THE PRESIDENT: Yes. Go on.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: I would ask you to recall the contents. It says: “The Higher SS and Police Leader (the State Secretary) is directly subordinate to the Governor General, and, if he is absent, then to his Deputy.”
Does this not mean that Himmler, so to speak, agreed with your ideal in the sense that the Police should be subordinate to you?
FRANK: Certainly. On that day I was satisfied; but a few days later the whole thing was changed. I can only say that these efforts on my part were continued, but unfortunately it was never possible to put them into effect.
You will find here in Paragraph 3, if you care to go on, that the Reichsführer SS, according to the expected decree by the Führer, could give orders to the State Secretary. So, you see, Himmler here had reserved the right to give orders to Krüger direct. And then comes the matter of the agreement...
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: That is true, but in that case I must ask you to refer to another part of the document...
FRANK: May I say in this connection that this agreement was never put into effect, but that this decree was published in the Reichsgesetzblatt in the form of a Führer decree. Unfortunately, I do not know the date of that; but you can find the decree about the regulation of security matters in the Government General, and that is the only authoritative statement. Here, also, reference is made to the “expected decree by the Führer,” and that agreement was just a draft of what was to appear in the Führer decree.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Yes, I was just proceeding to that subject. You agree that this decision was practically a verbatim decree of the Führer?
FRANK: I cannot say that offhand. If you will be good enough to give me the words of the Führer decree, I will be able to tell you about that.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Yes.