Hans Frank

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...One way or another - I will tell you that, quite openly - we must finish off the Jews. The Fuhrer put it into words once: "should united Jewry again succeed in setting off a world war: then the blood sacrifice shall not be made only by the peoples driven into war, but then the Jew of Europe will have met his end". I know that there is criticism of many of the measures now applied to the Jews in the Reich. There are always deliberate attempts to speak again and again of cruelty, harshness, etc.: this emerges from the reports on the popular mood. I appeal to you: before now I continue speaking; first, agree with me on a formula: we will have pity, on principle, only for the German people, and for nobody else in the world. The others had no pity for us either. As an old National-Socialist, I must also say that if the pack of Jews were to survive the war in Europe while we sacrifice the best of our blood for the preservation of Europe, then this war would still be only a partial success. I will therefore, on principle, approach Jewish affairs in the expectation that the Jews will dissappear. They must go. I have started negotiations for the purpose of having them pushed off to the East. In January there will be a major conference on this question in Berlin (Wannsee - Jan. 42) to which I shall send State Secretary Dr. Buhler. The conference is to be held in the office of SS Obergruppenfuhrer Heydrich at the Reich Security Main Office. A major Jewish migration will certainly begin.
But what should be done with the Jews? Can you believe that they will be accommodated in settlements in the Ostland? In Berlin we were told: why are you making all this trouble? We don't want them either - not in Ostland or in the Reichskommisariat; liquidate them yourselves! Gentlemen, I must ask you to steel yourselves against all considerations of compassion. We must destroy the Jews wherever we find them and wherever it is at all possible, in order to maintain the whole structure of the Reich...the views that were acceptable up to now cannot be applied to such gigantic, unique events. In any case, we must find a way that will lead us to our goal and I have my own ideas on this.
The Jews are exceptionally harmful feeders for us. In the Government-General (Poland & surrounding occupied areas), we have approximately 2.5 million, and now perhaps 3.5 million together with persons who have Jewish kin and so on. We cannot shoot these 3.5 million Jews, we cannot poison them, but we will take measures that will somehow lead to successful destruction; and this in connection with large-scale procedures which are to be discussed in the Reich, the Government-General must become as free of Jews as the Reich. Where and how this is to be done is the affair of bodies which we will have to appoint and create, and on whose work I will report to you when the time comes.... .

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After the war, Hans Frank was brought before the Allied Tribunal at Nuremburg. He was found guilty of war crines and was sentenced to death by hanging. During his brief imprisonment, he converted to Catholicism and here is an excerpt of his final statement and confession at the conclusion of the trial, which is in sharp contrast to the tone of his speech noted above:

...A thousand years will pass and still this guilt of Germany will not have been erased...we bear a tremendous spiritual responsibility...At the beginning of our way we did not suspect that our turning away from God could have such disastrous deadly consequences...Thus by turning away from God we were overthrown and had to perish....I beg of our people not to continue in this direction...because Hitler's road was the way without God, the way of turning from Christ and in the last analysis...the way of death.

Hans Frank was hung on a military gallows in the yard of the prison where he was being held on Oct. 1, 1946. Executed along with him were: Julius Streicher (publisher of Der Sturmer), Joachim Von Ribbentrop (Foreign Minister), Wilhelm Keitel (Field Marshall), Ernst Kaltenbrunner (Security Chief), Wilhelm Frick (Interior Minister), Fritz Sauckel (coordinated slave labor), Alfred Jodl (Army General), Arthur Seyss-Inquart (Holland's Governor-general)and Alfred Rosenburg (Nazi ideologist).

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