
LT. COL. BALDWIN: There is sufficient, we believe, now in this Record - and I refer to decrees cited by Major Walsh in his treatment of the persecution of the Jews and by Colonel Storey in his treatment of the Reich Cabinet - to demonstrate that type of enactment and the consequences thereof, for which we hold the Defendant Frank liable. In following this theory, may it please the Tribunal, we are only arriving at conclusions already arrived at for us by the Defendant Frank himself. I now pass to that second and well-known phase of the Defendant Frank's official life, wherein he for 5 years, as chief Party and Government agent, was bent upon the elimination of a whole people. He was appointed Governor General of the occupied Polish territory by a decree signed by his then Fuehrer on 12 October 1939. The decree defined the scope of Frank's executive power and is contained in our Document 2537-PS, at Page 66 in the document book. I shall ask the Tribunal to take judicial notice of this, since it appears in Reichsgesetzblatt, 1939, Part I, Page 2077. It merely states that Dr. Frank is appointed as Governor General of the occupied Polish territory; that Dr. Seyss-Inquart is appointed as Deputy Governor General, and that "the Governor General shall be directly responsible to me" meaning Hitler, he having signed the decree. While some of the outside world was prone in earlier days to wonder at the apparent efficiency of Nazi administration, we now know that it was often riddled with the petty jealousies of small men in positions of some authority and with jurisdictional fractiousness. No such difficulty existed with the Defendant Frank, however, for though he was not without the threat of divided authority, he insisted upon, and was granted, the favor of supreme command within the territorial confines of the Government General. Only two references from his diary, one in 1940 and one in 1942, are necessary to show the all- inclusiveness of his direction and authority.
LT. COL. BALDWIN: At a meeting of department heads of the Government General on 8 March 1940 in the Bergakademie,
 the Defendant Frank clarified his status as Governor General; and these remarks appear in the diary and in our Document 2233(m)-PS, at Page 42 in the document book, the original of which I offer into evidence as Exhibit Number USA-173. In the German text, the extracts appear in the meetings of department heads, Volume 2 for 1939-1940, at Pages 5, 6, 7, and 8. Frank says: "One thing is certain. The authority of the Governor General as the representative of the will of the Fuehrer and the will of the Reich in this territory is certainly strong, and I have always emphasized that I would not tolerate misuse of this authority. I have made this known anew at every office in Berlin, especially after Herr Field Marshal Goering on 12. 2. 1940, from Karin Hall, had forbidden all administrative of offices of the Reich, including the Police and even the Wehrmacht, to interfere in administrative matters of the Government General...." He goes on to say: "There is no authority here in the Government General which is higher as to rank, stronger in influence, and of greater authority than that of the Governor General. Even the Wehrmacht has no governmental or official functions here of any kind; it has only security functions and general military duties - it has no political power whatsoever. The same applies to the Police and the SS. There is here no state within a state, but we are representatives of the Fuehrer and of the Reich." Later, in 1942, at a conference of the district political leaders of the NSDAP in Krakow on 18 March, Defendant Frank further explained the relationship between the administration and the Reichsfuehrer SS Himmler. These remarks appear in the diary and in our Document 2233(r)-PS and at Page 48 of the document book, the original of which I offer into evidence as Exhibit Number USA-608. In the German text, the extract to be quoted appears at Pages 185 and 186 of diary Volume 18, 1942, Part I.
LT. COL. BALDWIN: I quote: "As you know" says Frank "I am a fanatic as to unity in administration.... It is therefore clear that the Higher SS and Police Leader is subordinated to me, that the Police is a component of the Government, that the SS and Police Leader in the district is subordinated to the Governor, and that the district chief has the authority of command over the gendarmerie in his district. This the Reichsfuehrer SS has recognized, in the written agreement all these points are mentioned word for word and signed. It is also self-evident that we cannot establish a closed shop here which can be treated in the traditional manner of small states."
THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): ): Do you think all this has to be read?
LT. COL. BALDWIN: It is considered important, Sir, by the United States Prosecution, in view of the fact that this is the later extract from the diary and indicates that 2 years later even Frank considered himself to be the supreme authority in the Government General. This is a point which we conceive to be of importance, Sir. May I proceed?
THE PRESIDENT: Yes.
LT. COL. BALDWIN: "It would, for instance, be ridiculous if we would build up here a security policy of our own against our Poles in the country, while knowing that the Poles in West Prussia, in Posen, in Warthegau, and in Silesia have one and the same movement of resistance. So the Reichsfuehrer SS and Chief of the German Police must be able to carry out, with his agencies, his police measures concerning the interests of the Reich as a whole. This, however, will be done in such a way that the measures to be adopted will first be submitted to me and carried out only when I give my consent. In the Government General the Police are the armed forces. Consequently the leader of the Police will be called by me into the Government of the Government General; he is subordinate to me, or to my deputy, as a state secretary for security." At this juncture, it is appropriate to mention that the man who filled the position of State Secretary for Security in the Government General was Frank's Higher SS and Police Leader, Kruger.
THE PRESIDENT: Will you read the next page?
LT. COL. BALDWIN: May it please the Tribunal; I shall come to that excerpt later.
THE PRESIDENT: In the same document?
LT. COL. BALDWIN: Yes, Sir. It seems more appropriate at another point. The Tribunal may recall that the reports of the extermination of Jews in the Warsaw ghetto were made in the spring of 1943 by SS Leader Stroop, who immediately supervised the operation, to this same Kruger, who was still at that time one of the two most influential members of Frank's Cabinet, as State Secretary for Security. It was inevitable that the grand conspiracy or common plan should have as its component parts a host of small plans each dealing with a particular sphere of activity. These plans, differing from the master plan only in size, are the blueprints for a specific action drawn from the broad policies. Occupied Poland was no exception to this rule. The plan for the administration of Poland was contained in a top-secret memorandum of a conference between Hitler and the Chief of the OKW, Defendant Keitel, entitled "Regarding Future Relations of Poland to Germany" and dated 20 October 1939. This report was initialed by General Warlimont. It is our Document 864-PS and may be found at Page 3 of the document book, and I shall offer it into evidence as Exhibit Number USA-609. I shall quote, if the Court please, only from Paragraphs 1, 3, 4, and 6: "1) The Armed Forces will welcome it if they can dispose of administrative questions in Poland. On principle, there cannot be two administrations.... "3) It is not the task of the administration to make Poland into a model province or a model state of the German order or to put her economically or financially on a sound basis. "The Polish intelligentsia must be prevented from forming a ruling class. The standard of living in the country is to remain low; we want only to draw labor forces from there. Poles are also to be used for the administration of the country. However, the forming of national political groups may not be allowed. "4) The administration has to work on its own responsibility and must not be dependent on Berlin. We do not want to do there what we do in the Reich.
LT. COL. BALDWIN: The responsibility does not rest with the Berlin Ministries since there is no German administration unit concerned. "The accomplishment of this task will involve a hard racial struggle which will not allow any legal restrictions. The methods will be incompatible with the principles otherwise adhered to by us. "The Governor General is to give the Polish nation only bare living conditions and is to maintain the basis for military security.... "6)....Any tendencies towards the consolidation of conditions in Poland are to be suppressed. The 'Polish muddle' must be allowed to develop. The Government of the territory must make it possible for us to purify the Reich territory from Jews and Poles too. Collaboration with new Reich 'provinces (Posen and West Prussia) only for resettlements (compare Himmler mission). "Purpose: Shrewdness and severity must be the maxims in this racial struggle in order to spare us from going to battle on account of this country again." The Defendant Frank was the chosen executor of this program. He knew its aims, approved of them, and actively carried out the scheme. The Tribunal's attention has already been invited to Exhibit Number USA-297 wherein - this may be found at Page 1512 of the English text of the official transcript (Volume III, Pages 576, 577) the Defendant Frank expounded the mission which his Fuehrer assigned to him and according to which he intended to administer in Poland. It contemplated, in brief, ruthless exploitation, deportation of all supplies and workers, reduction of the entire Polish economy to an absolute minimum necessary for bare existence of the population, and the closing of all schools. No more callous statement exists than the one Frank made in this report, wherein he said, "Poland shall be treated as a colony; the Poles shall be the slaves of the Greater German world empire." In December 1940 Frank submitted to his department heads that the task of administering Poland did truly involve a hard racial struggle which would not allow any legal restrictions.
LT. COL. BALDWIN: I refer to our Document 2233(o)-PS, which may be found at Page 45 in the document book. It is taken from the Frank diary, and I offer it in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-173. In the German text the extract to be quoted appears in the volume of the diary entitled, "Department Heads Meetings 1939-1940," on Pages 12 and 13. I now quote: "In this country the force of a determined leadership must rule. The Pole must feel here that we are not building him a legal state, but that for him there is only one duty, namely, to work and to behave himself. It is clear that this leads sometimes to difficulties; but you must, in your own interest, see that all measures are ruthlessly carried out in order to become master of the situation. You can rely on me absolutely in this." As for the Poles and Ukrainians, Defendant Frank's attitude was clear. They were to be permitted to slave for the German economy as long as the war emergency continued. Once the war was won, even this cynical interest would cease. I refer to a speech before German political leaders at Krakow on 12 January 1944. It appears in the Frank diary and as our Document 2233(bb)-PS at Page 60 in the document book. It is the first passage on that page. I offer it in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-295. In the diary, the German text will be found in the loose-leaf volume covering the period from 1 January to 28 February 1944, at the entry for 14 January 1944, at Page 24. "Once the war is won" Frank tells these leaders - and here we have, may it please the Court, the classic example of the completely brutal statement: "Once the war is won, then, for all I care, mincemeat can be made of the Poles and the Ukrainians and all the others who run around here; it doesn't matter what happens." In accordance with the racial program of the Nazi conspirators, the Defendant Frank makes it quite clear in his diary that the complete annihilation of Jews was one of his cherished objectives. In Exhibit Number USA-271, Frank stated in late 1940 in his diary that he could not eliminate all lice and Jews in a year's time.
LT. COL. BALDWIN: In Exhibit Number USA-281, he notes in his diary in the year 1942 that a program of starvation rations sentencing, in effect, 1,200,000 Jews to die of hunger, should be noted only marginally. In Exhibit Number USA-295, he confided to a secret press conference that in the year 1944 - and this, too, is from the diary - there were still in the Government General perhaps 100,000 Jews. These facts, if the Tribunal please, are from the diary of the man himself. We do no more here than to tabulate the results. The supreme authority within a certain geographic area admits that in a period of 4 years' time up to 3,400,000 persons from that area have been annihilated pursuant to an official policy and for no crime, but only because of having been born a Jew. No words could possibly reveal the inferences of death and suffering which must needs be drawn from these stark facts. It was a Nazi policy that the population of occupied countries should endure terror, oppression, impoverishment, and starvation. The Defendant Frank succeeded so well in this regard that he was forced to report to his Fuehrer in 1943 that, in effect, Poles did not regard the Government General with affection. This report to Hitler was a summarization of the first 3 « years of the Defendant Frank's administration. It, better than anything else, can show the conditions as they then existed as a result of the conspiratorial efforts of the defendants; The report is contained in our Document 437-PS, at Page 2 of the document book, and I now offer the original in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-610. In the German text, the extract to be quoted appears at Pages 10 and 11 of this report by Frank to Hitler dated 19 June 1943, regarding the situation in Poland. I now quote. Frank says: "In the course of time, a series of measures, or of consequences of the German rule, have led to a substantial deterioration of the attitude of the entire Polish people to the Government General.