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