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Nacht und Nebel
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Nacht und Nebel (German for "Night and Fog") was a directive 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 and resistance 'helpers' throughout Nazi Germany's occupied territories. It was a specific punishment for opponents of the Nazis in occupied countries and intended to intimidate local populations into submission by denying families and friends of "les disparus" all knowledge of what had happened to them.
before the Holocaust gathered pace, the Nazis captured political prisoners from both Germany and occupied Europe.
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Encyclopedia
Nacht und Nebel (German for "Night and Fog") was a directive 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 and resistance 'helpers' throughout Nazi Germany's occupied territories. It was a specific punishment for opponents of the Nazis in occupied countries and intended to intimidate local populations into submission by denying families and friends of "les disparus" all knowledge of what had happened to them.
Background
Even before the Holocaust gathered pace, the Nazis captured political prisoners from both Germany and occupied Europe. 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, 1941, 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, the Netherlands and Norway. They were usually arrested in the middle of the night and quickly taken to prisons hundreds of miles away for questioning, eventually arriving at concentration camps such as Natzweiler or Gross-Rosen, if they survived.
Until April 30, 1944, at least 6,639 persons were captured under the Nacht und Nebel orders. Some 340 of them may have been executed.
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.
Rationale
The reasons for Nacht und Nebel were many:
- First, distinct complaints by other governments or humanitarian organizations against the German government were made far more difficult because the exact cause of internment or death, indeed whether or not the event had even occurred, was obscured. It kept the Nazis from being held accountable.
- The decree and hidden events afforded the Nazis the ability to act cruelly and unjustly without public outcry.
- It allowed an across-the-board, silent veto of international treaties and conventions: one cannot apply the limits and terms of humane treatment in war if one cannot locate the victim or discern his destiny.
- Additionally, it lessened the moral qualms and confrontations of the German public as well as that of servicemen, in an agreed and/or ignorant silence.
Treatment of prisoners
The Nacht und Nebel prisoners' hair was shaved and the women were given a convict costume of a thin cotton dress, wooden sandals and a triangular black headcloth. The prisoners were often moved apparently at random from prison to prison such as Fresnes Prison in Paris, Waldheim, near Dresden, Leipzig, Potsdam, Lubeck and Stettin. The deportees were sometimes herded 80 at a time with standing room only into slow moving cattle trucks with little or no food or water and exceedingly substandard sanitary conditions for journeys lasting up to five days to their next unknown destination.
An average day for the prisoners was to be awakened at 5am and made to work a twelve hour day with only a twenty minute break for a scant meal. At Stettin prison Polish prisoners were forced to sing Nazi songs and given the choice either to hang their companions or be hanged themselves. When the Allies liberated Paris and Brussels, the SS decided on revenge while they still could and many of the Nacht und Nebel prisoners were moved to concentration camps such as Ravensbrück concentration camp for women, Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp, Buchenwald concentration camp, Schloss Hartheim, or Flossenbürg concentration camp.
At the camps the prisoners were forced to stand for hours in freezing and wet conditions at 5 o'clock every morning, standing strictly to attention, before being put to work all day. They were kept in cold and starving conditions many with dysentery or other illnesses and the weakest were often beaten to death, shot, guillotined, or hanged. When the inmates were totally exhausted, after having worked for 12 hours a day, or if they were too ill or too weak to work, they were then transferred to the Revier ("Krankenrevier", sick barrack) or other places for extermination. If camps did not have a gas chamber of its own, the so-called Muselmänner, or prisoners who were too sick to work, after being maltreated, under-nourished or totally exhausted, were often murdered or transferred to other concentration camps for extermination..
Results
The 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
Directives for the prosecution of offences committed within the occupied territories against the German State or the occupying power, of December 7, 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 deterrent. First of all the following directives are to be applied:
- I. Within the occupied territories, the adequate punishment for offences committed against the German State or the occupying power which endanger their security or a state of readiness is on principle the death penalty.
- II. The offences listed in paragraph I as a rule are to be dealt with in the occupied countries only if it is probable that sentence of death will be passed upon the offender, at least the principal offender, and if the trial and the execution can be completed in a very short time. Otherwise the offenders, at least the principal offenders, are to be taken to Germany.
- III. Prisoners taken to Germany are subject to military procedure only if particular military interests require this. In case German or foreign authorities inquire about such prisoners, they are to be told that they have been arrested but that the proceedings do not allow any further information.
- IV. The Commanders in the occupied territories and the Court authorities within the framework of their jurisdiction, are personally responsible for the observance of this decree.
- V. The Chief of the High Command of the Armed Forces determines in which occupied territories this decree is to be applied. He is authorized to explain and to issue executive orders and supplements. The Reich Minister of Justice will issue executive orders within his own jurisdiction.
Noted Night and Fog prisoners
See also
External links
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