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THIS WAS the personal turmoil that engulfed Frank as he traveled to Lemberg in the summer of 1942. He controlled the territory of Galicia but not his wife or emotions, and certainly not his physical impulses.
It was the anniversary of Lemberg’s incorporation into the General Government as the capital of a newly Germanized Distrikt Galizien. He arrived on the morning of Friday, July 31, following a three-day tour that began in Tarnopol, looped southward to Chortkiv and Zalischyky, then east to Kosiv and Yaremche. The final leg, a short northeasterly hop, was to the City of Lions. Frank traveled by armored car and train, in the face of constant rumors about attacks. The Gazeta Lwowska reported that in his presence the faces of his new subjects “shine with happiness” and many of his subjects voiced gratitude: children offered flowers; women passed bouquets of roses, baskets of bread, salt, and fruit.
Lemberg was now firmly under German control. Frank’s main task was to restore civilian rule under the firm hand of Governor Otto von Wächter, who had replaced Lasch a few weeks earlier. Frank had plans for the city, following the eviction of the Soviets. Embroiled in major policy differences with Himmler, Frank wanted to be fully involved in all the key decisions. The more oversight and responsibility he had, the more he would be recognized as leader. To this end, he applied a principle of “unity in administration,” as he had explained to party leaders in Kraków. Astride this pyramid of power, he described himself as “fanatic.” “The Higher SS and Police Leader is subordinated to me, the Police is a component of the Government, the SS and Police Leader in the district is subordinated to the Governor.” Frank was at the pinnacle, Wächter one stone down.
The point was simple. Within the General Government, Frank was deemed to know everything, to be responsible for all actions. He received reports on all activities, including those of the Einsatzgruppen of the Security Police and of the SD. He was copied on all key documents. Knowing all, he was responsible for all, believing that power would last forever without accountability.
His train pulled in to the main railway station in Lemberg, from which Lauterpacht and Lemkin had departed. It was nine o’clock in the morning when he joined his colleague Otto von Wächter, governor of Galicia, tall and blond, with a military bearing, an impeccably good-looking Nazi compared with Frank. Church bells rang; a military orchestra played. The two men traveled together, from station to city center, through streets decorated with flags of the Reich, past Leon’s first home, past Lemkin’s student accommodations, close to where Lauterpacht lived. Schoolchildren lined Opernstrasse (Operowa Street), waving little flags as Frank entered the main square in front of the opera house, now renamed Adolf-Hitler-Platz.
Lemberg Opera House, on Frank’s visit, August 1942
That evening, Frank inaugurated a newly refurbished theater, the “sanctuary of art” that was the Skarbek Theater. He stood proudly before an audience of dignitaries, introducing them to Beethoven and Fritz Weidlich, a little-known conductor who would fade into Austrian obscurity after the war. Frank had wanted Karajan to conduct, or Furtwängler, a reminder of a marvelous evening in February 1937 when he attended the Philharmonic Hall in Berlin in the presence of a radiant führer. The Berlin concert produced moments of indescribable emotion, a memory that caused him to “shiver in the ecstasy of youth, strength, hope and gratitude,” he wrote in his diary.
This evening he spoke with equal passion, standing in the middle of the orchestra. “We, the Germans, do not go to foreign lands with opium and similar measures like the English,” he declared. “We bring art and culture to other nations,” and music that reflected the immortal nation of the German Volk. They made do with Weidlich, who opened with Beethoven’s Leonore Overture no. 3, op. 72, followed by the Ninth Symphony, to which the Lviv Opera choir added their voices.