Why Karl Hermann Frank Was Executed By Public Pole Hanging

On the 22nd of May, 1946, one of the most ruthless and disgusting war criminals shuffled out from his prison cell towards the execution post. He was not to be executed on a traditional gallows, but instead he was condemned on the execution post or pole. The executioners worked together and very quickly, and they secured his hands behind his back, and also then hoisted him onto the execution post.

A crowd had gathered to witness his death, and for them, one of the most shocking men of World War II was about to get his comeuppance and die right before their eyes. The condemned was Karl Hermann Frank, and he was someone who had the blood of thousands on his hands. Inside the lands of Bohemia and Moravia, Frank ordered reprisals following the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, and the result of this was that two Czech villages were razed to the ground, and everyone was massacred, and there were scores of more executions.

But his specific death and execution was one which brought around a form of vengeance and revenge for the Czech people inside of Prague that day, as he had terrorized many of them. This is why Karl Hermann Frank was pole hanged in public. Karl Hermann Frank was a long-standing supporter of the Nazi Party, and he joined in 1923, and was involved in a number of regional offices for the political party.

 He was very much one of the old fighters. He witnessed Hitler speak many different times, and over time, he helped to spread Nazi propaganda by even setting up a Nazi bookstore. He was someone who was trusted at high levels to organize SA and SS men, and he was actually also blind in one eye, which had previously caused him issue with joining the military during the First World War.

He, inside of the Sudetenland, the territory of Czechoslovakia, helped to organize a Nazi splinter group there, and he was one of the most radical Nazis inside of the land. When the Nazis annexed the Sudetenland after Hitler was given it following the Munich Conference, he began to rise throughout the ranks of the Nazi Party more properly.

Frank also joined the SS, Hitler’s group of paramilitaries who would operate and run the concentration and extermination camps. Frank was also an elected member of the Reichstag, the parliament, and in 1939, he was appointed as a Secretary of State of the Reich Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. He was acting like a Deputy Prime Minister, and Heinrich Himmler, the head of the SS, also made him the Higher SS and Police Leader.

This meant he was very, very powerful, and Frank was involved in introducing a reign of terror into the region, and he was also involved in putting down any resistance that the Nazis faced to their regime. He went after resisters brutally, and many were arrested, and some were executed using the guillotine within Czech prisons.

He was very much a hardline Nazi, and when Hitler brought in Reinhard Heydrich to also oversee the region and to put the region down, Frank and Heydrich worked brutally together. Their aim was to keep the area as productive as possible for the German war effort, as Czech factories were making tanks, armaments, and weapons for the German military, and it was vital that these factories remained productive.

But together, Frank and Heydrich deported thousands to concentration camps, and they also arrested thousands more. Hundreds were also executed, and many of them were strung up from lampposts in Czech towns and cities to act as a stark warning. But following the assassination of Heydrich in 1942, Frank remained the Deputy Protector, and alongside Kurt Daluege, Frank was in charge of overseeing the reprisals in which the villages of Lidice and Ležáky were razed to the ground.

All of the men were shot. The women were all sent to concentration camps, where most of them died, and children deemed to be worthy of being Germanized were sent back to Germany, practically kidnapped, and were then raised by SS families. The other children were killed. Further promotion came for him, and the Nazis viewed Frank as an able deputy, and he was made a General of the Waffen SS, and also a General of the Police.

 He eventually became the most powerful Nazi in Bohemia and Moravia, and he was granted cabinet rank in the Nazi government without being known as a Reich Minister. This actually brought him into many meetings with Adolf Hitler and other senior Nazis, and he would regularly rub shoulders with Heinrich Himmler. But in 1944, he continued his ruthless approach, and Frank conducted many anti-partisan attacks, but the Germans began to struggle against the resistance.

He brazenly lied to Hitler, claiming that the partisan threat in the Czech lands had been dealt with once and for all, but this really wasn’t the case, and he was losing men left, right, and center. At the end of the Second World War, Karl Hermann Frank was arrested by the Americans, and he was later tried by the People’s Court in Prague.

He was convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity, and was made to face the music for his involvement in the slaughter of people in Lidice and Ležáky. But his execution method was one which was not necessarily standard all across Europe. Karl Hermann Frank was to be pole hanged. Now, pole hanging as a method was one which originated in lands which were formerly under the control or influence of Austria-Hungary and their empire.

It was also known as the Austrian gallows, and it utilized a 3-m tall post, and the condemned was suspended from the post and hanged by a noose which was wrapped around their neck. A system of ropes and pulleys were secured around the top and bottom of the post or pole, and a chest sling held the condemned in place.

When the executioner and his assistant were ready, they then released the drop, and it was hoped that death would come quickly. Executioners claimed that this method was actually quicker than using a traditional gallows and a long drop, but the evidence suggests otherwise, as it was rare that it was actually carried out correctly.

Often, the condemned would struggle and strangle for longer, and this would lead to death taking many minutes. A noose was secured around the top of the post, and the executioner would guide the fall of the condemned and try to push the neck to one side. As mentioned, this method was used because it was standard, and a standard method of execution that had been used against significant criminals before the Second World War and the German occupation of Czechoslovakia.

It may have also been deployed to separate the German methods of execution which had been used during Second World War to the Czech ones. In a sense, it may have been the Czechs feeling liberated. Using pole hanging sent a message to the crowds and people who watched that Czechoslovakia was now free from the Nazis and German occupation, and German methods which were ruthlessly used, such as the metal guillotine, the fallbeil, would not be used anymore.

Now, 5,000 people flocked to Pankrác Prison in Prague to witness the execution of Karl Hermann Frank. The execution was made very public so that everyone and all the people in Prague could see that justice was being carried out upon a man who had brought so much terror to them for many, many years. It was very much a public showing of revenge, and there would be no doubt to anyone that Frank was dead.

There was also very little remorse for Karl Hermann Frank at all, and the crowd were rather content and did tend to celebrate when the death sentence was carried out. So, Karl Hermann Frank was publicly pole hanged, as it was the standard method of execution inside of Czechoslovakia, and it was also a method that separated the Czech methods from the German ones, which were linked to so much suffering and terror during World War II.

He did take a number of minutes to succumb to his fate on the execution post, but no one that day who witnessed his death mourned the life of Karl Hermann Frank. Thanks for watching. If you did find this video interesting, maybe click subscribe. Once again, thank you so much for giving up your time to watch one of these videos.