Paul Ohler

Paul Ohler as a witness during the Nuremberg Trials.

Paul Ohler (born September 23, 1887 in Meckenheim , † 1968 ) was a German detective.

Life

After attending school, Ohler learned the trade of cooper . He then worked for a wine wholesaler for three years. After serving in the military from 1907 to 1909, he worked from 1909 as a bank clerk at Dresdner Bank in Nuremberg.

In 1911, Ohler joined the police service: he initially worked for the protective police in Nuremberg before moving to the local criminal police in 1919. In 1923 he was finally seconded to the Political Department and soon afterwards transferred to the Political Police . In the same year he was promoted to criminal secretary. In 1933 he was promoted to senior secretary.

In 1933 Ohler was taken over by Heinrich Himmler 's Bavarian Political Police (BPP), where he continued to work primarily in Nuremberg. He remained active in the BPP and the Gestapo - into which the BPP was incorporated in 1936 - until 1945. He also joined the SS (SS No. 250.062), in which he achieved the rank of SS-Obersturmführer in April 1939 , while he was promoted to Criminal Inspector in 1939 and in 1944 to Criminal Inspector in the civil service. Ohler was also a member of the NSDAP ( membership number 2,618,869).

At the Gestapo office in Nuremberg, Ohler headed Section II (research and combat against opponents). In this function he was primarily entrusted with fighting the communists. In addition, he was deputy head and inspector of the Gestapo in Nuremberg.

At the beginning of November 1941, Ohler was appointed leader of the SS-Einsatzkommando in the officers' camp (Oflag) Hammelburg : In this capacity, he was tasked with overseeing the segregation of Soviet prisoners of war in the Nuremberg and Hammelburg camps and arranging for them to be transferred to the Dachau concentration camp .

After the end of the war , Ohler was arrested by the Allies . In the following years he appeared as a witness at the Nuremberg trials, among other things . In November 1948 Ohler was sentenced to seven years' imprisonment for extorting testimony from Jewish prisoners during his time with the Gestapo in Nuremberg, whereby one year of pre-trial detention was counted towards the sentence.

literature

• Wehrmacht, Gestapo and Soviet prisoners of war in the German Reich 1941/1942 , 1998.
• LG Nürnberg-Fürth, November 29, 1948 . In: Justice and Nazi crimes . Collection of German convictions for Nazi homicides 1945–1966, Vol. III, edited by Adelheid L. Rüter-Ehlermann, CF Rüter . Amsterdam: University Press, 1969, No. 104, pp. 575–622 Hanging of 5 Russian Eastern workers on the 'Russenwiese' (March 1943) and of 3 Russian prisoners in the Langenzenn camp (March 1945). Extortion to testify, threats and mistreatment during interrogations in 1933 and in 1940-1944