Chapter IV: Front Matter (4)

MR. BRUDNO: May it please the Tribunal, when the Tribunal rose yesterday I had finished the submission of proof as to Rosenberg’s responsibility and authority in the Occupied Eastern Territories and was about to conclude my presentation with four brief examples as to the manner in which his authority was exercised. I was in the middle of the third example, which, Your Honors will recall, dealt with Rosenberg’s participation in the forced labor program. I wish to conclude that illustration with reference to Document 199-PS, which we offer as Exhibit Number USA-606. This document is a letter from Alfred Meyer, Rosenberg’s deputy, and is addressed to Sauckel, dated July 11, 1944. This time, Your Honors will note, it is Rosenberg’s Ministry that is urging action. I wish to quote Item Number 1 of this letter, which reads as follows:

“The War Effort Task Force Command formerly stationed in Minsk
must continue, under all circumstances, the calling up of young
White Ruthenian and Russian men for military employment in the
Reich. In addition the Command has the mission of bringing young
boys of 10-14 years of age into the Reich.”

My third illustration deals with Rosenberg’s exercise of his legislative powers, and I ask the Court to take judicial notice of the decree signed by Lohse, who was Reich Commissar for Ostland. This decree is published in the _Verordnungsblatt_ of the Reich Commissar for Ostland, 1942, Number 38, Pages 158 and 159. It provides for the seizure of the entire property of the Jewish population in the Ostland, including the claims of Jews against third parties. The seizure is made retroactive to the day of occupation of the territory by German troops. This sweeping decree was issued and published by Rosenberg’s immediate subordinate, and it must be assumed that Rosenberg knew of it and acquiesced in it.

I now come to my final illustration. This illustration is derived from Document 327-PS, which is already in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-338.

It is a copy of a secret letter from Rosenberg to Bormann dated 17 October 1944. It furnishes a graphic account of Rosenberg’s activities in the economic exploitation of the occupied East. I wish to quote from the first paragraph on Page 1, which has not been read into the Record. I quote:

“In order not to delay the liquidation of companies under my
supervision, I beg to point out that the companies concerned are
not private firms but business enterprises of the Reich, so that
directives with regard to them, just as with regard to
Government offices, are reserved to the highest authorities of
the Reich. I supervise the following companies. . . .”

There follows a list of nine companies: A trading company, an agricultural development company, a supply company, a pharmaceutical company, and five banking concerns. On Page 3 of the translation at Item 1 (a) the mission of the trading company is stated to be, and I quote:

“Seizure of all agricultural products as well as commercial
marketing and transportation thereof. (Delivery to Armed Forces
and the Reich).”

I now call your attention to Item 5 of the same page. It describes the activities of the companies as follows:

“During this period, the Z.O.”—that is, the Central Trading
Corporation East—“together with its subsidiaries has seized:

“Grain 9,200,000 tons, meat and meat products 622,000 tons,
linseed 950,000 tons, butter 208,000 tons, sugar 400,000 tons,
fodder 2,500,000 tons, potatoes 3,200,000 tons, seeds 141,000
tons, other agricultural products 1,200,000 tons, and
1,075,000,000 eggs.

“The following was required for transportation: 1,418,000
freight cars and 472,000 tons shipping space.”

In conclusion we submit that the evidence has shown that the Defendant Rosenberg played a leading role in the Nazi Party’s rise to power by moulding German thought so as to promote the conspirators’ ambitions; that he played a leading role in spreading propaganda and intrigue, and in instigating treason in foreign countries, so as to pave the way for the waging of wars of aggression; and that he bears full responsibility for the War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity which were perpetrated in the Occupied Eastern Territories and which will be further developed by the prosecutor for the U.S.S.R.

This completes the presentation of the case against the Defendant Rosenberg. The next presentation will be that of the case against the Defendant Frank, which will be presented by Lieutenant Colonel Baldwin.

LIEUTENANT COLONEL WILLIAM H. BALDWIN (Assistant Trial Counsel for the United States): May it please the Tribunal, we wish now to deal with the individual responsibility of the Defendant Frank. In accordance with the expressed desire of the Tribunal, this presentation has been strictly limited; and, of course, I should welcome any direction from the Tribunal as to length or method as I proceed.

First, I must acknowledge my indebtedness to Miss Harriet Zetterberg, of our legal staff, and to Dr. Pietrowski, of the Polish Delegation, for their invaluable work—Dr. Pietrowski and the Polish Delegation, naturally, having a special interest in the Defendant Frank.

Aspects of the criminal complicity of the Defendant Hans Frank under Count One of the Indictment have been placed before this Tribunal on several occasions. There remain, however, certain matters for discussion—either novel in presentation or in development—concerning this defendant as an individual, before the United States’ portion of the Prosecution’s case against him is completed. Our Soviet colleagues will carry further the heavy complaint against the Defendant Frank in their treatment of War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity in the East. We wish here merely to touch upon that evidence which, we believe, irrefutably discloses Frank to have been a tremendously important cog in the machine which conceived, promoted, and executed the Nazi Common Plan or Conspiracy. Documents relating to this point have been assembled in a document book bearing the letters “FF.” I am informed that these books, as well as explanatory briefs, have been distributed for the use of the members of the Tribunal.

Reference will be made in the course of this argument to the so-called Frank diary, portions of which have already been brought to the attention of the Tribunal. It seems appropriate that brief mention should here be made of the content and source of this diary. It is a set of some 38 volumes, most of which are on the table at the front of the courtroom, detailing the activities of the Defendant Frank from 1939 to the end of the war in his capacity as Governor General of Occupied Poland. It is a record, in short, of each day’s business, hour by hour, appointment by appointment, conference by conference, speech by speech, and—in truth we believe—crime by crime. Each volume, excepting the last few, is now handsomely bound; and in those volumes, which deal with the conferences of Frank and his underlings in the Government General, the name of each person attending the meeting is inscribed in his own handwriting on a page preceding the minutes of the conference itself. It is incredibly shocking to the normal conscience that such a neat history of murder, starvation, and extermination should have been maintained by the individual responsible for such deeds, but by now the Tribunal is well aware that the Nazi leaders were sentimentally fond of elaborately documenting their exploits, as witness the Rosenberg volumes displaying the looted art treasures and the album reporting on the extermination of Jews in the Warsaw ghetto. The complete set of the Frank diary was found in Bavaria, at Neuhaus, near Schliersee, on 18 May 1945, by the 7th American Army. It was taken to the 7th Army document center at Heidelberg and on or about 20 September 1945 the collection was sent to the Office of U.S. Chief of Counsel here at Nuremberg. It is here in court in its entirety; and now its tones, we submit, are those of accusation rather than boastful narration.

That the Defendant Frank held a position of leadership in the Nazi Party and in the German Government is undeniable. Even, presumably, it would be unfair to the Defendant Frank to underestimate his importance in the Nazi hierarchy and the Third Reich. Like the other defendants in this case, he was a man of far-reaching influence and position; and his office-holding record is already before this Court. It is an affidavit signed by the Defendant Frank and identified as Exhibit Number USA-7. This document contains a listing of 11 important positions held by Frank in the Party and in the Government and supports the assertion of influence and position which I have just made, especially since this Tribunal has been fully apprised of the criminal activities of the Nazi organizations and formations.

The machinations of Frank divide themselves logically into two periods. In the one, from 1920 to 1939, he was by his own admission the leading Nazi jurist, although parenthetically the word “jurist” loses its reputable content when modified by the word “Nazi”. In the other period, extending from 10 October 1939 until the end of the war, he was Governor General of occupied Poland. While he is most notorious for his persecutions and carrying out of the conspiracy in the latter capacity, it is the opinion of the United States Prosecution that the Defendant Frank’s contributions to the Nazi rise to power as the leading Nazi jurist should not pass without mention. It is with this aspect that I shall first deal—the Defendant Frank’s furtherance of the realization of the conspirators’ program in the field of law, his knowledge of the criminal purpose of the program, and his active participation therein.

The Defendant Frank, himself, described his role in the Nazi struggle for power in the following words, which were remarks he ordered his secretary to place in the Frank diary on 28 August 1942. The remarks appear in the diary and are translated in our Document 2233(x)-PS, which, if the Court please, is at Page 54 in the document book before it.

The numbers of the pages of the document book will be found in the upper right-hand corner in colored pencil, either red or blue. The original of this document I now offer in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-607. In the German text these extracts appear in Part 3 of the 1942 diary volume on Pages 968, 969, and 983. Frank says:

“I have since 1920 continually dedicated my work to the NSDAP.
As a National Socialist I was a participant in the events of
November 1923, for which I received the Order of the Blood.
After the resurrection of the movement in the year 1925, my
really greater activity in the movement began, which made me,
first gradually, later almost exclusively, the legal adviser of
the Führer and of the Reich Party Directorate of the NSDAP. I
was thus the representative of the legal interests of the
growing Third Reich in a legal-ideological as well as in a
practical way.”

He goes on to say:

“The culmination of this work I see in the Leipzig army trial,
in which I succeeded in having the Führer admitted to the famous
oath of legality, a circumstance which gave the Movement legal
grounds to expand on a large scale. The Führer, indeed,
recognized this achievement and in 1926 made me leader of the
National Socialist Lawyers’ League; in 1929, Reichsleiter of the
Reich Legal Office of the NSDAP; in March 1933, Bavarian
Minister of Justice; in the same year, Reich Commissioner for
Justice; in 1934, President of the Academy of German Law,
founded by me; and in December 1934, Reich Minister without
Portfolio. And in 1939, I was finally appointed Governor General
for the occupied Polish territories.

“So I was, am, and will remain the representative jurist of the
struggle period of National Socialism. . . .

“I profess myself now and always, as a National Socialist and a
faithful follower of the Führer, Adolf Hitler, whom I have now
served since 1919. . . .”

It is indeed significant and worth mentioning to the Court. . .

THE PRESIDENT: Is this an extract from his diary?

LT. COL. BALDWIN: Yes, Sir; it is.

THE PRESIDENT: And are the words “Present: Dr. Hans Frank and others” written by him in his diary?

LT. COL. BALDWIN: Yes, Sir; they are. Before each of these excerpts, if Your Honor pleases, if it was in conference it was indicated which members of the Government General were present or who made the address.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes.

LT. COL. BALDWIN: It is indeed significant and worth mentioning to the Court that the Defendant Frank assumes responsibility for the so-called oath of legality at the Leipzig army trial. At that trial, in 1930, three army officers were accused of—curiously enough—conspiracy to high treason. The charge was that the defendants in that trial, in their capacity as members of the German Army, tried to form National Socialist cells in the German Army and to influence the German Army to such an extent that, in the case of a Putsch by the National Socialists, the army would not fire at the National Socialists, but would stand at ease instead. All three of the officers were found guilty and sentenced to 18 months’ confinement. At that trial, however, Hitler was a witness; and during the course of the trial, testified under oath that the term “revolution,” used by him, meant only spiritual revolution in Germany and that the expression “heads would roll in the sand” meant only that they would do so as a result of legal procedure through state tribunals, if the National Socialists came to power. This, if the Court please, was the so-called oath of legality, the lie that the Defendant Frank provided his Führer as a facade for the conspiracy and which he, at least in 1942, considered the culmination of his efforts.

As the “representative jurist of the struggle period of National Socialism” and in various juridical capacities listed in his affidavit of positions held, Defendant Frank was, between 1933 and 1939, the most prominent policy-maker in the field of German legal theory. For example, Defendant Frank founded the Academy of German Law in 1934 and he was president of this once potent body until 1942. The statute defining the functions of this Academy conferred upon it wide power to initiate and co-ordinate juridical policies.

This statute appears in the translation at Page 5 in the document book as our Document 1391-PS and appears in the 1934 _Reichsgesetzblatt_ at Page 605. We ask the Court to take judicial notice of it. 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 Führer 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. 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 für 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 not the world, vast satisfaction. 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. 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 Führer 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.

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 Führer 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 Göring on 12. 2. 1940, from Karin Hall,
had forbidden all administrative 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 Führer and of the Reich.”

Later, in 1942, at a conference of the district political leaders of the NSDAP in Kraków on 18 March, Defendant Frank further explained the relationship between the administration and the Reichsführer 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. 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 Reichsführer 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 Reichsführer 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, Krüger.

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 Krüger, 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. 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 Führer 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. 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 Kraków 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. 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 Führer in 1943 that, in effect, Poles did not regard the Government General with affection. This report to Hitler was a summarization of the first 3½ 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. These measures have affected either individual
professions or the entire population and frequently also—often
with crushing severity—the fate of individuals.”

He goes on:

“Among these are in particular:

“1. The entirely insufficient nourishment of the population,
mainly of the working classes in the cities, the majority of
which are working for German interests.

“Until the war of 1939 their food supplies, though not varied,
were sufficient and were generally assured owing to the agrarian
surplus of the former Polish State and in spite of the
negligence on the part of their former political leadership.

“2. The confiscation of a great part of the Polish estates,
expropriation without compensation, and evacuation of Polish
peasants from maneuver areas and from German settlements.

“3. Encroachments and confiscations in the industries, in
commerce and trade, and in the field of other private property.

“4. Mass arrests and shootings by the German Police who applied
the system of collective responsibility.

“5. The rigorous methods of recruiting workers.

“6. The extensive paralyzing of cultural life.

“7. The closing of high schools, colleges, and universities.

“8. The limitation, indeed the complete elimination, of Polish
influence from all spheres of State administration.

“9. Curtailment of the influence of the Catholic Church,
limiting its extensive influence—an undoubtedly necessary
move—and, in addition, until quite recently, often at the
shortest notice, the closing and confiscation of monasteries,
schools, and charitable institutions.”

Indeed, the Nazi plan for Poland succeeded all too well.

THE PRESIDENT: This is only an extract here. Was he saying that these measures were inevitable or that he justified them, or what was he saying in the report?

LT. COL. BALDWIN: He was saying, Sir, that the Polish people’s attitude to the Government General had substantially deteriorated. The reasons for that deterioration are the listings I gave to the Court. In other words. . .

THE PRESIDENT: Is that all he said?

LT. COL. BALDWIN: No, Sir; that is just taken from Pages 10 and 11 of the report. The report is an extremely long one.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I suppose you know what the general tenor of the report was.

LT. COL. BALDWIN: The general tenor of the report, Sir, was in the nature of a complaint to Hitler, that he, Frank, was having an extremely difficult time in the Government General because of these measures and because of these happenings in the Government General.

THE PRESIDENT: Very well.

LT. COL. BALDWIN: In order to illustrate how completely the Defendant Frank is identified with the policies. . .

DR. SEIDL: [_Interposing._] As the Tribunal has already asked the Prosecution what the purpose of this document is, I would like to point out here that it concerns a document of 40 typewritten pages addressed to Hitler and that Frank condemns the conditions which the Prosecution has brought forward and that in this document he makes far-reaching proposals to remedy the situation which he severely criticizes.

I shall, when my turn comes, read the whole document.

THE PRESIDENT: Exactly. You will have full opportunity, when it is your turn, to explain this document; but it is not your turn at the moment.

DR. SEIDL: I only mention it now because the Tribunal itself drew my attention to this point.

THE PRESIDENT: Now, Lieutenant Colonel Baldwin, I asked you what was the whole content of the document from which you were reading this paragraph. According to counsel for Frank, the document, which is a very long document, shows that Frank was suggesting remedies for the difficulties which he here sets out. Is that so?

LT. COL. BALDWIN: That is so, Your Honor.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I think the. . .

LT. COL. BALDWIN: May it please the Tribunal, I did not cite this portion of that document, as I will later demonstrate, to show that Frank did or did not suggest remedies for these conditions; but only to explain that these conditions existed as of a certain period.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, when you cite a small part of the document, you should make sure that what you cite is not misleading as compared to the rest of the document.

LT. COL. BALDWIN: I see, Your Honor. I had not considered it to be such, in view of the purpose for which I introduced it, which, as I suggested, was only to indicate a set of conditions which existed at a certain time. I naturally assumed that the Defense, as Dr. Seidl has indicated, will carry on with the rest of the document as a matter of defense.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, of course, that is all very well, but the Defendant Frank’s counsel will speak at some remote date; and it is not a complete answer to say that he will have an opportunity of explaining the document at some future date. It is for Counsel for the Prosecution to make sure that no extracts which they read can reasonably make a misleading impression upon the mind of the Tribunal.

LT. COL. BALDWIN: I shall now state, then, that the extract which was just read was read solely for the purpose of indicating that at a certain period, namely, June 1943, those conditions existed in Poland, as the result of statements by the Governor General of Poland.

Would that be satisfactory to the Tribunal?

THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): Well, what is not satisfactory to the Tribunal is that you did not give us the real purport of the document.

LT. COL. BALDWIN: Well, Sir, I don’t have the complete document before me now. Therefore, I can’t read all of it.

THE PRESIDENT: What we would like, would be, if possible, that when an extract is made from a document, counsel who are presenting that extract should instruct themselves as to the general purport of the document so as to make certain that the part that is read is not misleading.

LT. COL. BALDWIN: Yes, Sir.

In order to illustrate how completely the Defendant Frank is identified with the policies, the execution of which is reported in this document, and how thoroughly they were his own policies; and this, if the Tribunal please, regardless of what remedies he may have had in 1943, it is proposed in this last section to take passages from Frank’s own diary in proof of his early espousal and execution of these self-same policies.

As to the insufficient nourishment of the Polish population, there was no need for the Defendant Frank to have waited until June 1943 to have reported this fact to Hitler. In September 1941 Defendant Frank’s own chief medical officer reported to him the appalling Polish health conditions. This appears in Frank’s diary and in our Document 2233(p)-PS, at Page 46 in the document book, which I now offer in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-611. The German text is to be found in the 1941 diary volume at Page 830. I quote:

“Chief Medical Adviser Dr. Walbaum expresses his opinion of the
health condition of the Polish population. Investigations which
were carried out by his department proved that the majority of
Poles had only about 600 calories allotted to them, whereas the
normal requirement for a human being was 2,200 calories. The
Polish population was weakened to such an extent that it would
fall an easy prey to spotted fever.”—Parenthetically, I think
we know that as typhus.

“The number of diseased Poles has amounted to date to 40
percent. During the last week alone, 1,000 new spotted fever
cases were officially recorded. That is so far the highest
figure. This health situation represents a serious danger for
the Reich and for the soldiers coming into the Government
General. A spreading of that pestilence into the Reich is very
possible. The increase in tuberculosis, too, is causing anxiety.
If the food rations were to be diminished again, an enormous
increase of the number of illnesses could be predicted.”

While it was crystal-clear from this report that in September 1941 disease affected 40 percent of the Polish population, nevertheless the Defendant Frank approved, in August 1942, a new plan which called for a much larger contribution of foodstuffs to Germany at the expense of the non-German population of the Government General. Methods of meeting the new quotas out of the grossly inadequate rations of the Government General and the impact of the new quotas on the economy of the country were discussed at a cabinet meeting of the Government General on 24 August 1942 in terms which leave no possible doubt that not only was the proposed requisition beyond the resources of the country, but its force was to be distributed on a grossly discriminatory basis. This appears from Frank’s diary and in our Document 2233(e)-PS, which is at Page 30 in the document book, which I now offer in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-283. The German text appears in the 1942 conference volume at the conference entry for 24 August 1942. I quote the following extract:

“Before the German people”—said Frank—“suffer starvation, the
occupied territories and their people shall be exposed to
starvation. In this moment, therefore, we here in the Government
General must have the iron determination to help the great
German people, that is our fatherland.

“The Government General, therefore, must do the following: The
Government General has undertaken to send 500,000 tons of bread
grain to the fatherland in addition to the foodstuffs already
being delivered for the relief of Germany or consumed here by
troops of the Armed Forces, Police, or SS. If you compare this
with our contributions of last year you can see that this means
a six-fold increase over that of last year’s contribution by the
Government General.

“The new demand will be fulfilled exclusively at the expense of
the foreign population. It must be done cold-bloodedly and
without pity.”

Defendant Frank was not only responsible for reducing the Government General to starvation level, but was proud of the contribution he thereby made to the Reich. I refer to a statement made to the political leaders of the NSDAP on 14 December 1942 at Kraków. It is contained in the Frank diary and is our Document 2233(z)-PS, at Page 57 in the document book; and I now offer it in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-612. In the German text the extract appears in the 1942 diary volume, Part IV, at Page 1331. Defendant Frank is speaking:

“I will endeavor to get out of the reservoir of this territory
everything that is yet to be had out of it.”

He continues:

“When you consider that it was possible for me to deliver to the
Reich 600,000 tons of bread grain and in addition 180,000 tons
to the Armed Forces stationed here; further, an abundance
amounting to many thousands of tons of other commodities, such
as seed, fats, vegetables, besides the delivery to the Reich of
300 million eggs, _et cetera_, you can estimate how important
the work in this territory is for the Reich. In order to make
clear to you the significance of the consignment from the
Government General of 600,000 tons of bread grain, you are
referred to the fact that the Government General, by this
achievement alone, covers the raising of the bread ration in the
Greater German Reich by two-thirds for the present rationing
period. This enormous achievement can rightfully be claimed by
us.”

Now, as to the resettlement of Polish peasants which Defendant Frank mentions secondly in the report to Hitler—although Himmler was given general authority in connection with the conspirators’ project to resettle various districts in the conquered Eastern territories with racial Germans, the projects relating to resettling districts in the Government General were submitted to and approved by the Defendant Frank. The plan to resettle Zamosc and Lublin, for example, was reported to him at a meeting to discuss special problems of the district Lublin by his infamous State Secretary for Security, Higher SS and Police Leader, Krüger, on 4 August 1942. It is contained in Frank’s diary and in our Document 2233(t)-PS, at Page 51 in the document book, which I now offer in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-607. The German text appears in the 1942 volume of the diary, Part III, Pages 830, 831, and 832.

I now quote from the report of the conference:

“State Secretary Krüger then continues, saying that the
Reichsführer’s next immediate plan until the end of the
following year would be to settle the following German racial
groups in the two districts”—Zamosc and Lublin—“1,000 peasant
homes (1 homestead per family of about 6) for Bosnian Germans;
1,200 other kinds of homes; 1,000 homesteads for Bessarabian
Germans; 200 for Serbian Germans; 2,000 for Leningrad Germans;
4,000 for Baltic Germans; 500 for Wolhynia Germans; and 200
homes for Flemish, Danish, and Dutch Germans; in all 10,000
homes for 50,000 to 60,000 persons.”

Upon hearing this, the Defendant Frank directed that—and I quote:

“. . . the resettlement plan is to be discussed co-operatively
by the competent authorities and he declares his willingness to
approve the final plan by the end of September after
satisfactory arrangements had been made concerning all the
questions appertaining thereto—in particular the guaranteeing
of peace and order—so that by the middle of November, as the
most favorable time, the resettlement can begin.”

THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will adjourn now for 10 minutes.

[_A recess was taken._]

LT. COL. BALDWIN: May it please the Tribunal, the way in which the resettlement at Zamosc was carried out was described to Defendant Frank by Krüger at a meeting at Warsaw on January 25, 1943. The report is contained in the Frank diary and is our Document 2233(aa)-PS, and appears at Page 58 in the document book. I offer the original of it in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-613. The German text appears in the labor conference volume for 1943, at Pages 16, 17, and 19. Krüger in this excerpt reports that they had settled the first 4,000 in the Kreis Zamosc shortly before Christmas; that, understandably, friends were not made of the Poles in the resettlement program; and that the Poles had to be chased out. He then stated to Frank, and I quote:

“We are removing those who constitute a burden in this new
colonization territory. Actually, they are the asocial and
inferior elements. They are being deported; first brought to a
concentration camp and then sent as labor to the Reich. From a
Polish propaganda standpoint, this entire first action has an
unfavorable effect. For the Poles say: ‘After the Jews have been
destroyed, then they will employ the same methods to get the
Poles out of this territory and liquidate them just like the
Jews.’”

Krüger went on to mention that there was a great deal of unrest in the territory as a result; and Frank informed him, that is, Krüger, that each individual case of resettlement would be discussed in the future exactly as that one of Zamosc had been.

Although the illegality of this dispossession of Poles to make room for Germans was evident and although the fact that the Poles who were not only being dispossessed but sent off to concentration camps became increasingly difficult to handle, the resettlement projects continued in the Government General.

The third item mentioned by Frank—the encroachments and confiscations of industry and private property—was again an early Frank policy. He explained this to his department heads in December 1939. The report is from his diary and is our Document 2233(k)-PS, and it appears at Page 40 in the document book. I now offer it in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-173. The German text appears in the department heads conference volume for 1939-40 at the entry for 2 December 1939 at Pages 2 and 3. Dr. Frank states: