Hans Frank

Hans Michael Frank (23 May 1900 – 16 October 1946) was a German lawyer who worked for the Nazi Party during the 1920s and 1930s, and later became Hitler's personal lawyer. After the invasion of Poland, Frank became Nazi Germany's chief jurist in the occupied Poland "General Government" territory. During his tenure throughout World War II (1939–45), he instituted a reign of terror against the civilian population and became directly involved in the mass murder of Jews and Poles. At the Nuremberg trials, he was found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity and was executed.

Early years

Frank, the middle child of three, was born in Karlsruhe to Karl Frank, a lawyer, and his wife, Magdalena (née Buchmaier), a daughter of a prosperous baker. He graduated from high school at the renowned Maximilians gymnasium in Munich, and right after, at seventeen, joined the German army fighting in World War I, barely reaching front line combat though. After the war, in 1919 and 1920, he was a member of the Thule völkisch society. He served also in the Freikorps under Franz Ritter von Epp's command, taking part in the crackdown of the Münchner Räterepublik. In 1919, as other members of the Thule society, he joined the German Workers' Party (DAP) at its very beginning. Although the DAP evolved quite soon into NSDAP (the Nazi party), Frank joined the Nazi movement only in September 1923 when he became a member of the Sturmabteilung (SA), and in October by signing up for the Nazi party itself. In November of the same year Frank partook in the Beer Hall Putsch, the failed coup attempt that should have paraphrased the Mussolini's March on Rome. In the aftermath of the putsch Frank fled to Austria returning in Munich only in 1924 when the pending legal proceedings were stayed.