Niklas Frank, son of a Nazi criminal hanged at Nuremberg: I am against the death penalty, except for that of my father'

"Niklas Frank can't shake off his father, the Nazi war criminal Hans Frank. He never will. He compares him to a goblin, an evil spirit clinging to his shoulders, refusing to let go. He'll always have him with him. I used to hate my father, he says, on a cloudy autumn morning, in his little house on the plain north of the Elbe, a place that seems straight out of a Grimm Brothers fairy tale. Now I despise him."

"Niklas was six years old when his father sat in the dock at Nuremberg. The trial began on November 20, 1945, 80 years ago today. Now 87, he has been a widower for three years, and as he chain-smokes, he recounts his memories and laments that Germany and a past that seems infinite. It will never end, he explains, because the victims are still alive, burning in my brain."

"Niklas Frank was a born a prince of National Socialism, the son of Hitler's chief lawyer and viceroy in the territories between present-day Poland and Ukraine, where the extermination camps of Treblinka, Majdanek, Belzec, and Sobibor were located. The boy, the youngest of five siblings, grew up in the lap of luxury in Wawel Castle in Krakow, from where the Butcher of Poland orchestrated the murder of millions of Jews."

Niklas Frank lives haunted by his father Hans Frank, whom he likens to a goblin and an evil spirit that never releases him. He witnessed his father's trial at Nuremberg at age six and saw his execution at seven. He grew up in luxury in Wawel Castle while his father governed territories where extermination camps operated and millions were murdered. He once required his father's execution to break free from indoctrination and continues to carry hatred and guilt. At 87 he chain-smokes, lives as a widower, and keeps vivid memories of victims that he says still burn in his brain. He feels Germany's past remains infinite.

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