The castle above the river was a Nazi seat of government
Most people climb Wawel (VAH-vel) for the cathedral, the royal tombs, and the dragon statue that breathes fire for children below the hill. Very few know that from 1939 to 1945 the same hilltop was the working residence of Hans Frank, the Nazi lawyer Hitler installed to rule occupied central Poland. He lived in the state apartments, held banquets in the royal halls, and signed decrees that sent hundreds of thousands to ghettos and camps, all from the building Poles regard as the spiritual centre of their nation.
That is the sharp irony of Wawel. It is Poland's coronation site and its royal necropolis, and for five years it doubled as the office of a man later hanged at Nuremberg. The standard castle tour barely mentions it. This guide fills in what happened here, and tells you what you can and cannot actually see on the hill today.
Who Hans Frank was, and why Krakow
Frank was Hitler's personal lawyer through the 1920s and 30s, the man who defended the Nazi party in court and later drafted much of its legal framework. When Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, the western regions were annexed directly into the Reich. The central chunk that was left over, including Krakow, Warsaw, Lublin and Radom, became a colonial territory called the Generalgouvernement (the General Government). Frank was made its Governor-General in October 1939.
He chose Krakow as his capital, not Warsaw. Warsaw was too big, too rebellious, too damaged. Krakow was intact, compact, and symbolically loaded. Taking Wawel, the seat of Polish kings, was a deliberate humiliation. Frank moved into the castle, had the royal apartments refitted for his own use, and referred to himself in private as something close to a viceroy. German propaganda quietly floated the idea that he was the new master of a land whose own statehood had been erased.
The Rynek Główny (RIH-nek GWOOV-nih), Krakow's Main Square, was renamed Adolf-Hitler-Platz. Street signs went up in German. The Jagiellonian University was shut down within weeks, and in November 1939 its professors were lured to a meeting and deported to Sachsenhausen in what became known as Sonderaktion Krakau. Frank's administration ran all of it from the hill.
What life in Krakow looked like under him
Frank governed by decree, and his decrees were murderous. Forced labour, mass roundups, the sealing of the Krakow ghetto in Podgórze in 1943, the machinery that fed the camps at Płaszów and, further out, Auschwitz-Birkenau. He wrote much of it down. He kept a diary that ran to roughly 38 volumes, a bureaucratic record of meetings and orders that later became some of the most damning evidence at his trial. One of his own lines, quoted at Nuremberg, was that if he put up a poster for every seven Poles shot, the forests of Poland would not provide enough paper.
Everyday Krakow bent around him. The best hotels and restaurants were reserved for Germans. Trams had separate sections. Curfews, ration cards, and the constant risk of a street roundup shaped ordinary movement through the city. Frank himself lived comfortably, staging concerts and shooting parties, collecting looted art. Two paintings he took, including Leonardo's Lady with an Ermine, were recovered from his Bavarian home at the end of the war. The Leonardo now hangs in Krakow's Czartoryski Museum, a short walk from the square.
When the Red Army approached in January 1945, Frank fled west with his files and his stolen art. The speed of the Soviet advance is one reason Krakow survived largely undamaged, unlike Warsaw. Frank was captured by American troops in May 1945, tried at Nuremberg, and hanged in October 1946. He had converted to Catholicism in his cell and made a partial confession of guilt, which did not save him.
What you can actually see on Wawel Hill today
Here is the honest part. Wawel does not run a Hans Frank exhibition, and there is no marked "Nazi headquarters" room on the tour. The castle presents itself as a royal residence, which is what it was for far longer and what Poles prefer to remember. So you go looking for context rather than a dedicated display.
The Representative State Rooms (Reprezentacyjne Komnaty Królewskie) are the apartments Frank used and had altered. Walking them, you are in the physical spaces where the General Government's grim business was conducted, even if the labels talk about tapestries and Renaissance ceilings. The famous collection of Flemish tapestries commissioned by King Sigismund Augustus was evacuated to Canada for the duration of the war precisely to keep it out of German hands, and only returned to Wawel in 1961. That evacuation story is one thread the guides will confirm if you ask.
For the wartime story told directly, you want the city, not the hill. Schindler's Factory (Fabryka Emalia Oskara Schindlera) at Lipowa 4 in Zabłocie is the main museum covering the occupation of Krakow, and it addresses Frank and the General Government properly across its permanent exhibition. It gets far more of the WWII narrative across than anything on Wawel does. Combine the two: Wawel for the place, Schindler's Factory for the explanation.
At the foot of the hill, look for the plaque and memorial marking Sonderaktion Krakau, and remember that the Collegium Maius nearby is where those professors worked before they were seized. The dots connect once you know they exist.
Practical visiting information for Wawel
Wawel Royal Castle sits at Wawel 5, 31-001 Kraków. You walk up from the Old Town side near Kanonicza Street, or up the gentler ramp from the Bernardyńska side by the river. From the Main Square it is about ten to fifteen minutes on foot. Trams 1, 3 and 8 stop at Wawel on the riverside, and the stop is right below the ramp.
Wawel sells separate tickets for each exhibition rather than one all-in pass, which trips up a lot of visitors. The Representative State Rooms are the ones relevant here. Expect to pay somewhere around 40 PLN for that exhibition as of 2024, with reductions for students and seniors, but prices shift year to year, so check the official bilety.wawel.krakow.pl before you go.
A few things that will save you frustration:
- Tickets are timed and capped. In summer the State Rooms sell out for the day by late morning. Book online in advance, or arrive at opening.
- Opening hours run roughly 9:30 to 17:00 in the warmer months and close earlier in winter. Individual exhibitions have different days off, and several are closed on Mondays.
- The cathedral is ticketed and run separately from the castle exhibitions, through the Cathedral Museum ticket office across the courtyard. The royal tombs and the Sigismund Bell tower are part of that, not the castle ticket.
- The castle grounds and outer courtyards are free to walk. If the paid rooms are sold out, you can still stand in the arcaded courtyard where Frank's cars once pulled in.
If you only have time for one indoor exhibition, and your interest is this wartime story rather than furniture, honestly skip the State Rooms and spend your money and your two hours at Schindler's Factory instead. Book that ahead too; it sells out even faster than Wawel.
Reading the hill differently
The reason this history stays quiet is not a cover-up. It is that Poland reclaimed Wawel so completely after 1945 that the five German years feel like an interruption too shameful to signpost. The tapestries came home, the kings stayed in their crypts, and the castle went back to being a symbol of continuity. Standing in the courtyard, that is exactly what you are meant to feel.
But the fuller truth is more interesting than the postcard. This was a functioning royal-castle-turned-occupation-office, and the man who worked here was answerable directly to Berlin. Knowing that changes how the arcades and the state rooms read. You are not just looking at Renaissance Poland. You are standing where the twentieth century did its worst, in a building that outlasted the men who tried to own it.
Insider tip: After Wawel, walk down to the Czartoryski Museum at Pijarska 15 and find Lady with an Ermine. Entry to the permanent collection is often free on one day a week, usually with timed tickets you still need to reserve, so check the mnk.pl site. Standing in front of the Leonardo, remember that Frank had it hanging in his private quarters here in Krakow, then took it with him when he ran. The painting came back. He did not.
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