SS-Obersturmbannführer Adolf Hermann Ott was born on 29 December 1904 in Waidhaus.

From 1910 to 1922 Adolf Ott attended school in Lindau, a town located on the eastern shore of Lake Constance in the border triangle Germany–Austria–Switzerland. After receiving his leaving certificate from the Realschule he was working as a merchant apprentice. Ott was so attracted to the nascent Nazi movement that he volunteered for service in the SA immediatly after.

On 1 September 1922 he joined the NSDAP. This was a long time before the Nazi Party had assumed power and before the onset of the world economic depression in 1929. He was at that time younger than the average age of new members registered to the SS. The reason he joined the Party was ideological because he felt a strong affinity for the tenets of Nazism.

In 1931 he joined the SS and after 1933 he became an employee of the German Labour Front (DAF) in Lindau and from 1935 he worked full-time for the SD in Württemberg.

From 15 February 1942 to January 1943 he was the leader of Sonderkommando 7b of Einsatzgruppe B. For which he was responsible for numerous mass murder operations in Russia and Belarus.

The Einsatzgruppen of the Security Police and the SD were ideologically trained and partly mobile, partly stationary “special units”, which the Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler had set up and used on behalf of Adolf Hitler for mass murders during the invasion of Poland, in the Balkan campaign and above all in the war against the Soviet Union. The mission of the Einsatzgruppen was to eliminate all resistance behind the German front line. In their view, the Einsatzgruppen killed “undesirable elements” such as Jews, communists, gypsies, homosexuals, intellectuals, the disabled and partisans. The victims were mainly civilians who were murdered without trial.

When in February 1942 Ott succeeded Günther Rausch as commander of Sonderkommando 7b, in the following eleven months, he organized between 80 and 100 mass killings of civilians in the Bryansk area.

After the war at the Nuremberg Einsatzgruppen Trial in 1947, Ott justified the mass murders by claiming that the victims were partisans and saboteurs. He knew this, because he had questioned them.

Asked by presiding judge Musmanno what happened to Jewish prisoners, Ott replied: “According to the Fuehrer’s order, basically all Jews were shot.” And another remarkable and unscrupulous comment from Ott during the trial was: “Gassing is faster than shooting”. A statement to why this way was the most efficient.

At trial and under intensive questioning, Ott confessed he had always been a National Socialist at heart. Not suprisingly, Ott came from Bavaria, the birthplace of National Socialism and an area of Germany over-represented by perpetrators. Ott was such a committed Nazi that at his trial he could not bring himself to lie about his adoration for Hitler and his loyalty to National Socialism, even though not doing so might cost him his life. When asked how he felt about the outcome of the war, he told the court he would have been happier had Germany won and Hitler survived.

Adolf Ott was sentenced to death in 1948 and pardoned to life imprisonment in 1951. He was released from the Landsberg War Crimes Prison on 9 May 1958 back into German society where he lived out the remainder of his life in relative peace and security. He eventually died on 10 October 1973 in Inzell.

Sources: The Nuremberg SS-Einsatzgruppen Trial, 1945-1958 by Hilary Earl / Täter, Helfer, Trittbrettfahrer – Adolf Ott by Wolgang Proske / Wikipedia