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Archive/File: imt/nca/supp-b/nca-sb-02-frank.08
Last-Modified: 1997/11/26

         Nazi Conspiracy & Aggression, Supplement B
             "Frank's View of the Jewish Problem"
                              
     Excerpts from Testimony of Hans Frank, taken at
     Nurnberg, Germany, 6 September 1945, 1430-1700, by
     Lt. Col. Thomas S. Hinkel, IGD. Also present:
     Herbert Sherman, Interpreter; Pvt. Clair van
     Vleck, Court Reporter.

                                                 [Page 1373]
                                                            
Q. I haven't any impressions at all regarding your Jewish
activities, but I want to find out from you just what your
opinion is with respect to that.

A. We had to solve the Jewish problem in Germany. My idea of
the solution was to get the Jewish population out of Germany
through emigration. That means to go into other countries
who would like to have them. It was very difficult in the
years after the revolution for the German population to live
together with the Jews, and it was originally Hitler's
program to emigrate all the Jews from Germany.

Q. What was your opinion of the laws which were enacted
depriving Jews of their full rights as German citizens? Did
you agree or disagree with these laws?

A. Basically, I agreed with these laws. The Jews are a
special people, and they should have their own state. The
best thing would have been if they would have been given a
state and they would have lived over there and would have
been happy. This Jewish problem is not a specific German
problem, it is an international problem, and starts to be a
problem in every country all over the world. It is not only
a problem of this time we are living in, but it is a
thousand-year-old problem.

Q. How do you reconcile your professed desire to have the
German state operate on a legal basis and, therefore, your
opposition to Hitler because of some of the things that he
did, and your statement that you agreed with these laws that
made Jews less than German citizens?

A. That at that time was my opinion about the Jewish
problem. That really at that time was my opinion. I was at
that time a very

                                                 [Page 1373]
                                                            
poor man. I saw the Jews had all very rich positions and
fortunes, and out of this youthful criticism, I came to my
judgment about the Jews.

Q. As a lawyer, did you consider it right and proper, and in
keeping with fundamental concepts of German law, that by
decree Jews of German nationality were deprived of certain
citizenship rights?

A. If the Communists would have gained power, the way Hitler
gained power in Germany, they would have deprived all the
Germans of their rights, fortunes, and so on.

Q. Never mind about that. Just answer my question. How do
you reconcile these opinions?

A. I didn't have at this time any reluctance to these laws
against the Jews. Today, naturally, I am more awake. Today I
naturally realize that you cannot solve the problem this
way. You have to have a big international conference or you
have to make provisions where to put the Jews in a normal
way. Besides that, I think we should have made a difference
between the Jews, those Jews who were citizens a long time,
and those who came after the revolution in the east into
Germany.

Q. Did you, in any of your writings, point out that it was
contrary to the fundamental German law to deprive one part
of the population of citizen's rights on a racial basis?

A. I never wrote against this question, but I did agree with
the development of the Jewish question in Germany.

Q. Did you agree with the Nurnberg laws?

A. Yes, I did, because I considered it as a very necessary law.


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