Oswald Pohl
Oswald Pohl | |
|---|---|
Pohl Trial | |
| Criminal penalty | Death |
| Details | |
| Victims | Millions |
Span of crimes | 1939–1945 |
| Country | Multiple countries across Europe |
| Location(s) | Nazi concentration camps |
Date apprehended | 27 May 1946 |
SS career | |
| Allegiance |  Germany |
| Service/ |  Waffen-SS |
| Rank | Obergruppenführer |
| Commands held | SS Main Economic and Administrative Office |
Oswald Ludwig Pohl (German:
Early life and career
Oswald Pohl was born in
After the end of the war, Pohl attended courses at a trade school, and began studying law and state theory at the
SS career
One year later, in 1925, Pohl became a member of the
Once an officer in the SS, Pohl furiously set to work, putting his 20-plus years of administrative experience into action; he managed to successfully standardize and professionalize the SS accounting operations, so much so that it was able to withstand a public audit, which garnered more respect from national agencies for Himmler's SS. Pohl was quickly promoted as a result.
Concentration camp administrator and WVHA chief
Over time, Pohl's orbit of responsibility began to include the concentration camp system since he lived near the camp at Dachau and inspected them from time to time.[8] During the early establishment of the concentration camps in the mid-1930s, Pohl already recognized the economic potential of forced labor.[13] Shortly after the Austrian Anschluss in March 1938, Pohl, who at this time was already administrative chief of the SS-Hauptamt, accompanied Himmler to the small town of Mauthausen where it was decided that the SS-operated German Earth and Stoneworks Corporation (DEST) would begin excavating granite, using concentration camp prisoners as slave laborers.[14] Administrative and financial authority for the camps and the SS Death's Head troops were conveyed to Pohl by 1938, which pitted him against his contemporary and peer, Theodor Eicke, particularly on matters of administration, budget, and building projects.[15]
In June 1939 Pohl became chief of both the Verwaltung und Wirtschaft Hauptamt (VuWHA) and the Hauptamt Haushalt und Bauten ("main bureau [for] budget and construction", part of the Reich's Ministry of the Interior).[16] Himmler stated that: "The supervision of the economic matters of these institutions (concentration camps) and their application to work is the responsibility of SS Gruppenfuehrer Pohl".[17] The day before the Wannsee Conference, 19 January 1942, Himmler consolidated all of the offices for which Pohl was responsible into one, creating the SS Main Economic and Administrative Office (Wirtschafts- und Verwaltungshauptamt; WVHA).[18][19] While already a significant figure in the regime, Pohl's appointment as chief of the WVHA strengthened his position greatly. Behind Heinrich Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich, he eventually became the third most powerful figure in the SS.[20] Placing Pohl's position into perspective, historian Heinz Höhne wrote, "Four potent departments placed Pohl's hand firmly on the levers of power in the SS empire: he was in charge of the entire administration and supply of the Waffen-SS; he controlled the 20 concentration camps and 165 labor camps; he directed all SS and Police building projects; he was in charge of all SS economic enterprises."[21]
As the head of the economics division of the SS, Pohl was appointed to run the Deutscher Wirtschaftsbetrieb (German Industrial Concern; GmbH),[22] an organization he helped establish. It was designed to unify the massive business interests of Himmler's SS, taking in profits from the slave labour of concentration camp prisoners.[23] Under Pohl's leadership, the WVHA turned its attention—once focused primarily on security and re-education—towards economic matters.[24][25] To merge operations, Pohl announced the incorporation of the inspectorate of concentration camps into the WVHA on 13 March 1942.[26] Expressing his sentiments regarding the use of prisoners for labor in a memo, Pohl wrote, "SS industries [Unternehmen] have the task ... to organize a more businesslike (more productive) execution of punishment and adjust it to the overall development of the Reich."[27] Agreeing in general terms that many of the prisoners should be worked to death, Pohl paradoxically complained about the death of some 70,610 out of 136,870 new concentration camp inmates between June and November 1942, insisting that these deaths were impeding productive output at the camp's armament factories.[28]
Expanding his power ever further over the economic realm, Pohl was named chairman of the board of directors for the Eastern Territories Industries Inc. (Ostindustrie GmbH) on 12 March 1943.[29] Despite the seeming intention to use concentration camp prisoners for production in the expanding SS economics industry, Pohl's role was also framed by the ideological mandates of exploitation and racial extermination.[30] For example, evidence indicates that Pohl refused to allow any increases in rations for starving prisoners toiling in the Granite Works of Gross-Rosen concentration camp, when there were administrative complaints in favor of providing more food to the inmates.[31] According to historian Michael Thad Allen, "Pohl's men prided themselves as modern administrators" and often clashed with prison guards who "undermined productivity" by beating or killing prisoners.[32] An irreconcilable duplicity emerged over the conflicting goals between the pragmatic economic interests of the SS under Pohl's purview and their fanatical racialist ideological imperatives.[33] Fulfilling a call beyond mere economic interests but one based on communal concerns prompted Pohl's thinking when he informed the Reich's Interior Ministry in a letter that, "It is the will of the Reichsführer-SS that profits from lucrative corporations be diverted to cover the losses of others that must labor under the constraints of their non-capitalistic [nicht privatwirtschaftliche] end goals. At times these goals damn our corporations to years of future losses."[34] In this manner, Pohl helped provide SS companies with their "ideological raison d’être."[35] Along with other SS ideologues, Pohl wanted the SS to lead the Nazi revolution through the creation of an economic base that focused on communal industrial interests versus the despised principles of western style capitalism that served individuals; in the process he intended on employing concentration camp prisoners to serve the greater interests of the Reich.[36] For Pohl, that also meant completely "exhausting forced labor."[37]
Pohl oversaw the organization of the concentration camps, deciding on the distribution of detainees to the various camps and the "rental" of detainees for
In keeping with Pohl's plan, concentration camps were to be constructed at Auschwitz, Lublin (
Despite holding a "nominal" rank in the Waffen-SS, Pohl and the WVHA had "no direct connection" to the combat formations of the SS.[46] Pohl nonetheless showed unwavering commitment to the cause and tenets of Nazism when performing his duties and stressed the importance in fulfilling the tasks outlined by the Reichsführer-SS. By those tasks he meant the policing duties related to the Reich's security, those concerning the concentration camp system and industry, those duties which promoted the Nazi world-view, and any undertaking related to the "Reinforcement of Germandom."[47] Shortly before the invasion of the Soviet Union, Himmler wrote to Pohl about not needing to conceal any "hidden agendas" from him and emphasized the "essential" task of increasing "good and worthy" blood (Germans) through nutrition and SS settlements.[48]
During the spring of 1942, Hitler and other Nazi elites looked to increase armaments production through the use of concentration camp inmates. This coincided with Pohl's control over the concentration camp system.
By the summer of 1944, control of the concentration camps was removed from Pohl's WVHA and executive power was instead given over to local HSSPF offices, which, according to Pohl, occurred for operational reasons.[59] Speer's armaments ministry took over arms production without the intermediation of the WVHA in the application process for industrial firms seeking business with the Reich.[60] Estimates provided by Pohl indicate that during the second half of 1944, there were upwards of 250,000 slaves working for private firms, another 170,000 working in underground factories and an additional 15,000 clearing rubble from the Allied bombing raids.[61]
Trial, conviction and execution
After the end of
See also
References
Citations
- ^ Wistrich 1995, p. 192.
- ^ Allen 2002, pp. 24–25.
- ^ Allen 2002, p. 25.
- ^ a b c d Holocaust Research Project.org, Oswald Pohl.
- ^ a b Zentner & Bedürftig 1991, p. 711.
- ^ Allen 2002, p. 26.
- ^ a b Allen 2002, p. 24.
- ^ a b Wachsmann 2015, p. 161.
- ^ Allen 2002, p. 27.
- ^ Allen 2002, p. 29.
- ^ Longerich 2012, p. 182.
- ^ Longerich 2012, p. 169.
- ^ USHMM–Holocaust Encyclopedia, SS and the Camp System.
- ^ Friedländer 2009, p. 91.
- ^ Wachsmann 2015, pp. 161–162.
- ^ Höhne 2001, pp. 404–405.
- ^ Avalon Project–Yale University, USA vs. Pohl et al..
- ^ Longerich 2012, p. 559.
- ^ Yahil 1990, p. 316.
- ^ Read 2004, p. 672–673.
- ^ Höhne 2001, p. 405.
- ^ Read 2004, p. 672.
- ^ Longerich 2012, p. 485.
- ^ Longerich 2012, p. 560.
- ^ Buchheim 1968, p. 273.
- ^ Tuchel 1994, p. 88.
- ^ Allen 2002, pp. 81–82.
- ^ Read 2004, p. 799.
- ^ Krausnick 1968, p. 120.
- ^ McDonough 2021, p. 209.
- ^ Allen 2002, p. 9.
- ^ Allen 2002, p. 20.
- ^ Allen 2002, pp. 19–20.
- ^ Allen 2002, pp. 82–83.
- ^ Allen 2002, p. 83.
- ^ Allen 2002, p. 94.
- ^ Wachsmann 2015, p. 425.
- ^ Bartov 2018, p. 233.
- ^ Kogon 2006, p. 295.
- ^ Kogon 2006, pp. 295–296.
- ^ Laqueur & Baumel 2001, p. 476.
- ^ Friedländer 2009, p. 354.
- ^ Allen 2002, p. 100.
- ^ Wachsmann 2015, p. 162.
- ^ Allen 2002, p. 102.
- ^ Stein 1984, p. 261.
- ^ Allen 2002, p. 108.
- ^ Allen 2002, p. 195.
- ^ Wachsmann 2015, pp. 403–404.
- ^ Wachsmann 2015, p. 404.
- ^ Wachsmann 2015, pp. 404–405.
- ^ Wachsmann 2015, p. 405.
- ^ Allen 2002, pp. 196–201.
- ^ Wachsmann 2015, pp. 406–410.
- ^ Longerich 2012, p. 634.
- ^ Stackelberg 2007, p. 231.
- ^ Read 2004, p. 818.
- ^ Allen 2002, pp. 203–222.
- ^ Blatman 2010, p. 173.
- ^ Sofsky 1997, p. 181.
- ^ Bloxham 2009, p. 253.
- ^ Snyder 1976, p. 271.
- ^ Bloxham 2003, pp. 94, 192.
- ^ Nuremberg Military Tribunal 1950, p. 934.
- ^ Krondorfer 2008, pp. 62–81.
- ^ Schulte 2001, p. 45.
- ^ Madura Tribune (7 June 1951).
Bibliography
- Allen, Michael Thad (2002). The Business of Genocide: The SS, Slave Labor, and the Concentration Camps. London and Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 978-0-80782-677-5.
- "Avalon Project–Yale University". USA vs. Pohl et al. Retrieved July 12, 2016.
- Bartov, Omer (2018). "The Holocaust". In Robert Gellately (ed.). The Oxford Illustrated History of the Third Reich. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19872-828-3.
- ISBN 978-0-41542-651-0.
- ISBN 978-0-19925-904-5.
- Bloxham, Donald (2009). The Final Solution: A Genocide. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19955-034-0.
- Buchheim, Hans (1968). "The SS – Instrument of Domination". In Krausnick, Helmut; Buchheim, Hans; Broszat, Martin; Jacobsen, Hans-Adolf (eds.). Anatomy of the SS State. New York: Walker and Company. ISBN 978-0-00211-026-6.
- ISBN 978-0-06135-027-6.
- Höhne, Heinz (2001). The Order of the Death's Head: The Story of Hitler's SS. New York: Penguin Press. ISBN 978-0-14139-012-3.
- "Holocaust Research Project.org". Oswald Pohl. Retrieved July 14, 2016.
- Kogon, Eugen (2006). The Theory and Practice of Hell: The German Concentration Camps and the System behind Them. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN 978-0-37452-992-5.
- ISBN 978-0-00211-026-6.
- Krondorfer, Bjorn (2008). "A Perpetrator's Confession: Gender and Religion in Oswald Pohl's Conversion Narrative". Journal of Men, Masculinities and Spirituality. 2 (2): 62–81.
- ISBN 978-0-30008-432-0.
- Longerich, Peter (2012). Heinrich Himmler. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0199592326.
- "Madera Tribune 7 June 1951 — California Digital Newspaper Collection". cdnc.ucr.edu. Retrieved 2022-07-31.
- McDonough, Frank (2021). The Hitler Years: Disaster, 1940–1945. New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 978-1-25027-512-7.
- Nuremberg Military Tribunal, Vol. 5 (1950). Trials of War Criminals before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals: Control Council Law No. 10. Nuernberg October 1946–April 1949 (PDF). Washington D.C.: United States Government Printing Office.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) - Read, Anthony (2004). The Devil's Disciples: Hitler's Inner Circle. New York: Norton. ISBN 978-0-39304-800-1.
- Schulte, Jan Erik (2001). Zwangsarbeit und Vernichtung: Das Wirtschaftsimperium der SS. Oswald Pohl und das SS-Wirtschafts-Verwaltungshauptamt 1933–1945 (in German). Paderborn: Schöningh Verlag. ISBN 978-3-50678-245-8.
- Snyder, Louis L (1976). Encyclopedia of the Third Reich. London: Robert Hale. ISBN 978-1-56924-917-8.
- Sofsky, Wolfgang (1997). The Order of Terror: The Concentration Camp. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-69100-685-7.
- Stackelberg, Roderick (2007). The Routledge Companion to Nazi Germany. New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-41530-861-8.
- Stein, George H. (1984). The Waffen SS: Hitler's Elite Guard at War, 1939–1945. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. ISBN 0-8014-9275-0.
- Tuchel, Johannes (1994). Die Inspektion der Konzentrationslager, 1938–1945: Das System des Terrors (in German). Berlin: Hentrich. ISBN 978-3-89468-158-6.
- "USHMM–Holocaust Encyclopedia". SS and the Camp System. Retrieved July 14, 2016.
- Wachsmann, Nikolaus (2015). KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN 978-0-37411-825-9.
- Wistrich, Robert (1995). Who's Who In Nazi Germany. New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-41511-888-0.
- Yahil, Leni (1990). The Holocaust: The Fate of European Jewry, 1932–1945. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-504522-X.
- Zentner, Christian; Bedürftig, Friedemann (1991). The Encyclopedia of the Third Reich. New York: MacMillan Publishing. ISBN 0-02-897500-6.
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