Hans Frank
[back] Eye Witnesses
Responding to Shermer's citation of wartime statements of Hans Frank, Weber
pointed out that at the end of the war the former Governor General of Poland had
turned over to the Allies his own detailed "service journal" (Diensttagebuch),
confident that it would exonerate him. Moreover, Weber went on, Frank testified
at Nuremberg that he did not know of any wartime German program or policy to
exterminate Europe's Jews. (Testimony of April 18, 1946. IMT "blue series," vol.
12, pp. 17-19. See also: M. Weber, "The
Nuremberg Trials and the Holocaust," Summer 1992 Journal, p. 195.)
Frank explained to the Tribunal
that he had been very concerned over persistent reports that Jews were being
exterminated. He said that on one occasion, when a report reached him about
killings of Jews at Belzec, he went to the site the next day. He spoke with Jews
who were working there, and was unable to find evidence of killings.
On another occasion, in February
1944, he raised this matter in a conversation with Hitler. "My Führer, rumors
about the extermination of the Jews will not be silenced. They are heard
everywhere ... Tell me, my Führer, is there anything to it?" As Frank related,
Hitler replied: "You can very well imagine that there are executions going on --
of insurgents. Apart from that I do not know anything. Why don't you speak to
Heinrich Himmler about it?" Himmler denied the extermination allegations, Frank
said. (Incidentally, the statements by Frank, Goebbels and Himmler cited by
Shermer were all dealt with in detail during the 1988 Zündel trial, particularly
by prosecution witness Christopher Browning, defense attorney Doug Christie, and
defense witnesses Faurisson, Irving and Weber. See: B. Kulaszka, ed., Did Six
Million Really Die? [Toronto: 1992], esp. pp. 93, 113-116, 130, 131, 208, 302,
336, 343-344, 369, 396, 405-409, 417.)
[1996] Debating the Undebatable:
The Weber-Shermer Clash