General Government Was the Key Partner of the SS

From the very beginning, it was obvious that it was possible to implement the Final solution without the support of the local government. It was especially true in the General Government in Poland governed by Reichsleiter Hans Frank – Reichsminister without portfolio – who was also Adolf Hitler’s personal legal adviser (and a close friend) as well as the lawyer of the NSDAP.

This area was of extreme importance for the “Final Solution” as it contained over two million of Jews that had to be killed and was chosen for building four of six killing centers – in Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka and Majdanek. Two others – Che;mno and Auschwitz II were just outside the borders of the General Government.

After the occupation of Poland in 1939, its territory was split into three zones: the General Government in its center, Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany (Warthegau) in the west, and Polish areas annexed by the USSR in the east.

The territory was expanded substantially in 1941, after the German Invasion of the Soviet Union, to include the new District of Galicia. The area of the Generalgouvernement roughly corresponded with the Austrian part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth after the Third Partition of Poland in 1795.

The General Government was administered by a General-Governor. For the entire period of the General Government’s existence there was only one General-Governor: Dr. Hans Frank.

The NSDAP structure in General Government was Arbeitsbereich Generalgouvernement led by Frank – standard arrangement for all territories annexed into Germany after Anschluss.

The Office of the General-Governor was headed by Chief of the Government Josef B;hler, who was also the State Secretary (he was one of the attendees of Wannsee Conference). Since May 1940, B;hler also served as Frank’s deputy. Several other individuals had powers to issue legislative decrees in addition to the General-Governor, most notably the Higher SS and Police Leader.

Heydrich had to work closely with Hans Frank because, unlike in other occupied territories, because all branches of his administration were to be directed by the Governor General rather than by corresponding Reich ministries from Berlin.

After the war, Frank claimed that he was unaware of the extermination camps in the General Government until early 1944, which was untrue, of course. However, practically all coordination with the SS in Shoah was done by B;hler who had the necessary authority from Frank.