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   Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, Volume Two, Chapter XVI
                                                  [Page 624]
                                                            
                        8. HANS FRANK
                              
A. FRANK HELD A POSITION OF LEADERSHIP IN THE
NATIONALSOZIALISTISCHE DEUTSCHE ARBEITERPARTEI (NSDAP) AND
IN THE GERMAN GOVERNMENT.

Frank held the following positions in the NSDAP and the
German Government:

(1) Member of NSDAP, 1928-1945.

(2) Member of the Reichstag, 1930-1945.

(3) Reich Minister Without Portfolio, 1934-1945.

(4) Reich Commissar for the Coordination of the State
Administration of Justice and for Reformation of the Law
(Reichskommissar fuer die Gleichschaltung der Justiz in der
Landern und fuer Erneuerung der Rechsordnung), April 1933-
December 1934, in the Ministry of Justice.

(5) President, International Chamber of Law, 1941-42.

(6) President, Academy of German Law (Praesident der
Akademie fuer Deutsches Recht), 1933-1942.

(7) Governor-General of the Occupied Polish Territories
(General Gouverneur fuer die besetzten polnischen Gebiete),
October 1939-1945.

(8) Bavarian State Minister of Justice, March 1933-December
1934.

(9) Reichsleiter of NSDAP, 1933-1942.

(10) Leader of the National Socialist Lawyers League (Bund
Nationalsozialistscher deutscher Juristen), 1933-1942.

                                                  [Page 625]
                                                            
(11) Editor or author of the following between 1930 and
1942:

(a) "Deutsches Recht" (Magazine of National Socialist Jurist
League)

(b) Magazine of the Academy of German Law.

(c) National Socialist Handbook for Law and Legislation.
(2979-PS)

B. FRANK PROMOTED THE SEIZURE OF POWER BY THE NAZI
CONSPIRATORS. AS THE LEADING NAZI JURIST, HE FURTHERED THE
REALIZATION OF THE CONSPIRATORS' PROGRAM IN THE FIELD OF
LAW.

Frank himself described his role in the Nazi struggle for
power in the following words in August 1942:

     "I have since 1920 continually dedicated my work to the
     NSDAP. *** As National Socialist I was a participant in
     the events of November 1923, for which I received the
     Blutorden. After the resurrection of the movement in
     the year 1925, my real greater activity in the movement
     began, which made me, first gradually, later almost
     exclusively, the legal advisor of the Fuehrer and of
     the Reich leadership of the NSDAP. I thus was the
     representative of legal interests of the growing Third
     Reich in a legal ideological as well as practical legal
     way. *** The culmination of this work I see in the big
     Leipzig Army Trial in which I succeeded in having the
     Fuehrer admitted to the famous oath of legality, a
     circumstance which gave the Movement the legal grounds
     to expand generously. The Fuehrer indeed recognized
     this achievement and in 1926 made me leader of the
     National Socialist Lawyers League; in 1929 Reich Leader
     of the Reich Legal Office of the NSDAP; in 1933
     Bavarian Minister of Justice; in the same year Reich
     Commissioner of Justice; in 1934 President of the
     Academy of German Law founded by me; in December 1934
     Reich Minister Without Portfolio; and in 1939 I was
     finally appointed to 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 Fuehrer Adolf
     Hitler, whom I have now served since 1919." (2233-X-PS)
     
Frank's Diary, from which this quotation is taken, to which
frequent reference is made in this section, is the official
journal, kept at Frank's direction, of his administration in
the General Govern-

                                                  [Page 626]
                                                            
ment. It consists of 38 volumes in which are recorded the
official texts of speeches, transcripts of conferences,
minutes of cabinet sessions, etc. The volumes are divided
into several concurrent series (Tagebuch,
Abteilungsleitersitzungen etc.) which cover the several
aspects of the official business of the administration.

As the "representative jurist of the struggle period of
National Socialism" and in the various juridical capacities
listed in the preceding section, Frank was between 1933 and
1939 the most prominent policy-maker in the field of German
legal theory.

In 1934 Frank founded the Academy of German Law, of which he
was president until 1942. The statute defining the functions
of the Academy conferred on it wide power to coordinate
juridical policies:

     "It is the task of the Academy for German Law to
     further the rejuvenation of the Law in Germany. Closely
     connected with the agencies competent for legislation,
     it shall further the realization of the National
     Socialist Program in the realm of Law. This task shall
     be carried out through well-fixed scientific methods.
     
     "The Academy's task shall cover primarily:
     
     "1. The composition, the initiation, judging and
     preparing of drafts of law.
     
     "2. The collaboration in rejuvenating and unifying the
     training in jurisprudence and political science.
     
     "3. The editing and supporting of scientific
     publications.
     
     "4. The financial assistance for research and work in
     specific fields of Law and Political Economy.
     
     "5. The organization of scientific meetings and the
     organization of courses.
     
     "6. The cultivation of connections to similar
     institutions in foreign countries". (1391-PS)

What Frank as policy-maker in the field of law conceived as
his task he explained in a radio address on 20 March 1934:

     "The first task was that of establishing a unified
     German State. It was an outstanding historical and
     juristic-political accomplishment on the part of our
     Fuehrer that he reached boldly into the development of
     history and thereby eliminated the sovereignty of the
     various German states.... "The second fundamental law
     of the Hitler Reich is racial legislation. The National
     Socialists were the first ones 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
     
                                                  [Page 627]
                                                            
     against any further disintegration of the German race
     stock....
     
     "The sixth fundamental law was the legal elimination of
     those political organizations which within the state,
     during the period of the reconstruction of the people
     and 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 in
     all spheres, particular efforts have for months now
     been made as regards the work of the great reform of
     the entire field of German law. ***" (2536-PS)

Frank concluded his remarks by pointing out that the outward
forms of legality could be preserved in building the Nazi
state:

     "As a 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 attack this legal
     state as regards its laws". (2536-PS)

In his speech at the Congress of the Reich Group of
University Professors of the National Socialist Jurists'
League on 3 October 1936, Frank explained the necessity for
excluding Jews from the legal

     "*** this topic embraces all that which in our opinion
     will contribute to establishing National Socialism in
     the field of jurisprudence, thus eliminating any alien
     racial spirit therefrom. ***

     "We National Socialists have started with anti-Semitism
     in our fight to free the German people, to re-establish
     a German Reich and to build our entire German
     spiritual, cultural and social life on the
     indestructible foundation of our race. We started a
     gigantic battle in 1919 *** It took all the self-
     confidence of German manhood to withstand and to
     triumph in this fight to substitute the German spirit
     for Jewish corruption over the concerted attacks of
     powerful world groups of which Jewry is a
     representative.

     "Particularly we National Socialist Jurists have a
     mission of our own to accomplish in this battle. We
     construct German law on the foundations of old and
     vital elements of the German people. ***
     
                                                  [Page 628]
                                                            
     "It is so obvious that it hardly needs mentioning that
     any participation whatsoever of the Jew in German law -
     - be it in a creative, interpretative, educational or
     critical capacity -- is impossible. The elimination of
     the Jews from German jurisprudence is in no way due to
     hatred or envy but to the understanding that the
     influence of the Jew on German life is essentially a
     pernicious and harmful one and that in the interests of
     the German people and to protect its future an
     unequivocal boundary must be drawn between us and the
     Jews."

As the leading Nazi jurist, Frank accepted and promoted the
system of concentration camps and of arrest without warrant.
In an article on "Legislation and Judiciary in the Third
Reich' published in the Journal of the Academy of German Law
in 1936, Frank explained:

     "To 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 we have made final
     victory for them impossible in Europe, right here on
     German soil." (2533-PS)

Just as the other conspirators mobilized the military,
economic, and diplomatic resources of Germany for war,
Frank, in the field of legal policy, geared the German
juridical machine for a war of aggression, which, as he
explained in 1942 to the NSDAP District Standortsfuehrung
Galicia at a mass meeting in Lemberg, had for its purpose:

     "*** to expand the living space for our people in a
     natural manner". (2233-S-PS)

Frank was proud of this accomplishment. In a speech before
the Academy of German Law in November 1939, he stated:

     "Today we are proud to have 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
     rule, that right is that which is useful to the nation,
     and wrong is that which harms it, which stood at the
     beginning of our legal work, and which established this
     collective term of nation as the only standard of value
     of the law -- this rule dominates also the law of these
     times." (445-PS)
     

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