Catalogue description Karl Wolff

Karl Wolff, one of Himmler's most trusted and trustworthy colleagues, was born in Darmstadt, where his father was a district court judge. In World war 1 Wolff served as Lieutenant and received an Iron Cross, First Class. After the war he fought in the ranks of the Freikorps in the state of Hesse. From 1920 to 1933 he held various business posts and then set up his own public relations firm in Munich.

In 1931 Wolff joined the Nazi party and the SS, and in July 1933 he was appointed Himmler's adjutant. In 1936 he was elected to the Reichstag as a member from Hesse. Wolff advanced rapidly up the SS ladder, being appointed Standartenführer in January 1934, Gruppenführer in the Waffen- SS in May 1940, and SS- Obergruppenführer and Generaloberst (senior general) in 1942. He was awarded the Nazi party gold medal on January 30 1939.

It was Wolff, who, with Himmler's help, obtained the necessary deportation trains from the German railways administration for transporting innumerable thousands of Jews to the Treblinka extermination camp. In September 1943 Wolff became military governor of northern Italy and plenipotentiary of the Reich to Mussolini's Fascist government. In February 1945 Wolff contacted US intelligence agent Allen Dulles in Zurich and arranged for the surrender of the German forces in northern Italy.

After the war Wolff appeared as a witness for the prosecution in trials of Nazi criminals. He was tried by a German court and sentenced to four year's imprisonment with hard labour in 1946, but was released a week later. Wolff then became a highly successful public relations agent. In 1961, at the time of the Eichmann trial, he drew attention to himself with an interview he gave to German magazine in May of that year.

Wolff was put under arrest in January 1962. He was charged with the murder of Jews, and with direct responsibility for the deportation of 300,000 Jews to Treblinka. On September 30, 1964, he was sentenced to 15 years in prison and ten years loss of civil rights. In 1971, however he was released for good behaviour.