Otto Ohlendorf       

Otto Ohlendorf was the Head of Amt lll of the Reich Main Security Office during the Second World War and organiser of mass murders in the Southern Ukraine in 1941 and 1942.

He was born in Hoheneggelsen on 4 February 1907, the son of a peasant farmer. Educated at a humanistic Gymnasium in Hildesheim, he later studied law at the Universities of Leipzig and Gottingen, graduating in July 1933.

In October 1933 he became Assistant to Professor Jessen at the Institute of World Economy at the University of Kiel. He specialised in the study of National Socialism and Italian fascism – he was subsequently the only top SS leader to be familiar with the syndicalism elements and organisational structure of fascist Italy.

In January 1935 Ohlendorf became departmental head at the Institute of Applied Economic Science before entering the SD and working under Professor Reinhard Hohn in the following year.  Parallel to his promising academic career, the intelligent, idealistic Ohlendorf had been active in the National Socialist Students’ League in Kiel and Gottingen as well as teaching at the Party school in Berlin in 1935.



 
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