Sackur. Today i am in rural northern germany. Stable, prosperous when he First Century germany. But i am here to talk about the past. And its relationship to the present. My guest is the writer, journalist and son, niklas frank. Now, his father was appointed by hitler to be the governor general of nazi occupied poland. He was intimately involved in the murder of millions of people. So, how has this german son dealt with the terrible crimes of his father . Niklas, iam with the terrible crimes of his father . Niklas, i am wondering why you have chosen to make your life in the very far north of germany. Is it because you wanted to get as far away as possible from your Family Background in bavaria . No, i still love bavaria. And every year we have about many weeks in bavaria, in the same village where i grew up. But it was my profession as a journalist at stern magazine, which i worked for 23 years, was based in hamburg. So i had to lure my wife, she was attached to munich, because she is a big gardener, she has a big garden, so we big gardener, she has a big garden, so we left it for three years. This place where you now live is extraordinarily peaceful. Yes, it is. Would you say it has helped bring you some sort of Peace Of Mind . Ah, no. No, i dont think that it depends on the country i am living in. It is in myself i have found peace because i acknowledge what my father has done. That i think is the first and most important step. Thinking of my father, thinking first about his victims. There is no german around who has not certain pictures of corpses in his mind. And those pictures always remind me of my father, what he did. And especially when i look at him. That is the leather coat of my father. It is a scarecrow. Leather coat of my father. It is a scarecrow. And this scarecrow is the most expensive one in germany, i would say, because i bought it from a soldier who had stolen it. The code, you mean . Yes, and someone gave me a call and asked it if i was interested in the coat of my father andi interested in the coat of my father and i said yes. She wanted 500 and ipaid and i said yes. She wanted 500 and i paid it. You mean this old military greatcoat, leather coat, is actually your fathers old code . Yes. Coat. What i have to admit, since the scarecrow is standing here, i have got a stronger connection to my father. It is very strange. And a lwa ys father. It is very strange. And always when i am sitting in our living room, isay, these always when i am sitting in our living room, i say, these you have earned a father, being a scarecrow in the end. Thats your fault. Niklas, iwant in the end. Thats your fault. Niklas, i want to hear more about yourfamily history, niklas, i want to hear more about your family history, i niklas, i want to hear more about yourfamily history, i want niklas, i want to hear more about your family history, i want to niklas, i want to hear more about yourfamily history, i want to dig deeper into your relationship with your father. I also want to get out of the cold north germanwings. That isa of the cold north germanwings. That is a good idea. Why dont we head back into your home . Byebye, scarecrow. Back into your home . Byebye, scarecrow. Niklas frank, welcome to hardtalk thank you. Do you feel that you have some sort of a duty to your country to speak about your past . think country to speak about your past . |j think so, yes. I think i have the duty, because, by chance, iwas born in this family and i could tell the people. Ah, how to behave with pa rents people. Ah, how to behave with parents like i had. When do you think you first began to feel that you must speak out as volubly, as publicly as possible about your father and about your feelings toward your father . It was a growing wish, because of the silence in germany. Families, all the families of my friends, everybody was silent. And they didnt talk about the past. And they didnt talk about the past. And this i couldnt endure because i a lwa ys and this i couldnt endure because i always wanted to know how is it that society behaves if it changes to a dictatorship. And i always have a feeling that germany is still prepared to do this. And so i looked closer towards families and friends and connectedness, and ifound out that still there is something in the german people which makes me fear them. Niklas fear, your own country and your own people . Yes, i would say so. Well, i want to pick up would say so. Well, i want to pick up on that, because that is a pretty remarkable thing to feel and to say, but before i get onto your thoughts on the country, on germany, i want to stay with the personal. Because it seems to me in the period you are talking about, after the end of the war, and for decades afterwards, many families of senior top nazis still felt a vestigial loyalty to their kin, to their blood. Did you never feel that . No. Their kin, to their blood. Did you never feelthat . No. Especially not for my father. It is slightly different with my mother, because i have experienced my mother as a really fighting mother for us. But she was a nazi too. She was in a nazi. She was never a member of the nazi. She was never a member of the nazi party, nor was she a nazi. She hated all this screening of her husband when he was delivering a speech. And she hated this kind of stuff screaming. By she very much like the luxury. She found through the position of her husband. She was a very cold and inhuman woman. The position of her husband. She was a very cold and inhuman womanm terms of your father, i want you just to look at this picture with me. That is your father in his nazi uniform. When you look at him, do you feel anger, rage, what do you feel . Anger and rage, anger and rage. And the next thing was i a lwa ys rage. And the next thing was i always the word which for me is a lwa ys always the word which for me is always sticking to my father is what always sticking to my father is what a coward you are. What a coward. And that feeling isntjust a coward you are. What a coward. And that feeling isnt just a a coward you are. What a coward. And that feeling isntjust a memory feeling, it is something that is very alive in you. It is very alive, it is very alive. It is still as if he is sitting in your place. I despise him, really. He died, he was hung, after the murombo trials, when you were seven years old. So i am just wondering how strong your memories can be of him when you were in that castle in krakow, his headquarters, the headquarters of the nazi force in poland, do you really remember what it was like and what he was like . Nuremberg. No, ididnt what he was like . Nuremberg. No, i didnt remember what kind of profession he had. I only knew poland was ours. And the castle was ours. And the other castle outside of krakow was ours. And there were our properties. It was almost like you were part of the royal family. Yes, it was, it was. And this i enjoyed very much, like my mother. I enjoyed very much, like my mother. I enjoyed it. What about the truth of the unimaginable crimes and cruelty asa the unimaginable crimes and cruelty as a young boy growing up from the age of, well, from being a baby to being six years old. Did you have any awareness of what was happening . No. The only thing was, when i accompanied my mother into the kra kow accompanied my mother into the krakow town, when she was shopping, maybe it was one visit, maybe more, but i remember especially this one visit, there was a lot of people, everybody was looking very sadly. And this was the only memory. But i didnt know where it was. Later on i turnit didnt know where it was. Later on i turn it to my beloved hilda and i told her the flashes of main memory. And she told me it was krakow and we we re and she told me it was krakow and we were together and i remembered her sitting beside me in the car. We now associate your father with the holocaust. He was instrumental in delivering millions of jews holocaust. He was instrumental in delivering Millions Ofjews and others to their death, and he seemed to be enthusiastic about it. Was there any way that anybody else in yourfamily could there any way that anybody else in your family could have there any way that anybody else in yourfamily could have known there any way that anybody else in your family could have known exactly what was happening . Exactly knew it his wife, my mother. What was happening . Exactly knew it his wife, my mother. My mother . She knew exactly. You have to imagine this castle in krakow, it was really like a kingdom. Everybody knows each other, yes. Everybody talked to each other. They knew exactly what was going on in the death camps and what was going on day by day. You have said, i think that you have no doubt that your father loved hitler more than he loved his own family. Yes, thats for sure. And you use that word love advisedly. You really mean love. Really love, real love. It is something of a homosexual kind of love. Tell me about your last encounter with your father. He of course was tried at nuremberg as one of the top nazis to be held responsible for the genocide, for the war crimes, crimes against humanity. But before he was executed, you saw him one last time. Yes. Sitting on my mothers lap, it was a big room on the other side. All i remember was sitting behind this window with small holes to understand each other. I was sitting on my mothers lap. And knowing that would be my last visit to him. And he smiled at me and laughed. Do you have a picture of him at nuremberg . It is here, during his. This is during the trial. During the trial, yes. So, he smiled. And what did he say to you, what was his last message to you . The last message to message to you . The last message to me was a big lie. I knew that he would be hanged and he told me heil, nikki, which was my name in the family, heil, nikki, we will soon celebrate christmas at our house, andi celebrate christmas at our house, and i was really thinking, why is he lying, why is he lying . Lets move forward and think about the impact of all this on your family. You have siblings, two older sisters andi you have siblings, two older sisters and i think two brothers. Yes. Could you, in the years that followed, talk to them, share feelings with them, actually have the same sort of understanding of what your father had done and what it meant to you as a family . I was living in a Boarding School until i finished school. We we re school until i finished school. We were separated in different places. But whenever we came together, after a short hi, we were discussing op our father. And very shortly i discovered the different approaches to my father especially. And this separated me. Because your sisters, what, they. Three of my sisters defended my father as innocent victim of hitler, himmler and justice. I would say it cost them their lives. They died very early. My next old est lives. They died very early. My next oldest sister, she wrote in her diary when she was a teenager, she said that she would not become older than our father and she committed suicide at a6, the same age my father was when he was hanged. My next older brother, a really great looking guy, very sporting a very funny guy he suddenly started to drink milk, litres a day and became fatter and fatter and died of all that follows when you are too fat. He was alive in my book came out and he attacked me in public. It sort of destroyed your family. Yes, certainly. How about for business . There are many people who hear your story and the rage and the anger you acknowledge to this very day. They say there is something inhuman about it because humanity is full of the deepest failings and floors and in the end, part of humanity is to find forgiveness. I am any human being. I will never forgave him. Forgiveness. I am any human being. I will neverforgave him. Looking around in europe and also in other countries such as america, wherever, ifind a lot countries such as america, wherever, i find a lot of families have fathers who have killed a part of that family. I cannot forgive that. Never. Do you ever wonder if you may have had a better, happier, more positive life if you had found a different way to deal with what is, after all, it your fathers terrible crime. Not yours. Yes but these crimes, you can say it was my father but it comes out of demolishing society and demolishing families and killing innocent children. They were the victims, not my father. My father did it, he gave the signatures for Death Penalty and that sort of thing. He was responsible by german law, he was the deputy of hitler in poland. Every death, he was responsible for. The true power, certainly it was with himmler, but he was responsible. We few, asking me this question, maybe you can see my face going red, i become serious again because it was era, and act in which he was involved. But that is here, those red cheeks, does not allow father to define you . You are giving your father another form of enormous power. He wielded this terrible power. He wielded this terrible power over so many millions in poland and still over you. I think you once caught us of a puppet on a string. Why not cut those strings . Do not allow your father, even string. Why not cut those strings . Do not allow yourfather, even in death, after so many years, to pull your strings. Too many victims. Too many victims. Lets notjust talk about you. Lets also talk about germany. You introduce that earlier andi germany. You introduce that earlier and i would like to return to it. It seems to me that you feel fearful, still, of your own country and your own people. Today. 72 years after the liberation of auschwitz. Why . You dont know my people as i do. I do not trust them. Nobody spoke, a normal German Family never really spoke about what our fathers, mothers, grandfathers, grandmothers have really seen. Whether they work how words, whether they were actively involved in the system. They are silent. This is like a swamp. That swamp was never drained. So he ran dairy in germany you find nowadays so here and there in germany you find these Poison Flowers coming up. Meadows full of them. But when you say there is suddenly a meadow full of Poison Flowers that is where i wonder whether that is fair this interview is being filmed by three young german men in their 20s and 30s. Why should they have to bear any sense of guilt or shame or responsibility. No. No guilt, no shame. Acknowledge. Really acknowledge. If you talk to these youngsters, really, you will find out a lot of uncertainty in of not really wanting to talk about it. They say why should we be taking high School Troops to Bergen Belsen . Why should we, have to, as kids be fed this sense of our collective responsibility . The responsibility for me as a dead word. You have to know your history, the history of your people. It hurts to admit that there was a time in germany where we left a family of people All Around The World and we killed millions of innocent people in the system which was really a difficult system and to be against the system then was to have a very brave character. But this hurt, you can endure, like ing word and i still love germany. I love being World Champion in football, for instance. Really. I am a nationalist. Ialso football, for instance. Really. I am a nationalist. I also love very you can especially so in this market, everything changed because we are treating them as if they were jews again. That swamp is coming. You really feel that insecure about your germany today . Especially, i was very your germany today . Especially, i was very happy when the community suddenly. Suddenly we were watched cou ntless suddenly. Suddenly we were watched countless all over germany we have very determined centrists so that gave me a happy feeling now england is leaving, poland is like a dictatorship, hungary, austria, italy, who is the strongest left . The germans. But germany today is able work of moderation, of tolerance compared to so many m essa 9 es tolerance compared to so many messages coming from hungary or Marine Le Pen orfrom so many people in so many corners. As long as our economy is great and as long as we make money, everything is very democratic. But lets wait and hopefully not see if we have five to ten yea rs hopefully not see if we have five to ten years heavy economic problems and the swamp is a lake, it is a sea and the swamp is a lake, it is a sea and were swallowed again. I swear it to you. Id dont trust it. It a lwa ys to you. Id dont trust it. It always makes me. Thinking and feeling exactly wait a minute, there is Something Else. You can lead a happy life but there is Something Else around you. Yeah, it hurts but, on the other hand, because i have had a really happy life. Ask my grandchildren. What a nice way to end and we must. Thank you for being an harder talk. On hardtalk. Hi there. It felt pretty chilly at times yesterday, didnt it . Even cold enough for some snow on the ground up in the highlands of scotland. Not bad going for late april. You can see the snow cover here at kincraig in the highlands. We even had a dusting of snow further south, as far south as staffordshire in the north west midlands. Those showers have been feeding in then on a brisk north easterly wind but of the more recent hours weve seen those showers tending to become confined more to coastal districts, northern scotland, around the eastern side of england. Western wales and cornwall as well. But as we go through the day today we are going to see a mixture of sunshine and heavy showers. Plenty of these thunderclouds will be developing as the day goes by, particularly across eastern stretches of england, and its going to be a chilly start to the morning. There should be plenty of sunshine around, yes, but showers from the word go near to the east coast of england and tending to move inland pretty quickly as the day goes by. There will be some pockets of frost also around across parts of the midlands, maybe South West England and wales, but soon melting away with plenty of blue sky and sunshine here. Those winds continue to feed in the showers to the east coast of england. One or two for Northern Ireland and showers continue to feed in across scotland. Therell continue to be some snow up in the hills of scotland above around 100 200 metres elevation in the morning. So some wintryness here, perhaps a little bit of iciness around as well, and perhaps a bit of sleet in some of the heavy showers during the morning across eastern counties of england, maybe a dusting of snow for the north york moors. Aside from that, though, i think its going to be Heavy Rain Showers that we see developing through the afternoon. And spilling inland across the midlands, covering much of east anglia, South East England where the showers will be particularly heavy, some hail and thunder mixed in. And another coolish feeling day, temperatures 9 12 degrees. Colder, though, as those showers move through, the temperatures will drop away for a time. Looking at wednesday night, things will begin to turn a little bit less cold across northern and Western Areas as cloudier weather spills in, bringing some spots of rain with it. But further south, with any lengthy clear spells we could well see a Frost Developing and it could be quite a damaging frost. The lowest temperatures perhaps getting down to maybe about 3 degrees or so. So it will be a cold start to thursday morning. And as this streak of cloud comes in, bringing some less cold air with it, it probably wont feel a whole lot different across southern counties because although the airs less cold, we lose the sunshine. So cloudier weather, probably not feeling too great underneath those leaden skies. Temperatures ii or 12 degrees, some spots of rain arriving through the afternoon. Brighter conditions for the north and west. By friday well still have a few showers knocking around. Most of them will be in it to the east coast of england. Sunny spells elsewhere. Temperatures recovering, highs of 15 degrees in london. Thats your weather. A very warm welcome to bbc news, broadcasting to our viewers in north america and around the globe. My names mike embley. Our top stories it looks like president trumps border wall is going to be delayed. 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