Disappearing tricks
By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON - According to his memoirs, Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel considered the secret abduction and rendition to Germany of suspected Resistance members - otherwise known as the Nacht und Nebel (Night and Fog) Decree - to be the worst of all of the orders issued by Adolf Hitler for the Western-occupied territories of the Third Reich during World War II.
But the fuehrer thought it would be effective in deterring sabotage, which often claimed innocent civilian lives, as well as those of German soldiers, officers and civilian occupation officials. So he decreed that, with the exception of those cases where guilt could be established beyond a doubt, presumably through torture, anyone arrested on suspicion of "endangering German security" was to be transferred to Germany under "cover of night".
"The prisoners are to be transported to Germany secretly ...," according to the directive issued in February 1942 by Keitel, then chief of the German High Command. "These measures will have a deterrent effect because (a) the prisoners will vanish without leaving a trace,
(b) no information may be given as to their whereabouts or their fate."
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While the Germans practiced this early form of what Human Rights Watch (HRW) last year called "a quintessential evil practiced by abusive governments", primarily for its presumed value in deterring others from participating in resisting Nazi occupation, Nacht und Nebel was the earliest known 20th century precursor of what the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) refers to as "renditions".
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