Wolfe Frank - Nuremberg's Voice of Doom - The Autobiography of the Chief Interpreter at History's Greatest Trials

So high a standard did the interpreters set that their work was entirely satisfactory to everyone involved. In Wolfe’s own words, ‘At no time during the entire trial was there a complaint, or even a challenge, directed at the interpreters.’

Without question the simultaneous interpretation system proved to be more successful than anyone had ever hoped. Those who made it possible were a credit to their countries, the justice system, their profession and themselves. Quite simply they were a major contributing factor to the success of that ‘greatest trial in history,’ and from amongst all those capable linguists from the four great nations running the IMT, one name stands out as being the ‘Ace Interpreter at the Nuremberg International War Crimes Trials’. That man was Wolfe Frank and it is fitting that I should leave the concluding words praising his performances to those who, at every level and from every angle, witnessed him in action and/or those historians who have spent years studying the Nuremberg Trials:

‘Wolfe Frank’s performance was most excellent and, indeed, may be described as brilliant… he is an outstanding expert in not only simultaneous interpretation, but in the selection and training of interpreters for this very difficult work.’

‘Wolfe Frank, Ace Interpreter at the Nuremberg International War Crimes Trials, and so far as I am concerned the whole world round.’

‘Frank’s translations were delicious. He had a great command of the English Language. I used to go to the courtroom sometimes in the afternoon just to listen to him.’

‘Of course I want counsel. But it is even more important to have a good interpreter.’

‘Frank was the best. He could interpret just as deftly from German to English as the other way around, and was able to keep up with any speaker, no matter how fast.’

Wolfe Frank, ex-German and ex-British officer, as chief interpreter for two years at the Nuremberg trials materially contributed to the practical success of those enormously difficult procedures. He won the unreserved tributes of the American and British jurists.’

‘By common accord Captain Wolfe Frank, translating from German into English, who came to Nuremberg in British uniform and returned as a civilian, was the ace of them all.’

‘The unanimous judgement on the simultaneous translation system was that it was a miracle like Pentecost. No one was ever unreasonable enough to expect all the translators to reach the standard of the ace of them all – Wolfe Frank… his use of German and English was noticeably better than that of most native speakers. His voice and manner, the nuances of his vocabulary, the ability to convey the character of the person for whom he was translating were all outstanding.’

Finally, a few further comments from the incomparable Wolfe Frank himself:

‘Even Goering thought they [the trials] were fair. I talked to him many times off the record. As far as the principle went, he refused to recognize our right to try him, the victory [ sic ] trying the vanquished. But even he agreed the court was incredibly fair.’ (Wolfe Frank in a 1970 interview he gave to The Oregonian a daily newspaper based in Portland, Oregon, USA).

‘None of the judges understood German and everything said in that courtroom to them by the defendants and witnesses passed through the ears, brains and mouths of we interpreters’.

‘I had been involved in the writing of a chapter of human history that would be read, talked about and remembered forever. I had been more totally and decisively immersed in recording the horrors of the war than most of the millions who had fought in it. It had changed me’.

‘A lifetime is too short for such horrors to be filed away in the annals of history as something destined to be forgotten. As long as there are orphans who remember the extermination of their families, as long as there are men and women mentally or physically crippled by the faithful servants of Hitler’s Third Reich, we should not afford ourselves the luxury of burying such ghastly memories’.

Editor: The Wolfe Frank Story, 1946-1950.

Maxine Cooper returned to Nuremberg in early 1946. As Wolfe was not American, he could not be joined within the security complex by dependants. He got over the problem by arranging for Maxine to be employed on the base, at US Government expense, as a filing clerk – a job at which he says, ‘She was not an outstanding success… apart from that she was a sheer delight.’

Wolfe and Maxine were married on 15 February at the Villa Shickedanz in Nuremberg (see Plates 19 and 21). It was a ‘splendid affair’ attended by ‘all the nobles in General Telford Taylor’s court.’ Following the ceremony, the couple drove to Davos for their honeymoon in the brand-new Ford convertible Maxine’s wealthy father had sent over as a wedding present. (Davos was Wolfe’s favourite place, to which he returned often during his life, where he lived on several occasions and where he hoped, eventually, his ashes would be scattered). Having ‘tied the knot’ Wolfe also collected the $500 bet he had waged with Joe von Zastrow on the eve of his performance as the Voice of Doom.

Assigned a villa and a Bohemian couple as housekeepers, the Franks led an idyllic private life and mixed socially with those of wealth and position within local society, as well as those involved in the theatre and local arts scene, and black marketeers!

The life Wolfe enjoyed away from the horrors he relentlessly encountered within the Palace of Justice, coupled with his happy and more settled domestic situation were, no doubt, also very much in his thinking as he pondered his future during the Einsatzgruppen Trial. He then decided that after twenty-eight months of constant listening to, and speaking about, the most monstrous crimes the world had ever seen, the time had come for him to bid farewell to Nuremberg – in his own words: ‘I had heard enough about atrocities, mass murder, war crimes, extermination camps and genocide. It was time for me to quit’.

He did not arrive at that decision lightly and it was a profound moment for him as he records in his memoirs:

‘That was the end of a very, very important part of my life. We interpreters had, after all, been involved in the writing of history and our contributions were of the greatest importance’.