Archive/File: imt/ tgmwc/judgment/j-defendants-frick
Last-Modified: 1997/09/06

                          Judgment
                           of the
               International Military Tribunal
                           For The
             Trial of German Major War Criminals

                           London
               His Majesty's Stationery Office
                            1951
                                                            
                                                   [Page 98]

                            Frick
                                                            
Frick is indicted on all four Counts. Recognized as the
chief Nazi administrative specialist and bureaucrat, he was
appointed Reichsminister of the Interior in Hitler's first
Cabinet. He retained this important position until August,
1943, when he was appointed Reich Protector of Bohemia and
Moravia. In connection with his duties at the center of all
internal and domestic administration, he became the Prussian
Minister of the Interior, Reich Director of Elections,
General Plenipotentiary for the Administration of the Reich,
and a member of the Reich Defense Council, the Ministerial
Council or Defense of the Reich, and the "Three Man
College". As the several countries incorporated into the
Reich were overrun, he was placed at the head of the central
offices for their incorporation.

Though Frick did not officially join the Nazi Party until
1925, he had previously allied himself with Hitler and the
National Socialist cause during the Munich Putsch, while he
was an official in the Munich Police Department. Elected to
the Reichstag in 1924, he became a Reichsleiter as leader of
the National Socialist faction in that body.

Crimes against Peace

An avid Nazi, Frick was largely responsible for bringing the
German Nation under the complete control of the NSDAP. After
Hitler became Reich Chancellor, the new Minister of the
Interior immediately began to incorporate local governments
under the sovereignty of the Reich. The numerous laws he
drafted, signed, and administered abolished all opposition
parties and prepared the way for the Gestapo and their
concentration camps to extinguish all

                                                   [Page 99]
                                                            
individual opposition. He was largely responsible for the
legislation which suppressed the trade unions, the church,
the Jews. He performed this task with ruthless efficiency.

Before the date of the Austrian aggression Frick was
concerned only with domestic administration within the
Reich. The evidence does not show that he participated in
any of the conferences at which Hitler outlined his
aggressive intentions. Consequently the Tribunal takes the
view that Frick was not a member of the common plan or
conspiracy to wage aggressive war as defined in this
Judgment.

Six months after the seizure of Austria, under the
provisions of the Reich Defense Law of 4th September, 1938,
Frick became General Plenipotentiary for the Administration
of the Reich. He was made responsible for war
administration, except the military and economic, in the
event of Hitler's proclaiming a state of defense. The Reich
Ministries of Justice, Education, Religion, and the Office
of Spatial Planning were made subordinate to him. Performing
his allotted duties, Frick devised an administrative
organisation in accordance with wartime standards. According
to his own statement, this was actually put into operation
after Germany decided to adopt a policy of war.

Frick signed the law of 13th March, 1938, which united
Austria with the Reich, and he was made responsible for its
accomplishment. In setting up German administration in
Austria, he issued decrees which introduced German law, the
Nuremberg decrees, the Military Service Law, and he provided
for police security by Himmler.

He also signed the laws incorporating into the Reich the
Sudetenland, Memel, Danzig, the Eastern territories (West
Prussia and Posen), and Eupen, Malmedy, and Moresnot. He was
placed in charge of the actual incorporation, and of the
establishment of German administration over these
territories. He signed the law establishing the Protectorate
of Bohemia and Moravia.

As the head of the Central Offices for Bohemia and Moravia,
the Government General, and Norway, he was charged with
obtaining close cooperation between the German officials in
these occupied countries and the supreme authorities of the
Reich. He supplied German civil servants for the
administrations in all occupied territories, advising
Rosenberg as to their assignment in the Occupied Eastern
Territories. He signed the laws appointing Terboven Reich
Commissioner to Norway and Seyss-Inquart to Holland.

War crimes and Crimes against humanity

Always rabidly anti-Semitic, Frick drafted, signed, and
administered many laws designed to eliminate Jews from
German life and economy. His work formed the basis of the
Nuremberg Decrees, and he was active in enforcing them.
Responsible for prohibiting Jews from following various
professions, and for confiscating their property, he signed
a final decree in 1943, after the mass destruction of Jews
in the East, which placed them "outside the law" and handed
them over to the Gestapo. These laws paved the way for the
"final solution", and were extended by Frick to the
incorporated territories and to certain of the occupied
territories. While he was Reich Protector of Bohemia and
Moravia, thousands of Jews were transferred from the Terezin
Ghetto in Czechoslovakia to Auschwitz, where they were
killed. He issued a decree providing for special penal laws
against Jews and Poles in the Government General.

The police officially fell under the jurisdiction of the
Reichsminister of the Interior. But Frick actually exercised
little control over Himmler and police matters. However, he
signed the law appointing Himmler Chief of the German
Police, as well as the decrees establishing Gestapo
jurisdiction

                                                  [Page 100]
                                                            
over concentration camps and regulating the execution of
orders for protective custody. From the many complaints he
received, and from the testimony of witnesses, the Tribunal
concludes that he knew of atrocities committed in these
camps. With knowledge of Himmler's methods, Frick signed
decrees authorising him to take necessary security measures
in certain of the incorporated territories. What these
"security measures" turned out to be has already been dealt
with.

As the Supreme Reich Authority in Bohemia and Moravia, Frick
bears general responsibility for the acts of oppression in
that territory after 20th August, 1943, such as terrorism of
the population, slave labor, and the deportation of Jews to
the concentration camps for extermination. It is true that
Frick's duties as Reich Protector were considerably more
limited than those of his predecessor, and that he had no
legislative and limited personal executive authority in the
Protectorate. Nevertheless, Frick knew full well what the
Nazi policies of occupation were in Europe, particularly
with respect to Jews, at that time, and by accepting the
office of Reich Protector he assumed responsibility for
carrying out those policies in Bohemia and Moravia.

German citizenship in the occupied countries as well as in
the Reich came under his jurisdiction while he was Minister
of the Interior. Having created a racial register of persons
of German extraction, Frick conferred German citizenship on
certain groups of citizens of foreign countries. He is
responsible for Germanization in Austria, Sudetenland,
Memel, Danzig, Eastern territories (West Prussia and Posen),
and Eupen, Malmedy, and Moresnot. He forced on the citizens
of these territories, German law, German courts, German
education, German police security, and compulsory military
service.

During the war nursing homes, hospitals, and asylums in
which euthanasia was practiced as described elsewhere in
this Judgment, came under Frick's jurisdiction. He had
knowledge that insane, sick, and aged people, "useless
eaters", were being systematically put to death. Complaints
of these murders reached him, but he did nothing to stop
them. A report of the Czechoslovak War crimes Commission
estimated that 275,000 mentally deficient and aged people,
for whose welfare he was responsible, fell victim to it.

Conclusion: The Tribunal finds that Frick is not guilty on
Count One. He is guilty on Counts Two, Three, and Four.

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