THE PRESIDENT: Please do.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: I am quoting now from Frank’s diary at the place which the Tribunal will find on Page 93 of the document file, in the second column of the text, second paragraph below the title, “Meeting of Political Leaders of NSDAP in Kraków, on 15 January 1944.” It begins thus, Dr. Frank, “I did not hesitate to say that for every German killed, up to a hundred Poles would be shot.”
In these dark days the Polish people regarded the victims of Frank and of his henchmen as martyrs. That is the reason it seems to me that, on 16 December 1942, at a government meeting in Kraków, Frank stated—I am quoting excerpts from the diary on Page 92 in the document book, third paragraph after the heading, the first column of the text. I begin the quotation:
“We must consider whether, for practical reasons, executions should be carried out as far as possible on the spot where the murder of a German was attempted. It might also be as well to consider whether special places for execution should be set up, as it has been established that the Polish population streams to the places of execution, which are accessible to everyone, for the purpose of filling vessels with the bloodstained earth, and taking them to church.”
I brought Frank’s diary to your attention, Your Honors, because he was one of Hitler’s closest associates and because this very well-known “learned” jurist of fascism was actually a positive alter ego of those who cut in two the bodies of children in the Yanov Camp. At the same time he was one of the creators of that part of the legal code of the German fascists which completely negated justice. After all, the whole miserable juridical wisdom of Mein Kampf fundamentally comes down to just one wicked formula, that is, that “might is right.” I studied this book and found no other sense in the text. I quote the 64th edition, Page 740.
Frank was to Hitler that necessary evil gnome of jurisprudence whom Hitler needed to clothe in legal form the inhuman theories of fascism. In support of the fact as to how far the profanation of the basic ideas of justice incorporated in the criminal and civil law of all civilized people went, I submit to the Tribunal the original copy of one of Frank’s directives published in the official bulletin of the Governor General for 1943. It is dated 2 October 1943 and is being presented by the Soviet delegation to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number USSR-335 (Document Number USSR-335). The Tribunal will find the document quoted on Page 95 of the document book. I quote the document in full:
“Decree: The combating of attacks on German construction work in the Government General, issued 2 October 1943.
“On the basis of Paragraph 5, Section 1, of the Führer’s decree of 12 October 1939 (Reichsgesetzblatt I, Page 2077) I decree, until further notice:
“Paragraph 1.
“(1) Non-Germans who violate laws, decrees, official regulations, or orders with the intention of hampering or interfering with German construction work in the Government General will be punished by death.