DR. SEIDL: Is it correct that your actions as Governor General, and undoubtedly also many excesses by the police and the SD, were due to the guerrilla activities?
FRANK: Guerrilla activities? It can be said that it was the resistance movement, which started from the very first day and was supported by our enemies, which presented the most difficult problem I had to cope with during all these years. For this resistance movement perpetually supplied the police and the SS with pretexts and excuses for all those measures which, from the viewpoint of an orderly administration, were very regrettable. In fact, the resistance movement—I will not call it guerrilla activity, because if a people has been conquered during a war and organizes an active resistance movement, that is something definitely to be respected—but the methods of the resistance movement went far beyond the limits of an heroic revolt. German women and children were slaughtered under the most atrocious circumstances. German officials were shot; trains were derailed; dairies were destroyed; and all measures taken to bring about the recovery of the country were systematically undermined.
And it is against the background of these incidents, which occurred day after day, incessantly, during practically the entire period of my activity, that the events in that country must be considered. That is all I have to say to that.
DR. SEIDL: Witness, in the year 1944 a revolt broke out in Warsaw under the leadership of General Bor. What part did the administration of the Government General have, and what part did you have in putting down that revolt?
FRANK: That revolt broke out, when the Soviet Russian Army had advanced to within about 30 kilometers of Warsaw on the eastern bank of the Vistula. It was a sort of combined operation; and, as it seems to me, also a national Polish action, as the Poles at the last moment wanted to carry out the liberation of their capital themselves and did not want to owe it to the Soviet Russians. They probably were thinking of how, in Paris, at the last moment the resistance movement, even before the Allies had approached, had accomplished the liberation of the city.
The operation was a strictly military one. As Senior Commander of the German troops used to quell the revolt, I believe, they appointed SS General Von dem Bach-Zelewski. The civil administration, therefore, did not have any part in the fighting. The part played by the civil administration began only after the capitulation of General Bor, when the most atrocious orders for vengeance came from the Reich.
A letter came to my desk one day in which Hitler demanded the deportation of the entire population of Warsaw into German concentration camps. It took a struggle of 3 weeks, from which I emerged victorious, to avert that act of insanity and to succeed in having the fleeing population of Warsaw, which had had no part in the revolt, distributed throughout the Government General.
During that revolt, unfortunately, the city of Warsaw was very seriously damaged. All that had taken years to rebuild was burned down in a few weeks. However, State Secretary Bühler, in order to save time, will probably be in a better position to give us more details.
DR. SEIDL: Witness, you are also accused of having suppressed the cultural life of the population of the Government General, especially as regards the theater, broadcasting, films. What have you to say about that?
FRANK: The Government General presented the same picture as every occupied country. We do not have to look far from this courtroom to see what cultural life is like in an occupied country.