Oswald Pohl

Oswald Pohl (1892-1951) rose to high Nazi rank principally through financial and administrative management skill, eventually heading the Schutzstaffel's (SS) economic administration, its Economic and Administrative Main Office (WVHA), whose responsibilities included the actual operation of the concentration camp system. A protege of Heinrich Himmler, he was identified with the part of The Holocaust that wanted maximum economic exploitation of the Jews, as opposed to the security side that wanted them destroyed as soon as possible. Tried in the Pohl Case of the Nuremberg Military Tribunals, he was executed by hanging.

Pohl converted to Catholicism before his execution, and published his confession. His confessor, the prison chaplain, Karl Morgenschweis, helped him write it, commenting "“As priest and pastoral counselor, I have the holy duty to portray Pohl in just the way as I have seen him as his spiritual father and soul-guide in the several years of direct intercourse [Verkehr] with him." Morgenschweis does not excuse his offenses, but gives some insight into the man.

What motivated him? Some have seen him largely as a technocrat. Allen, however, sees him as driven by a "plexus of ideologies", following Heinrich Himmler's dual goal of producing the SS-State and making it efficient.