[1][7][8][9] The convicted Nazis were sentenced to death or to penal labour by the Court of the Lithuanian Armed Forces.

[1] Foreign pressure made Lithuania later grant amnesty to all convicts before they had completed their sentences, and none of the executions were carried out.

[1] The Klaipėda Region was detached from East Prussia, in the German Empire, by the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 and became a mandate of the League of Nations under provisional French administration until a more permanent resolution could be worked out.

[7] According to Klaipėda Governor Antanas Merkys (1927–1932), the deteriorating situation of the region was dangerous in 1927, and in 1930, school curriculums classified Lithuanian as a foreign language, which was seldom studied.

[7] On 29 June 1931, Joseph Goebbels participated in an event in nearby Tilsit and claimed that the aim of the National Socialists was for the Klaipėda Region to be ceded to Germany as part of the restoration of the pre-war German borders.

[7] The accused at the trial of Neumann and Sass were leaders and active members of the Union of Christian Socialist Workers of the Memel Region (Christlich Sozialistische Arbeitsgemeinschaft des Memelgebiets, or CSA) and the Socialist People's Union of the Memel Region (Sozialistische Volksgemeinschaft des Memelgebiets, SOVOG); both political parties had been established in 1933.

[1][21][22] A clandestine branch of the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP) was located in Klaipėda starting in 1928.

[1] Members of the SOVOG acted throughout the entire Klaipėda Region and had county leaders and secret strike squads (German: Sturm Kolonne), which were based on the principles of the Sturmabteilung (SA) and Schutzstaffel and performed military training, espionage and terrorist acts.

[1][9][4] After the Lithuanian State Security Police's successful infiltration of both parties and the recruitment of agents providing information on the leadership's activities, Neumann and Sass were arrested.

[1] Moreover, Lithuanian authorities translated some of the court's documents into French for easier understanding of the process for the European public and, upon invitation, allowed journalists from the United Kingdom, France, Sweden, Poland, Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union and the United States to observe the trial in the courtroom.

An accused, Kubbutat, confessed to taking part in military exercises and being coached on his testimony by German officials.

[1] Lithuanian President Antanas Smetona in May 1935 commuted the death sentences to life imprisonment and released several other convicts in response to foreign pressure.

[1][9] In August 1938, at the request of the Directorate of the Klaipėda Region, all civil rights were restored to the convicted and formerly-convicted Nazis.

[1][7] The trial of Neumann and Sass revealed Nazi Germany's plans to annex the Klaipėda Region.

[1] In 1934 and 1935, the Lithuanian directorates of the Klaipėda Region, led by Martynas Reizgys and Jurgis Brūvelaitis, fired all followers of Neumann and Sass.

Germany reacted by accusing Lithuania of violating the Klaipėda Convention and sent complaints to the League of Nations and to the signatories of the agreement.

[29] On 30 March, the British suggested for France and Italy to send a common ultimate note to Lithuania.

[29] The Italian government of Fascist Italy requested for Lithuanian President Antanas Smetona to pardon the National Socialists, who were sentenced to death.

[29] Moreover, Preston also noted the need to back down to Nazi Germany and not to carry out the executions of the convicted National Socialists.

[1][7] The trial exposed Nazi ambitions and methods, but it had minimal effect since adequate measures were not taken to quell the development of Hitlerism or to turn back Germany's increasingly aggressive territorial claims that ultimately led to the outbreak of the Second World War.