Postwar
After the end of World War II in 1945, Pohl first hid in Upper Bavaria, then near Bremen. He was captured by British troops on 27 May 1946 and sentenced to death on 3 November 1947 by an American military tribunal - following after the first Nuremberg trials - for crimes against humanity, war crimes and membership in a criminal organization as well as for mass murders and crimes committed in the concentration camps administered by the SS-WVHA while he was in charge. Without denying his knowledge of the mass killings of Jews, Pohl presented himself as a mere executive, accusing the prosecution of being guided by feelings of hatred, influenced by its Jewish representatives.
Pohl was not executed right away. Time and again Pohl appealed his death sentence. Moreover, during the Nuremberg trials, he started to see a Roman Catholic priest. Officially, Pohl had never left the Catholic Church, although he stopped visiting churches from 1935 on. In 1950, his reconversion resulted in the appearance of his book Credo. Mein Weg zu Gott ("Credo. My way to God"), which was published with permission of the Catholic Church. Pohl was hanged shortly after midnight on 8 June 1951 at Landsberg Prison in Landsberg am Lech.
Read more about this topic: Oswald Pohl
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