Background
Karl-Hermann Frank was born on 24 January 1898 in Karlovy Vary.
Karl-Hermann Frank was born on 24 January 1898 in Karlovy Vary.
Frank attempted to enlist in the Austro-Hungarian Army in World War I, but he was rejected due to blindness in his right eye. He spent a year at the law school of the German language Charles University in Prague and worked as a tutor to make money.
After serving the last years of World War I in the Austrian army and having failed in his bookselling business in Karlsbad, Frank joined the Sudeten German Nazi Party.
Second-in-command to Konrad Henlein in the Sudeten German Party, Frank was appointed deputy Gauleiter of the NSDAP in the Sudetenland on 30 October 1938.
Following the Nazi occupation of Prague in March 1939, Frank became chief of police, with the title of Secretary of State to the Protectorate, and was given the rank of SS-Gruppenfuhrer. The right-hand man of Neurath. Daluege and Heydrich (whom he eventually succeeded as Reichsprotektor).
From 20 August 1943 until the end of the war he was Minister of State with the rank of Reich Minister for Bohemia and Moravia.
After extradition by the Americans, he was sentenced to death by a Czech court and publicly executed in Prague before 5,000 spectators on 22 May 1946.
He was described by none other than Adolf Eichmann as a Jew-hater of the ‘Streicher kind’ and distinguished himself by exceptional ferocity in the execution of his duties.
Frank was married twice. On 21 January 1925 he married Anna Müller (born 5 January 1899 in Karlsbad). The couple had two sons Harald, born 20 January 1926, and Gerhard, born 22 April 1931. They divorced on 17 February 1940 and later that year, Müller married Karl-Hermann's successor as deputy Gauleiter of Sudetenland, SA-Brigadeführer Dr. Fritz Köllner). On 14 April 1940 Frank remarried a physician, Karola Blaschek (born 13 August 1913 in Brüx). The couple had three children together, a son Wolf-Dietrich (born 20 August 1942), and two daughters Edda, (born 16 August 1941) and Holle-Sigrid (born 8 March 1944).