dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: I would like you to tell us how this court for court-martial proceedings was composed, who the members of this court were. Would you please pay attention to Paragraph 3, Point 1 of Paragraph 3?
FRANK: The Security Police, yes.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: You were telling us of your hostile attitude to the SD. Why then did you give the SD the right to exert oppression on the Polish population?
FRANK: Because that was the only way in which I could exert any influence on the sentences. If I had not published this decree, there would have been no possibility of control; and the Police would simply have acted at random.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: You spoke of the right of reprieve which was entrusted to you. 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." How could you change it if the condemned person was to be shot or hanged immediately after the verdict?
FRANK: The sentence would nevertheless have to come before me.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Yes, but a sentence had to be carried out immediately.
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...
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Since you have spoken of the right to reprieve, I will put to you another question. Do you remember the AB Action?
FRANK: Yes.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Do you remember that this action signified the execution of thousands of Polish intellectuals?
FRANK: No.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Then what did it signify?
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.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: I do not understand very well what you mean. How did you treat persons who were subject to the AB Action? What happened to them?
FRANK: This meeting really only dealt with- the question of arrests.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: I ask you what happened to them later?
FRANK: They were arrested and taken into protective custody.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: And then?
FRANK: Then they were subjected to the proceedings which had been established. At least, that is what I intended.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Was this left to the Police exclusively?
FRANK: The Police were in charge.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: In other words, the Police took over the extermination of these people after they had been arrested, is that so?
FRANK: Yes.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Well, then tell us, please, why you did not exercise your power of reprieve while they were carrying out this inhuman action?
FRANK: I did make use of it.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: I will put before you your statement, dated 30 May 1940. You certainly remember this meeting with the Police on 30 May 1940, when you gave final instructions to the police before carrying out this action?
FRANK: No.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: You stated the following: "Any attempt on the part of the legal authorities to intervene in the AB Action, undertaken with the help of the Police, should be considered as treason to the State and to German interests." Do you remember this statement?
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.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: I am speaking of words which in my opinion can have only one meaning for a jurist. You wrote: "The reprieve committee which is part of my office is not concerned with these matters. The AB Action will be carried out exclusively by Higher SS and Police Leader Krueger and his organization. This is a purely internal action for quieting the country which is necessary and lies outside the scope of a normal legal trial." That is to say you renounced your right of pardon?
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.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: One single question interests me. Did you renounce your right of pardon while carrying out this operation or not?
FRANK: No.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Well then, how can you account for your words, this one sentence: "The reprieve committee is not concerned with these matters."? How should we interpret these words?
FRANK: This is not a decree; it is not the final ruling on the matter. 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.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Yes, I understand that very well, Defendant. 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?
FRANK: Not during that meeting. 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.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Well, all right. 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?
FRANK: That sentence is contained in the diary. It is not, however, the final result, but rather an intermediate stage.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Perhaps I can recall to you another sentence, in order that you may judge the results of this action. Perhaps you can recall this part which I will put to you. You stated the following: "We need not bring these elements into German concentration camps, for in that case we would only have difficulties and an unnecessary correspondence with their families. 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?
FRANK: That is a terrible word. But, thank God, it did not take place in this way.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Yes, but these persons were executed. What do you mean by saying that this was not carried out? Obviously this was carried out, for the persons were executed.
FRANK: When they were sentenced they were killed, if the right to pardon them was not exercised.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: And they were condemned without application of the right of pardon?
FRANK: I do not believe so.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Unfortunately these people are no more, and therefore obviously they; were executed.
FRANK: Which people?
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Those who were arrested under the AB Action. 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 celebrations in connection with the departure of Brigadefuehrer SS Streckenbach when he left for Berlin. 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.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: I will allow myself to remind you of only one passage of your speech addressed to the Brigadefuehrer Streckenbach, one sentence only. You said: "What you, Brigadefuehrer Streckenbach, and your people, have done in the Government General must not be forgotten; and you need not be ashamed of it." That testifies, does it not, to quite a different attitude toward Streckenbach and his people?
FRANK: And it was not forgotten either.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: I have no further questions to put to the defendant.
THE PRESIDENT: Does that conclude the cross-examination?
MR. DODD: I have only one or two questions, if Your Honor pleases [Turning to the defendant.] In the course of your examination understood you to say that you had never gathered to yourself an, of the art treasures of the Government General. 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.
FRANK: Art treasures in the Government General were official!: collected and registered. The book has been submitted here in Court
MR. DODD: Yes. And you told the Tribunal that before you go there one Duerer collection had already been seized-before you too} over your duties.
FRANK: May I ask you to understand that as follows: 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.
MR. DODD: They were collected for Goering, that is what I an driving at. Is that not a fact?
FRANK: State Secretary Muehlmann, when I asked him, told me that he came on orders of the Reich Marshal and that he had taker them away on orders of the Reich Marshal
MR. 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?
FRANK: I know of nothing of that sort in the Government General. 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.
MR. DODD: But there were some art treasures in your possession when you were captured by the American forces.
FRANK: Yes. 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."
MR. DODD: Well, I merely wanted to clear that up. 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.
MR. DODD: Very well. I have one other matter I would like to clear up and I will not be long. 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?
FRANK: Yes, I said so this morning. 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.
MR. DODD: Well, of course, you recall that you suggested that they should have been retained in Poland, and liquidated or imprisoned there.
FRANK: Never-not even if you confront me with this statement. 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.
MR. 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?
FRANK: I have just told you that I did say all that merely to hoodwink my enemies; in reality I liberated the professors. Nothing more happened to them after that.
MR. DODD: All right. Were you also talking for special purposes when you gave General Krueger, the SS and Higher Police official, that fond farewell?
FRANK: The same applies also in this case. 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.
MR. 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.
THE PRESIDENT: Does he not mean that this was a record of a speech that he has made?
MR. DODD: In his diary, yes. It is recorded in his diary.
THE PRESIDENT: When he said, "I did that to hoodwink my enemies"?
MR. DODD: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: I presume that that particular record is a record of some speech that he made.
MR. DODD: It is. It is entered in the diary.
FRANK: May I say something about that. 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.
MR. 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...
FRANK: When was the last conference, please?
MR. DODD: Well, this entry is on Monday, the 17th of March 1941. It's in your diary.
FRANK: That was probably one of the very few conferences; whether I was alone with him, I don't know.
MR. DODD: . . . in which you said you and the Fuehrer had come to a complete agreement and that he approved all the measures, including all the decrees, especially also the entire organization of the country. 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.
MR. DODD: Was that one of the times you complained to him, as you told us this morning?
FRANK: I constancy, complained. As you know, I offered TO resign on 14 occasions.
MR. DODD: Yes, I know; but on this occasion did you make many complaints and did you have the approval of the Fuehrer, or did he turn down your complaints on this occasion of the 17th of March, 1941?
FRANK: The Fuehrer took a very simple way out at the time by saying, "You'll have to settle that with Himmler."
MR. 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?
FRANK: I beg your pardon, I didn't say that I made false entries. 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.
MR. DODD: Very well, I don't care to press it any further.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Seidl, do you wish to re-examine?
DR. SEIDL: Witness, the first question put to you by the Soviet Prosecutor was whether you were the chief of the NSDAP in the Government General, and you answered "yes." Did the Party have any decisive influence in the Government General on political and administrative life?
FRANK: No. 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.
DR. SEIDL: Did your activity in that sphere of the NSDAP in the territory of the Government General have anything at all to do with any Security Police affairs?
FRANK: No, the Party was much too small to play any important part; it had no state function.
DR. SEIDL: The next question: The Soviet Prosecution showed you Document USSR-335. It is the Decree on Drumhead Courts-Martial of 1943. It states in Paragraph 6: "Drumhead court-martial sentences are to be carried out at once." Is it correct if I say that no formal legal appeal against these sentences was possible, but that a pardon was entirely admissible?
FRANK: Certainly; but, nevertheless, I must say that this decree is impossible.
DR. SEIDL: What conditions in the Government General occasioned the issuing of this decree of 2 October 1943? 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.
DR. SEIDL: I now come back to the AB Action. Is it true that in 1939 a court-martial decree was issued providing for considerably greater legal guarantees than that of 1943?
FRANK: Yes.
DR. SEIDL: Is it correct that people arrested in the AB Action were, on the strength of this court-martial decree, sentenced or acquitted?
FRANK: Yes.
DR. 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?
FRANK: Yes.
DR. 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.
DR. SEIDL: And now one last question. The Prosecution has submitted Document 661-PS. This document also has a USSR exhibit number, which I don't know at the moment. 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. The document has the heading "Legal Formation of Germany's Polish Policy on Racial-Political Lines"; the legal part serves as a text for the Committee on the Law of Nationalities in the Academy for German Law. I'm having this document submitted to you. Please, will you tell me whether you've ever had this document in your hands before?
FRANK: From whom does it come?
DR. SEIDL: That is the extraordinary part; it has the Exhibit Number USA-300.
FRANK: Does it state anywhere who drew it up or something of the sort?
DR. SEIDL: The document has no author; nor does it show on whose order it was compiled.
FRANK: I can say merely that I've never seen the document; that I never gave an order for it to be drawn up; so I can say really nothing about it.
DR. SEIDL: It states here that it was found in the Ministry of Justice in Kassel. Was there a Ministry of Justice in Kassel in 1940?
FRANK: A Ministry of Justice in Kassel?
DR. SEIDL: Yes.
FRANK: That has not been in existence since 1866.
DR. SEIDL: I have no further questions.
THE PRESIDENT: Then the defendant can return to his seat.
DR. SEIDL: In that case, with the permission of the Tribunal, I shall call witness Dr.Bilfinger.
THE PRESIDENT: Colonel Smirnov.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Yes, Sir.
THE PRESIDENT: This document which you produced as USSR-223, which are extracts from Defendant Frank's diary; are you offering that in evidence? Apparently some entries from Frank's diary have already been offered in evidence; others have not. Are you wishing to offer this in evidence?
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: This document has already been submitted in evidence under two numbers; the first number is 2233-PS, which was submitted by the American Prosecution, and the second is Exhibit USSR-223, and was already submitted by us on 15 February, 1946.
THE PRESIDENT: I see. Have these entries which you have in this document been submitted under USSR-223? You see, the PS number does not necessarily mean that the documents have been offered in evidence. The PS numbers were applied to documents before they were offered in evidence; but the USSR-223 does imply that it has been offered in evidence.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: This document has already been presented in evidence.
THE PRESIDENT: Colonel Smirnov, what the Tribunal wants to know is whether you wish to offer this USSR-223 in evidence, because unless it was read before it hasn't been offered in evidence, or it hasn't gone into the record.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: We already read an excerpt on 15 February, and it is, therefore, already read into the record.
THE PRESIDENT: well.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: May I retire, Mr. President?
THE PRESIDENT: Yes. [The witness Bilfinger took the stand.]
THE PRESIDENT: Will you stand up, please, and will you tell us your full name?
RUDOLF BILFINGER (Witness): Rudolf Bilfinger.
THE PRESIDENT: Will you repeat this oath after me: I swear by God-the Almighty and Omniscient-that I will speak the pure truth-and will withhold and add nothing. [The witness repeated the oath.]
THE PRESIDENT: You may sit down.
DR. SEIDL: Witness, since when were you active in the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA), and in what position?
BILFINGER: From the end of 1937 until the beginning of 1943 I was government councillor in the RSHA, and later senior government councillor and expert on legal questions, and legal questions in connection with the police.
DR. SEIDL: Is it correct that on two occasions and at different times you were head of the "Administration and Law" department attached to the commander of the Security Police and SD in Krakow?
BILFINGER: Yes. In the autumn of 1940 and in 1944 I was head of the department "Administration and Law" attached to the commander of the Security Police and SD in Krakow.