Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

the impression that the entire internal living conditions or social life of these people was more or less left to their own devices.

Q. You will note, in the first part of that document, that a statement is made to the effect that the whole Jewish question would be solved in general for all of Europe after the war, at the latest. A. Well, this document was supposedly sent to me, by somebody; I don't even know what officer or what agency could have sent it to me. I don't know anything about it.

Q. Did you ever hear it discussed that a solution of the Jewish problem would be found after the war at the latest?

A. I have never participated in any discussions on the Jewish problem at all.

Q. You never have, at any time?

A. No, I have never taken part in any sessions or conversation on the solution of the Jewish problem, but I had my own views on that particular subject. I always felt that gradually it would be possible to increase the influence of Zionism and reduce the number of Jews in Germany by creating a place where they would be all by themselves in their Jewish homeland.

Q. Did you know the responsibility that was to be assigned to the SD and the Gestapo in the final solution of the European Jewish problem?

A. There was a very definite and very clear decree, in which it was stated that the entire administration and solution of the Jewish problem was the responsibility of the Secret State Police, and of the Security Service, and that no other agency was supposed to take part or mix themselves into these affairs.

Q. Don't you identify that document, that you have before you, as being a report on the manner in which Jews were to be handled in the areas that were under your jurisdiction, even though you did not have jurisdiction over the police functions?

A. This evidently was a sort of memorandum that was sent in to me, and which, I have no doubt, was filed like so many other memoranda and circulars and bulletins of a similar sort on various subjects, but I have no recollection of this particular document.

Q. Isn't it a fact, that the Jews were treated in the areas under your jurisdiction, as indicated in that memorandum?

A. I cannot say that, because as I said before, they were kept separate, and I had no reports on the internal conditions in these separate areas.

Q. As a matter of fact, wasn't it part of your problem to feed these people?

A. Well, the matter was no doubt handled like this, that the

[graphic]

police reported to the Food Administrator the number of persons that were to be fed.

Q. Didn't you have representatives in all the larger towns and cities of the areas which had been assigned to you, and didn't those representatives make reports from time to time of their activities?

A. Well, I wish to emphasize again that I was sitting in Berlin, and I was responsible only for the entire policy in its greater lines. For the territories, separately, the Reichcommissars were responsible, who had been placed into their positions by the Fuehrer. Under the Reichcommissars were the general commissars. The only reports I received were from the Reichcommissars and from the general commissars, and I had no other separate system of reporting. I did not have a board that would travel and give me any special reports besides those that I received through the normal channels, from these Reichcommissars and general commissars.

Q. That may be, but you not only received written reports, but you had numerous people come to Berlin to tell you about these things that were happening in these areas, isn't that right?

A. Oh, yes, there have been people who were sent, for instance, from the staff of the ministry to have discussions with members of the territorial administration, or maybe one of the commissars was coming by, or maybe other officers, that had lived in the area, would come and report to me informally.

Q. Yes, and many of them talked to you, didn't they?

A. Very frequently I would say, but certainly I do remember a few with whom I talked.

Q. You have been interested in the Jewish question for years, haven't you?

A. But I was so overburdened with the work of establishing my own Ministry, and the entire Jewish problem was so neatly separate from any of my responsibilities, that I did not spend any time on that, and concerned myself exclusively with the responsibility that actually lay with me.

Q. You mean you never discussed the Jewish problem with anybody from the time you were appointed Minister for the Eastern Occupied Territories, is that your statement?

A. Well, it is correct that I have not spent any more time on those details, that is right.

Q. You have been interested in the Jewish problem for years and during the time that you were editor of the Voelkischer Beobachter you wrote numerous articles regarding it, isn't that right?

[graphic]

Q. I find it a little difficult to believe, that with all interest you. have had in this problem for so many years, that you would drop it so suddenly when you became Minister for Occupied Eastern Territories, and wouldn't have enough curiosity regarding the treatment of the people under your own jurisdiction, that you wouldn't ask anybody or receive any reports about it.

A. It was always our habit that, once an assignment was given to a man, nobody else meddled with the man that had the assignment.

Q. That may be, that it wasn't your responsibility. I will go along with you to that extent, regarding the treatment of these Jews, but you were certainly informed of the treatment that they received, and you knew about it.

A. Well, in great lines I naturally had to assume that they were being housed fairly well, and that they were fed, and that they had work to do like, for instance, in the city of Lodz.

Q. You know that isn't the report you received, as to what was happening to these people, in the areas, over which you had jurisdiction. You know that the reports you received indicated that they were being treated, just as the memorandum you have just read indicates they were going to be treated, isn't that right? A. That they were separated, that they had working assignments, that they were making coats and shoes and things like that, like they did in the city of Lodz, that I knew, but that the conditions were naturally somewhat difficult, I fully realized.

Q. Yes, and you knew that they were being treated very much in the manner set forth in this memorandum.

A. That I cannot state in detail, because I was not informed in detail.

[graphic]

VII. HANS FRANK

Excerpts from Testimony of Hans Frank, taken at Nurn-
berg, Germany, 1 September 1945, 1320-1425, by Thomas
S. Hinkel, Lt. Col., ISG. Also present: S/Sgt. William
A. Weigel, Court Reporter; Cpl. W. Magnus, Interpreter.

Rise of the Nazi Party Lawyer

Q. When did you join the Nazi Party?

A. I had been a member of the Nazi Party for a very short time in 1926, but in October of the same year I quit the Party. And in 1927 at the request of Hitler, I rejoined the Party in my position as lawyer.

Q. This request was made to you personally by Hitler? A. To be able to state before a court that I am a member of the Party, yes. Hitler expected from that a great effect on the court due to the fact that I was a member of the Party.

Q. I don't quite understand what you mean. My question was, in 1927 did Hitler ask you personally to rejoin the Party? A. Yes. May I add something to this?

Q. Yes.

A. At the time I was a young lawyer and I quit the Party again in 1926 because of certain things about the Party I did not like. I was active at the time at the law section of the technical school, the School of Technology at Munich, to become a teacher of law, but I was registered as a lawyer at the same time. Then one day I saw in the newspaper the following ad: "We seek one lawyer to defend members of the Party without means before a German court to make it possible to give them a legal defense." This was a trial held in Berlin. And I told Hitler I would like to defend those young people. And therefore the first trial ever held was this trial in Berlin. It happened this way that Hitler learned that here is a young lawyer ready and willing to defend members of his Party. In this way Hitler took up connections with me in Munich and when he met me one day at the Party office which was at the Schilling Strasse he asked me if it was a good idea for me to work for the Party. I told him at the time that my object was not to become a lawyer, but rather to pursue an academic career, but I told him, "If you need me, I'm willing to do it." Officially I remained with the School of Technology in Munich until 1929, but at that time the trials became so numerous that I had to make a new decision. I joined the Hitler movement as a lawyer and I worked in the Party as a lawyer.

Q. When was this?

A. It began in 1927 and the trials became more and more numerous. Since I was willing to do it without money, I did it. Q. Were you ever a member of the Reichstag?

A. Yes.

Q. When?

A. Since September 1930. This was also in connection with such trials, because as a member of the Reichstag, I got a free ticket on the railroads and I could move easily. Therefore, the trial expenses were taken care of.

Q. Were you not elected a member of the Reichstag as a mem ber of the Nazi Party?

A. Of course. I was on the Party list.

Q. And you sought election on the basis that you were a member of the Nazi Party?

A. I hadn't sought it, but Hitler put me on the list. I was on a holiday trip, and when I returned my wife said, "Look here. You are on the list for members of the Reichstag."

In March 1933, I was made Bavarian Minister of Justice and remained there until December 31, 1934, and then I became Minister of the Reich.

Q. Were you not also made Reich Commissioner for Justice at the same time that you were made Minister of Justice of Bavaria? A. A little bit later. It may have been in April of 1933. I was not reelected commissar for General Justice. I was the commissar for equalizing the laws of the various states with the Reich. By that I mean the reorganization of the law administration.

Q. Do you mean by that that your position as Reich Commissioner of Justice required you to take the laws of the several different sections of Germany and to codify them or to make them uniform or just what did you do? I don't quite understand the term "equalize."

A. No. It was only a matter of the administration of the justice, and the effect of this was the taking over of the justice administration of the German states by the German Reich on January 1, 1935.

Q. What states do you have reference to?

A. Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony, Thuringia, Anhalt-Lippe. There were about 18 states altogether.

Q. You mean there were minor variations in the laws of these several different parts of Germany, and it was your duty to harmonize them?

A. This task was taken care of by the Minister of Justice, Dr. Guertner. My job was the preparation of the reorganization of the administration of the various German states which were taken over by the Reich 1 January 1935. May I add something?

[graphic]
[graphic]

Q. Yes.

A. In this capacity I was responsible to the German Minister of Justice, Dr. Guertner. I was a member of his special staff for this particular task. I was not a member of the cabinet.

In my position as a legal man in the Party, I came more and more in conflict with the direction as represented by Himmler and Bormann. This whole development as to concentration camps and so on, as also adopted later by Hitler himself was very much against the original Point 19 of the Party program which talked

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »