Night and Fog Decree

Night and Fog Decree, order issued in December 1941 by Hitler through Keitel, the head of the German Armed Forces High Command (OKW). Its name came from the common German phrase bei Nacht und Nebel (‘by night and fog’) which implies secret and illicit action. It authorized the execution of any non-German civilian who committed crimes against German forces in occupied countries. Most of those executed under it came from Belgium and France. The order was intended to create a new dimension of fear among the local populace by making its victims simply disappear without trace. No questions about them would be answered nor any knowledge of them confirmed or denied, and they were buried in unmarked graves. Most of those accused under the order were deported to Germany. The People's Court, which sentenced many of them, often held the proceedings in the prisons where the accused were being held. In correspondence, and on prison camp rolls, the initials NN, which stood for the Latin phrase non nominatur (not named), as well as Nacht und Nebel, were put against their names. By April 1944, 8,639 NN prisoners had been deported to Germany; the total numbers killed under the decree are not known.