In 1962, Wolff was rearrested, prosecuted in West Germany for the deportation of Polish Jews, and sentenced to 15 years in prison for being an accessory to murder in 1964.

[8] From March 1933, after the Nazi Party had obtained national power, Wolff served as an adjutant to Franz Ritter von Epp, then-governor of Bavaria.

[2] The same year Himmler named him chief of Personal Staff Reichsführer-SS to coordinate all contact and correspondence within the SS at both party and state levels.

[13] As was later revealed in the 1964 trial, during the early part of the Second World War, Wolff served as "Himmler's eyes and ears" in Hitler's headquarters.

Apart from the information passing across his desk, Wolff received (as Chief of Himmler's Personal Staff) copies of all letters from SS officers, and his friends at this point included Odilo Globocnik, the organiser of Operation Reinhard (in effect 1941 to 1943).

Wolff's later denial of knowledge of Holocaust activities may be plausible only at the detailed level, but not of the extent of atrocities by the Nazi regime.

On 8 September 1939, shortly after the invasion of Poland, Wolff wrote to the Gestapo office in Frankfurt (Oder) and ordered the immediate "arrest of all male Jews of Polish nationality and their family members" and the confiscation of any wealth.

In a letter sent from the Führer Headquarters, dated 13 August 1942 and referring to transports of Jews to Treblinka extermination camp, Wolff thanked Ganzenmüller for his assistance:[15] I note with particular pleasure from your communication that a train with 5,000 members of the chosen people has been running daily for 14 days and that we are accordingly in a position to continue with this population movement at an accelerated pace.

With best wishes and Heil Hitler, yours sincerely W.According to Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski, in August 1941, Himmler and Wolff attended the shooting of Jews at Minsk which had been organized by Arthur Nebe, who was in command of Einsatzgruppe B, a mobile killing unit.

[18] On Himmler's orders, by the spring of 1942, the camp at Auschwitz had been greatly expanded, including by the addition of gas chambers, where victims were killed using the pesticide Zyklon B.

[20] His position was weakened by his frequent absences from Berlin, in part due to his suffering from pyelitis and renal calculus (kidney stones), which required surgery.

[22] A new replacement as liaison officer to Hitler's HQ did not occur until the appointment of Hermann Fegelein, who assumed the duty in January 1944.

[23] So far Wolff's involvement in war crimes in Italy remains largely unclear, partially because source material on the degree to which SS units participated in Nazi security warfare is lacking.

Although it seems as if US investigators were in possession of incriminating material in 1945 that indicated Wolff's approval of the executions that became known as the Ardeatine massacre, this evidence was deemed not sufficient for criminal charges.

Detained under house arrest, after a German trial, Wolff was sentenced to 5 years in prison in November 1948, for his membership in the SS.

During the 1970s and early 1980s, Wolff returned to public life, frequently lecturing on the internal workings of the SS and his relationship with Himmler.

Wolff maintained that on 13 September 1943, Hitler gave the directive to "occupy Vatican City, secure its files and art treasures, and take the Pope and Curia to the north".

At his grave, his daughter Fatima Grimm gave the funeral prayer in the presence of representatives of the Islamic Center of Munich (ICM).