Nacht und Nebel
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Nacht und Nebel (German for "Night and Fog") was a directive (German: Erlass) of Adolf Hitler on December 7, 1941 signed and implemented by Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces Wilhelm Keitel, resulting in kidnapping and disappearance of many political activists throughout Nazi Germany's occupied territories.
BackgroundEven before the deportation and mass murder of the innocents of Europe, the mentally impaired, the Jews, the Roma, and so forth, the Nazis had been dealing severely with political prisoners. Most of the early prisoners were of two sorts: they were either prisoners of belief/political prisoners whom the Nazis deemed in need of "re-education" to Nazi thinking, or resistance leaders in occupied western Europe. Up until the time of the "Night and Fog" decree, prisoners from Western Europe were handled by German soldiers in approximately the same way other countries did: according to national agreements and procedures such as the Geneva Convention. Hitler and his upper level staff, however, made a critical decision not to have to conform to what they considered unnecessary rules. The Third Reich, after all, was not a party to the Geneva Convention, and so observed it only as needed to reduce tensions with other nations. On December 7th, 1942, SS Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler issued the following instructions to the Gestapo: "After lengthy consideration, it is the will of the Führer that the measures taken against those who are guilty of offenses against the Reich or against the occupation forces in occupied areas should be altered. The Führer is of the opinion that in such cases penal servitude or even a hard labor sentence for life will be regarded as a sign of weakness. An effective and lasting deterrent can be achieved only by the death penalty or by taking measures which will leave the family and the population uncertain as to the fate of the offender. Deportation to Germany serves this purpose." Field Marshall Wilhelm Keitel issued a letter stating: "Efficient and enduring intimidation can only be achieved either by capital punishment or by measures by which the relatives of the criminals do not know the fate of the criminal. The prisoners are, in future, to be transported to Germany secretly, and further treatment of the offenders will take place here; these measures will have a deterrent effect because - A. The prisoners will vanish without a trace. B. No information may be given as to their whereabouts or their fate." The Night and Fog prisoners were mostly from France, Belgium and the Netherlands. They were usually arrested in the middle of the night and quickly taken to prisons hundreds of miles away for questioning and torture, eventually arriving at the concentration camps of Natzweiler or Gross-Rosen, if they survived.[1] The 1955 film Night and Fog uses the term to illustrate one aspect of the concentration camp system as it was transformed into a system of labour and death camps. RationaleThe reasons for Nacht und Nebel were many:
ResultsThe result, even early in the war, was the facilitating of utter brutality and execution of political prisoners, especially Soviet military prisoners, who in early 1942 outnumbered the Jews in number of deaths even at Auschwitz. As the transports grew and Hitler's troops moved across Europe, that ratio changed dramatically. The Night and Fog Decree was carried out surreptitiously, but it set the background for orders that would follow. As the war continued, so did the openness of such decrees and orders. It is probably correct to surmise, from various writings, that in the beginning the German public knew only a little of the insidious plans Hitler had for a "New European Order". As the years passed, despite the best attempts of Goebbels and the Propaganda Ministry with its formidable domestic information control, there can be little doubt from diaries and periodicals of the time that information about the harshness and cruelty became progressively known to the German public. Soldiers brought back information, families on rare occasion heard from or about loved ones, and allied news sources and the BBC were able to get through sporadically. Night and Fog set the stage for the obfuscatory information the Reich hoped would provide a cover for their operations in the eastern theatre. Text of the decrees[2]Directives for the prosecution of offences committed within the occupied territories against the German State or the occupying power, of December 7th, 1941. Within the occupied territories, communistic elements and other circles hostile to Germany have increased their efforts against the German State and the occupying powers since the Russian campaign started. The amount and the danger of these machinations oblige us to take severe measures as a determent. First of all the following directives are to be applied:
Noted Night and Fog prisonersReferencesInmate account of person who survived as NN-prisoner four months in Gross-Rosen and a year in Natzweiler:
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