Frank, Bernhard Dr.

Frank, Bernhard, born 15-07-1913 in Frankfurt am Main , originating from a Frankfurt merchant family, Frank graduated from the Helmholtz-Oberrealschule in his hometown in 1932. He then studied German and philosophy at the University of Frankfurt, but after a semester he switched to economics.
After the transfer of power to the National Socialists , Frank entered the SS student bomber (member number 105.013) on 30-05-1933. He was also a member of the NSDAP (No. 4,442,198). On the occasion of a visit to the 2nd Frankfurt SS-Standarte in June 1934, Himmler, who here shaking hands with Dr. Bernhard Frank,  selected Frank as a participant in an SS-leadership seminar. From October onwards, he was stationed at Ellwangen, where he became SS junior school in Braunschweig. He, here shaking hands with Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler, was allegedly transferred to the SS unit in the Dachau concentration camp in the fall of the year. From December 1935 onwards Frank was employed as a so-called scientific employee for the “SS-Schule Haus Wewelsburg”

.

In this function, he built up the “Heimatkundliche Arbeitsstelle” of the SS-Schule. From autumn 1936 he was enrolled at the University of Münster in the fields of German Studies and Folklore. In November 1938, he passed the oral examination in Münster. The topic of the dissertation was the Wewelsburg Flurnamen. At the beginning of 1939 Frank was for several months assistant of the Munich Indo-Germanist and scientific director of the Forschungsgemeinschaft Deutsches Ahnenerbe, Walther Wüst . Wüst died old age 91, 21-03-1993 The stay in Munich was to serve both the reorganization of the Wewelsburg SS school under the umbrella of the SS research organization “Ahnenerbe” as well as the selection of new scientists for the Wewelsburg. In addition, Frank worked on his incomplete habilitation on “The Forest in the Religious Experience and Customs of Germanic Man.”
Shortly before the beginning of the World War II Frank asked in a letter to the leader of the Wewelsburg, SS Obergruppenführer Siegfried Taubert

 , in the event of a war with SS-associations. Taubert on 31-03-1945 fled from the Wewelsburg to Schleswig-Holstein. There he died on 13-02-1946, age 65, in Kiel. In September 1939 Frank was commanded as a platoon commander to the SS head-headstands; From December 1939 he was adjutant of the III. SS-Totenkopf infantry replacement battalions in Breslau. From December 1940 onwards, Frank again spent several months in the Wewelsburg and dealt with the development of the scientific work of the SS school.

Frank was reportedly one of the few Schutzstaffel officers inducted into the rites at Wewelsburg Castle

 , and after the war claimed that he had arranged the eventual surrender of Berchtesgaden, (where Hitler’s mountain residence , the Berghof, was located), to prevent needless damage to the Berghof. Then SS Obersturmbannführer and SS Commander of the Obersalzberg complex who arrested Hermann Goering on 25-04-1945 by order of Adolf Hitler (did you know, who had been manipulated by Reichsleiter Martin Bormann into believing Goering was attempting to usurp the Führer’s authority. Frank placed Goering under house arrest but ignored later orders to execute the Reichsmarschall.

Frank didn’t know what to do with Goering and his large group around him and moved them to Goering’s castle at Mauterndorf.

   Goering was captured in his castle Mauterndorf, together with his family and General Karl Koller 

   by forces of the American Seventh Army 

At the beginning of May 1945 Frank was captured by American troops near the Chiemsees and interned in accordance with automatic arrest. After the release in early 1948 he worked as a merchant. From the 1980s he published biographical-historical books as well as poems. An autobiography appeared in 2006 in the right-wing Arndt publishing house. In December 2010, Frank’s allegation of nation-wide social crimes against violence was discussed in the media.He later wrote a 144-page book entitled Hitler, Goering and the Obersalzberg. 

In December 2010, Mark Gould announced that he had spent several years befriending Frank and coaxing his story out of him, and that Frank had confessed to him a role in the Holocaust far more extensive than had previously been known. Gould recorded their conversations, and says that in one of them Frank told him that on 28-07-1941, he signed an order that led to the SS massacre of Jews in Korets , including relatives of Gould’s adoptive father. Gould released an edited extract of his recordings on the internet.

According to Gould, this order was “the first order of the Reich instructing the mass murder of hundreds of thousands of Jews, later turning into the Nazi systematic extermination machine.

Death and burial ground of Frank, Bernhard Dr.

After the war Frank  lived in Frankfurt am Main, where he died old age 97 on 29-06-2011 and is buried with his wife Tilly who died age 80 on 08-03-1996, at the Cemetery Schmitten im Taunus, Alter Friedhof of suburb Arnoldsheim, Kirchgasse 17. At the south Section of the cemetery, third row from the wall. My friend Wolfgang Linke from Frankfurt am Main, visited the cemetery and kindly made these grave photo’s for me.