Night and Fog Decree

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The later so-called Night and Fog Decree was a “ Führer Decree ” of the German Reich , enacted on December 7, 1941 as secret guidelines for the prosecution of crimes against the Reich or the occupying power in the occupied territories . After that, around 7,000 people suspected of the resistance from France , Belgium , Luxembourg , the Netherlands and Norway were deported to Germany and secretly tried there or, if they were found to be innocent, kept in custody without their relatives being given any information. Their disappearance without a trace served as a deterrent. The decree was put into effect by the High Command of the Wehrmacht (OKW) under Wilhelm Keitel . The edict was a war crime and a crime against humanity .

Plaque in memory of those deported from France, in the Hinzert concentration camp

term

The “Night and Fog Decree” has only become known under this name since the Nuremberg trial against the main war criminals and the trial against the high command of the Wehrmacht . In the official written usage of the Reich Ministry of Justice , the term appears only rarely and only in abbreviated form as "NN thing", "NN prisoner" and "NN prisoner". This abbreviation can also be interpreted as "nullum nomen" (without a name, nameless).

History of origin

While in the war against the Soviet Union the Armed Forces jurisdiction was excluded by the martial law decree of May 1941 , in the Western European countries the Wehrmacht courts remained responsible for all acts of sabotage and crimes that residents had committed against the German Wehrmacht until August 1944.

In the summer of 1941, a French woman was sentenced to death by the German military court . Adolf Hitler himself, who had reserved the right to confirm death sentences against women, pardoned the woman, but at the same time stipulated that she should be secretly brought to Germany and remain in custody in complete isolation. In September 1941 Hitler decided to apply this measure of disappearance without a trace in general.

Wilhelm Keitel then commissioned Rudolf Lehmann as head of the legal department at OKW to implement Hitler's wishes. The military tribunal should only have jurisdiction if a death sentence can be passed immediately; otherwise the perpetrator should be secretly taken across the border by the Gestapo or the Secret Field Police and held at a secret location and sentenced.

Lehmann wanted to guarantee a minimum of judicial control and was able to win over Roland Freisler as well as Keitel and Wilhelm Canaris for this idea. Freisler did not want to have his department cut and declared some special courts to be responsible. Hitler himself, who made no secret of his aversion to "the cumbersome Wehrmacht justice system", originally wanted to assign responsibility to the security police.

Content of the guidelines

In a preamble to Keitel's "Guidelines for the prosecution of crimes against the Reich or the occupying power in the occupied territories" it is stated that it is "the long-considered will of the Führer" to counter offenders with new measures. Hitler's view is that even life imprisonment sentences are seen as a sign of weakness. A lasting deterrent can only be expected through the death penalty or uncertainty about the fate of the perpetrator. With the beginning of the " Russian campaign ", the attacks on the occupying power would have intensified.

In a First Ordinance of December 12, 1941, the crimes that should lead to the death penalty are listed: attacks against life and limb, espionage , sabotage , communist activities, illegal possession of weapons, favoring the enemy and acts that cause unrest.

In principle, the death penalty is appropriate for non-German civil offenders . Criminal offenses are only to be judged in the occupied area itself if a death sentence is to be expected and the execution is carried out as quickly as possible. This provision was already made more precise on February 2, 1942: Proceedings could only be initiated if the sentence was for the death penalty and could be pronounced within eight days of arrest.

All other perpetrators should be brought to Germany and only tried by military courts in exceptional cases. After the disappearance without a trace - so the subsequent clarification in the implementing regulation - no information about the whereabouts and fate of the perpetrators should be given. The detention and transport to Germany should be handled by the Secret Field Police or the Gestapo . For the time being, the decree is only applicable in Norway , Belgium, the Netherlands and northern France.

Secret process and detention

Kiel (for Norway ), Cologne (later also Breslau / for France), Dortmund (later also Hamm and Essen / for Belgium and the Netherlands) and Berlin (special cases) were designated as the competent special courts . The courts in Hamm and Essen were relocated to Opole in March 1944 . From September 1942, due to the large number of cases, there were also hearings before the People's Court . Even the courts often did not know where the arrested person was being held by the Gestapo for weeks. The proceedings took place in camera. The prosecutor was in charge of the proceedings: the summoning of foreign witnesses and the appointment of defense counsel required his consent; he could determine the initiation or suspension of the proceedings and prevent any acquittal .

Even in the Reich Ministry of Justice, it was impossible to avoid the realization that “the procedural rules applicable to NN matters […] often result in difficulties in evaluating evidence and reaching a verdict.” The involvement of the courts turned out to be a farce. Even after having served a small prison sentence or even an acquittal, the prisoner was transferred to a concentration camp for the duration of the war under the keyword “fogging” by the general judiciary for “ protective custody ” .

The “night and fog prisoners” were initially often housed in solitary confinement in various prisons . Between May 1943 and April 14, 1944, a total of 66 transports with 2,696 NN prisoners arrived at the Esterwegen prison camp . The prisoners were locked up there in the shielded "Camp South"; In February 1944, more than 500 were forwarded to the Emsland camp Börgermoor because of overcrowding . All NN prisoners were transferred to Silesia by May 1944, and in September they were ordered to be transferred to concentration camps. Such prisoners were also found to have been imprisoned in the Hinzert , Natzweiler and Groß-Rosen concentration camps.

The contact ban was enforced without exception. The relatives also received no news of the execution or death of an "NN prisoner": farewell letters and wills were withheld.

By April 30, 1944, there is evidence that 6,639 people were handed over to the general judiciary in Germany through the Night and Fog Decree. Presumably there were 340 death sentences . There was also an unreported number of NN prisoners who the Gestapo held in "protective custody" bypassing the general judiciary, so that Huhle assumes "maybe 10,000 prisoners".

Legal processing

The Night and Fog Decree was dealt with during the Nuremberg Trial of Major War Criminals , the Legal Trial , and the General Trial , and was classified as a war crimes and crimes against humanity.

See also

Evidence

  1. ↑ Lothar Gruchmann : "Night and Fog" Justice. The participation of German criminal courts in the fight against resistance in the occupied Western European countries. In: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 29th year 1981, 3rd issue, pp. 342 ff., 356, 367, 368 (PDF).
  2. ↑ Exercising jurisdiction in the “Barbarossa” area… from May 14, 1941, abr. in: Hans-Adolf Jacobsen: Kommissarbefehl ... p. 181 (= Anatomy of the SS State Volume 2, dtv 463, Munich 1967).
  3. ↑ Printed as Document 090L in IMT: Der Nürnberger Prozess, Volume 37 (= Doc-Vol. 13), p. 571 f.
  4. ↑ Printed as Document 669-PS in IMT: The Nuremberg Trial. Volume 26 (= Dok-Bd 2), p. 245 ff.
  5. ↑ Doc 090L / p. 575.
  6. ↑ Doc 090L / p. 576.
  7. ↑ Lothar Gruchmann: "Night and Fog" Justice. In: VfZ 29 (1981), p. 346.
  8. ↑ Writing the RJM s. Lothar Gruchmann: “Night and Fog” justice. In: VfZ 29 (1981), p. 356.
  9. ↑ The historian Sebastian Weitkamp found a complete list of names in the Secret State Archives of Prussian Cultural Heritage . Press release of the district of Emsland from June 17, 2014: List of names of resistance fighters emerged ( Memento of the original from June 24, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed June 20, 2014. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.emsland.de
  10. ↑ diz emslandlager accessed on February 4, 2007.
  11. ^ Habbo Knoch: The Emsland Camps 1933-1945. In: Wolfgang Benz , Barbara Distel (eds.): The place of terror . History of the National Socialist Concentration Camps. Volume 2: Early camp, Dachau, Emsland camp. CH Beck, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-406-52962-3 , p. 560.
  12. ↑ Lothar Gruchmann: "Nacht- und Nebel" -Justiz ... In: VfZ 29 (1981), p. 395.
  13. ↑ Rainer Huhle: "Night and Fog" - Myth and Meaning , p. 15 ff.

literature

Web links

Commons : Night and Fog program  - collection of images, videos and audio files