“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 at anything, and stand dozens of people up against the wall. This is necessary because a simple reflection tells me 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, in Bavaria or 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 retrogression of Germanism will result. 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.”
And on 15 January 1944 Defendant Frank assured the political leaders of the NSDAP that reprisals would be made for German deaths. These remarks are to be found in the Frank diary, in our Document 2233(bb)-PS at Page 60 in the document book, the second quote on that page, the original of which I offer in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-295. The German text appears in the loose-leaf volume of the diary covering the period from 1 January 1944 to 28 February 1944, and appears at Page 13. Frank says quite simply—“I have not hesitated to declare that when a German is shot, up to 100 Poles shall be shot too.”
The whole tragic history of slave-labor and recruitment of workers has been placed before this Tribunal in great detail. When the Defendant Frank refers to these methods as his fifth reason for disaffection in Poland in his report to Hitler, he once more cites policies which he executed. Force, violence, and economic duress were all supported by him as means for recruiting laborers for deportation to slavery in Germany. This was an announced policy, and I have already alluded to Exhibit Number USA-297, which contains verification of this fact.
While in the very beginning recruitment of laborers in the Government General may have been voluntary, these methods soon proved inadequate. In the spring of 1940 the question of utilizing force came up and the matter was discussed at an official meeting at which the Defendant Seyss-Inquart was also present. I refer to the Frank diary and our Document 2233(n)-PS, which the Tribunal will find at Page 43 in the document book. I offer the original in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-614. The German text appears in the diary volume for 1940, Part II, at Page 333. I quote the conference report:
“The Governor General stated that all means in the form of proclamations, et cetera, not having succeeded, one is led to the conclusion that the Poles, out of malevolence and with the intention of harming Germany by not putting themselves at its disposal, refuse to enlist for labor service. 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 the question in the negative.
“The Governor General emphasized the fact that he will now be asked to take a definite attitude towards this question. Therefore, the question will arise whether any form of coercive measures should now be employed.
“The question put by the Governor General to SS Lieutenant General Krüger as to whether he sees possibilities of calling Polish workers by coercive means, is answered in the affirmative by SS Lieutenant General Krüger.”
In May 1940, at an official conference—and this record is already before the Tribunal as Exhibit Number USA-173—Defendant Frank stated that compulsion in recruitment of labor could be exercised, that Poles could be snatched from the streets and that the best method would be organized raids.
As in the case of persecution of the Jews, the forced labor program in the Government General is almost beyond belief. I refer to the Frank diary and to our Document 2233(w)-PS, which will be found at Page 53 in the document book, the original of which I offer into evidence as Exhibit Number USA-607. This excerpt is a record, if the Court please, of a discussion between the Defendant Sauckel and the Defendant Frank at Kraków on 18 August 1942; and it appears in the diary volume for 1942, Part III, at Pages 918 and 920. Dr. Frank speaks:
“I am pleased to report to you officially, Party Comrade Sauckel, that we have up to now supplied 800,000 workers for the Reich. . . .”
He continues:
“Recently you have requested us to supply a further 140,000. I have pleasure in informing you officially that in accordance with our agreement of yesterday, 60 percent of the newly requested workers will be supplied to the Reich by the end of October and the balance of 40 percent by the end of the year.”
Dr. Frank continues:
“Beyond the present figure of 140,000 you can, however, next year reckon upon a higher number of workers from the Government General, for we shall employ the Police to conscript them.”
How this recruitment was carried out—by wild and ruthless manhunts—is clearly shown in Exhibit Number USA-178, which is in evidence before the Tribunal. Starvation, violence, and death, which characterized the entire slave-labor program of the conspirators, was thus faithfully reflected in the administration of the Defendant Frank.
There were, of course, other grounds for uneasiness in occupied Poland which the Defendant Frank did not mention in his report to Hitler. He does not mention the concentration camps, perhaps because as a representative jurist of National Socialism, the Defendant Frank had himself defended the system in Germany. As Governor General the Defendant Frank, we feel, must be held responsible for all concentration camps within the boundaries of the Government General. These include, among others, the notorious camp at Maidanek and the one at Lublin and at Treblinka outside of Warsaw. As indicated previously, the Defendant Frank knew and approved that Poles were taken to concentration camps in connection with resettlement projects. He had certain jurisdiction as well in relation to the extermination camp Auschwitz, to which Poles from the Government General were committed by his administration. In February 1944 Embassy Counsellor Dr. Schumberg suggested a possible amnesty of Poles who had been taken to Auschwitz for trivial offenses and kept there for several months. This conference, if the Court please, is reported in the Frank diary and is contained in our Document 2233(bb)-PS, at Page 60 in the document book. It is the third quote on that page. I offer the original in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-295.
THE PRESIDENT: You go too fast. Did you say Page 70?
LT. COL. BALDWIN: Page 60, Sir. The German text appears in the loose-leaf volume covering the period 1 January 1944 to 28 February 1944, at the conference on 8 February 1944, on Page 7. I quote:
“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 Government General must not now show any sign of weakness.”
This, then, was and is the conspirator Hans Frank. The evidence is by no means exhausted, but it is our belief that sufficient proof has been given to this Tribunal to establish his liability under Count One of the Indictment.
As legal adviser of Hitler and the Leadership Corps of the NSDAP, Defendant Frank promoted the conspirators’ rise to power. In his various juridical capacities, both in the NSDAP and in the German Government, Defendant Frank certainly advocated and promoted the political monopoly of the NSDAP, the racial program of the conspirators, and the terror system of the concentration camps and of arrest without warrant. His role, early in the Common Plan, was to realize “the National Socialist program in the realm of the 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, Defendant Frank was appointed Governor General in 1939 of that area of Poland known as the Government General. Defendant Frank had defined justice as that which benefited the German nation. His 5 years’ administration of the Government General illustrates the most extreme extension of that principle.
It has been shown that Defendant Frank took the office of Governor General under a program which