Letter from Office of Chief of Department D of WVHA,
Concerning Handling of Prisoners Who Fall Under Night and Fog Decree

7 June 1943

SS Main Economic Administrative office
[ SS-Wirtschafts-Verwaltungshauptamt]

Oranienburg 7 June 1943

Office group D, Concentrations Camps
D I/ 1 Az: 14 c 2 / Ot / S.-Secret diary No. 743/ 43

Subject : Treatment of prisoners who fall under the night and fog decree. [ NN-Erlass] .

Reference : Reich Security Main Office [Reichssicherheitshauptamt] IV c 2 General No. 103/ 42 g -issued 5 May, 1943

Annexes : None

SECRET

To the Camp commanders of the Concentrations Camps

Dachau, Sachsenhausen, Buchenwalde, Mauthausen, Flossenburg, Neumarkt, Auschwitz, Gross-Rosen, Natzweiler, Stu., Ravenbruck, Herz., Riga, Lublin and the Civilian Camp Bergen-Belsen.
[Da., Sah., Bu., Mau., Flo., Neu., Au., Gr.-Ro., Natz., Stu., Rav., Herz., Ri., Lub., und Zil Bergen-Belsen.]

I send the following decree of the Reich Security Main Office [Reichssicherheitshauptamt] regarding treatment of Night and Fog [NN] prisoners for acknowledgement and strictest observation.

The purpose of the NN decree is the elimination of all anti-German forces in the occupied territories and their being brought into the Reich.

The relatives and the population are to be kept in uncertainty about the fate of these persons. In order to achieve this, the NN decree further provides that prisoners of this kind should be placed under prohibitions to write, to receive mail and parcels, to talk, or that information should be given about them. In this regard it is irrelevant whether it is the question of a NN-prisoner of the old or new type. By NN-prisoners of the old type are understood those whom the military courts have handed over to the disposing agencies for shipment to the Reich, while the so-called New-Type NN-prisoners have been brought directly by the arresting agencies of the Security-Police and of the SD to the concentration camps (KL) in the Reich without the participation of military courts.

The Agencies of the security police and of the SD in question are instructed to submit to the Reich security Main Office and to the concentration camp in charge questionnaires on all prisoners who fall under the NN-decree. This questionnaire should contain detailed personal data, data on racial origin, the reason for arrest, the former place of custody and other incriminating elements. These questionnaires are to be marked by a seal "Night and Fog" [ Nacht und Nebel] .

Upon the reports of the agencies of the Security Police and of the SD a collective order for protective custody will be issued here with the questionnaires attached and the agencies will be further instructed to transfer the arrestees to a concentration camp.

Insofar as Germanic NN-prisoners are concerned, they will be transferred from here to the concentration camp of Natzweiler exclusively in all other cases the NN-prisoners will be shipped to a concentration camp depending on the location of the transferring agency of the Security Police and of the SD with consideration of the echelon division and of capacity of the concentration camp.

The camp commanders of concentration camps in which there are already NN-prisoners have to order immediately that the prisoners should be investigated according to racial points of view and that the Germanic NN-prisoners should be transferred to the concentration camp of Natzweiler. Compliance with this order is to be reported on individual questionnaires for each prisoner. The camp commander of the concentration camp of Natzweiler has to take care that the NN-prisoners are to be kept separated from the other prisoners.

In other respects the directives of the RSHA-Referat ND 4-which have been sent together with the secret letter No. 551/ 42, dated 18 Aug. 1942, are referred to.

Furthermore it is pointed out again as has been ordered already in the circular decree, issued 2 Feb. 1943, secret diary No. 111/ 43 -that death notices of NN-prisoners are to be submitted exclusively to the agency particular transferring agency of the Security Police and of the SD, to the RSHA and to this agency, in order to exclude divulgence of the place of custody of an NN-prisoner. Hereby the decrees regulating the procedure in cases of death, particularly any notification of the relatives are cancelled. The effects of deceased Night and Fog prisoners are to be sent in their entirety to the transferring agency in charge which will guard it until further notice.

The chief of the central office
[signature illegible]
SS Lt. Colonel