setting up German administration in Austria, he
issued decrees which introduced German law, the Nuremberg decrees,
the Military Service Law, and he provided for police security by
Himmler.
He also signed the laws incorporating into the Reich the
Sudetenland, Memel, Danzig, the Eastern territories (West Prussia and
Posen), and Eupen, Malmedy, and Moresnot. He was placed in charge of
the actual incorporation, and of the establishment of German
administration over these territories. He signed the law establishing
the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.
As the head of the Central Offices for Bohemia and Moravia, the
Government General, and Norway, he was charged with obtaining close
cooperation between the German officials in these occupied countries
and the supreme authorities of the Reich. He supplied German civil
servants for the administrations in all occupied territories,
advising Rosenberg as to their assignment in the Occupied Eastern
Territories. He signed the laws appointing Terboven Reich
Commissioner to Norway and Seyss-Inquart to Holland.
War Crimes and Crimes against
Humanity
Always rabidly anti-Semitic, Frick drafted,
signed, and administered many laws designed to eliminate Jews from
German life and economy. His work formed the basis of the Nuremberg
Decrees, and he was active in enforcing them. Responsible for
prohibiting Jews from following various professions, and for
confiscating their property, he signed a final decree in 1943, after
the mass destruction of Jews in the East, which placed them
"outside the law" and handed them over to the Gestapo.
These laws paved the way for the "final solution", and were
extended by Frick to the incorporated territories and to certain of
the occupied territories. While he was Reich Protector of Bohemia and
Moravia, thousands of Jews were transferred from the Terezin Ghetto
in Czechoslovakia to Auschwitz, where they were killed. He issued a
decree providing for special penal laws against Jews and Poles in the
Government General.
The police officially fell under the jurisdiction of the
Reichsminister of the Interior. But Frick actually exercised little
control over Himmler and police matters. However, he signed the law
appointing Himmler Chief of the German Police, as well as the decrees
establishing Gestapo jurisdiction over concentration camps and
regulating the execution of orders for protective custody. From the
many complaints he received, and from the testimony of witnesses, the
Tribunal concludes that he knew of atrocities committed in these
camps. With knowledge of Himmler's methods, Frick signed decrees
authorizing him to take necessary security measures in certain of the
incorporated territories. What these "security measures"
turned out to be has already been dealt with.