Archive/File: imt/nca/nca-02/nca-02-16-responsibility-08-04
Last-Modified: 1997/03/27

   Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, Volume Two, Chapter XVI

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Whatever encroachments there were on private property rights
in the General Government fell squarely within the policy
which Frank in an interview on 3 October 1939 stated he
intended to administer as General Governor:

     "Poland can only be administered by utilizing the
     country through means of ruthless exploitation,
     deportation of all supplies, raw materials, machines,
     factory installations etc. which are important for the
     German war economy. *** [It was Frank's opinion] that
     the war would be a short one and that it was most
     important now to make available as soon as possible raw
     materials, machines and workers to the German industry,
     which was short in all of these. Most important,
     however, in Frank's opinion, was the fact that by
     destroying Polish industry, its subsequent
     reconstruction after the war would become more
     difficult, if not impossible, so that Poland would be
     reduced to its proper position as an agrarian country
     which would have to depend upon Germany for importation
     of industrial products." (EC-344-16 & 17)

The basic decree under which property in the General
Government was sequestered was promulgated by Frank on 24
January 1940. This decree authorized sequestration in
connection with the "performance of tasks serving the public
interest," the seizure of "abandoned property," and the
liquidation of "antisocial or financially unremunerative
property." It permitted the Higher S.S. and Police Chief to
order sequestrations "with the object of increasing the
striking power of the units of the uniformed police and
armed S.S." No legal recourse was granted

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for losses arising from the enforcement of the decree,
compensation being solely in the discretion of an official
of the General Government- It is clear that the undefined
criteria of this decree empowered Nazi officials in the
General Government to engage in wholesale seizure of
property. (2540-PS)

(4) Principle of collective responsibility. It was no part
of Frank' policy in administering the General Government
that reprisals should be commensurate with the gravity of
the offense. Frank was, on the contrary, an advocate of
drastic measures in dealing with the Polish people. At a
conference of Department Heads of the General Government on
19 January  1940, he explained:

     "My relationship with the Poles is like the
     relationship between ant and plant louse. When I treat
     the Poles in a helpful way, so to speak tickle them in
     a friendly manner, then I do it in the expectation that
     their work performance redounds to my benefit. This is
     not a political but a purely tactical-technical
     problem. *** In cases where in spite -of all these
     measures the performance does not increase, or ! where
     the slightest act gives me occasion to step in, I would
     not even hesitate to take the most draconic action."
     (2233-PS)

At a subsequent meeting of Department Heads on 8 March 1940
Frank became even more explicit:

     "Whenever there is the least attempt by the Poles to
     start anything, an enormous campaign of destruction
     will follow. Then I would not mind starting a regime of
     terror, or fear its consequences."

At a conference of District Standartenfuehrer at Cracow on
18 March 1942 Frank reiterated his policy:

     "Incidentally, the struggle for the achievement of our
     aims will be pursued cold bloodedly. You see how the
     state agencies work. You see that we do not hesitate
     before anything, and stand whole dozens of people up
     against the wall. This is necessary because here simple
     consideration says that it cannot be our task at this
     period when the best German blood is being sacrificed,
     to show regard for the blood of another race. For out
     of this one of the greatest dangers may arise. One
     already hears today in Germany that prisoners-of-war,
     for instance with us in Bavaria or in Thuringia, are
     administering large estates entirely independently,
     while all the men in a village fit for service are at
     the front. If this state of affairs continues then a
     gradual
     
                                                  [Page 644]
                                                            
     retrogression of Germanism will show itself. One should
     not underestimate this danger. Therefore, everything
     revealing itself as a Polish power of leadership must
     be destroyed again and again with ruthless energy. This
     does -not have to be shouted abroad, it will happen
     silently." (2233-R-PS)

And on 15 January 1944 Frank assured the political leaders
of the NSDAP at Cracow:

     "I have not been hesitant in declaring that when a
     German is shot, up to 100 Poles shall be shot too."
     (2233-BB-PS)

(5) Rigorous methods of recruiting workers. Force, violence,
and economic duress were all advocated by Frank as means for
recruiting laborers for deportation to slave labor in
Germany. Deportation of Polish laborers to Germany was an
integral art of the program announced by Frank for his
administration of the General Government (See EC-344-16 &
17), and as Governor General he authorized whatever degree
of force was required for the execution of his program.

Voluntary methods of recruitment soon proved inadequate. In
the spring of 1940 the question of utilizing force came up,
and the following discussion took place in the presence of
Seyss-Inquart:

     "The Governor-General stated that the fact that all
     means in form of proclamations etc. did not bring
     success, leads to the conclusion that the Poles out of
     malevolence, and guided by the intention of harming
     Germany by not putting themselves at its disposal,
     refuse to enlist for working duty. Therefore, he asks
     Dr. Frauendorfer, if there are any other measures, not
     as yet employed, to win the Poles on a voluntary basis.
     
     "Reichshauptamtsleiter Dr. Frauendorfer answered this
     question negatively.
     
     "The General Governor emphasized the fact that he now
     will be asked to take a definite attitude toward this
     question. Therefore the question will arise whether any
     form of coercive measures should now be
     
     "The question put by the General Governor to SS
     Lieutenant General [Obergruppenfuehrer] Krueger: does
     he see possibilities of calling Polish workers by
     coercive means, is answered in the affirmative by SS
     Lieutenant General Krueger." (2233-N-PS)

At the same conference Frank declared that he was willing to
agree to any practical measures, and decreed that
unemployment

                                                  [Page 645]
                                                            
compensation should be discontinued on 1 May 1940 as a means
of recruiting labor for Germany.

     "The General Governor is willing to agree to any
     practical measure; however, he wishes to be informed
     personally about the measures to be taken. One measure,
     which no doubt would be successful, would be the
     discontinuance of unemployment compensation for
     unemployed workers and their transfer to public
     welfare. Therefore, he decrees that, beginning 1 May,
     claim for unemployment compensation will cease to exist
     and only public welfare may be granted. For the time
     being only men are to report and above those men living
     in cities. There might be a possibility of combining
     the moving of the 120,000 Poles from the Warthe
     district with this measure." (2233-N-PS)

In March 1940 Frank assured the authorities in Berlin that
he was prepared to have villages surrounded and the people
dragged forcibly out. He reported that, in the course of his
negotiations in Berlin regarding the urgent demand for
larger numbers of Polish farm workers, he had stated:

     "*** if it is demanded from him, [he] could naturally
     exercise force in such a manner, that he has the police
     surround a village and get the men and women in
     question out by force, and then send them to Germany.
     But one can also work differently, besides these police
     measures, by retaining the unemployment compensation of
     these workers in question." (2233-B-PS)

At a conference of Department Heads of the General
Government on 10 May 1940 Frank laid down the following
principles for dealing with the problem of conscription
labor:

     "Upon the demands from the Reich it has now been
     decreed that compulsion may be exercised in view of the
     fact that sufficient manpower was not voluntarily
     available for service inside the German Reich. This
     compulsion means the possibility of arrest of male and
     female Poles . . . . The arrest of young Poles when
     leaving church services or the cinema would bring about
     an ever-increasing nervousness of the Poles. Generally
     speaking, he had no objection at all if the rubbish,
     capable of work yet often loitering about, would be
     snatched from the streets. The best method for this,
     however, would be the organization of a raid, and it
     would be absolutely justifiable to stop a Pole in the
     street and to question him what he was doing, where he
     was working, etc." (2233-A-PS)

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Frank utilized starvation as a method of recruitment. At a
conference on 20 November 1942 the following plan was
agreed:

     "Starting 1 February 1942 the food ration cards should
     not be issued to the individual Pole or Ukrainian by
     the Nutrition Office [Ernaehrungsamt], but to the
     establishments working for the German interest.
     2,000,000 people would thus be eliminated from the non-
     German, normal ration consuming contingent. Now, if
     those ration cards are only distributed by the
     factories, part of those people will naturally rush
     into the factories. Labor could then be either procured
     for Germany from them or they could be used for the
     most important work in the factories of the General
     Government." (2233-Y-PS)

On 18 August 1942 Frank informed Sauckel that the General
Government had already supplied 800,000 laborers to Germany,
and that a further 140,000 would be supplied by the end of
the year. Regarding the quota for the next year he promised:

     "*** you can, however, next year reckon upon a higher
     number of workers from the General Government, for we
     shall employ the Police to conscript them." (2233-W-PS)

Six months after Frank promised Sauckel to resort to police
action to round up labor for deportation to Germany, the
Chairman of the Ukrainian Main Committee reported to Frank
that the program was being carried out as follows:

     "The wild and ruthless man-hunt carried on everywhere
     in towns and country, in streets, squares, stations,
     even in churches, at night in houses, has badly shaken
     the feeling of security of the inhabitants. Everybody
     is exposed to the danger of being seized anywhere and
     at any time by members of the police, suddenly and
     unexpectedly, and being brought into an assembly camp.
     None of his relatives knows what has happened to him,
     only weeks or months later, one or the other gives news
     of his fate by a postcard." (1526-PS)

(6) Closing of schools. The program outlined by Frank on 3
October 1939 as the program he intended to administer as
Governor General

     "closing of all educational institutions, especially
     technical schools and colleges in order to prevent the
     growth of the new Polish intelligentsia." (EC-344-16 &
     17)

This decision was taken by Frank before it was determined
what schools, if any, might be closed because of failure of
instructors to refrain from reference to politics, or
refusal to submit to inspection by the occupying
authorities. Moreover, the policy was

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determined. as indicated, in furtherance of the purpose of
preventing the rise of an educated class in Poland.

(7) Other rimes. There were other grounds for uneasiness in
Poland which Frank does not mention in his report to Hitler.
He does not mention the Concentration Camps -- perhaps
because, as the "representative jurist" of National
Socialism, Frank had himself defended the system in Germany.
As Governor General Frank is responsible for all
concentration camps within the boundaries of the General
Government. As indicated above, he knew and approved that
Poles were taken to concentration camps in connection with
the resettlement projects. He had certain jurisdiction, as
well, in relation to the notorious extermination camp
Auschwitz, to which Poles from the General Government were
committed by his administration, although the camp itself
lay outside the boundaries of the General Government. In
February 1944, Ambassador Counsellor Dr. Schumberg suggested
a possible amnesty of Poles who had been taken to Auschwitz
for trivial offenses and kept for several months. The report
of the conference continues:

     "The Governor General will take under consideration an
     amnesty probably for 1 May of this year. Nevertheless,
     one must not lose sight of the fact that the German
     leadership of the General Government must not now show
     any signs of weakness." (2233-BB-PS)

G. CONCLUSION.

As legal adviser of Hitler and the leadership corps of the
NSDAP, Frank promoted the conspirators' rise to power. In 18
various juridical capacities, both in the NSDAP and in the
German government, Frank advocated and promoted the
political monopoly of the NSDAP, the racial program of the
conspirators, -and the terror system of the concentration
camp and of arrest without warrant. His role in the common
plan was to realize "the National Socialist Program in the
realm of law", and to give the outward form of legality to
this program of terror, persecution and oppression, which
had as its ultimate purpose mobilization for aggressive war.

As a loyal adherent of Hitler and the NSDAP, Frank was
appointed Governor General in October 1939 of that area of
Poland known as the General Government, which became the
testing ground for the conspirators' program of
"Lebensraum." Frank had defined justice in the field of
German law as that which bene-

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fited the German nation. His five year administration of the
General Government illustrates the same principles applied
in the field of International Law.

Frank took the office of Governor General under a program
which constituted in itself a criminal plan or conspiracy,
as Frank well knew and approved, to exploit the territory
ruthlessly for the benefit of Nazi Germany, to conscript its
nationals for labor in Germany, to close its schools and
colleges to prevent the rise of a Polish intelligentsia, and
to administer the territory as a colonial possession of the
Third Reich in total disregard of the duties of an occupying
power toward the inhabitants of occupied territory. Under
Frank's administration this criminal plan was consummated.
But the execution went even beyond the plan. Food
contributions to Germany increased to the point where the
bare subsistence reserved for the General Government under
the plan was reduced to the level of mass starvation; a
savage program of exterminating Jews was relentlessly
executed; resettlement projects were carried out with
reckless disregard of the rights of the local population;
the terror of the concentration camp followed in the wake of
the Nazi invaders.

It has been shown that all of these crimes were committed in
accordance with the official policies established and
advocated by Frank.

This summary of evidence has been compiled almost entirely
from statements by Frank himself, from the admissions found
in his diaries. official reports, records of his conferences
with his colleagues and subordinates, and his speeches. It
is therefore appropriate that a final passage from his diary
should be quoted in conclusion. In January 1943, Frank told
his colleagues in the General Government that their task
would grow more difficult. Hitler, he said, could only help
them as a kind of "administrative pillbox". They must depend
on themselves.

"We are now duty bound to hold together [he continued] ***
We must remember that we who are gathered together here
figure on Mr. Roosevelt's list of war criminals. I have the
honor of being Number One. We have, so to speak, become
accomplices in the world historic sense." (2233-AA-PS)

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