DR. SEIDL: You mean the SS Gruppenführer Globocznik?
FRANK: Yes, that is the one I mean.
But I may summarize the situation by quoting the letter which Archbishop Sapieha sent to me in 1942, in which, to use his own words, he thanked me for my tireless efforts to protect the life of the church. We reconstructed seminaries for priests; and we investigated every case of arrest of a priest, as far as that was humanly possible. The tragic incident when two assistants of the Archbishop Sapieha were shot, which has been mentioned here by the Prosecution, stirred my own emotions very deeply. I cannot say any more. The churches were open; the seminaries were educating priests; the priests were in no way prevented from carrying out their functions. The monastery at Czestochowa was under my personal protection. The Kraków monastery of the Camaldulians, which is a religious order, was also under my personal protection. There were large posters around the monastery indicating that these monasteries were protected by me personally.
DR. SEIDL: Witness, when did you hear for the first time about the concentration camp at Maidanek?
FRANK: I heard the name Maidanek for the first time in 1944 from foreign reports. But for years there had been contradictory rumors about the camp near Lublin, or in the Lublin District, if I may express myself in such a general way. Governor Zörner once told me, I believe already in 1941, that the SS intended to build a large concentration camp near Lublin and had applied for large quantities of building materials, et cetera. At that time I instructed State Secretary Bühler to investigate the matter immediately, and I was told, and I also received a report in writing from Reichsführer SS Himmler, that he had to build a large camp required by the Waffen-SS to manufacture clothes, footwear, and underwear in large SS-owned workshops. This camp went under the name of “SS Works,” or something similar.
Now, I have to say I was in a position to get information, whereas the witnesses who have testified so far have said under oath that in the circles around the Führer nothing was known about all these things. We out there were more independent, and I heard quite a lot through enemy broadcasts and enemy and neutral papers. In answer to my repeated questions as to what happened to the Jews who were deported, I was always told they were to be sent to the East, to be assembled, and put to work there. But, the stench seemed to penetrate the walls, and therefore I persisted in my investigations as to what was going on. Once a report came to me that there was something going on near Belcec. I went to Belcec the next day. Globocznik showed me an enormous ditch which he was having made as a protective wall and on which many thousands of workers, apparently Jews, were engaged. I spoke to some of them, asked them where they came from, how long they had been there, and he told me, that is, Globocznik, “They are working here now, and when they are through—they come from the Reich, or somewhere from France—they will be sent further east.” I did not make any further inquiries in that same area.
The rumor, however, that the Jews were being killed in the manner which is now known to the entire world would not be silenced. When I expressed the wish to visit the SS workshop near Lublin, in order to get some idea of the value of the work that was being done, I was told that special permission from Heinrich Himmler was required.
I asked Heinrich Himmler for this special permission. He said that he would urge me not to go to the camp. Again some time passed. On 7 February 1944 I succeeded in being received by Adolf Hitler personally—I might add that throughout the war he received me three times only. In the presence of Bormann I put the question to him: “My Führer, rumors about the extermination of the Jews will not be silenced. They are heard everywhere. No one is allowed in anywhere. Once I paid a surprise visit to Auschwitz in order to see the camp, but I was told that there was an epidemic in the camp and my car was diverted before I got there. Tell me, My Führer, is there anything in it?” The Führer said, “You can very well imagine that there are executions going on—of insurgents. Apart from that I do not know anything. Why don’t you speak to Heinrich Himmler about it?” And I said, “Well, Himmler made a speech to us in Kraków and declared in front of all the people whom I had officially called to the meeting that these rumors about the systematic extermination of the Jews were false; the Jews were merely being brought to the East.” Thereupon the Führer said, “Then you must believe that.”
When in 1944 I got the first details from the foreign press about the things which were going on, my first question was to the SS Obergruppenführer Koppe, who had replaced Krüger. “Now we know,” I said, “you cannot deny that.” And he said that nothing was known to him about these things, and that apparently it was a matter directly between Heinrich Himmler and the camp authorities. “But,” I said, “already in 1941 I heard of such plans, and I spoke about them.” Then he said that was my business and he could not worry about it.
The Maidanek Camp must have been run solely by the SS, in the way I have mentioned, and apparently, in the same manner as stated by the witness Hoess.