Not within the framework of the evidence presented in connection with the personal responsibility of the Defendant Frank, but in connection with the accusation of so-called Germanization, a document was submitted with the Exhibit USA-300, 661-PS. This is a memorandum entitled “Legal Aspects of German Policy toward the Poles from the Ethno-Political Point of View.” According to a note on the title page, the legal part of this was to serve as a model for the Committee of the Academy for German Law which dealt with legal nationality questions. This document can have no probative value in connection with the personal responsibility of the Defendant Frank. He testified in the witness box that he had given no instructions for the writing of that memorandum and that he was not aware of its contents. Over and above this, it would seem that no substantive evidential value can be attached to that document within the scope of this whole Trial. Nor is it evident, from the memorandum, who wrote it or who gave instructions that it should be written. Its whole form and content would seem to show that it is not an official document, but rather the work of a private individual. It was stated to have been found at the Ministry of Justice in Kassel. But in actual fact there has been no Ministry of Justice at Kassel for many decades. All these circumstances would seem to indicate that the material probative value of this document is, to say the least, extremely small.
But whatever the evidential value of minutes of conferences that took place in the year 1939 on the occasion of the establishment of the Government General, the following should be pointed out:
In judging the conduct of the Defendant Frank it is not of such essential importance to know what Hitler, he himself, or other persons said on one occasion or another, but what policy the Defendant Frank actually pursued toward the Polish and Ukrainian peoples. And here there can be no possible doubt—on the basis both of the general result of the evidence and, in particular, of entries in the diary of the defendant himself—that he repudiated all tendencies and measures designed to effect Germanization. That is shown with great clarity by the extracts from the diary which I have submitted to the Tribunal. Thus on 8 March 1940 he declared at a meeting of department chiefs, that is, to an audience of men who as leaders of the various main departments were deputed to put his directives into practice:
“I have been charged by the Führer to look upon the Government General as the home of the Polish people. Accordingly no Germanization of any sort or kind is possible. In your departments you will please see that the two-language principle is strictly observed; you will also point out to district and provincial officers that no violence is to be used in opposing such safeguarding of Polish national existence. We have in a certain sense herewith taken over on trust from the Führer the responsibility for Polish national life.”
This declaration alone makes it apparent that the directives laid down in the conference between Hitler and the Chief of the OKW on 17 October 1939, as contained in Exhibit USA-609, 864-PS, cannot possibly have been made the subject of the duties with which the Defendant Frank was charged. On the other hand, in view of the entire activities of the Higher SS and Police Leader, East from the first day of his appointment, it can safely be assumed that it was Reichsführer SS Himmler whom Hitler charged with carrying out the directives laid down at his conference with the Chief of the OKW.
A diary entry of 19 February 1940 is on the same lines; in this the Defendant Frank advocates the formation of a Polish government or regency council.
On 25 February 1940, at a service conference of officials of the District of Radom, the Defendant Frank gave out, in program form, his directives regarding general administration. On this occasion the Defendant Frank said among other things:
“1. The Government General comprises that part of the occupied Polish area which is not a component part of the German Reich ...
“2. The Führer has decreed that this territory shall be the home of the Polish people. The Führer and Field Marshal Göring have impressed on me over and over again that this territory is not to be subjected to Germanization.
“3. In accordance with the instructions we have received under the Führer’s decree Polish laws will remain in force here.”