Dictionary of Genocide - D Ank Unlimited

N
Nacht und Nebel (German, Night and Fog). A decree issued on December 7, 1941, by
German Führer Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) on the behalf of the Nazi regime (1933–1945).
According to the Nacht und Nebel order, people suspected of “endangering German security”
through underground or politically threatening activities were to be arrested, and
made to “disappear,” as if into the night or fog.
Essentially the decree was prompted as a result of anti-German resistance, particularly
in occupied France. The implementation of the order was placed in the hands of General
(later Field Marshal) Wilhelm Keitel (1882–1946), and assigned to the SD (Sicherheitsdienst,
or Security Service), the intelligence branch of the SS. Although those taken into
custody as Nacht und Nebel prisoners were not the victims of immediate execution, many
nonetheless died later, either as a result of overwork, starvation, disease, ill-treatment, or,
in the concentration camps, of gassing or other forms of killing. While in the camps, prisoners
were forced to wear uniforms with the designation NN on their backs. It is not
known how many prisoners lost their lives as a result of the Nacht und Nebel decree, so
complete was the secrecy surrounding their arrest and subsequent murder. They literally
disappeared, with no trace remaining of their capture or subsequent destiny.
Nahimana, Ferdinand (b. 1950). A Rwandan, a former history professor, and propagandist
for the radical Hutu cause against the Tutsi minority, prior to and during the Rwandan genocide
of 1994. Nahimana taught at the National University of Rwanda, and developed a number of
theories concerning the racial origins of the Rwandan population—theories he was later to popularize
when promoting the cause of ethnic Hutu superiority over the Rwandan airwaves.
In late 1990 Nahimana became director of the Rwandan National Information Office
(ORINFOR). As director of ORINFOR, he served as the overseer of the state-owned Radio
Rwanda, newspapers, and all other media-related activities. After being dismissed from his
post in February 1992, Nahimana and some colleagues—most of whom were members of
the then ruling party, MRND—established the first approved private radio station in
Rwanda, Radio-Télévision Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM). As a founder and senior executive
of the anti-Tutsi radio station RTLM, Nahimana was largely responsible for the propagandistic
content of the station’s programming; in this capacity, he thus performed a vital
role as an anti-Tutsi ideologue. He was, in fact, said to have been the “intellectual inspiration”
for the 1994 Rwandan genocide in that he was alleged to have written a PhD thesis
and various articles that served as the ideological basis for the 1994 Rwandan genocide.