German jurist and politician. Born 1900, died 1946.
Hans Frank joined the NSDAP (the German Nazi party) in 1923, acted as Adolf Hitler's legal counsel and helped organise Nazi legal staff. In 1933, he was made Justice minister for Bavaria, and in 1934 he was made a Reichsminister without portfolio.
Frank sought to introduce Nazi concepts of jurisprudence, "Germanic" Volksrecht, but did not get the chance to play a significant political rôle before he was made governor-general of occupied Poland (Das Generalgouvernement) in october 1939.
Under Frank's governorship, the Polish population was brutally suppressed, the Polish elite was decimated, and the Jews, who had been placed in ghettos, were terrorised and murdered. Frank also oversaw extensive plundering of Poland's art treasures.
Despite frequent disputes with the SS, Frank kept his post throughout the war. After the war, he was sentenced to death at Nürnberg for his crimes, and executed in 1946.