Karl Wolff

Vocation

Notable

German Waffen SS officer in WW 2, Chief of Personal Staff to Himmler and SS liaison Officer to Hitler. By the end of the war he is Supreme Commander of all SS forces in Italy. After a successful service in WW I where he received two Iron Crosses for bravery Wolff became a banker. By 1931 with the Deutsche Bank economic crisis and the Great Depression he joined the NSDAP in July 1931 and was also a member of the Waffen SS. With the rise to power of the Nazi party in 1933, Wolff becomes a full-time political party member and is promoted to SS-Captain serving as military liaison to the German Army. He becomes a member of the Reichstag on 8 March 1933. Personally recruited by SS Commander Heinrich Himmler to head the office of Hitler's personal staff and becomes Himmler's adjutant and Chief of Staff on June 15, 1933. By 1937 he is third in command of the SS after Himmler and Heydrich. In 1943 Hitler assigned Wolff an SS adjutant to Benito Mussolini's Italian government with the rank of General in the Waffen-SS. Upon the surrender of Italy to the Allies Wolff became Higher SS and Police Leader of Italy and was the Military commander of Northern Italy for Germany. By 1945 at the end of the war Wolff was the acting military commander of Italy. In agreement with Himmler on the untenable position of Germany and the futility of continuing the war Wolff initiates talks with the Allen Dulles and negotiates a surrender of all German forces in Italy, ending the war in Italy. He escapes prosecution at the Nuremberg war trials by testifying against his fellow Nazis and he is then transferred to a British prison in Minden and later receives five year sentence for membership in the SS but he is released a year early. He works at an ad agency and is alleged to have worked for the CIA. He is tried and convicted on charges of deporting 300,000 Italian Jews in 1944 to Treblinka concentration camp. Sentenced to 15 years in Straubing, he serves only part of his sentenced and is released early for reasons of health. Full civil rights are restored to him in 1971. Upon his death in 1984, he is described in German newspapers as "one of the most enigmatic figures of the Nazi regime." Link to Wikipedia biography