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MR. BRUDNO: May it please the Tribunal, when the Tribunal rose yesterday I had finished the submission of proof as to Rosenberg’s responsibility and authority in the Occupied Eastern Territories and was about to conclude my presentation with four brief examples as to the manner in which his authority was exercised. I was in the middle of the third example, which, Your Honors will recall, dealt with Rosenberg’s participation in the forced labor program. I wish to conclude that illustration with reference to Document 199-PS, which we offer as Exhibit Number USA-606. This document is a letter from Alfred Meyer, Rosenberg’s deputy, and is addressed to Sauckel, dated July 11, 1944. This time, Your Honors will note, it is Rosenberg’s Ministry that is urging action. I wish to quote Item Number 1 of this letter, which reads as follows:

“The War Effort Task Force Command formerly stationed in Minsk must continue, under all circumstances, the calling up of young White Ruthenian and Russian men for military employment in the Reich. In addition the Command has the mission of bringing young boys of 10-14 years of age into the Reich.”

My third illustration deals with Rosenberg’s exercise of his legislative powers, and I ask the Court to take judicial notice of the decree signed by Lohse, who was Reich Commissar for Ostland. This decree is published in the Verordnungsblatt of the Reich Commissar for Ostland, 1942, Number 38, Pages 158 and 159. It provides for the seizure of the entire property of the Jewish population in the Ostland, including the claims of Jews against third parties. The seizure is made retroactive to the day of occupation of the territory by German troops. This sweeping decree was issued and published by Rosenberg’s immediate subordinate, and it must be assumed that Rosenberg knew of it and acquiesced in it.

I now come to my final illustration. This illustration is derived from Document 327-PS, which is already in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-338.

It is a copy of a secret letter from Rosenberg to Bormann dated 17 October 1944. It furnishes a graphic account of Rosenberg’s activities in the economic exploitation of the occupied East. I wish to quote from the first paragraph on Page 1, which has not been read into the Record. I quote:

“In order not to delay the liquidation of companies under my supervision, I beg to point out that the companies concerned are not private firms but business enterprises of the Reich, so that directives with regard to them, just as with regard to Government offices, are reserved to the highest authorities of the Reich. I supervise the following companies. . . .”

There follows a list of nine companies: A trading company, an agricultural development company, a supply company, a pharmaceutical company, and five banking concerns. On Page 3 of the translation at Item 1 (a) the mission of the trading company is stated to be, and I quote:

“Seizure of all agricultural products as well as commercial marketing and transportation thereof. (Delivery to Armed Forces and the Reich).”

I now call your attention to Item 5 of the same page. It describes the activities of the companies as follows:

“During this period, the Z.O.”—that is, the Central Trading Corporation East—“together with its subsidiaries has seized:

“Grain 9,200,000 tons, meat and meat products 622,000 tons, linseed 950,000 tons, butter 208,000 tons, sugar 400,000 tons, fodder 2,500,000 tons, potatoes 3,200,000 tons, seeds 141,000 tons, other agricultural products 1,200,000 tons, and 1,075,000,000 eggs.

“The following was required for transportation: 1,418,000 freight cars and 472,000 tons shipping space.”

In conclusion we submit that the evidence has shown that the Defendant Rosenberg played a leading role in the Nazi Party’s rise to power by moulding German thought so as to promote the conspirators’ ambitions; that he played a leading role in spreading propaganda and intrigue, and in instigating treason in foreign countries, so as to pave the way for the waging of wars of aggression; and that he bears full responsibility for the War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity which were perpetrated in the Occupied Eastern Territories and which will be further developed by the prosecutor for the U.S.S.R.

This completes the presentation of the case against the Defendant Rosenberg. The next presentation will be that of the case against the Defendant Frank, which will be presented by Lieutenant Colonel Baldwin.

LIEUTENANT COLONEL WILLIAM H. BALDWIN (Assistant Trial Counsel for the United States): May it please the Tribunal, we wish now to deal with the individual responsibility of the Defendant Frank. In accordance with the expressed desire of the Tribunal, this presentation has been strictly limited; and, of course, I should welcome any direction from the Tribunal as to length or method as I proceed.

First, I must acknowledge my indebtedness to Miss Harriet Zetterberg, of our legal staff, and to Dr. Pietrowski, of the Polish Delegation, for their invaluable work—Dr. Pietrowski and the Polish Delegation, naturally, having a special interest in the Defendant Frank.

Aspects of the criminal complicity of the Defendant Hans Frank under Count One of the Indictment have been placed before this Tribunal on several occasions. There remain, however, certain matters for discussion—either novel in presentation or in development—concerning this defendant as an individual, before the United States’ portion of the Prosecution’s case against him is completed. Our Soviet colleagues will carry further the heavy complaint against the Defendant Frank in their treatment of War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity in the East. We wish here merely to touch upon that evidence which, we believe, irrefutably discloses Frank to have been a tremendously important cog in the machine which conceived, promoted, and executed the Nazi Common Plan or Conspiracy. Documents relating to this point have been assembled in a document book bearing the letters “FF.” I am informed that these books, as well as explanatory briefs, have been distributed for the use of the members of the Tribunal.

Reference will be made in the course of this argument to the so-called Frank diary, portions of which have already been brought to the attention of the Tribunal. It seems appropriate that brief mention should here be made of the content and source of this diary. It is a set of some 38 volumes, most of which are on the table at the front of the courtroom, detailing the activities of the Defendant Frank from 1939 to the end of the war in his capacity as Governor General of Occupied Poland. It is a record, in short, of each day’s business, hour by hour, appointment by appointment, conference by conference, speech by speech, and—in truth we believe—crime by crime. Each volume, excepting the last few, is now handsomely bound; and in those volumes, which deal with the conferences of Frank and his underlings in the Government General, the name of each person attending the meeting is inscribed in his own handwriting on a page preceding the minutes of the conference itself. It is incredibly shocking to the normal conscience that such a neat history of murder, starvation, and extermination should have been maintained by the individual responsible for such deeds, but by now the Tribunal is well aware that the Nazi leaders were sentimentally fond of elaborately documenting their exploits, as witness the Rosenberg volumes displaying the looted art treasures and the album reporting on the extermination of Jews in the Warsaw ghetto. The complete set of the Frank diary was found in Bavaria, at Neuhaus, near Schliersee, on 18 May 1945, by the 7th American Army. It was taken to the 7th Army document center at Heidelberg and on or about 20 September 1945 the collection was sent to the Office of U.S. Chief of Counsel here at Nuremberg. It is here in court in its entirety; and now its tones, we submit, are those of accusation rather than boastful narration.

That the Defendant Frank held a position of leadership in the Nazi Party and in the German Government is undeniable. Even, presumably, it would be unfair to the Defendant Frank to underestimate his importance in the Nazi hierarchy and the Third Reich. Like the other defendants in this case, he was a man of far-reaching influence and position; and his office-holding record is already before this Court. It is an affidavit signed by the Defendant Frank and identified as Exhibit Number USA-7. This document contains a listing of 11 important positions held by Frank in the Party and in the Government and supports the assertion of influence and position which I have just made, especially since this Tribunal has been fully apprised of the criminal activities of the Nazi organizations and formations.

The machinations of Frank divide themselves logically into two periods. In the one, from 1920 to 1939, he was by his own admission the leading Nazi jurist, although parenthetically the word “jurist” loses its reputable content when modified by the word “Nazi”. In the other period, extending from 10 October 1939 until the end of the war, he was Governor General of occupied Poland. While he is most notorious for his persecutions and carrying out of the conspiracy in the latter capacity, it is the opinion of the United States Prosecution that the Defendant Frank’s contributions to the Nazi rise to power as the leading Nazi jurist should not pass without mention. It is with this aspect that I shall first deal—the Defendant Frank’s furtherance of the realization of the conspirators’ program in the field of law, his knowledge of the criminal purpose of the program, and his active participation therein.

The Defendant Frank, himself, described his role in the Nazi struggle for power in the following words, which were remarks he ordered his secretary to place in the Frank diary on 28 August 1942. The remarks appear in the diary and are translated in our Document 2233(x)-PS, which, if the Court please, is at Page 54 in the document book before it.

The numbers of the pages of the document book will be found in the upper right-hand corner in colored pencil, either red or blue. The original of this document I now offer in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-607. In the German text these extracts appear in Part 3 of the 1942 diary volume on Pages 968, 969, and 983. Frank says:

“I have since 1920 continually dedicated my work to the NSDAP. As a National Socialist I was a participant in the events of November 1923, for which I received the Order of the Blood. After the resurrection of the movement in the year 1925, my really greater activity in the movement began, which made me, first gradually, later almost exclusively, the legal adviser of the Führer and of the Reich Party Directorate of the NSDAP. I was thus the representative of the legal interests of the growing Third Reich in a legal-ideological as well as in a practical way.”

He goes on to say:

“The culmination of this work I see in the Leipzig army trial, in which I succeeded in having the Führer admitted to the famous oath of legality, a circumstance which gave the Movement legal grounds to expand on a large scale. The Führer, indeed, recognized this achievement and in 1926 made me leader of the National Socialist Lawyers’ League; in 1929, Reichsleiter of the Reich Legal Office of the NSDAP; in March 1933, Bavarian Minister of Justice; in the same year, Reich Commissioner for Justice; in 1934, President of the Academy of German Law, founded by me; and in December 1934, Reich Minister without Portfolio. And in 1939, I was finally appointed Governor General for the occupied Polish territories.

“So I was, am, and will remain the representative jurist of the struggle period of National Socialism. . . .

“I profess myself now and always, as a National Socialist and a faithful follower of the Führer, Adolf Hitler, whom I have now served since 1919. . . .”

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 I now quote from the Frank diary, our Document 2233(s)-PS, at Page 50 in the document book, the original of which I offer in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-607—had for its purpose, and I quote: “. . . to expand the living space for our people in a natural manner.”

The distortions and warpings of German law, which Defendant Frank engineered for the Party, gave him, if not the world, vast satisfaction. He reported this to the powerful Academy for German Law in November 1939, 1 month after becoming Governor General of occupied Poland. This speech is partially translated in our Document 3445-PS, at Page 73 in the document book. The official text of the speech appears in Deutsches Recht, 1939, Volume 2, the week of 23-30 December 1939, beginning at Page 2121; and we ask the Court to take judicial notice of this, but would ask permission to read the excerpt, as it is very short. Frank stated:

“Today we are proud of having formulated our legal principles from the very beginning in such a way that they need not be changed in the case of war. For the maxim—that which serves the Nation is right, and that which harms it is wrong, which stood at the beginning of our legal work and which established this idea of the community of the people as the only standard of the law—this maxim shines out also in the social order of these times.”

If this sentiment has a familiar ring to it, it is because it is a restatement of a Party commandment tailored and furnished by the Party lawyer to fit the Party’s concept of law. I allude, of course, to the Party commandment, commented upon at Page 1608 (Volume IV, Page 38) of the official English transcript of these proceedings in the treatment of the Leadership Corps, which commandment stated and I quote, “Right is that which serves the Movement and thus Germany.”

It follows, I think, that the Prosecution conceives the Defendant Frank to be jointly responsible for all those cruel and discriminatory enabling acts and decrees through which the Nazis crushed minorities in Germany and consolidated their control over the German State and prepared it for its early entry upon aggression. It matters not, in our view, that the signature of this lawyer does not appear at the foot of every decree. Enough has been shown, in our submission, to indicate culpability in this regard. There is sufficient, we believe, now in this Record—and I refer to decrees cited by Major Walsh in his treatment of the persecution of the Jews and by Colonel Storey in his treatment of the Reich Cabinet—to demonstrate that type of enactment and the consequences thereof, for which we hold the Defendant Frank liable. In following this theory, may it please the Tribunal, we are only arriving at conclusions already arrived at for us by the Defendant Frank himself.

I now pass to that second and well-known phase of the Defendant Frank’s official life, wherein he for 5 years, as chief Party and Government agent, was bent upon the elimination of a whole people. He was appointed Governor General of the occupied Polish territory by a decree signed by his then Führer on 12 October 1939. The decree defined the scope of Frank’s executive power and is contained in our Document 2537-PS, at Page 66 in the document book. I shall ask the Tribunal to take judicial notice of this, since it appears in Reichsgesetzblatt, 1939, Part I, Page 2077.

It merely states that Dr. Frank is appointed as Governor General of the occupied Polish territory; that Dr. Seyss-Inquart is appointed as Deputy Governor General, and that “the Governor General shall be directly responsible to me”—meaning Hitler, he having signed the decree.

While some of the outside world was prone in earlier days to wonder at the apparent efficiency of Nazi administration, we now know that it was often riddled with the petty jealousies of small men in positions of some authority and with jurisdictional fractiousness. No such difficulty existed with the Defendant Frank, however, for though he was not without the threat of divided authority, he insisted upon, and was granted, the favor of supreme command within the territorial confines of the Government General. Only two references from his diary, one in 1940 and one in 1942, are necessary to show the all-inclusiveness of his direction and authority.

At a meeting of department heads of the Government General on 8 March 1940 in the Bergakademie, the Defendant Frank clarified his status as Governor General; and these remarks appear in the diary and in our Document 2233(m)-PS, at Page 42 in the document book, the original of which I offer into evidence as Exhibit Number USA-173.

In the German text, the extracts appear in the meetings of department heads, Volume 2 for 1939-1940, at Pages 5, 6, 7, and 8. Frank says:

“One thing is certain. The authority of the Governor General as the representative of the will of the Führer and the will of the Reich in this territory is certainly strong, and I have always emphasized that I would not tolerate misuse of this authority. I have made this known anew at every office in Berlin, especially after Herr Field Marshal Göring on 12. 2. 1940, from Karin Hall, had forbidden all administrative offices of the Reich, including the Police and even the Wehrmacht, to interfere in administrative matters of the Government General. . . .”

He goes on to say:

“There is no authority here in the Government General which is higher as to rank, stronger in influence, and of greater authority than that of the Governor General. Even the Wehrmacht has no governmental or official functions here of any kind; it has only security functions and general military duties—it has no political power whatsoever. The same applies to the Police and the SS. There is here no state within a state, but we are representatives of the Führer and of the Reich.”

Later, in 1942, at a conference of the district political leaders of the NSDAP in Kraków on 18 March, Defendant Frank further explained the relationship between the administration and the Reichsführer SS Himmler. These remarks appear in the diary and in our Document 2233(r)-PS and at Page 48 of the document book, the original of which I offer into evidence as Exhibit Number USA-608. In the German text, the extract to be quoted appears at Pages 185 and 186 of diary Volume 18, 1942, Part I. I quote:

“As you know”—says Frank—“I am a fanatic as to unity in administration. . . . It is therefore clear that the Higher SS and Police Leader is subordinated to me, that the Police is a component of the Government, that the SS and Police Leader in the district is subordinated to the Governor, and that the district chief has the authority of command over the gendarmerie in his district. This the Reichsführer SS has recognized; in the written agreement all these points are mentioned word for word and signed. It is also self-evident that we cannot establish a closed shop here which can be treated in the traditional manner of small states.”

THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): Do you think all this has to be read?

LT. COL. BALDWIN: It is considered important, Sir, by the United States Prosecution, in view of the fact that this is the later extract from the diary and indicates that 2 years later even Frank considered himself to be the supreme authority in the Government General. This is a point which we conceive to be of importance, Sir. May I proceed?

THE PRESIDENT: Yes.

LT. COL. BALDWIN: “It would, for instance, be ridiculous if we would build up here a security policy of our own against our Poles in the country, while knowing that the Poles in West Prussia, in Posen, in Warthegau, and in Silesia have one and the same movement of resistance. So the Reichsführer SS and Chief of the German Police must be able to carry out, with his agencies, his police measures concerning the interests of the Reich as a whole. This, however, will be done in such a way that the measures to be adopted will first be submitted to me and carried out only when I give my consent. In the Government General the Police are the armed forces. Consequently the leader of the Police will be called by me into the Government of the Government General; he is subordinate to me, or to my deputy, as a state secretary for security.”

At this juncture, it is appropriate to mention that the man who filled the position of State Secretary for Security in the Government General was Frank’s Higher SS and Police Leader, Krüger.

THE PRESIDENT: Will you read the next page?

LT. COL. BALDWIN: May it please the Tribunal; I shall come to that excerpt later.

THE PRESIDENT: In the same document?

LT. COL. BALDWIN: Yes, Sir. It seems more appropriate at another point.

The Tribunal may recall that the reports of the extermination of Jews in the Warsaw ghetto were made in the spring of 1943 by SS Leader Stroop, who immediately supervised the operation, to this same Krüger, who was still at that time one of the two most influential members of Frank’s Cabinet, as State Secretary for Security.

It was inevitable that the grand conspiracy or common plan should have as its component parts a host of small plans each dealing with a particular sphere of activity. These plans, differing from the master plan only in size, are the blueprints for a specific action drawn from the broad policies. Occupied Poland was no exception to this rule. The plan for the administration of Poland was contained in a top secret memorandum of a conference between Hitler and the Chief of the OKW, Defendant Keitel, entitled “Regarding Future Relations of Poland to Germany” and dated 20 October 1939. This report was initialed by General Warlimont. It is our Document 864-PS and may be found at Page 3 of the document book, and I shall offer it into evidence as Exhibit Number USA-609.

I shall quote, if the Court please, only from Paragraphs 1, 3, 4, and 6:

“1) The Armed Forces will welcome it if they can dispose of administrative questions in Poland. On principle, there cannot be two administrations. . . .

“3) It is not the task of the administration to make Poland into a model province or a model state of the German order or to put her economically or financially on a sound basis.

“The Polish intelligentsia must be prevented from forming a ruling class. The standard of living in the country is to remain low; we want only to draw labor forces from there. Poles are also to be used for the administration of the country. However, the forming of national political groups may not be allowed.

“4) The administration has to work on its own responsibility and must not be dependent on Berlin. We do not want to do there what we do in the Reich. The responsibility does not rest with the Berlin Ministries since there is no German administration unit concerned.

“The accomplishment of this task will involve a hard racial struggle which will not allow any legal restrictions. The methods will be incompatible with the principles otherwise adhered to by us.

“The Governor General is to give the Polish nation only bare living conditions and is to maintain the basis for military security. . . .

“6). . . . Any tendencies towards the consolidation of conditions in Poland are to be suppressed. The ‘Polish muddle’ must be allowed to develop. The Government of the territory must make it possible for us to purify the Reich territory from Jews and Poles too. Collaboration with new Reich provinces (Posen and West Prussia) only for resettlements (compare Himmler mission).

“Purpose: Shrewdness and severity must be the maxims in this racial struggle in order to spare us from going to battle on account of this country again.”

The Defendant Frank was the chosen executor of this program. He knew its aims, approved of them, and actively carried out the scheme. The Tribunal’s attention has already been invited to Exhibit Number USA-297 wherein—this may be found at Page 1512 of the English text of the official transcript—(Volume III, Pages 576, 577) the Defendant Frank expounded the mission which his Führer assigned to him and according to which he intended to administer in Poland. It contemplated, in brief, ruthless exploitation, deportation of all supplies and workers, reduction of the entire Polish economy to an absolute minimum necessary for bare existence of the population, and the closing of all schools. No more callous statement exists than the one Frank made in this report, wherein he said, “Poland shall be treated as a colony; the Poles shall be the slaves of the Greater German world empire.”

In December 1940 Frank submitted to his department heads that the task of administering Poland did truly involve a hard racial struggle which would not allow any legal restrictions. I refer to our Document 2233(o)-PS, which may be found at Page 45 in the document book. It is taken from the Frank diary, and I offer it in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-173. In the German text the extract to be quoted appears in the volume of the diary entitled, “Department Heads Meetings 1939-1940,” on Pages 12 and 13. I now quote: