Oswald Ludwig Pohl was a German SS functionary 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 Final Solution, the genocide of the European Jews. After the war, Pohl went into hiding; he was apprehended in 1946. Pohl stood trial in 1947, was convicted of crimes against humanity, and sentenced to death. After repeatedly appealing his case, he was executed by hanging in 1951.
Pohl in U.S. custody
Forced labor at Wiener Graben quarry at Mauthausen, 1942
Buchenwald prisoners forced to work on the Buchenwald–Weimar rail line, 1943
Oswald Pohl receives his sentence of death by hanging
SS Main Economic and Administrative Office
The SS Main Economic and Administrative Office was a Nazi organization responsible for managing the finances, supply systems and business projects of the Allgemeine-SS. It also ran the concentration camps and was instrumental in the implementation of the Final Solution through such subsidiary offices as the Concentration Camps Inspectorate and SS camp guards.
Heinrich Himmler at an SS construction site, 1940.
US troops, while liberating Buchenwald concentration camp in 1945, found thousands of wedding rings that had been taken from victims during The Holocaust.
Structure of the WVHA, according to an exhibit presented at the WVHA trial
Oswald Pohl, former Chief of the SS Main Economic and Administrative Dept, standing, is indicted on war crimes charges in connection with the operation of concentration camps at the Nuremberg Trials in 1947. After making numerous appeals, he was executed in Landsberg Prison on June 7, 1951.