0:00:02 > 0:00:10Now on BBC News, it's time for HARDtalk.
0:00:10 > 0:00:11Welcome to HARDtalk.
0:00:11 > 0:00:13I'm Stephen Sackur.
0:00:13 > 0:00:19Today I'm in rural northern Germany.
0:00:19 > 0:00:23Stable, prosperous, 21st century Germany.
0:00:23 > 0:00:27But I'm here to talk about the past and its relationship to the present.
0:00:27 > 0:00:33My guest is the writer, journalist and son, Niklas Frank.
0:00:33 > 0:00:36Now, his father was appointed by Hitler to be the governor general
0:00:36 > 0:00:41of Nazi-occupied Poland.
0:00:41 > 0:00:46He was intimately involved in the murder of millions of people.
0:00:46 > 0:00:49So, how has this German son dealt with the terrible crimes
0:00:49 > 0:00:58of his father?
0:01:12 > 0:01:16Niklas, I'm wondering why you have chosen to make your life in the very
0:01:16 > 0:01:19far north of Germany.
0:01:19 > 0:01:22Is it because you wanted to get as far away as possible
0:01:22 > 0:01:25from your family background in Bavaria?
0:01:25 > 0:01:28No, I still love Bavaria.
0:01:28 > 0:01:31And every year we have about many weeks in Bavaria,
0:01:31 > 0:01:37in the same village where I grew up.
0:01:37 > 0:01:40But it was my profession as a journalist at Stern magazine,
0:01:40 > 0:01:46which I worked for 23 years, was based in Hamburg.
0:01:46 > 0:01:56So, I had to lure my wife, she was attached to Munich,
0:01:57 > 0:02:00because she is a big gardener, to her house with a big garden,
0:02:00 > 0:02:02so we've lived here for 33 years.
0:02:02 > 0:02:04This place where you now live is extraordinarily peaceful.
0:02:04 > 0:02:05Yes, it is.
0:02:05 > 0:02:09Would you say it has helped bring you some sort of peace of mind?
0:02:09 > 0:02:13Ah, no.
0:02:13 > 0:02:18No, I don't think that it depends on the country I am living in.
0:02:18 > 0:02:20It is...
0:02:20 > 0:02:22In myself I have found peace, because I acknowledge
0:02:22 > 0:02:30what my father has done.
0:02:30 > 0:02:35That I think is the first and most important step.
0:02:35 > 0:02:39Thinking of my father is thinking first about his victims.
0:02:39 > 0:02:43There is no German around who has not certain pictures of corpses
0:02:43 > 0:02:45in his mind.
0:02:45 > 0:02:47And those pictures always remind me of my father,
0:02:47 > 0:02:57what he did.
0:02:57 > 0:03:00And especially when I look at him...
0:03:00 > 0:03:04That's the leather coat of my father.
0:03:04 > 0:03:11It's a scarecrow.
0:03:11 > 0:03:13In German, you call it vogelscheuche.
0:03:13 > 0:03:16And this scarecrow is the most expensive one in Germany,
0:03:16 > 0:03:20I would say, because I bought it from a soldier who had stolen it.
0:03:20 > 0:03:27The coat, you mean?
0:03:27 > 0:03:30The coat, yes.
0:03:30 > 0:03:33And someone gave me a call and asked it if I was interested
0:03:33 > 0:03:36in the coat of my father and I said yes.
0:03:36 > 0:03:40She wanted $500 and I paid it.
0:03:40 > 0:03:42You mean this old military greatcoat, leather coat,
0:03:42 > 0:03:43is actually your father's old coat?
0:03:43 > 0:03:48Yes.
0:03:48 > 0:03:52What I have to admit, since the scarecrow is standing
0:03:52 > 0:03:55here, I have got a stronger connection to my father.
0:03:55 > 0:03:59It's very strange.
0:03:59 > 0:04:04And always, when I'm sitting in our living room,
0:04:04 > 0:04:06looking at him and say, "This you have earned,
0:04:06 > 0:04:08Father, being a scarecrow in the end."
0:04:08 > 0:04:10That's your fault.
0:04:10 > 0:04:14Niklas, I want to hear more about your family history.
0:04:14 > 0:04:16I want to dig deeper into your relationship
0:04:16 > 0:04:18with your father.
0:04:18 > 0:04:21But I also want to get out of the cold north German wind.
0:04:22 > 0:04:23That is a good idea.
0:04:23 > 0:04:25Why don't we head back into your home?
0:04:25 > 0:04:26OK, that's great.
0:04:26 > 0:04:28Bye-bye, scarecrow.
0:04:28 > 0:04:29Niklas Frank, welcome to HARDtalk.
0:04:29 > 0:04:32Thank you.
0:04:32 > 0:04:37Do you feel that you have some sort of a duty to your country to speak
0:04:37 > 0:04:39about your past?
0:04:39 > 0:04:46I think so, yes.
0:04:46 > 0:04:55I think I have the duty because, by chance, I was born in this family
0:04:55 > 0:04:58and I could tell the people...
0:04:58 > 0:05:01Ah, how to behave with parents like I had.
0:05:01 > 0:05:11When do you think you first began to feel that you must speak out
0:05:11 > 0:05:14as volubly, as publicly as possible about your father
0:05:14 > 0:05:16and about your feelings toward your father?
0:05:16 > 0:05:26It was a growing wish, because of the silence in Germany.
0:05:26 > 0:05:36Families, all the families of my friends, everybody was silent.
0:05:36 > 0:05:40And they didn't talk about the past.
0:05:40 > 0:05:51And this I couldn't endure, because I always wanted to know how
0:05:51 > 0:06:01is it that society behaves if it changes to a dictatorship.
0:06:01 > 0:06:04And I always have a feeling that Germany is still prepared
0:06:04 > 0:06:09to do this.
0:06:09 > 0:06:12And so I looked closer towards families and friends
0:06:13 > 0:06:15and connectedness, and I found out that still there is something
0:06:15 > 0:06:24in the German people which makes me fear them.
0:06:24 > 0:06:26Fear, your own country and your own people?
0:06:26 > 0:06:34Yes, I would say so.
0:06:34 > 0:06:38Well, I want to pick up on that, because that's a pretty remarkable
0:06:38 > 0:06:39thing to feel and to say.
0:06:39 > 0:06:43But before I get to your thoughts on the country, on Germany,
0:06:43 > 0:06:48I do want to stay with the personal.
0:06:48 > 0:06:51Because it seems to me in that period you're talking about,
0:06:51 > 0:06:54after the end of the war, and for decades afterwards,
0:06:54 > 0:06:57many families of senior, top Nazis still felt a vestigial
0:06:57 > 0:06:59loyalty to their kin, to their blood.
0:06:59 > 0:07:04Did you never feel that?
0:07:04 > 0:07:05No.
0:07:05 > 0:07:12Especially not for my father.
0:07:12 > 0:07:18It's slightly different with my mother, because I have
0:07:18 > 0:07:28experienced my mother as a really fighting mother for us.
0:07:28 > 0:07:30But she was a Nazi too.
0:07:30 > 0:07:32She wasn't a Nazi.
0:07:32 > 0:07:33Was she not?
0:07:33 > 0:07:40She was never a member of the Nazi party, nor was she a Nazi.
0:07:40 > 0:07:43She hated all this screaming of her husband when he was
0:07:43 > 0:07:44delivering a speech.
0:07:44 > 0:07:46And she hated this kind of stuff.
0:07:46 > 0:07:49But she very much liked the luxury she found through the position
0:07:49 > 0:07:58of her husband.
0:07:58 > 0:08:00She was a very cold and inhuman woman.
0:08:01 > 0:08:04In terms of your father, I want you just to look at this
0:08:04 > 0:08:05picture with me.
0:08:05 > 0:08:10That is your father in his Nazi uniform.
0:08:10 > 0:08:13When you look at him, do you feel anger, rage,
0:08:13 > 0:08:18what do you feel?
0:08:18 > 0:08:21Anger and rage, anger and rage.
0:08:21 > 0:08:26And the next thing was I always...
0:08:26 > 0:08:29The word which for me is always sticking to my father is,
0:08:29 > 0:08:31what a coward you are.
0:08:31 > 0:08:41What a coward.
0:08:41 > 0:08:43And that feeling isn't just a memory feeling,
0:08:43 > 0:08:47it is something that is very alive in you.
0:08:48 > 0:08:50It's very alive, it's very alive.
0:08:50 > 0:08:53It is still as if he is sitting in your place.
0:08:53 > 0:09:03I despise him, really.
0:09:03 > 0:09:05He died, he was hung, after the Nuremberg trials,
0:09:05 > 0:09:09when you were seven years old.
0:09:09 > 0:09:14So I'm just wondering how strong your memories can be of him
0:09:14 > 0:09:20when you were in that castle in Krakow, his headquarters,
0:09:20 > 0:09:23the headquarters of the Nazi force in Poland, do you really remember
0:09:24 > 0:09:26what it was like and what he was like?
0:09:26 > 0:09:32No, I didn't remember what kind of profession he had.
0:09:32 > 0:09:36I only knew Poland was ours.
0:09:36 > 0:09:38And the castle was ours.
0:09:38 > 0:09:42And the other castle outside of Krakow was ours.
0:09:42 > 0:09:46And there were our properties.
0:09:46 > 0:09:49It was almost like you were part of the royal family.
0:09:49 > 0:09:50Yes, it was, it was.
0:09:50 > 0:09:53And this I enjoyed very much, like my mother.
0:09:53 > 0:10:01I enjoyed it.
0:10:01 > 0:10:04What about the truth of the unimaginable crimes
0:10:04 > 0:10:07and cruelty as a young boy growing up from the age of,
0:10:07 > 0:10:13well, from being a baby to being six years old.
0:10:13 > 0:10:16Did you have any awareness of what was happening?
0:10:16 > 0:10:16No.
0:10:16 > 0:10:27The only thing was, when I accompanied my mother
0:10:27 > 0:10:29into the Krakow ghettos, when she was shopping,
0:10:29 > 0:10:32maybe it was one visit, maybe more, but I remember especially this one
0:10:32 > 0:10:36visit, there was a lot of people, everybody was looking very sadly.
0:10:36 > 0:10:37And this was the only memory.
0:10:37 > 0:10:50But I didn't know where it was.
0:10:50 > 0:10:54Later on I talked to my mummy, my beloved Hilda, and I told her
0:10:54 > 0:10:55the flashes of my memory.
0:10:55 > 0:10:58And she told me it was Krakow and we were together
0:10:58 > 0:11:01and I remembered her sitting beside me in the car.
0:11:01 > 0:11:03We now associate your father with the Holocaust.
0:11:03 > 0:11:06He was instrumental in delivering millions of Jews and others
0:11:06 > 0:11:09to their deaths, and he seemed to be enthusiastic about it.
0:11:09 > 0:11:12Was there any way that anybody else in your family could have known
0:11:12 > 0:11:20exactly what was happening?
0:11:20 > 0:11:22Exactly knew it, um, his wife, my mother.
0:11:22 > 0:11:22Your mother?
0:11:22 > 0:11:23She knew exactly.
0:11:23 > 0:11:26You have to imagine this castle in Krakow, it was really
0:11:26 > 0:11:33like a kingdom.
0:11:33 > 0:11:35Everybody knows each other, yes.
0:11:35 > 0:11:36Everybody talked to each other.
0:11:36 > 0:11:39They knew exactly what was going on in the death camps
0:11:39 > 0:11:41and what was going on day by day.
0:11:41 > 0:11:44You have said, I think, that you have no doubt
0:11:44 > 0:11:48that your father loved Hitler more than he loved his own family.
0:11:48 > 0:11:52Yes, that's for sure.
0:11:52 > 0:11:54And you use that word love advisedly.
0:11:54 > 0:12:01You really mean love.
0:12:01 > 0:12:03Really love, real love.
0:12:03 > 0:12:08It is something of a homosexual kind of love.
0:12:08 > 0:12:11Tell me about your last encounter with your father.
0:12:11 > 0:12:15He, of course, was tried at Nuremberg as one of the top Nazis
0:12:15 > 0:12:17to be held responsible for the genocide, for the war
0:12:17 > 0:12:18crimes, crimes against humanity.
0:12:19 > 0:12:22But before he was executed, you saw him one last time.
0:12:22 > 0:12:29Yes.
0:12:29 > 0:12:31Sitting on my mother's lap, it was a big room
0:12:31 > 0:12:40on the other side...
0:12:40 > 0:12:44I will always remember I was sitting behind this window with small holes
0:12:44 > 0:12:45to understand each other.
0:12:45 > 0:12:47I was sitting on my mother's lap.
0:12:47 > 0:12:50And knowing that will be my last visit to him.
0:12:50 > 0:12:55And he smiled at me and laughed.
0:12:55 > 0:13:02Do you have a picture of him at Nuremberg?
0:13:02 > 0:13:03It is here, during his...
0:13:03 > 0:13:05This is during the trial.
0:13:05 > 0:13:06During the trial, yes.
0:13:06 > 0:13:07So, he smiled.
0:13:07 > 0:13:12And what did he say to you, what was his last message to you?
0:13:12 > 0:13:17The last message to me was a big lie.
0:13:17 > 0:13:23I knew that he would be hanged and he told me,
0:13:23 > 0:13:25"Hi, Niki," which was my name in the family, "Heil,
0:13:25 > 0:13:30Niki, we will soon celebrate Christmas at our house,"
0:13:30 > 0:13:39and I was really thinking, "Why is he lying, why is he lying?"
0:13:39 > 0:13:42Let's move forward and think about the impact of all this
0:13:42 > 0:13:43on your family.
0:13:43 > 0:13:46You have siblings, two older sisters and I think two brothers.
0:13:46 > 0:13:47Yes.
0:13:47 > 0:13:50Could you, in the years that followed, talk to them,
0:13:50 > 0:13:53share feelings with them, actually have the same sort
0:13:53 > 0:13:56of understanding of what your father had done and what it meant
0:13:56 > 0:13:57to you as a family?
0:13:57 > 0:14:06I was living in a boarding school until I finished school.
0:14:06 > 0:14:16We were separated in different places.
0:14:16 > 0:14:18But whenever we came together, after a short "Hi,"
0:14:18 > 0:14:29we were discussing our father.
0:14:29 > 0:14:32And then very slowly I found out the very different approaches
0:14:32 > 0:14:33to my father especially.
0:14:33 > 0:14:34And this separated me.
0:14:34 > 0:14:35Because your sisters, what, they...
0:14:35 > 0:14:45Three of my sisters defended my father as innocent victim of Hitler,
0:14:45 > 0:14:50Himmler and the justice of Nuremberg.
0:14:50 > 0:14:53I would say it cost them their lives.
0:14:53 > 0:15:00They died very early.
0:15:00 > 0:15:02My next oldest sister, Frigita, called Kitty,
0:15:02 > 0:15:05she wrote in her diary when she was a teenager,
0:15:05 > 0:15:08she said that she would not become older than our father
0:15:08 > 0:15:11and she committed suicide at 46, the same age my father
0:15:11 > 0:15:15was when he was hanged.
0:15:15 > 0:15:18My next older brother, a really great looking guy,
0:15:18 > 0:15:21very sporting, a very funny guy he suddenly started to drink milk,
0:15:21 > 0:15:25litres a day and became fatter and fatter and died of all that
0:15:25 > 0:15:37follows when you are too fat.
0:15:37 > 0:15:40He was alive when my book came out and he attacked me in public.
0:15:41 > 0:15:42It sort of destroyed your family.
0:15:42 > 0:15:51Yes, certainly.
0:15:51 > 0:15:52What about forgiveness?
0:15:52 > 0:15:55There are many people who hear your story and the rage
0:15:55 > 0:16:02and the anger you acknowledge to this very day.
0:16:02 > 0:16:05They say there is something inhuman about it, because humanity is full
0:16:05 > 0:16:08of the deepest failings and flaws and in the end,
0:16:08 > 0:16:10part of humanity is to find forgiveness.
0:16:10 > 0:16:13I am an inhuman being.
0:16:13 > 0:16:21I will never forgive him.
0:16:21 > 0:16:24Looking around in Europe and also in other countries,
0:16:24 > 0:16:29such as America, wherever, I find a lot of families
0:16:29 > 0:16:32have fathers who have killed a part of that family.
0:16:32 > 0:16:33I cannot forgive that.
0:16:33 > 0:16:38Never.
0:16:38 > 0:16:44Do you ever wonder if you may have had a better, happier,
0:16:44 > 0:16:49more positive life if you had found a different way to deal
0:16:49 > 0:16:54with what is, after all, your father's terrible crime?
0:16:54 > 0:17:00Not yours?
0:17:00 > 0:17:10Yes, but these crimes, you can say it was my father,
0:17:10 > 0:17:11but it comes out of demolishing society
0:17:12 > 0:17:13and demolishing families and killing innocent children.
0:17:13 > 0:17:17They were the victims, not my father.
0:17:17 > 0:17:20My father did it, he gave the signatures for death penalty
0:17:20 > 0:17:26and that sort of thing.
0:17:26 > 0:17:29He was responsible by German law, he was the deputy
0:17:29 > 0:17:30of Hitler in Poland.
0:17:30 > 0:17:33Every death camp, he was responsible for.
0:17:33 > 0:17:35The true power, certainly it was with Himmler,
0:17:35 > 0:17:39but he was responsible.
0:17:39 > 0:17:44With you talking to me, asking me this question,
0:17:44 > 0:17:47maybe you can see my face going red, I become furious again
0:17:47 > 0:18:13because it was unbelievable in which he was involved.
0:18:13 > 0:18:15But that is...those red cheeks, the fury that you feel,
0:18:15 > 0:18:18you are allowing your father to define you.
0:18:18 > 0:18:18Define me exactly?
0:18:18 > 0:18:21You are giving your father another form of enormous power.
0:18:21 > 0:18:24He wielded this terrible power over so many millions in Poland
0:18:24 > 0:18:25and still over you.
0:18:25 > 0:18:28I think you once called yourself a puppet on a string.
0:18:28 > 0:18:30Why not cut those strings?
0:18:30 > 0:18:33Do not allow your father, even in death, after so many years,
0:18:33 > 0:18:34to pull your strings.
0:18:34 > 0:18:35Too many victims.
0:18:35 > 0:18:35Too many victims.
0:18:36 > 0:18:37Let's not just talk about you.
0:18:37 > 0:18:38Let's also talk about Germany.
0:18:38 > 0:18:48You introduced that topic earlier and I would like to return to it.
0:18:48 > 0:18:52It seems to me that you feel, I think you used the word fearful,
0:18:52 > 0:18:54still, of your own country and your own people.
0:18:55 > 0:18:56Today, 72 years after the
0:18:56 > 0:18:57liberation of Auschwitz.
0:18:57 > 0:19:00Why?
0:19:00 > 0:19:03You don't know my people as I do.
0:19:03 > 0:19:09I do not trust them.
0:19:09 > 0:19:12Nobody spoke, a normal German family never really spoke
0:19:12 > 0:19:15about what our fathers, mothers, grandfathers,
0:19:15 > 0:19:17grandmothers have really seen.
0:19:17 > 0:19:20Whether they were cowards, whether they were actively involved
0:19:20 > 0:19:21in the system.
0:19:21 > 0:19:38They are silent.
0:19:38 > 0:19:39This is like a swamp.
0:19:39 > 0:19:41That swamp was never drained.
0:19:41 > 0:19:44So here and there in Germany you find nowadays, you find these
0:19:44 > 0:19:45poison flowers coming up.
0:19:45 > 0:19:54Meadows full of them.
0:19:54 > 0:19:58But when you say there is suddenly a meadow full of poison flowers,
0:19:58 > 0:20:00that is where I wonder whether that is fair.
0:20:00 > 0:20:03This interview is being filmed by three young German men
0:20:03 > 0:20:08in their 20s and 30s.
0:20:08 > 0:20:11Why should they have to bear any sense of guilt
0:20:11 > 0:20:12or shame or responsibility?
0:20:12 > 0:20:14No.
0:20:14 > 0:20:15No guilt, no shame.
0:20:15 > 0:20:20Acknowledge.
0:20:20 > 0:20:23Really acknowledge.
0:20:23 > 0:20:26If you talk to these youngsters, really, you will find out a lot
0:20:26 > 0:20:36of uncertainty, or not really wanting to talk about it.
0:20:36 > 0:20:40They say why should we be taking high school trips to Bergen-Belsen?
0:20:40 > 0:20:47Why should we have to, as kids, be fed this sense
0:20:47 > 0:21:01of our collective responsibility?
0:21:01 > 0:21:04The responsibility, for me, it's a dead word.
0:21:04 > 0:21:07You have to know your history, the history of your people.
0:21:07 > 0:21:10It hurts to admit that there was a time in Germany where we left
0:21:11 > 0:21:20a family of people all around the world, and we killed millions
0:21:20 > 0:21:23of innocent people in a system which was really a difficult system.
0:21:23 > 0:21:28And to be against the system then was to have a very brave character.
0:21:28 > 0:21:31But this hurt, you can endure, like I endured and I still love
0:21:31 > 0:21:33Germany.
0:21:33 > 0:21:35I love being world champion in football, for instance.
0:21:35 > 0:21:37Really.
0:21:37 > 0:21:51I am a nationalist.
0:21:51 > 0:21:54I also love very when Merkel said she will do this refugees,
0:21:54 > 0:21:57now it may be thrown out, but that was a good thing.
0:21:57 > 0:22:04You can especially see with Merkel, everything changed
0:22:04 > 0:22:07because we are treating them as if they were Jews again...
0:22:07 > 0:22:11That swamp is coming.
0:22:11 > 0:22:13You really feel that, you feel so insecure
0:22:13 > 0:22:16about your Germany today?
0:22:16 > 0:22:23Don't trust us.
0:22:23 > 0:22:26Especially, I was very happy when the European community suddenly...
0:22:26 > 0:22:33Suddenly we were watched countless all over Germany,
0:22:33 > 0:22:43we have very determined centrists, so that what gave me a happy feeling
0:22:43 > 0:22:46- now England is leaving, Poland is like a dictatorship,
0:22:46 > 0:22:50Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Austria, Italy, who is the strongest left?
0:22:50 > 0:23:02The Germans.
0:23:02 > 0:23:06But the Germans, as you painted, Germany today is a bulwark
0:23:06 > 0:23:08of moderation, of tolerance, compared to so many messages coming
0:23:08 > 0:23:11from Hungary or Marine Le Pen or from so many people
0:23:11 > 0:23:12in so many corners.
0:23:13 > 0:23:16As long as our economy is great and as long as we make money,
0:23:16 > 0:23:24everything is very democratic.
0:23:24 > 0:23:29But let's wait and hopefully not see if we have five to ten years heavy
0:23:29 > 0:23:32economic problems and the swamp is a lake, it is a sea
0:23:32 > 0:23:34and we are swallowed again.
0:23:34 > 0:23:37I swear it to you.
0:23:37 > 0:23:38I don't trust it.
0:23:38 > 0:23:50It always makes me...
0:23:50 > 0:23:51Thinking and feeling exactly...wait a minute,
0:23:52 > 0:23:59there is something else.
0:23:59 > 0:24:01You can lead a happy life, but there is something
0:24:01 > 0:24:03else around you.
0:24:03 > 0:24:06Yeah, it hurts but, on the other hand, because I have had
0:24:06 > 0:24:09a really happy life.
0:24:09 > 0:24:19Ask my grandchildren.
0:24:19 > 0:24:22Niklas, what a nice way to end, and we must end.
0:24:22 > 0:24:34Thank you for being on HARDtalk.
0:24:34 > 0:24:42Thank you for being on HARDtalk.
0:24:42 > 0:24:44Hi there.
0:24:44 > 0:24:47It felt pretty chilly at times yesterday, didn't it?
0:24:47 > 0:24:50It was even cold enough for some snow on the ground up
0:24:50 > 0:24:51in the Highlands of Scotland.
0:24:51 > 0:24:53Not bad going for late April.