“I should like to make a statement to you now. From the
seriousness with which I utter these words, you can judge what I
have in mind. I myself and the men of my Government are fully
aware of the needs also of the Polish population in this
district. We are not here to exterminate or annihilate it, or to
torment these people beyond the measure of suffering laid upon
them by fate. I hope that we shall come to a satisfactory
arrangement in all matters that sometimes separate us. I
personally have nothing against the Poles...”
I now turn to Page 148. It is a conference which deals with young
medical students. I quote Page 149, Paragraph 2, which is a statement by
the Governor General:
“This first—we can safely call it Ministry of Health, even
though this expression is not used—is something entirely new.
This department for health will have to deal with important
problems. For us, the physicians in this territory, there is
above all a lack of...”
Mr. President, I have just discovered that an error may possibly have
occurred, since these statements on Page 672 were perhaps not made by
the Governor General himself but by the head of the Health Department. I
shall examine this question again and then submit the result to the
Tribunal in writing.
I now turn to Page 155 of the document book. This entry seems to me of a
vital nature. It is dated 14 July 1943 and deals with the establishment
of the State Secretariat for Security.
THE PRESIDENT: It is not in our book, apparently. We haven’t got a Page
155, and we haven’t got a date, I think, of the 14th of July.
DR. SEIDL: It is July 1943. It has probably been omitted. With the
approval of the Tribunal I shall read the sentences in question into the
record. There are only three sentences:
“The Governor General points out the disastrous effect which the
establishment of the State Secretariat for Security has had on
the authority of the Governor General. He said that a new police
and SS government had tried to establish itself in opposition to
the Governor General which it had been possible to suppress only
at the expense of a great deal of energy and at the very last
moment.”
I then ask the Tribunal to turn to Page 166 of the document book. This
entry deals with general questions regarding the policy in Poland. I ask
the Tribunal to take judicial notice of this document.
Page 193 deals with the establishment of the Chopin Museum which was
created by the Governor General. I quote Page 1157 of the diary, which
is an extract from the Governor General’s speech:
“Today I have inaugurated the Chopin Museum in Kraków. We have
saved and brought to Kraków, under most difficult circumstances,
the most valuable mementos of the greatest of Polish musicians.
I merely wanted to say this in order to show you that I want to
make a personal effort to put things in order in this country as
far as possible.”
The last quotation is on Page 199 of Volume II of the document book. It
is an extract from a speech which Reichsführer SS Himmler made on the
occasion of the installation of the new Higher SS and Police Leader in
Kraków, before the members of the Government and the Higher SS and
Police Leaders. This is the speech which the Defendant Frank mentioned
when he was examined. I quote the eighth line from the bottom:
“You are all very familiar with the situation: 16 million aliens
and about 200,000 Germans live here; or if we include the
members of the Police and Wehrmacht, perhaps 300,000. These 16
million aliens, who were augmented in the past by a large number
of Jews who have now emigrated or have been sent to the East,
consist largely of Poles and to a lesser degree of Ukrainians.”
I turn to the last document of this volume, Page 200, an entry dated 14
December 1943. It concerns a speech which the Governor General made to
officers of the Air Force. I quote the second paragraph:
“Therefore, everything should be done to keep the population
quiet, peaceful, and in order. Nothing should be done to create
unnecessary agitation among the population. I mention only one
example here:
“It would be wrong if now, during the war, we were to undertake
the establishment of large German settlements among the
peasantry in this territory. This attempt at colonizing, mostly
through force, would lead to tremendous unrest among the native
peasant population. This, in turn, from the point of view of
production, would result in a tremendous loss to the harvest, in
a curtailment of cultivation, and so on. It would also be wrong
forcibly to deprive the population of its Church, or of any
possibility for leading a simple cultural life.”