Otto Ohlendorf quotes

Otto Ohlendorf was a German SS general and economist, best known for commanding Einsatzgruppe D during World War II. As a key perpetrator of the Holocaust, he oversaw mass executions of civilians in Eastern Europe. He was convicted of war crimes and executed after the Nuremberg Trials. Here are 11 of his quotes:

The treatment of the Germans by the Allies was at least as bad as the shooting of those Jews. The bombing of cities with men, women, and children burning with phosphorus - these things were all done by the Allies.

Otto Ohlendorf

I surrendered my moral conscience to the fact that I was a soldier, and therefore a cog in a relatively low position of a great machine.

Otto Ohlendorf

In the child, we see the grown-up. I see the problem differently.

Otto Ohlendorf

There were a large number of Jews who held more favorable positions than they should have, according to their percentage of the population. Germans should have held those positions.

Otto Ohlendorf

Fascism is a purely stately principle. Mussolini said in 1932, 'The first thing is the state - and from the state are derived the rights and fate of the people. Humans come second.' In National Socialism, it was the opposite. People and humans come first, and the state is secondary.

Otto Ohlendorf

Those Jews stood up, were lined up, and were shot in true military fashion. I saw to it that no atrocities or brutalities occurred.

Otto Ohlendorf

The men of my group who are under indictment here were under my military command. If they had not executed the orders which they were given, they would have been ordered by me to execute them. If they had refused to execute the orders they would have had to be called to account for it by me. There could be no doubt about it. Whoever refused anything in the front lines would have met immediate death. If the refusal would have come about in any other way, a court martial of the Higher SS and Police Leader would have brought about the same consequences.

Otto Ohlendorf

There was no distinction made between Gypsies and Jews, the same order applied to both.

Otto Ohlendorf

Most of these handpicked leaders were lawyers, and a few were physicians or educators; most had earned doctoral degrees. Among the more exotic specimens were Otto Ohlendorf, a handsome but argumentative young economist who had fallen into disfavor with Himmler.

Otto Ohlendorf