Otto Ohlendorf (

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to Ohlendorf (4 February 1907 – 7 June 1951) was a German SS-Gruppenführer and head of the interior division of the SD. Ohlendorf was the commanding officer of Einsatzgruppe D, which conducted mass murder in Moldova, south Ukraine, the Crimea, and, during 1942, the north Caucasus. As such, Otto Ohlendorf was a Holocaust perpetrator and mass murderer. He was convicted of and executed for war crimes committed during World War II. Early life Born in Hoheneggelsen (near Hildesheim; then in the Kingdom of Prussia), the son of farm owners, he joined the Nazi Party in 1925 (member 6631) and the SS (member #880) in 1926. Ohlendorf studied economics and law at the University of Leipzig and the University of Göttingen, and by 1930 was already giving lectures at several economic institutions. [edit]Third Reich In early 1936, he became an economic consultant to the SD, attached to the SS with the rank of SS-Hauptsturmführer. In May 1936, he was promoted to SS-Sturmbannführer and took a senior post. In 1939, he was once again promoted to SS-Standartenführer and appointed as head of Amt III of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt, a position he kept until 1945. In addition, from 1943 onwards, Ohlendorf was appointed as deputy director general of the Reich Ministry of Economic Affairs, and promoted once more in 1944 to Gruppenführer. In June 1941, Reinhard Heydrich appointed Ohlendorf to be commander of Einsatzgruppe D which operated in southern Ukraine and Crimea. Ohlendorf's Einsatzgruppe would be responsible for the 13 December 1941 massacre at Simferopol where at least 14,300 people, mostly Jews, were killed. Over 90,000 murders are attributed to Ohlendorf's command, who testified to this effect during his trial at Nuremberg. At the end of 1943, Ohlendorf, in addition to his other jobs, became deputy secretary of state in the Reichsministerium für Wirtschaft (Reichs-Ministry

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