“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:
“Principally it can be said regarding the administration of the Government General: This territory in its entirety is booty for the German Reich, and thus it will not do for this territory to be exploited in separate individual parts; but the territory in its entirety shall be economically used and its entire economic worth redound to the benefit of the German people.”
Reference is made to Exhibit Number USA-297, if any further support of an early policy of ruthless exploitation is deemed necessary by the Tribunal. In addition, the decree permitting sequestration in the Government General heretofore pointed out to the Tribunal (Verordnungsblatt für das Generalgouvernement, Number 6, 27 January 1940, Page 23), which decree was signed by the Defendant Frank, permitted and empowered the Nazi officials to engage in wholesale seizure of property. This was made the easier by the undefined criteria of the decree. The looting of the Government General under this and other decrees has already been presented to the Tribunal on 14 December 1945, under the subject heading, “Germanization and spoliation of occupied territories,” and the Tribunal is respectfully referred to that portion of the record and in particular to that segment dealing with the Government General.
The Defendant Frank mentioned mass arrests and mass shooting and the application of collective responsibility as the fourth reason for the apparent deterioration of the attitude of the entire Polish people. In this, too, he is to blame, for it was no part of Defendant Frank’s policy that reprisal should be commensurate with the gravity of the offense. He was, on the contrary, an advocate of the most drastic measures. At a conference of district political leaders at Kraków, on 18 March 1942, Frank stated his policy. This extract is from the diary and is our Document 2233(r)-PS and will be found at Page 49 in the document book. I offer it in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-608. The German text may be found in the diary volume