The directing on the continuation for infringements against Reich or the occupying forces in the occupied territories ( Richtlinien für die Verfolgung von Straftaten gegen das Reich oder die Besatzungsmacht in den besetzten Gebieten ) are a decree of the December 7th 1941 signed by the marshal Wilhelm Keitel and ordering the Déportation for all the enemies or opponents of the Reich, within the framework of provisions known as “ Nuit and fog ” (in German “ Nacht und Nebel ”, NR ). Pursuant to this decree, all the people representing a danger to the safety of the German army (saboteurs, resistant) would be transferred in Germany and will disappear in the absolute secrecy.

Context

Before launching out in the deportation and the extermination in mass of the mentally ills, the Jews or the Gypsies, the Nazis start by making many political prisoners. Initially they distinguish:

• political prisoners considered to be subversive that it is necessary to rehabilitate to bring back them in orthodoxy Nazi
• the chiefs of the resistance of the occupied European countries

Until the promulgation of the decree Nuit and fog , the German soldiers treat the prisoners in the same way that the other European armies, i.e. in the respect of the international agreements such as the Geneva Convention. But Hitler and its staff make the decision to conform more so that they regard as superfluous rules. The Third Reich, moreover, had never signed Geneva Convention, and respected it only by tactical calculation in order not to exacerbate the tensions with the close nations.

December 7th 1941, the chief of the S Heinrich Himmler forwards these instructions to the Gestapo:

After blackberry reflection, the will of the Führer is to modify measurements against those which were made guilty of offenses against Reich or the German forces in the occupied zones. Our Führer thinks that a judgment with the penitentiary or the forced labors with life sends a message of weakness. The only possible deterrent power is either the capital punishment, or a measurement which will leave the family and the remainder of the population in uncertainty as for the fate reserved to the criminal. The deportation towards Germany will fulfill this function.

The marshal Wilhelm Keitel publishes a letter which says explicitly:

A. the prisoners will disappear without leaving trace
B. No information will be given on their place of detention or their fate.

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