A New Look At Alekhine, Hans Frank and the Nazis

     Hans Frank (May 23, 1900 – October 16, 1946) was the Governor-General of the Nazi General Government and being an avid chess player, he was the patron of Nazi sponsored tournaments during World War Two. A good player himself, he possessed an extensive chess library and at one time had Bogoljubow as a guest at his headquarters in Wawel Castle in Krakow, Poland. 

     The General Government tournaments began when Frank organized a chess congress in Krakow in November, 1940. Six months later he announced the establishment of a chess school lead by Bogoljubov and Alekhine.

     When Joseph Goebbels heard of Frank's chess activities he was enraged. Goebbels wrote, “Frank is pursuing a policy which is anything but that sanctioned by the Reich. I have been shown letters in which he orders the setting up of a chess seminar in Krakow under Polish management. That is evidently now very important when it comes to providing the necessary basic foodstuffs for the Reich and to putting together the organization that this requires. Frank sometimes gives the impression of being half mad. Some of the incidents that have been reported to me concerning his work are simply dreadful.” 

     Frank, who became known as the Butcher of Poland, was a German lawyer who worked for the Nazi Party during the 1920s and 1930s and later became Adolf 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. Frank publicly boasted that there were not enough trees in the General Government to cut down to make the paper required to list all of those people he had had killed in his capacity as Governor General. 

     Frank was captured in southern Bavaria by American troops on May 3, 1945. He attempted suicide twice but failed both times. He voluntarily surrendered many of his personal diaries to the Allies, which were then used against him when he was indicted for war crimes and tried before the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg from November 1945 to October 1946. 

     During the trial he converted to Roman Catholicism and claimed to have had a series of religious experiences. Frank confessed to some of the charges and supposedly expressed remorse on the witness stand. He and Albert Speer were the only defendants to show any remorse at their trials. It didn't help his defense as he was found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity and was hung. Read about his trial HERE.

     Author Christian Rohrer has written a downloadable pdf paper in which he assesses Alekhine’s association with the Nazis and Frank that is based on new archival evidence and takes a look at the last years of Alekhine’s life.  Download paper