Hans Frank

Hans Frank (May 23, 1900 – October 16, 1946) was lawyer for the Nazi party during the 1920s and a senior official in Nazi Germany. Because of his tenure as Governor-General of occupied Poland, he was prosecuted during the Nuremberg trials for his role in perpetrating the Holocaust, found guilty of complicity in the murder of millions of Poles and Polish Jews, and executed on October 16, 1946.

Related Topics:
May 23 - 1900 - October 16 - 1946 - Nazi Germany - Governor-General - Poland - Nuremberg trials - Holocaust

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Frank was born in Karlsruhe and joined the German army in 1917. He served in the Freikorps and joined the German Labour Party in 1919, becoming a member of NSDAP proper in 1927. He studied law, passing the final state examination in 1926, and rose to become the personal legal advisor to Hitler. He was elected to the Reichstag in 1930, and in 1933 he was made Minister of Justice for Bavaria. He was also the head of the National Socialist Jurists Association and President of the Academy of German Law from 1933. Frank objected to extra-judicial killings, both at Dachau and during the Night of the Long Knives. From 1934 he was Reich Minister Without Portfolio.

Related Topics:
Karlsruhe - 1917 - Freikorps - German Labour Party - 1919 - NSDAP - 1927 - 1926 - Hitler - Reichstag - 1930 - 1933 - Bavaria - Dachau - Night of the Long Knives - 1934

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In September 1939 Frank was assigned as Chief of Administration to Gerd von Rundstedt in the General Government. From October 26, 1939, following the division of Poland, Frank was the Governor-General of the General Government for the occupied Polish territories (Generalgouverneur für die besetzten polnischen Gebiete), that is head of the General Government controlling those areas of Poland that had not been directly incorporated into Germany (roughly 90,000 km² out of the 170,000 km² Germany had gained). He was granted the SS rank of Obergruppenführer.

Related Topics:
1939 - Gerd von Rundstedt - General Government - October 26 - Poland - SS

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Frank oversaw the segregation of the Jews into ghettos (Jewish quarters) and the use of Polish civilians as "forced and compulsory" labour. In 1942 he lost his positions of authority outside of the General Government after annoying Hitler with a series of speeches in Berlin, Vienna, Heidelberg, and Munich and also as part of a power struggle with Friedrich Wilhelm Krüger, the State Secretary for Security—head of the SS and the police in the General Government. But it was Krüger who was ultimately replaced, with Wilhelm Koppe. Frank later claimed that the extermination of Jews was entirely controlled by Heinrich Himmler and the SS and that he, Frank, was unaware of the extermination camps in the General Government until early in 1944. During his testimony at Nuremberg, Frank claimed he submitted resignation requests to Hitler on fourteen occasions but Hitler would not allow him to resign. Frank fled the General Government in August 1944, in advance of the Soviet Army.

Related Topics:
Jew - 1942 - General Government - Berlin - Vienna - Heidelberg - Munich - Friedrich Wilhelm Krüger - Wilhelm Koppe - Heinrich Himmler - 1944

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