also alleged to show the criminality of the administrative aims of the defendant Frank is USA Exhibit No, 297, which is EC 344-16. The content of this document is a discussion which the defendant Frank is said to have had on October 3, 1939 with a certain Captain Varain. The defendant Frank testified in the witness-box that he had never made any such or similar statements to an officer. Moreover, a comparison of the dates shows that this conversation, even if it should have taken place, can have no connection with the subject of the conference between the Fuehrer and the Chief of the OKW, the latter not having been hold till October 17, 1939; that is, at a later date. with the personal responsibility of the defendant Frank, but in connection with the accusation of so-called Germanization, a document was submitted with the number USA Exhibit 300, 661-PS. This is a memorandum entitled, "Legal aspects of German Policy towards 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 there 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 content. Over and above this, it would seem thatno substantive evidential value can be attached to that document within the scope of this whole trial. instructions that 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 Cassel, But in actual fact there has been no Ministry of Justice at Cassel for many decades. All those circumstances would point to the material probative value of this document as being at least extremely small.
place in the year 1939 on the occasion of the establishment of the Government General, the following should be pointed-out: 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 towards the Polish and Ukrainian peoples. Aid here there can be-no 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 March 8, 1940, he declared at a meeting of department chiefs, i.e., 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 Fuehrer to look upon the Government-General as the hone of the Polish people. Accordingly no Germanization of any sort or kind is possible. In your departments you will please see that the twolanguage 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 separate Polish existence. We have in a certain sense herewith taken over on trust from the Fuehrer the responsibility for Polish national life." in the Conference between Hitler and the Chief of the OKW on October 17, 1939 and contained in document 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 work done by the Higher SS and PoliceLeader East from the first day of his appointment, it can safely be assumed that it was Reichsfuehrer 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 February 19, 1940 is on the same lines; in this the defendant Frank advocates the formation of a Polish government or regency Council.
and district and municipal commanders of the District of Radom, the defendant Frank gave out inprogramme 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 Fuehrer has decreed that this territory is to be the home of the Polish people. The Fuehrer and General Field-Marshal Goering 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 underthe Fuehrer's decree Polish laws will remain in force here."
On June 7, 1942 the defendant Frank stated word for word as follows:
"It is not as rulers by violence that we come and go in this country. We have no terroristic or oppressive intentions. Welded into the interests of Greater Germany, the living rights of the Poles and Ukrainians in this territory are also safeguarded by us. We have not taken away from the Poles and Ukrainians either their churches, their schools or their education. The German does not wish to de-nationalize by violent means. We are sufficient unto ourselves, and we know that people mist be born into our community and that it is a distinction to belong to it. And that is why we can look their world in the face with this our work." End of quote. that the measures taken, at any rate by Frank, were intended to care for the Polish nation and that, he repudiated any terror policy.
I come now to the so-called "peace-enforcing action". When their campaign against Poland had ended in September 1939, that did not mean that all resistance had ceased. Very soon afterwards now centres of resistance sprang up, and when on April 9, 194 0 German troops occupied Denmark and Norway and on May 10, 1940, the German Western Army had begun their attack, the leaders of the Polish resistance movement believed that -- in consideration of the general political and military situation -- the time for action had come. This resistance movement was all the more dangerous because scattered but not inconsiderable remnants of the former Polish Army were active in it.
A large number of entries in the diary of the defendant Frank show that the security situation worsened from day to day during that period, Here for instance is on entry for May 16, 1940:
"The general war situation requires that the most serious consideration be given to the internal security situation of the government General. A large number of signs and actions lead one to the conclusion that there exists a widely-organized wave of resistance on the part of the Poles in the country, and that we are on the threshold of violent happenings on a large scale. Thousands of Poles are already organized in secret circles; they are armed and are being incited in the most seditious manner to commit all kinds of violence." given - as the diary shows, by the Fuehrer himself - that in the interest of the maintenance of public security, all measures were to be taken to suppress the imminent revolt.
That order was given through Himmler to the Higher SS and Police Leader. The witness-box, and the evidence given by the witness Dr. Luehler, have shown introduced by a decree issued in the year 1939; and moreover, the decisions don which in many cases modified, the sentence .. The Chairman of the Pardon -- the defendant Dr. Seyss-Inquart.
As his testimony revealed, no less than prisonment by the Pardon Board.
For the rest, as regards the so-called ex Commissioner for the Consolidation of the German nation (Himmler) and of having thereby also committed, a war crime.
There is no question but that hardship for those who are affected by them; in many cases a resettlement means the destruction of a person's economic existence.
Nevertheless, it crime or a crime against humanity, for the following reasons :world.
Among other things they said :
"Some weeks ago we found occasion to comment on the outrageous happenings in the East of Germany, particularly in Silesia and Sudetenland, where more than ten millions Germans have been driven from their ancestral homes in brutal fashion, no investigation having been made to ascertain whether or not there was any question of personal guilt. No pen can describe the unspeakable misery there imposed in contravention of all consideration of humanity and justice. All these people are being crammed together in the rump of Germany without means to found an existence there. It cannot be foreseen how these masses of people who have been driven from their homes can become other than peace-lacking and peace-disturbing elements." dangers connected with such measures, dangers which must arises alone out of the fact that in view of her envisaged deprivations of territory, Germany -- with an area reduced by 22 % as compared with 1919 - will have to feed a population increased by 18 % and that in future there will be 200 inhabitants to the square kilometer. I am, further, not pointing to this state of affairs to show that if the present economic policy is continued and the so-called industrial plan is maintained, Germany is heading for a catastrophe the consequences of which cannot be confined to the German people. The evidential relevance of these facts is however shown by the following: dance with a resolution taken at Potsdam on August 2, 1945 by President Truman, Generalissimo Stalin and Prime Minister Attlee.
GENERAL RUDENKO: Mr. President, excuse me for interrupting the defendant's counsel, but it seems to me the considerations of the law and the critique of the decisions taken at Potsdam have no relation to the present case.
DR. SEIDL: Mr. President, may I briefly define my attitude on this ? the conference at Potsdam. However, I am anxious to find out whether, employing the rules of the Charter, a certain conduct which has been alleged on against humanity. It is only within the framework of investigating that question that I find myself forced to go into the decisions of the so-called Potsdam conference and bring them up in my argument.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Seidl, the Tribunal considers that your references to the Potsdam declaration are irrelevant, and the objection of General Rudenko is therefore sustained. You are directed to go on to some other part of your argument.
DR. SEIDL: Mr. President, I presume that the Tribunal have the translation of my presentation at hand. I am not quite clear about the question as to whether the final conclusion, which appears at page 38, is also affected by the decision of the Tribunal which you have just announced.
THE PRESIDENT: It is affected by that, and I think you can pass on to page 40, where you begin to deal with the subject of the Jews. That is the second paragraph on page 40.
DR. SEIDL: Very well, Mr. President. a program for the extermination of Jews of Polish nationality, thereby infringing upon the laws of war and humanity. in his capacity as Governor-General, he revealed his point of view on the Jewish question. The extracts from the diary submitted by the Prosecution in connection with this matter comprise practically everything relevant there to in the defendant Frank's diary of ten to 12,000 typed pages. Nevertheless it shall not be denied that the defendant Frank made no secret of his antiSemitic views. He spoke in detail on this question when giving his testimony in the witness-box. submitted by the Prosecution is quite another matter, almost all of them consist of statements made by the defendant Frank in speeches, but there has not even been an attempt by the Prosecution to prove the existence of a cause connection between these statements and the measures carried out against the Jews by the Security Police. witnesses Dr. Bilfinger and Dr. Buehler, it can be looked upon as certain -in connection with the secret Decree concerning the jurisdiction of the Security Police and the SD of the year 1939, and the Decree concerning the transger of certain tasks to the State Secretary for Security- that all the measures concerning Jews in the Government-General were carried out exclusively by Reich Fuehrer SS Himmler and his organs.
That is true for both the initiation and the organization of the so-called final solution of the Jewish question. timony given by the witnesses Wisliceny and Hoess and of the documents presented by the Prosecution, that these measures were undertaken on Hitler' s express orders and that only a small circle of persons was concerned in their execution. This small circle was confined in the main to a few SS leaders of Department IV-a-4-b of the RSHA and the personnel of the concentration camps that had been selected for the purpose. these measures. The above facts also show that the antisemitic statements by the defendant Frank submitted by the Prosecution have no causal connection with the so-called final solution of the Jewish question.
Since a casual link must be established before the question of illegality and guilt can even be considered, it does not seem necessary to well further on the matter.
All the less because the factual elements of many punishable offenses can only be said to exist if at least an attempt has been made, that is, if the commission of the offense has at least been begun. Under the principles derived from the criminal law of all civilized nations, the statements contained in the diary of the defendant Frank do not even constitute preparatory acts.. In consideration of the tense and sometimes extremely frangible relationship between the Government General on the one hand and the Reichsfuehrer SS Himmler and the Higher SS and Police -Leader Krueger on the other, it would also seem to be impossible to look upon the statements of the defendant Frank as acts of incitement or complicity. The evidence has shown on the contrary that all the efforts of the defendant Frank to investigate successfully the rumours about the elimination of the Jews, at least within his own administrative district, failed of their purpose. Only to complete the picture need it be mentioned that the concentration camp of Auschwitz was not in the Government General, but in that part of Poland which was annexed to Upper Silesia. For the rest, it cannot be clearly seen whether the erection of concentration camps is in itself to be looked on as fulfilling the requirements of a war crime or a crime against humanity, or whether the Prosecution considers the establishment of such camps solely as part of the so-called common plan. Setting aside the crimes committed in the concentration camps, and considering the nature of concentration camps to be that in which people areconfined forreasons of state and police security on account of their political opinions and without an opportunity of defending themselves in an ordinary court of law, it appears at least doubtful whether an occupying Power should not have the right to take such necessary steps as this in order to maintain public order and security. Apart from the fact that it was not National Socialists and not Germans at all who first established such camps, the following must be mentioned. D. Clay, Deputy Commander of the zone in Germany occupied by American troops, 250,000 to 300,000 people in that zone were at that time being detained on account of their political opinions.
DR. KEMPNER: Mr. President, this chapter is completely irrelevant.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Seidl, do you wish to sayanything in answer to the objection?
DR. SEIDL: Mr. President, I beg you to overrule the objection by the prosecution and in elucidation I should like to say the following. I am not interested in criticizing an occupying power. Here again, once more, I am concerned with the question of whether a certain conduct of which the defendant Frank has been accused by the Prosecution constitutes the evidence of a criminal act. one occupying power to do must under similar circumstances be granted another occupying power, particularly if we are concerned with the case where accusations made against the defendant are for actions carried out during the war, whereas the state of war within Germany had ceased on May 9, 1945, at the very latest.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal sustains the objection. There is no evidence of the statements which you have made. And in any event, the Tribunal considers them entirely irrelevant.
DR. SEIDL: I assume, Mr. President, that in that case I may continue with the last paragraph on Page 44.
THE PRESIDENT: I think so, yes, the last paragraph. BY DR. SEIDL: because the evidence has shown that it was the defendant Frank who from the first day of the National Socialists' assumption of power fought against the police-State system, and, above all, stigmatized the concentration camps as an institution which could in no way be made to harmonize with the idea of a state resting onlaw. In this connection I refer to the testimony given by the witness Dr. Stepp, to the defendants' own statement and above all to the extracts from the defendant's diary which I put in evidence. The evidence has further shown that the establishment and administration of the concentration camps lay within the sphere of Reichsfuehrer SS Himmler's organization.
The camps, both in Reich terri-
tories and in all areas occupied by German troops, were exclusively under the command of the SS WVHA and/or the Inspector-General of the concentration camps. Neither the Governor General nor the general administration of the Government General had anything to do with these camps. supported violence and economic pressure as a means of recruiting workers for deportation to Germany. It is true that during the recent war, many Poles came to work in Germany, But in this connection the following should be noted: to Germany as vagrant workers. This stream of vagrant workers continued to flow even during the period between the first and the second world wars. In consequence of the ill-fated demarcation line, the Government General became an area that was distinctly over-populated. The agricultural. superfluity areas had fallen to the Soviet Union, whereas important industrial areas were incorporated into the Reich, Under these circumstances, because there were no riches to be found in the soil, the only valuable means of production lay in the working capacity of the population. And this - at any rate for the first few years - could not be absorbed to a sufficient extent, because the other production factors were lacking. In order to avoid unemployment and above all in the interest of maintaining public order and security, the administration of the Government General was bound, if only for reasons of state policy, to try to transfer as many workers as possible to Germany. There can indeed be no doubt that during the first years of the administration most of the polish workers went to the Reich voluntarily. When liter, in consequence of the continuous bombing raids, not only Germany's cities, but also her factories crashed in ruins and a not inconsiderable part of Germany's capacity for the production of war materials had to be removed to the Government General for reasons of security, the aim of the defendant Frank was necessarily to put a stop to any further transfer of labor. One and above this, however the defendant Frank had from the very, beginning opposed all violent measures in recruiting labor, and alone for security reasons and in order not to create new centres of unrest, had insisted that no compulsory measures were to be used, and only propagandistic methods employed.
That is certain, as shown by the testimony of the witnesses Dr. Buehler and Dr. Boepple, and also by a large number of entries in the diary. In my presentation of evidence I have already referred to several of them. Thus, for example, the defendant Frank said among other things on March 4, 1940:
"...I refuse to issue the decree demanded by Berlin, establishing compulsory measures and threatening punishment. Measures that viewed from the outside would create a sensation must be avoided under all circumstances. There is everything to be said against the removal of people by violence." Security Police. I quote:
"The Governor General is strongly opposed to the suggestion that police forces should be used in recruiting labour." These quotations could be amplified by many more. treatment of Polish workers in Germany. The defendant Frank continuously and repeatedly pleaded for better treatment of the Polish workers in the Reich does not appear to be quite clear. I do not intend to go further into the legal questions pertaining to this matter. the conception of vital stress (Notstand) as recognized in criminal law, would, in international law, too, precluded illegality in the case of a violat of law committed within that framework. interests being paramount, safeguard them if necessary by injuring the just interests of a third party. Even those writers who deny the application of the "vital stress" theory to international law -- they are in the minority -grant the threatened state the "right to self-preservation" and therewith the right to enforce "necessities of State" even at the cost of the just interests of other states. It is a recognized principle of international law that a state need not wait until the direct threat of extinction is at its very threshold. There can be no doubt that after the entry into the war of the United States, with which for all practical purposes the productive capacity and the military might of almost the whole world were gathered together to overthrow Germany, the German Reich was faced with a situation which not only threatened the State as such with extinction, but over and above that placed the bare existence of the people in jeopardy. Under these circumstances the right of the state leadership to make use of labour forces, even those in occupied territory, in this defensive struggle had to be acknowledged.
In addition, the following should not be passed over: The prosecution alleges that many, if not most of the foreign workers were brought to Germany by force and that they were then obliged to do heavy labour under degrading conditions. However one may look upon the evidence on this question, the fact cannot be ignored that there are hundreds of thousands of foreign workers still living in Germany who were allegedly deported thither by force. They refuse to return to their homes, although no one now attempts to hinder them. Under these circumstances it must be assumed that the force cannot have been as great, nor the treatment in Germany as bad as is alleged by the Prosecution.
Another allegation refers to the closing of the schools. It may be left out of account whether international law recognizes any criminal classification which would make the closing of schools appear as a war crime or a crime against humanity. In time of war this would seem to be all the more unlikely as it is well-known that schooling in war-time was considerably reduced, not only in Germany, but in many other belligerent countries. There is all the less reason to investigate this question more thoroughly, as the evidence has shown that the schools were for the most part already closed when the defendant assumed office asGovernor-General. During his whole period of office he left no means untried to re-activate not only the elementary and technical, but also the higher forms of school. In this connection I will only mention the University courses which he initiated.
The Soviet Prosecution haspresented as USSR Exhibit No. 335 a decree issued by the defendant to combat attacks against German reconstruction work in the Government General, dated October 2, 1943. There is no question but that this decree setting up a drumhead-court-martial is not in conformity with what must be demanded of Court procedure under normal circumstances. This decree can only be judged correctly if the circumstances which led to its promulgation are taken into consideration. administration of the Government General had to be carried on in a difficult territory and under circumstances which must be among the most difficult that have ever fallen to the lot of any administration.
After the collapse of the Polish State, the German administration found so to speak an empty space in which to organize and administer. In all spheres of administration they had to start completely afresh. If in spite of the difficulties they succeeded fairly quickly in removing war damage, particularly in the communications system, then that is incontestably to their credit. restoration in the area of the Government General could be carried out under fairly normal conditions. As the year 1941 opened, the Germans began to concentrate their troops for action against the Soviet Union, and therewith initiated a period of immense strain for the administration of the Government General. The Government General became the greatest repair workshop and the greatest military transit territory that history has ever known. This carried in its train an increasing deterioration of the security situation. The resistance movement began to re-organize on an intensified scale. But the menace inherent in the security situation developed to a still more alarming degree when the German armies were forced to arrest their progress in Russia and when -- after the catastrophe of Stalingrad -- their march forward was transformed into a general retreat. In the course of the year 1943, the activities of the resistance movement and in particular of the numerous guerilla bands in which thousands of a-social elements were grouped, reached extremes that represented a danger to any kind of orderly administration. The administration of the Government General was forced again and again to deal with this matter. Thus on May 31, 1943 a service meeting of the government of this Government General was held to deal with the security situation. Administration felt obliged to state among other things (I quote from the Diary):
"...In their activities the guerilla bands have revealed an increasingly well-developed system. They have now gone ever to the systematic destruction of institutions belonging to the German administration; they steal money, procure typewriters and reduplication machines; destroy quota-lists and lists of workers in the communal offices, and take away or burn criminal records and taxation lists.
Moreover raids on important production centers in the country have multiplied, for instance on saw-mills, dairies and distilleries, as also on bridges, railway installations and post-offices. The organization of the guerillas has become strongly military in character." activities of the partisans and the improvement in their military organization and equipment so endangered security in the Government-General that it might perhaps under the circumstances have been better to turn over its entire administration to the appropriate army commanders, and to proclaim martial law. It is indeed not possible to describe the conditions then existing in the Government-General as anything else but a state of war. It was the period when at any moment the possibility had to be taken into account that a general revolt would break out over the whole country. thwart any violent measures by the security police and the SD under all circumstances. It was in order to exercise at least a modifying influence on the security police and the SD and to have at least some guarantee against excesses that the defendant Frank agreed to the order dated October 9, 1943, setting up a drumhead court-martial. to serve as a general preventive. It was meant as a deterrent to the guerillas, and there can be no question but that in this it was temporarily successful. For the rest, the evidence has shown that even while this drumhead court-martial order was in operation, the Pardon Boards continued to act and that many sentences passed by the drumhead court-martial were reversed by the Pardon Boards. report by SS Brigadefuehrer Stroop concerning the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto in the year 1943. USA Exhibit 275 (1061 PS). Both that report and a number of other documents reveal that all the measures in connection with the Warsaw Ghetto were undertaken exclusively on the direct instructions of Reichsfuehrer SS and Chief of German Police Himmler. I refer in this connection to the affidavit of SS Bridgadefuehrer Stroop of February 21, 1946, submitted by the Prosecution as USA Exhibit No. 804 (3841 PS), and to the affidavit of the same date given by the former Aide-de-Camp of the SS and Police-leader of Warsaw, Karl Kaleske.
That is USA Exhibit No. 803 (3840 PS). These documents show quite clearly that those measures, like all others within the competence of the Security Police and undertaken on direct orders from either Reichsfuehrer SS Himmler, the Higher SS and Police-Leader East, or on instructions from the RSHA, were carried out exclusively by the Security Police and the SD, and that the administration of the Government General had nothing to do with them.
under Article 21 of the Charter the report of the Polish Government. That report makes no distinction between the areas which were incorporated in the German Reich and the territories of the former Polish State which were grouped together in the Government General. But, with particular reference to the fact that the report makes no substantiated statements as to the personal responsibility of the defendant Frank, it does not seem necessary to delve further into this voluminous document. Like the indictment itself, the report constitutes an accusation of a general nature; it does not deal in detail with the results of investigations and with evidence which might justify the conclusions drawn in the report. The objections to be raised to the report must appear all the more valid, as to take only one example in Annex (1) of the report directives for cultural policy are quoted in evidence which are obviously intended to represent instructions given by the Governor-General or his administration. Actually however nothing of the kind is to be found either in the order Gazette of the Government-General or in any other documents. The witness Dr. Buehler stated during his interrogation that the administration of the Government-General had never issued such or similar directives. In consideration of this alone, it would seem at most admissible to attach substantive probative value to this Exhibit USSR 93, in so far as the statements therein made are confirmed by genuine documents and other unobjectionable evidence. in the trial brief presented by the Prosecution, the defendant Frank is also alleged to be responsible for the under-nourishment of the Polish population. Actually however the Prosecution is unable to produce any evidence to show that in the area governed by the defendant Frank either hunger-catastrophes occurred or epidemics broke cut. The evidence has revealed on the contrary that the efforts of the defendant Frank in the years 1939 and 1940 were successful in inducing the Reich to deliver no less man 600,000 tons of grain.
That made it possible to overcome the nutrition difficulties caused by the war. in no small degree to the war effort by itself delivering grain. But it must not be overlooked that these deliveries were made possible by an extraordinary increase in agricultural production in the Government-General. And this was in its turn made possible by a far-seeing economic policy, especially by the distribution of agricultural machinery, seed-corn and so on. Nor should it be forgotten that the deliveries of grain by the Government-General from the year 1941 onwards, also served to feed the Polish workers placed in Reich territory, and that in general these grain deliveries were utilized to maintain the internal balance as between the European economic systems. reproaches against the administrative activities of the defendant Frank in his capacity as Governor-General, without making an attempt to give an even approximately adequate description of the general work of the defendant, and without pointing out its inherent difficulties. There can be no question but that such an attitude transgresses the fundamental rules of any criminal procedure. It is a recognized principle derived from the criminal law principles of all civilized states that a uniform natural process must be judged in its entirety and that it s evaluation must rest on all the circumstances of the case that is in any way suitable for consideration by the Court when passing judgement. This would seem to be all the more necessary in the present case as the defendant Frank is accused of having pursued a long-term policy of oppression, exploitation and Germanization. My Lords: If the defendant Frank had in truth had any such intentions, then he could certainly have attained his goal in far simpler fashion. It would not have been necessary to issue hundreds of decreed every year, decrees which, for example, for the year 1942, reached the proportions of this volume that I hold here in my hand. The defendant Frank from his first day of office set himself to intergrate all the economic policy which one can only call constructive. Certainly he did this partly in order to strengthen the productions capacity of the German nation engaged in a struggle of life and death. But just as little can there be any doubt that the success of this measures also benefited the Polish and Ukrainian peoples.
I do not intend to go into this matter in detail. I will only ask the Tribunal in this connection to take notice of the Report given by the Chief of Government on the occasion of the 4th anniversary of the existence of the Government-General on October 26, 1943. I have included this Report in the Document Books I put in evidence. It is in volume IV, page 42. The Report gives a concise summary of the measures token and the successes achieved by the administrative acts of the defendant during these four years in all fields of industrial economy, in agriculture, commerce and transport, in finance and credit system, in the sphere of public health, and so on. Only in consideration of all these facts is it possible to form an approximately correct estimate of the whole position. By way of marginal note I will add that the defendant by his administration succeeded in reducing the dange of epidemics - in particular typhus and typhoid - to a degree which had been found impossible in this area in the preceding decades. ment-General was destroyed in the subsequent fighting, that can certainly furnish no grounds for reproach against the general administration, which had nothing to do with military measures. My Lords: terrible crimes were committed in the territory known as the Government-General. Concentration camps had been established, in which mass destruction of human beings was carried out. Hostages were shot. Expropriations took place, and so on. The defendant Frank would be the last to deny this;