Adolf Ott

Confirmed findings

• Adolf Ott was born on 29 December 1904 in Waidhaus. He took command of Sonderkommando 7b in February or March 1942 and held it for at least ten months. (Source: Harvard Law School Library — Nuremberg Trials Project, HLSL seq. 6852–6857; trial transcript pp. 6853–6858, findings concerning Adolf Ott)
• At trial he admitted that his unit shot Jews even when no partisan activity was alleged; he estimated that at least twenty people were killed solely because they were Jews. (Source: Harvard Law School Library — Nuremberg Trials Project, HLSL seq. 6852–6857; trial transcript pp. 6853–6858, findings concerning Adolf Ott)
• The US Military Tribunal found him guilty of crimes against humanity, war crimes and membership in a criminal organisation. (Source: Harvard Law School Library — Nuremberg Trials Project, HLSL seq. 6852–6857; trial transcript pp. 6853–6858, findings concerning Adolf Ott; Source: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Sections “The Indictment and Charges,” “The Trial,” and “Verdicts”)
• On 10 April 1948 he was sentenced to death. Postwar clemency commuted the sentence to life imprisonment, and he was later released. (Source: Journal of Genocide Research / Taylor & Francis, pp. 183–185 and sentencing/clemency discussion)

Place in the chain of responsibility

Ott’s responsibility rests on commanding a killing unit and on his own admissions about the criterion used to select victims. The profile does not automatically attribute every crime of Einsatzgruppe B to him. (Source: Harvard Law School Library — Nuremberg Trials Project, HLSL seq. 6852–6857; trial transcript pp. 6853–6858, findings concerning Adolf Ott; Source: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Sections “The Indictment and Charges,” “The Trial,” and “Verdicts”)

Key events and mechanisms

• February–March 1942 – assumed command of Sonderkommando 7b (Source: Harvard Law School Library — Nuremberg Trials Project, HLSL seq. 6852–6857; trial transcript pp. 6853–6858, findings concerning Adolf Ott)
• 1942 – shootings of Jews described in his testimony and the tribunal’s findings (Source: Harvard Law School Library — Nuremberg Trials Project, HLSL seq. 6852–6857; trial transcript pp. 6853–6858, findings concerning Adolf Ott)
• 10 April 1948 – sentenced to death in the Einsatzgruppen trial (Source: Harvard Law School Library — Nuremberg Trials Project, HLSL seq. 6852–6857; trial transcript pp. 6853–6858, findings concerning Adolf Ott; Source: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Sections “The Indictment and Charges,” “The Trial,” and “Verdicts”)
• 1951–1958 – sentence reduced and later release from Landsberg (Source: Journal of Genocide Research / Taylor & Francis, pp. 183–185 and sentencing/clemency discussion)

Postwar accountability

The Einsatzgruppen tribunal at Nuremberg sentenced Ott to death. The sentence was commuted to life imprisonment, and the clemency policy of the 1950s ultimately led to his release. (Source: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Sections “The Indictment and Charges,” “The Trial,” and “Verdicts”; Source: Journal of Genocide Research / Taylor & Francis, pp. 183–185 and sentencing/clemency discussion)

Limits of the evidence

Sources

The source set combines institutional, archival, trial or scholarly material from at least two independent publishers.

• Harvard Law School Nuremberg Trials Project
• United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
• tandfonline.com