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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