Thirty-First Day:
Thursday, January 10th, 1946
[Page 144]
It was a Nazi policy that the population of occupied
countries should endure terror, oppression, impoverishment
and starvation. The defendant Frank succeeded so well in
this regard that he was forced to report to his Fuehrer, in
1943, that, in effect, Poles did not regard the Government
General with affection. This report to Hitler was a summary
of the first three and one-half years of the defendant
Frank's administration. It, better than anything else, can
show the conditions as they then existed as a result of the
conspiratorial efforts of the defendants.
[Page 145]
1. The entirely insufficient nourishment of the
population, mainly of the working classes in the cities,
whose majority is working for German interests.
Until the war of 1939, its food supplies, though not
varied, were sufficient and generally secure, due to the
agrarian surplus of the former Polish State and in spite
of the negligence on the part of their former political
leadership.
2. The confiscation of a great part of the Polish
estates and the expropriation, without compensation, and
resettlement of Polish peasants from manoeuvre areas and
from German settlements.
3. Encroachments and confiscations in the industries, in
commerce and trade and in the field of private property.
4. Mass arrests and mass shooting by the German Police
who applied the system of collective responsibility.
5. The rigorous methods of recruiting workers.
6. The extensive paralysation of cultural life.
7. The closing of high schools, junior colleges, and
universities.
8. The limitation, indeed, the complete elimination, of
Polish influence from
all spheres of State Administration.
9. Curtailment of the influence of the Catholic Church,
limiting its extensive influence - an undoubtedly
necessary move - and, in addition, until quite recently,
the closing and confiscation of monasteries, schools,
and charitable institutions."
THE PRESIDENT: This is only an extract here. Was he saying
that these measures were inevitable or that he justified
them, or what was he saying in the report?
LIEUTENANT-COLONEL BALDWIN: He was saying, Sir, that the
Polish people's attitude to the Government General had
substantially deteriorated. The reasons for that
deterioration are the listings I gave to the Court. In other
words -
THE PRESIDENT: Is that all he said?
LIEUTENANT-COLONEL BALDWIN: No, Sir, that is just taken from
Pages 10 and 11 of the report. The report is an extremely
long one.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I suppose you know what the general
tenor of the report was.
LIEUTENANT-COLONEL BALDWIN: The general tenor of the report,
Sir, was in the nature of a complaint to Hitler, that he,
Frank, was having an extremely difficult time in the
Government General because of these measures, and because of
these happenings in the Government General.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well.
LIEUTENANT-COLONEL BALDWIN: In order to illustrate how
completely the defendant Frank is identified with the
policies -
[Page 146]
I shall, when it will be my turn, read the whole document.
THE PRESIDENT: Exactly. You will have full opportunity, when
it is your turn, to explain this document, but it is not
your turn at the moment.
DR. SEIDL: I only mention that now because the Tribunal
itself drew my attention to this point.
THE PRESIDENT: Now, Lieutenant-Colonel Baldwin, I asked you
what was the whole contents of the document from which you
were reading this paragraph. According to counsel for Frank,
the document, which is a very long document, shows that
Frank was suggesting remedies for the difficulties which he
here sets out. Is that so ?
LIEUTENANT-COLONEL BALDWIN: That is so, yes, your Honour.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I think the -
LIEUTENANT-COLONEL BALDWIN: May it please the Tribunal, I
did not cite this portion of that document, as I will later
demonstrate, to show that Frank did or did not suggest a
remedy for these conditions, but only to explain that these
conditions existed at a certain period.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, when you cite a small part of the
document, you should make sure that what you cite is not
misleading as compared to the rest of the document.
LIEUTENANT-COLONEL BALDWIN: I see, your Honour. I had not
considered it to be such in view of the purpose for which I
introduced it, which, as I said, was only to suggest a set
of conditions which existed at a certain time. I naturally
assumed that the defence, as Dr. Seidl has indicated, would
carry on with the rest of the document as a defence matter.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, of course, that is all very well, but
the defendant Frank's counsel will speak at some remote
date, and it is not a complete answer to say that he will
have an opportunity of explaining the document at some
future date. It is for counsel for the prosecution to make
sure that no extracts which they read can reasonably make a
misleading impression upon the mind of the Tribunal.
LIEUTENANT-COLONEL BALDWIN: I shall now state, then, that
the extract which was just read was read solely for the
purpose of indicating that at a certain period, namely,
June, 1943, those conditions existed in Poland, as the
result of statements by the Governor-General of Poland.
Would that be satisfactory to the Tribunal?
THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): Well, it was not satisfactory to
the Tribunal if you did not give us the purport of the
document.
LIEUTENANT-COLONEL BALDWIN: Well, Sir, I have not the
complete document before me now. Therefore, I cannot read
all of it.
THE PRESIDENT: No. What we would like would be, if possible,
that when, an extract is made from a document, counsel who
are presenting that extract should acquaint themselves with
the general purport of the document, so as to make certain
that the part that is read is not misleading.
LIEUTENANT-COLONEL BALDWIN: Yes, Sir.
In order to illustrate how completely the defendant Frank is
identified with the policies of which the execution is
reported in this document, and how thoroughly they were his
own policies, and this, if the Tribunal please, regardless
of what remedies he may have had in mind in 1943, it is
proposed in this last
[Page 147]
As to the insufficient nourishment of the Polish population,
there was no need for the defendant Frank to have waited
until June, 1943, to have reported this fact to Hitler. In
September, 1941, defendant Frank's own Chief Medical Officer
reported to him the appalling Polish health conditions. This
appears in "Frank's Diary" and in our Document 2233-PS-P, at
Page 46 in the document book, which I now offer in evidence
as Exhibit USA 611. The German text is to be found in the
1941 volume of the diary at Page 830.
I quote:
I quote the following extract:
The Government General, therefore, must do the
following: The Government General has taken on the
obligation to send 500,000 tons of bread grain to the
Fatherland in addition to the foodstuffs already being
delivered for the relief of Germany or consumed here by
troops of the Armed Forces, Police or S.S. If you
compare this with our contributions of last year you can
see that this means a six-fold increase over that of
last year's contribution of the Government General.
The new demand will be fulfilled exclusively at the
expense of the foreign population. It must be done cold-
bloodedly and without pity...." [Page 148]
Defendant Frank is speaking:
I now quote from the report of the conference:
(A recess was taken.)
LIEUTENANT-COLONEL BALDWIN: May it please the Tribunal: The
way in which the resettlement at Zamosc was carried out was
described to defendant Frank by Kruger at a meeting at
Warsaw on 25th January, 1943. The report is
[Page 149] [
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(Part 3 of 10)
[LIEUTENANT-COLONEL BALDWIN continues]
"In the course of time, a series of measures or of
consequences of the German rule have lead to a
substantial deterioration of the attitude of the entire
Polish people to the Government General, These measures
have affected either individual professions or the
entire population and frequently also - often with
crushing severity - the fate of individuals."
He goes on:
"Among these are in particular:
Indeed, the Nazi plan for Poland succeeded all too well.
"Overmedizinalrat Dr. Walbaum expressed his opinion of
the health condition of the Polish population.
Investigations which were carried out by his department
proved that the majority of Poles had only about 600
calories allotted to them, whereas the normal
requirement for a human being were 2,200 calories. The
Polish population was weakened to such an extent that it
would fall an easy prey to spotted fever."
Parenthetically, I think we know that as typhus.
"The number of diseased Poles already amounts to 40 per
cent. During the last week alone, 1,000 new spotted
fever cases have been officially recorded. That
represents so far the maximum number. This health
situation represented a serious danger for the Reich and
for the soldiers who are coming into the Government
General. A spreading of pestilence into the Reich is
quite feasible. The increase in tuberculosis, too, is
causing anxiety. If the food rations were to be
diminished again, an enormous increase of the number of
illnesses can be predicted."
While it was crystal-clear from this report that in
September, 1941, disease affected 40 per cent. of the Polish
population, nevertheless the defendant Frank approved in
August, 1942, a new plan which called for a much larger
contribution of foodstuffs to Germany at the expense of the
non-German population of the Government General. Methods of
meeting the new quotas out of the grossly inadequate rations
of the Government General and the impact of the new quotas
on the economy of the country were discussed at a cabinet
meeting of the Government General on 24th August, 1942, in
terms which leave no possible doubt that not only was the
proposed requisition beyond the resources of the country,
but its force was to be distributed on a grossly
discriminatory basis. This appears from the "Frank Diary"
and in our Document 2233-PS-E, which is at Page 30 in the
document book, which I now offer in evidence as Exhibit USA
283. The German text appears in the 1942 conference volume
at the conference entry for 24th August, 1942.
"Before the German people" - Frank says - "are to
experience starvation, the Occupied Territories and
their people shall be exposed to starvation. In this
moment, therefore, we here in the Government General,
must also have the iron determination to help the Great
German people, our Fatherland.
Defendant Frank was not only responsible for reducing the
Government General to starvation level, but was proud of the
contribution he thereby made
"I will attempt to get out of the reservoir of this
territory everything that is yet to be got out of it
...."
He continues:
"When you consider that it was possible for me to
deliver to the Reich 600,000 tons of bread grain, and,
in addition, 180,000 tons to the Armed Forces stationed
here; further, an abundance amounting to many thousands
of tons of other commodities, such as seed, fats,
vegetables, besides the delivery to the Reich of 300
million eggs, etc., you can estimate the significance
this territory possesses for the Reich. In order to make
clear to you the significance of the consignment from
the Government General of 600,000 tons of bread grain,
you are referred to the fact that the Government
General, by this achievement alone, covers the raising
of the bread ration in the Greater German Reich by two-
thirds during the present rationing period. This
enormous achievement can rightfully be claimed by us."
Now, as to the resettlement of Polish peasants which
defendant Frank mentions secondly in the report to Hitler,
although Himmler was given general authority in connection
with the conspirators' project to resettle various districts
in the conquered Eastern Territories with racial Germans,
the projects relating to resettling districts in the
Government General were submitted to and approved by the
defendant Frank. The plan to resettle Zamosc and Lublin, for
example, was reported to him at a meeting to discuss special
problems of the district Lublin by his infamous State
Secretary for Security, Higher S.S. and Police Leader,
Kruger, on 4th August, 1942. It is contained in the "Frank
Diary" and in our Document 2233-PS-T, at Page 51 in the
document book, which I now offer in evidence as Exhibit USA
607. The German text appears in the 1942 volume of the
diary, Part 111, Pages 830, 831 and 832.
"State Secretary Kruger then continues, saying that the
Reichsfuehrer's next urgent plan until the end of the
following year would be to settle the following German
racial groups in the two districts (Zamosc and Lublin):
1,000 peasant settlements (1 settlement per family of
about 6) for Bosnian Germans; 1,200 other kinds of
settlements; 1,000 settlements for Bessarabian Germans;
200 for Serbian Germans; 2,000 for Leningrad Germans;
4,000 for Baltic Germans; 500 for Wolhynia Germans, and
200 settlements for Flemish, Danish and Dutch Germans,
in all 10,000 settlements for 50,000 to 60,000 persons."
Upon hearing this, the defendant Frank directed that - and I
quote:
"... the resettlement plan is to be discussed co-operatively
by the competent authorities, and declared his willingness
to approve the final plan by the end of September after
satisfactory arrangements had been made concerning all the
questions appertaining thereto (in particular the
guaranteeing of peace and order) so that by the middle of
November, as the most favourable time, the resettlement can
begin."
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will adjourn now for ten
minutes.
"We are removing those who constitute a burden in this
new colonisation territory. Actually, they are the
asocial and inferior elements. They are being deported;
first brought to a concentration camp, and then sent as
labour to the Reich. From a Polish propaganda
standpoint, the entire action has an unfavourable
effect. For the Poles say:
'After the Jews have been destroyed, then they will
employ the same methods to get the Poles out of this
territory and liquidate them just like the Jews.'"