[4] After the end of the war, Pohl attended courses at a trade school, and began studying law and state theory at the Christian-Albrechts-Universität in Kiel.

[7] He met Heinrich Himmler in 1933, coming to his attention at the behest of Admiral Wilhelm Canaris who described Pohl as an "energetic" officer and a "dedicated Nazi".

While he already presided over as many as 500 men in his role in the German Navy, as a dedicated Nazi, he jumped at the chance to be a commissioned officer in Himmler's Schutzstaffel (SS).

[16] Shortly after the Austrian Anschluss in March 1938, Pohl, who at this time was already administrative chief of the SS Main Office, accompanied Himmler to the small town of Mauthausen where it was decided that the SS-operated German Earth and Stoneworks Corporation (DEST) would begin excavating granite, using concentration camp prisoners as slave laborers.

"[25] As the head of the economics division of the SS, Pohl was appointed to run the Deutscher Wirtschaftsbetrieb (German Industrial Concern; GmbH),[26] an organization he helped establish.

It was designed to unify the massive business interests of Himmler's SS, taking in profits from the slave labour of concentration camp prisoners.

[30] Expressing his sentiments regarding the use of prisoners for labor in a memo, Pohl wrote, "SS industries [Unternehmen] have the task ... to organize a more businesslike (more productive) execution of punishment and adjust it to the overall development of the Reich.

[32] Expanding his power ever further over the economic realm, Pohl was named chairman of the board of directors for the Eastern Territories Industries Inc. (Ostindustrie GmbH) on 12 March 1943.

[33] Despite the seeming intention to use concentration camp prisoners for production in the expanding SS economics industry, Pohl's role was also framed by the ideological mandates of exploitation and racial extermination.

[34] For example, evidence indicates that Pohl refused to allow any increases in rations for starving prisoners toiling in the Granite Works of Gross-Rosen concentration camp, when there were administrative complaints in favor of providing more food to the inmates.

[36] An irreconcilable duplicity emerged over the conflicting goals between the pragmatic economic interests of the SS under Pohl's purview and their fanatical racialist ideological imperatives.

[37] Fulfilling a call beyond mere economic interests but one based on communal concerns prompted Pohl's thinking when he informed the Reich's Interior Ministry in a letter that, "It is the will of the Reichsführer-SS that profits from lucrative corporations be diverted to cover the losses of others that must labor under the constraints of their non-capitalistic [nicht privatwirtschaftliche] end goals.

[42] Human material was to be efficiently and fully exploited in the process and as former Buchenwald political prisoner and historian Eugen Kogon points out, Pohl insisted on extracting the maximum financial worth from each and every camp laborer.

[43] Kogon asserts that Pohl even created evaluative tables that calculated their value as farmed-out wage earners (minus the depreciation of food and clothing), their profit intake from valuables (watches, clothing, money) remaining after their deaths (minus crematoria expenses), and any costs recovered from selling their bones and ashes; in total, the average concentration camp inmate had a life expectancy of nine months or less and was valued at 1,630 marks.

[44] Along these lines, Pohl supervised the macabre task of collecting Jewish people's gold fillings, hair, clothing, jewelry and other possessions.

"[47][a] The catalyst for the expansion of SS construction initiatives stemmed from Hitler's megalomania, namely, his plans to erect massive German cities and monuments (masterminded by architect Albert Speer) as the Reich expanded.

[51] Pohl nonetheless showed unwavering commitment to the cause and tenets of Nazism when performing his duties and stressed the importance in fulfilling the tasks outlined by Himmler.

"[52] Shortly before the invasion of the Soviet Union, Himmler wrote to Pohl about not needing to conceal any "hidden agendas" from him and emphasized the "essential" task of increasing "good and worthy" blood (Germans) through nutrition and SS settlements.

[64] Speer's armaments ministry took over arms production without the intermediation of the WVHA in the application process for industrial firms seeking business with the Reich.

Disguised as a farmhand, he was arrested by British troops in May 1946 and sentenced to death on 3 November 1947 by an American military tribunal in the eponymous Pohl Trial.

[68] 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 and revenge.