Oswald Pohl

Oswald Ludwig Pohl (German: [ˈɔsvalt ˈpoːl] ^ⓘ; 30 June 1892 – 7 June 1951) was a German high-ranking SS official during the Nazi era. As the head of the SS Main Economic and Administrative Office and the head administrator of the Nazi concentration camps, he was a key figure in the Holocaust.

Born in Duisburg, Pohl served in the Imperial German Navy in the Baltic Sea and the Flemish coast during the First World War. After the war he worked with the Freikorps and took part in the Kapp Putsch, after which he joined the Reichsmarine. Pohl became a member of the SA in 1925 and a Nazi Party member a year later. He subsequently became a close associate of Heinrich Himmler and established himself as a capable administrator within the SS. In 1942, Himmler appointed Pohl chief of the SS Main Economic and Administrative Office, placing him in charge of all concentration camps and their exploitation of forced labour, SS and Police building projects and SS economic enterprises; he was also made SS-Obergruppenführer. At the time he was the third most powerful SS figure after Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich.

Pohl went into hiding after the war but was apprehended by British troops in 1946. He stood in the eponymous Pohl Trial in 1947, was found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity and sentenced to death by an American military tribunal. After repeated appeals, he was executed by hanging in 1951.