His authority was clearly defined in a Secret Decree issued on 29 August 1943. That Decree provided that the Reich Protector was “the representative of the Fuehrer in his capacity as Chief of State.” In addition to this over-all authority, Frick was given jurisdiction “to confirm the members of the government of the Protectorate, to appoint, dismiss and retire the German civil servants in the Protectorate.” He was given full power “to grant pardons and to quash proceedings in all cases except in cases before the Military and SS Police Courts” (1366-PS).

These broad powers establish the clear responsibility of Frick for the crimes committed in the Protectorate under his administration during the last 20 months of the War. As representative of the Fuehrer in the Protectorate, he covered these criminal acts with Hitler’s name and absolute power.

As a single example of these crimes, reference may be made to Supplement 6 to the official Czechoslovak Report on German Crimes Against Czechoslovakia:

“During the tenure of office of defendant Wilhelm Frick as Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia from August 1943 until the liberation of Czechoslovakia in 1945, many thousands of Czechoslovak Jews were transported from the Terezin ghetto in Czechoslovakia to the concentration camp at Oswiecziem (Auschwitz) in Poland and were there killed in the gas chambers.” (3589-PS).

Frick was also fully responsible for the multiple and notorious miscarriages of justice by which the population of the Protectorate was systematically persecuted and oppressed. His failure to correct these miscarriages of justice through the exercise of his right to grant pardons and to quash legal proceedings is tantamount to a confirmation of the cruel and illegal sentences imposed upon the inhabitants of the Protectorate (1556-PS; 3589-PS).

Frick’s specific responsibility on these counts must be added to the over-all responsibility which he bears because of the fact that he was in power as Reich Protector while such Crimes against Humanity were committed against the population of Bohemia and Moravia (3443-PS).

H. CONCLUSION.

Frick, who joined the Nazi conspiracy at its early beginning, played within the conspiracy the role of expert administrator and coordinator of State and Party affairs. Misusing his governmental positions in the pre-Hitler era, he gave aid and protection to the conspirators when they were still weak. He supported them in their first attempt to come into power by force, expecting to gain high office from their success. He was the first to carry their revolutionary program from the Beer Hall to the Reichstag Rostrum. As their earliest important office-holder (in Thuringia), he developed for the first time their totalitarian and terroristic methods of political and intellectual control.

Upon the accession to power of the Nazi conspirators on 30 January 1933, Frick took over the vital Ministry of Interior. From this position he directed the realization of the entire domestic program of the conspiracy. He took complete charge of the successive destruction of the parliamentary system, of autonomous State and local government, and of the career civil service. He planned and executed the measures which subjected the government itself to the domination of the Nazi Party. He then proceeded to establish a huge Reich Police Force under Himmler, which became the instrument with which the Nazi conspirators terrorized and ultimately “liquidated” all opposition inside and outside Germany in concentration and extermination camps.

In order to give the semblance of law to the criminal acts of the conspirators, Frick drafted legislation to withdraw constitutional protection from the rights and liberties which they had determined to wipe out. He participated in the relentless and violent persecution of all persons and groups who were considered as actual or potential opponents of the conspirators’ plans. Among these were the churches, the free trade unions, and especially the Jews.