History Hans Frank And The Nazi Extraordinary Pacification Action

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Hans Frank was one of Hitler’s most loyal, fanatical and evil Nazis. He was Hitler’s personal lawyer up to the start of the second World War, and Governor-General of Poland from soon after the country was occupied. Frank ordered all Polacks to learn and speak only German. Museums and art galleries were plundered of their art, much of which was used to decorate Frank’s palaces and homes, including works by Da Vinci and Rembrandt. By 1942, Frank had sent 85% of the Polish Jewish population to the concentration camps. Among his first occupation acts was the AB Aktion or Extraordinary Pacification Action, calling for the extermination of Poland’s intellectuals and political leaders. Teachers, professors, medics, artists, poets, philosophers, were all in effect under a death sentence on the stroke of a pen. Within a year, 2,000 men and women were arrested and executed. Brought to trial at Nuremberg in 1946, Frank was particularly easy to prosecute as he kept a forty-two volume journal log of his murderous actions. Frank declared to the court that he had converted to Catholicism in the hope of forgiveness for his crimes against humanity. His defence impressed no one and he was hanged in October 1946. Arthur Chappell