Hans Frank

Hans Frank was one of Hitler's top lieutenants, Governor-General of occupied Poland. He was a war criminal and a mass murderer, who was executed in Nuremberg for his presiding over the extermination of Poles and Jews.

In a speech to German soldiers in Poland Hans Frank urged them to write home:

"In all these weeks, your families will be thinking of you, saying to themselves: my God, there he sits in Poland where there are so many lice and Jews, perhaps he is hungry and cold, perhaps he is afraid to write. It would not be a bad idea to send our dear ones back home a picture, and tell them: well now, there are not so many lice and Jews any more, and conditions here in the General Government have changed and improved somewhat already. Of course, I could not eliminate all lice and Jews in only one year's time.

But in the course of time, and above all, if you help me, this end will be attained. After all, it is not necessary for us to accomplish everything within a year and right away, for what would otherwise be left for those who follow us to do?"

In another speech December 16, 1941, Hans Frank said:

"One way or another - I will tell you quite openly - we must finish off the Jews. The Führer put it into words once: should united Jewry again succeed in setting off a world war, then the blood sacrifice shall not be made only by the peoples driven into war, but then the Jew of Europe will have met his end ...

But what should be done with the Jews? Can you believe that they will be accommodated in settlements in the Ostland? In Berlin we were told: why are you making all this trouble? We don't want them either, not in Ostland nor in the Reichskommissariat; liquidate them yourselves! Gentlemen, I must ask you to steel yourselves against all considerations of compassion. We must destroy the Jews wherever we find them, and wherever it is at all possible, in order to maintain the whole structure of the Reich ...

The Jews represent for us also extraordinary malignant gluttons. We have now approximately 2,500,000 of them in the General Government [Nazi occupied Poland], perhaps with the Jewish mixtures and everything that goes with it, 3,500,000 Jews. We cannot shoot or poison those 3,500,000 Jews, but we shall nevertheless be able to take measures which will lead somehow to their annihilation, and this in connection with the gigantic measures to be determined in discussions with the Reich."

Hans Frank converted to Roman Catholicism after his arrest, and at the Nuremberg trial he declared: "A thousand years will pass and the guilt of Germany will not be erased ..."

He was found guilty as a war criminal and sentenced to death by hanging. He was the only one of the condemned to enter the chamber with a smile on his countenance. He answered to his name quietly and when asked for any last statement, he replied in a low voice that was almost a whisper:"I ask God to accept me with mercy."