[A recess was taken.]
DR. SEIDL: Witness, we were last speaking of the universities. Did you yourself, as Governor General, close the secondary schools?
FRANK: My suggestion to reopen the Gymnasiums and secondary schools was rejected by Adolf Hitler. We helped to solve the problem by permitting secondary school education in a large number of private schools.
DR. SEIDL: Now, a basic question. The Prosecution accuse you of having plundered the country ruled by you as Governor General. What do you have to say to that?
FRANK: Well, evidently by that accusation is meant everything that happened in the economic sphere in that country as a result of the arrangements between the German Reich and the Government General. First, I would like to emphasize that the Government General had to start with a balance sheet which revealed a frightful economic situation. The country had approximately twelve million inhabitants. The area of the Government General was the least fertile part of the former Poland. Moreover, the boundary between the Soviet Union, as well as the boundary between the German Reich, had been drawn in such a way that the most essential elements, indispensable for economy, were left outside. The frontiers between the Soviet Union and the German Reich were immediately closed; and so, right from the start, we had to make something out of nothing.
Galicia, the most important area in the Republic of Poland from the viewpoint of food supplies, was given to the Soviet Union. The province of Posen belonged to the German Reich. The coal and industrial areas of Upper Silesia were within the German Reich. The frontier with Germany was drawn in such a way that the iron works in Czestochowa remained with the Government General, whereas the iron-ore basins which were 10 kilometers from Czestochowa were incorporated into the German Reich.
The town of Lodz, the textile center of Poland, came within the German Reich. The city of Warsaw with a population of several millions became a frontier town because the German border came as close as 15 kilometers to Warsaw, and the result was that the entire agricultural hinterland was no longer at the disposal of that city. A great many facts could be mentioned, but that would probably take us too far. The first thing we had to do was to set things going again somehow. During the first weeks the population of Warsaw could only be fed with the aid of German equipment for mass feeding. The German Reich at that time sent 600,000 tons of grain, as a loan of course, and that created a heavy debt for me.
I started the financial economy with 20 million zlotys which had been advanced to me by the Reich. We started with a completely impoverished economy due to the devastation caused by the war, and by the first of January 1944 the savings bank accounts of the native population had reached the amount of 11,500 million zlotys, and we had succeeded by then in improving the feeding of the population to a certain extent. Furthermore, at that time the factories and industrial centers had been reconstructed, to which reconstruction the Reich authorities had made outstanding contributions; Reich Marshal Göring and Minister Speer especially deserve great credit for the help given in reviving the industry of the country. More than two million fully paid workers were employed; the harvest had increased to 1.6 million tons in a year; the yearly budget had increased from 20 million zlotys in the year 1939 to 1,700 million zlotys. All this is only a sketch which I submit here to describe the general development.
DR. SEIDL: Witness, in your capacity as Governor General did you persecute churches and religion in the areas which you had under your administration?
FRANK: I was in constant personal contact with the Archbishop, now Cardinal, Sapieha in Kraków. He told me of all his sufferings and worries, and they were not few. I myself had to rescue the Bishop of Lublin from the hands of Herr Globocznik in order to save his life.