Hans Frank
Frank was an early member of the German Workers' Party (DAP), the precursor of the Nazi Party (NSDAP). He took part in the failed Beer Hall Putsch, and later became Adolf Hitler's personal legal adviser as well as the lawyer of the NSDAP. In June 1933, he was named as a Reichsleiter (Reich Leader) of the party. In December 1934, Frank joined the Hitler Cabinet as a Reichsminister without portfolio.
After the German invasion of Poland in 1939, Frank was appointed Governor-General of the occupied Polish territories. During his tenure, he instituted a reign of terror against the civilian population and became directly involved in the mass murder of Jews.[1] He engaged in the use of forced labour and oversaw four of the extermination camps. Frank remained head of the General Government until its collapse in early 1945. During that time, over 4 million people were murdered under his jurisdiction.
After the war, Frank was found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity at the Nuremberg trials. He was sentenced to death and executed by hanging in October 1946.
In September 1939, Frank was assigned as Chief of Administration to Gerd von Rundstedt in the German military administration in occupied Poland. Beginning on 26 October 1939, following the completion of the invasion of Poland, Frank served as Governor-General of the occupied Polish territories, overseeing the General Government, the area of Poland not directly incorporated into Germany (roughly 90,000 km2 out of the 187,000 km2 Germany had gained).
Frank oversaw the segregation of the Jews into ghettos. From the outset, Jews were discriminated against savagely and the rations given to them were slender. He oversaw the Warsaw ghetto and the use of Polish civilians as forced labour. In 1942, he lost his positions of authority outside the General Government after annoying Hitler with a series of speeches in Berlin, Vienna, Heidelberg, and Munich and as part of a power struggle with Friedrich-Wilhelm Krüger, the State Secretary for Security – head of the SS and the police in the General Government. Krüger himself was ultimately replaced by Wilhelm Koppe.
On 16 December 1941, Frank spelt out to his senior officials the approaching annihilation of the Jews:
A great Jewish migration will begin in any case. But what should we do with the Jews? Do you think they will be settled in Ostland, in villages? We were told in Berlin, 'Why all this bother? We can do nothing with them either in Ostland or in the Reichskommissariat. So liquidate them yourselves.' Gentlemen, I must ask you to rid yourself of all feelings of pity. We must annihilate the Jews wherever we find them and whenever it is possible.
When this was read to him at the Nuremberg trials he said:
One has to take the diary as a whole. You cannot 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... Some of the words are terrible. I myself must admit that I was shocked at many of the words which I had used... A thousand years will pass and still this guilt of Germany will not have been erased.
Nazi death camps in occupied Poland (marked with black and white skulls)
An assassination attempt by the Polish Secret State on 29/30 January 1944 (the night preceding the 11th anniversary of Hitler's appointment as Chancellor of Germany) in Szarów near Kraków failed. A special train with Frank travelling to Lemberg/Lvov/Lviv was derailed after an explosive device discharged but no one was killed. Around 100 Polish hostages from Montelupich prison were executed as a punishment for the act.
Hans Frank participated in the growth of the politics leading to genocide in Poland. Under his guidance mass murder became a deliberate policy. The General Government was the location of four out of six extermination camps, namely: Bełżec, Treblinka, Majdanek and Sobibór; Chełmno and Birkenau fell just outside the borders of the General Government.[citation needed] Frank later claimed that the extermination of Jews was entirely controlled by Heinrich Himmler and the SS, and he - Frank - was unaware of the extermination camps in the General Government until early 1944, an assertion found to be untrue by the Nuremberg tribunal.
During his testimony at Nuremberg, Frank claimed he submitted resignation requests to Hitler on 14 occasions, but Hitler would not allow him to resign. Frank fled the General Government in January 1945, as the Soviet Army advanced
Frank was captured by American troops on 4 May 1945, at Tegernsee in southern Bavaria. He attempted suicide twice. He was indicted for war crimes and tried before the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg from 20 November 1945 to 1 October 1946. During the trial he converted, guided by Fr Sixtus O'Connor OFM, to Roman Catholicism, and claimed to have had a series of religious experiences.
Frank voluntarily surrendered 43 volumes of his personal diaries to the Allies, which were then used against him as evidence of his guilt. Frank confessed to some of the charges, and testified in response to questions from his defence attorney:
after having heard the testimony of the witness Rudolf Höss, 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.
During their trials, he and Albert Speer were the only defendants to show any degree of remorse for their crimes. At the same time, he accused the Allies, especially the Soviets, of their own wartime atrocities. Frank was found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity on 1 October 1946 and was sentenced to death by hanging. The death sentence was carried out at Nuremberg Prison on 16 October by US Army Master Sergeant John C. Woods. Journalist Joseph Kingsbury-Smith wrote of the execution:
Hans Frank was next in the parade of death. He was the only one of the condemned to enter the chamber with a smile on his countenance. And, although nervous and swallowing frequently, this man, who was converted to Roman Catholicism after his arrest, gave the appearance of being relieved at the prospect of atoning for his evil deeds.
He answered to his name quietly and when asked for any last statement, he replied "I am thankful for the kind treatment during my captivity and I ask God to accept me with mercy."
His body and those of the other nine executed prisoners and the corpse of Hermann Göring were cremated at Ostfriedhof (Munich) and the ashes were scattered in the river Isar.
Frank after being Hung
Born 23rd May 1900
Karlsruhe, Grand Duchy of Baden, German Empire
Died 16th October 1946 (aged 46)
Nuremberg Prison, Nuremberg, Allied-occupied Germany
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