The Nizkor Project: Remembering the Holocaust (Shoah)

Nazi Conspiracy & Aggression
Individual Responsibility Of Defendants
Hans Frank
(Part 7 of 10)


[Page 639]

Naumann goes on to discuss the difficulties that may be encountered in the process of requisition:

"The securing of all depots and food processing plants, as well as their transport facilities must be assured, as otherwise irreplaceable losses result which mean a further burdening of the food budget. I have had maps made of all districts [Kreise] on which the depots have all been drawn in. I request that the necessary measures be taken on the part of the police and these depots, which are in the eye of the hungering masses, above all at times when the restrictions are carried out, should be strictly guarded, so that the meager supplies which we have until the new harvest should not be destroyed by sabotage or arson.... Finally it must be determined at the beginning of November whether the martial law for the harvest period, which has been proclaimed up to 30 November, must be extended to 30 December. Martial law for the harvest period has been extended to all products which are to be seized. The planned quota increase and reduction of ration quantities must be kept secret under all circumstances and may be published only at that time which the Main Department for Food and Agriculture considers proper. Should the reduction of ration quantities and the increase of quotas become known earlier, extremely noticeable disturbances in the seizure would take place. The mass of the Polish population would then go to the land and would become a supplementary competitor of our requisitioning agencies." (2233-E-PS)

Frank's concluding remarks summarized the position as follows:

"I must point out that some sectors of the administration will feel this very keenly. In the first place the police will feel this, for it will have to deal, if I may say so, with an increased activity of the black market and a neglect of food customs. I will gladly give the police extraordinary powers so that they can overcome these difficulties.

"The economy will feel it. The decrease of work rendered will become felt in all sectors, branches and regions. I also assume that our transport system will feel it too. In view of the worsening living conditions an extraordinary hardship

[Page 640]

will set in for railroad workers and other categories; as the previous quantities of food were already not enough. The monopolies will feel it through a decrease of their incomes, as the amounts of potatoes available for the production of vodka will be less.

"The Germans in this area shall not feel it. We wish in spite of this new plan to see to it that the supplies for Germans will be maintained. Also the Wehrmacht and other encamped units in this area shall not feel it. We hope that it will be possible for us to keep up the whole quotas here.

"To help in this necessity there is a corresponding measure, namely that the supervision of persons traveling from the General Government to the Reich, above all of military personnel, in order to see whether they are taking food out of the General Government, should be suspended. This means that in addition to all that which we must now extract from the land economically, there must take place a complete removal of control over that which is dragged out of the land by thousands upon thousands -- doubtless illegally and against our government measures." (2233-E- PS)

The extent of the General Government's food contribution to the Reich, and its significance in terms of rations within Germany were described by Frank at a meeting of political leaders of the NSDAP in December 1942 at Cracow:

"I will endeavor to get out of the reservoir of this territory everything that is yet to be got out of it. When you consider that it was possible for me to deliver to the Reich 600,000 tons of bread grain, and in addition 180,000 tons to the Armed Forces stationed here; further an abundance amounting to many thousands of tons of other commodities such as seed, fats, vegetables, besides the delivery to the Reich of 300 million eggs, etc. -- you can estimate the significance of the consignment from the General Government of 600,000 tons of bread grain; you are referred to the fact that the General Government by this achievement alone covers the raising of the bread ration in the Greater German Reich by two-thirds during the present rationing period. This enormous achievement can rightfully be claimed by us." (2233-Z-PS)

(2) Resettlement projects. Although Himmler was given general authority in connection with the conspirators' program to resettle various districts in the conquered Eastern territories with racial Germans, projects relating to resettling districts in the

[Page 641]

General Government were submitted to and approved by Frank. On 4 August 1942, for example, the plan to resettle Zamosc and Lublin was reported to him by State Secretary Krueger:

"State Secretary Krueger then continues, saying that the Reichsfuehrers next immediate plan until the end of the following year would be to settle the following German racial groups in the two districts (Zamosc and Lublin):1000 peasant settlements (1 settlement per family of about 6) for Bosnian Germans; 1200 other kinds of settlements; 1000 settlements for Bessarabian Germans; 200 for Serbian Germans; 2000 for Leningrad Germans; 4000 for Baltic Germans; 500 for Wolhynia Germans; and 200 settlements for Flemish, Danish and Dutch Germans: in all 10,000 settlements for 50,000 persons" (2233-T-PS).

Frank directed that:

" the resettlement plan is to be discussed cooperatively by the competent authorities and declared his willingness to approve the final plan by the end of September after satisfactory arrangements had been made concerning all the questions appertaining thereto (in particular the guaranteeing of peace and order) so that by the middle of November, as the most favorable time, the resettlement can begin."

The way in which the resettlement at Zamosc was carried out was described to Frank at a meeting at Warsaw on 25 January 1943 by State Secretary Krueger:

"When we settled about the first 4000 in Kreis Zamosc shortly before Christmas I had an opportunity to speak to these people. *** It is understandable that in resettling this area . . . we did not make friends of the Poles. *** In colonizing this territory with racial Germans, we are forced to chase out the Poles. *** We are removing those who constitute a burden in this new colonization territory. Actually, they are the asocial and inferior elements. They are being deported, first brought to a concentration camp, and then sent as labor to the Reich. From a Polish propaganda standpoint this entire first action has had an unfavorable effect. For the Poles say: After the Jews have been destroyed then they will employ the same -methods to get the Poles out of this territory and liquidate them just like the Jews." (2233-AA-PS)

Although the illegality of this dispossession of Poles to make room for German settlers was clear, and although the fact that the Poles were not only being dispossessed but taken off to con-

[Page 642]

centration camps was drawn to Frank's attention at this time, he merely directed that individual cases of resettlement should in future be discussed in the same manner as in the case of Zamosc. (2233-AA-PS)

(3) Encroachments and confiscations n the industries and in the field of private property.

Frank explained his policy in respect to Polish property to his Department Heads in the following terms in December 1939:

"Principally it can be said regarding the administration of the General Government: This territory in its entirety is booty of the German Reich, and it thus cannot be permitted that this territory shall be exploited in its individual parts but that the territory in its entirety shall be economically used and its entire economic worth redound to the benefit of the German people." (2233-K-PS)


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