Hans Frank

Germany state institutions Fascists and Nazis Counter-revolutionary forces 1900–1946 ✕ Executed

Epp Freikorps veteran and Nazi Party lawyer who, as Governor-General of occupied Poland, presided over mass murder

Made Governor-General of occupied Poland after the 1939 invasion, he ruled the civilian population by terror. He took a direct part in forced labour and the mass murder of Jews.

The son of a lawyer from Karlsruhe, he joined Epp’s Freikorps in 1919 as a member of the Thule Society, took part in crushing the Munich Soviet Republic and the same year joined the German Workers’ Party, forerunner of the Nazi Party. He formally entered the SA and the Nazi Party in 1923 and took part in the Beer Hall Putsch. As Hitler’s personal legal adviser and the party’s lawyer he handled more than 2,400 cases, became a Reichsleiter of the party in June 1933 and minister without portfolio in 1934. After the invasion of Poland in 1939 he was made Governor-General of the occupied territories, ruling the civilian population by terror and taking a direct part in forced labour and the murder of Jews; more than four million people were killed under his jurisdiction. Convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity at Nuremberg, he was hanged in October 1946.

Also known as: Hans Michael Frank