The Nuremberg Interviews (9 page)

Frank asked me whether there was anything in particular that I cared
to ask him today. I said, nothing especially, but that I would like to learn more about his early development and history.

“You remember my telling you of my uncle who played a large part in my youth. In fact, my aunt and uncle played a bigger part in my life than did my father and mother. This aunt and uncle were my mother’s sister and brother. Although I never lived with them, I visited them frequently and they exerted a profound influence on my character.”

Frank said that he had been thinking about the early years of his life, particularly his first meeting with Hitler. He would rather talk about this today than about his own family, he said. “In November 1918, I was a soldier in Munich. I saw the downfall of the first republic — the Councils Republic — in 1919. This caused fourteen thousand people to lose their lives. I felt that that in itself constituted adequate reason for anti-Semitism. Many Jews were sent from Communist Moscow, and we all knew what a regime of terror existed there. For example, there was the playwright Ernst Toller. He was not from Russia, having been born a German, but his thoughts were influenced by the Communists. There were four fellows who came from Moscow and created the republic in Munich.
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“I entered the Freikorps in order to liberate Munich. After three days of fighting, we finally succeeded. In September or October 1919, I met the founder of the National Socialist movement. This, of course, was not Hitler, because the party existed prior to Hitler. The man I am referring to was a worker named Anton Drexler.
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He was a simple man who had not grown sufficiently to the task of leading the party, and he left it in 1922. I was not yet a member of the party.

“It would be interesting to study the original party because it would then become obvious how in the course of time Hitler falsified the party aims. Goering himself testified that Hitler did not follow through with the party program. For example, in the party program there is no call for the physical extermination of Jews, but rather merely the removal of their influence. The criminal step of exterminating the Jews physically was taken by Hitler during the war. One has only to read the last testament of Hitler — and if one compares this testament with the National Socialist Party program, one can see how far he departed. I feel that behind this departure were Bormann, Joseph Goebbels,
⁶
and Himmler.

“Drexler told me in 1919 that I should make sure to hear Hitler, who at the time was a young soldier and reported to be a very interesting
speaker. I was present when Hitler spoke for the first time before a large group. He appeared sickly, weak, and tired. He gave the impression that he would not live long. Personally, I was not very much impressed by Hitler’s statements at that time.

“As I said, Hitler spoke like a sick man who would die at any moment. All the original party members were small people, mostly workers, as well as an amazingly large number of women followers. In 1920 I met Drexler again. He took me to some of the big party rallies and during one of these Hitler read the party program. I believe that was on February 24, 1920, at the Hofbräuhaus in Munich.

“In the summer of 1923 I returned from Kiel. At the time I was an ambitious student. A friend of mine informed me that the National Socialist movement had taken a tremendous upswing and that the party was strongest in Bavaria. This friend of mine said that I should see for myself by attending some of the meetings.

“In the summer of 1923 there was the inflation. As you may remember from history, the French broke into the Ruhr in January 1923. The German economy as a whole broke down. There was a terrible period of hunger. One American dollar was worth 400,000 marks. Later in November 1923, a dollar was worth a billion marks. It was at this crucial time that Hitler rose.
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“But I was still not in the party. I was a cavalryman of the Freikorps Franz von Epp. We had a reserved table at one of the large beer halls in Munich. On November 7, 1923, when I came to the table in the beer hall, I found that Adolf Hitler had invited the members of the Freikorps present at the time to come to the Bürgerbräukeller on November 8. The next day, November 8, forty of us went to the
Keller
. We happened to come too late — at about 9:30 p.m. Hitler had already made his putsch, which started at 8:30 p.m.

“At the time the people were enthusiastic about National Socialism because they felt that a new, free government was coming and that Germany would rise again. General Erich Ludendorff was with Hitler and marched at his side. It was because of Ludendorff’s presence that we members of the Freikorps von Epp participated. We felt that it must be a good thing if the respectable Ludendorff was there. I remember Goering standing at the door of the Bürgerbräukeller, saying to us, ‘We can use you.’ We were given weapons and with the others we marched from barracks to barracks. There was real revolutionary feeling in the air. We
stayed up all night and felt sure of success. The next day, on November 9, at noon, there was an armed clash, and the result is history; the party was dissolved, and Hitler and a few others were sentenced to prison.

“I remember that during this clash there was a judge by the name of Theodor von der Pfordten who was killed and whom I helped carry off the street dead. After that I went home; the party was banned but not forgotten.

“In 1926 I became a party member for the first time. But I left the party three months later. My father told me, ‘I’m surprised you don’t see what a fool that man Hitler is. He is impossible and I can’t understand why you are attracted to him.’ I then wrote Hitler a letter saying that I didn’t believe that he was correct in his advocacy of certain party principles and I resigned. I became absorbed in my legal work. On December 27, 1926, I read an announcement in a newspaper that some poor people were looking for a defense counsel.” Frank laughs in a cackling fashion at this point. “I became the defense counsel for these poor people, who happened to be some SA men in Berlin. It’s ironic that I became defense counsel for party members without myself being a party member.

“In 1928 I rejoined the party to serve as a legal adviser. I became more and more absorbed and finally interested in the movement. In 1929 Hitler came to see me personally and requested that I become his full-time lawyer. I accepted with the provision that I be permitted at any time to take up my personal professional career again. Many years later, in 1942, when I had my great falling-out with Hitler, I reminded him about this provision which we had agreed on in 1929. Hitler didn’t want to know anything more about this at that time and brushed aside my request for resignation.

“There is only one explanation. There is a fate that brings people to a road without their actually wanting it. I use this not as an excuse for myself but merely to make it understandable.

“Of course, what I am recounting this afternoon is just the outward frame of the events which led to my present tragedy. I can only tell you one one-thousandth of the things which led up to it. I can assure you that I had no financial advantage during the whole of my career. I had no picture galleries or personal fortune like that man Goering — nothing like that. Therefore, it is easier now for me to see the little that I owned confiscated. Really, the only thing that can be confiscated which belonged to me personally is my little home. When I was captured, the American officers
asked me where my castle was located. I’m happy to say that I never owned a castle.”

Frank asked me what I thought of Goering’s defense. I countered the question by stating that it was difficult for me to judge and that he was in a much better position to comment on it. He replied, “The only thing I like about Goering’s defense is his statement that he is not innocent. He has not been innocent. I like that. But I think the prosecution could have been more effective than it has been up to now. If Goering had spent more time on the air force and less time on his bacchanals and looting of art treasures, perhaps Germany would be better off today and I would not be sitting here in this cell.

“My own defense is small. In fact, my defense counsel is small and reminds me of Goebbels. I hope Dr. Seidl has a mouth like Goebbels, although I doubt if it will help me very much.

“The most difficult thing in Goering’s defense was his weaknesses regarding art collections, et cetera. Your Justice Jackson is completely equipped with a whole collection of books and documents. Trial psychology is very interesting. I sit in the dock there like a spectator. It is difficult to remember that while we sit in here, the outside world goes on, and now I ruminate on how Hitler started and how the whole bloody movement resulted from hunger in Germany.

“All these things are still apparent today. You Americans can see for yourselves how impossible it is to feed the German people from the German soil itself. From the viewpoint of an historian one can say that Hitler never would have arisen if the Allies had not treated Germany so poorly. Justice Jackson said so himself. Today things are more impossible than ever. The East has been taken away from Germany — in other words, hunger created Hitler, and paradoxically, Hitler created still greater hunger.

“These are the facts of life and one can’t disregard them. Germans are being thrown out by the Poles and Russians, and a big catastrophe is occurring. It becomes worse and worse daily.

“This does not explain or justify the crimes which Hitler committed. An astrologist once visited me and read a horoscope of Adolf Hitler in which he called him a criminal. That was about four years ago. I don’t believe in astrology, but I do believe implicitly in the power of fate — that all of us mortals are included in the cosmic laws of the universe. We sit in the world, and the world is part of the universe. I believe in what Christ said, that no sparrow falls from a roof unless it is God’s will.

“I don’t believe this war was the end of controversies. The struggle will go on until all existing cultures are destroyed. The same thing happened in the fall of the Roman Empire. Germany is always the first nation to be built up and the first to collapse completely. The collapse of Europe will eventually take place.

“Europe is nothing — it is merely a question of what Russians and Americans decide to do with it. A complete change will occur. Three hundred years ago, Europe was the dominant part of the world. The next thing that is highly endangered is the British Empire. Forty million Englishmen are not sufficient to govern an empire of four to five hundred million people.

“I was a good friend of Oswald Spengler,
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and together with Spengler’s niece I saved his library during an air raid. Spengler’s niece was in charge of the University of Munich library. Spengler was the last great man of Germany. In 1933 he prophesied that the Reich under Hitler would perish. I didn’t want to believe it. Now, in my cell, I often think of the letter Spengler wrote to me in 1936, shortly before his death. In it he said that within ten years the German Reich would probably cease to exist. He died in December 1936. He told me that when Hitler screamed, ‘Out with the Jews,’ he proved that he was no statesman. Spengler felt that if Hitler had been a statesman, he would have said that Germany consisted of more than just Germans or Jews and that anyone of use to Germany should be kept. He quoted the example of Lord Beaconsfield under Queen Victoria, on the Indian question, and he told me of the great deeds of the Jew Cecil Rhodes in South Africa.

“Spengler said that Hitler is doing a good job for the enemies of Germany. You can imagine how strong an influence Hitler must have had, if even a man like myself failed to be influenced by the wisdom of Spengler but was influenced only by Hitler.

“One cannot underestimate the influence of the hypnotic personality of Hitler. That, too, I do not offer as an excuse, but just as an example. After the deed is done, one always becomes clever and philosophical.

“There was a great difference between the fate and personalities of Napoleon and Hitler. In a way, their two fates coincide. I can show you in ten minutes. It is something I’ve already indicated to Goering. It is surprising how one can make analogies between historical personalities. It is good to be in a cell to be able to think things — it is sensational.

“I met my wife in 1924. The relationship was one of a chance happening and was one of the biggest mistakes of my life. I certainly don’t want
to say anything against the character of my wife, but she is too old — five years older than I am — and I am of the opinion that it’s just too bad. Secondly, her character is the opposite of mine. I was engaged to a nice person who would have suited me perfectly. I believe that if I had stuck to my first sweetheart, I think my life would have taken a new turn. During that time I dictated my doctoral thesis to a typist — and the typist was the woman who became my wife. Although she was five years older than I, I suddenly was seized with a mental desire for this woman.

“The whole thing was difficult because, for one thing, my wife came from a poor family. I think I was in an intoxicated condition, not literally but figuratively. I broke off my engagement to my first sweetheart, who came from a well-to-do, influential family and was a young girl. I married the typist, who is my present wife. In 1926 our first child was born and I had to earn something. That was one of the reasons for my accepting Hitler’s offer. I don’t want to place the blame on my wife, but there was economic necessity.

“The most outspoken critic of my wife is my mother. Even now when my mother is quite alone, she declines to receive my wife. There is absolutely no bond of friendship between my mother and my wife.

“For many years I had no relationship as a husband with my wife. In 1942 I wanted a divorce, and in fact divorce proceedings were going on. Then Hitler stepped in and prohibited this action. My wife had written Hitler and Hitler said that I could not be divorced because it was not his wish. This is an example to show how far Hitler’s influence went in Germany. A week after filing suit for divorce, I was informed by the minister of justice that Hitler disapproved of the proceedings. In the summer of 1943 I accidentally met Hitler, who said that under no conditions would I be allowed to become divorced. Now in captivity, I merely write to her, especially for the children’s sake, and because of the short life I am going to have anyway.