“1. The prosecutor should be entitled to withdraw the charges until the pronouncement of the sentence.
“2. The court was to be instructed to give the prosecutor another chance to give his point of view, in case their view should diverge from his.”
Freisler further states:
“In fulfillment of my promise I deemed it necessary to inform you of this, dear sir, as these facts were not permitted to be recorded in the files and are probably unknown in the department.”
By his supplemental directive of 28 October 1942, Thierack made note of the fact that the “jurisdiction of the People’s Court (No. 1, 1 and 2 of the additional circular directives of 14 October 1942)” had been extended to NN cases. Thierack’s letter, dated 25 October 1942 to defendant Lautz, copy to von Ammon, established and expanded jurisdiction of the People’s Court over NN cases.
Thereafter the People’s Court handled many Night and Fog cases, convicting the accused in secret sessions with no records whatsoever made of any evidence adduced and no record was made of the sentence pronounced. The defendant von Ammon testified that about one-half of the Night and Fog prisoners tried by the People’s Court were executed.
Later NN cases were sent to German Special Courts at Breslau and Katowice, Poland, and to Silesia and other places as will be shown herein.
Concentration Camps
The use of concentration camps for NN prisoners was shown by a letter dated 18 August 1942, signed by Gluecks, SS Brigadefuehrer and General Major of the SS, which contained enclosures for information and execution by officials in charge of concentration camps, including Mauthausen, Auschwitz, Flossenbuerg, Dachau, Ravensbrueck, Buchenwald, and numerous others. The letter states that such prisoners will be transferred under the Keitel decree from the occupied countries to Germany for transfer to Special Courts. Should that for any reason be impossible, the accused will be put into one of the above-named concentration camps. Those in charge of the camps were instructed that absolute secrecy of such prisoners’ detention was to be maintained including the prevention of any means of communication with the outside world either before or after the trial.
The following is illustrative of inhumane prison conditions for NN prisoners. The affidavit of Ludwig Schirmer, warden in the prison at Ebrach, confirmed by his oral testimony, states: