The foregoing requests for speed in handling NN cases were due to disturbances caused by air raids. The Reich Minister of Justice replied, 26 April 1944, that in the main “the delay in the proceedings is unavoidable.”
Defendant von Ammon reported on a conference with German occupying forces of Belgium and northern France, held in Oppeln on 29 and 30 June 1944. Von Ammon stated that since the Allied invasion had not caused undue tension as yet, it was unnecessary at that time to make penalties in NN cases more severe. This report was initialed by defendant Mettgenberg.
Disposition of NN Cases
A statistical survey of NN cases as of 1 November 1943 made to Ministerial Director Dr. Vollmer, Berlin, 22 November 1943, shows cases and sentences passed on NN prisoners as follows:
1. Turned over by the Wehrmacht authorities to senior public prosecutors at Kiel, 12 cases with 442 defendants; at Essen, 474 cases with 2,613 defendants; at Cologne, 1,169 cases with 2,185 defendants.
2. Charges filed by senior public prosecutors as follows: At Kiel, nine cases with 175 defendants; at Essen, 254 cases with 860 defendants; at Cologne, 173 cases with 257 defendants; by chief public prosecutor at the People’s Court (Lautz), 111 cases with 494 defendants.
3. Sentences passed by Special Courts at Kiel, eight on 168 defendants; at Essen, 221 cases with 475 defendants; at Cologne, 128 cases with 183 defendants; at People’s Court, 84 cases with 304 defendants.
The defendant von Ammon testified that about one-half of all defendants tried by the People’s Court were given the death penalty and were executed. The foregoing documents show that defendant Lautz was Chief Public Prosecutor at the People’s Court at the time the 304 sentences were pronounced in the Night and Fog cases.
A similar survey, 5 months later (30 April 1944), shows that of a total of 8,639 NN defendants transferred to the various Special Courts and the People’s Court in Germany, 3,624 were indicted, and 1,793 were sentenced. Defendant von Ammon initialed this survey.
The foregoing statistical reports as to time are obviously incomplete. They do not show the number of NN cases tried at Breslau, Katowice, and other places. The foregoing documents show that at these places great difficulty was experienced because of lack of prisons for the large number of NN prisoners who were sent to these areas. Nor do they show the number of NN prisoners committed to concentration camps without trial. They do not show the number of residue NN prisoners who were at the end of the control of NN matters by the Minister of Justice committed to concentration camps and never heard from thereafter.