Otto Moll was an SS-Hauptscharführer and part of the staff at Auschwitz. Born in Hohen Schönberg, Germany on March 4, 1915 and was executed on May 28, 1946 in Landsberg am Lech. Moll joined the SS on May 1, 1935 (serial number 267670). He held various posts during his tenure at Auschwitz. From May 1941 until January 1945 he was Kommandoführer of the gardeners work detail, director of the employment service in the men’s camp, head of the crematoria in Birkenau, Lagerführer of the Fürstengrube subcamp in Wesola near Myslowice and of the Gleiwitz 1 sub-camp in Gliwice. In May 1941, Otto Moll was transferred from the Sachsenhausen concentration camp to Birkenau where he was put in charge of digging the mass graves. From 1943 to the evacuation of the camp, Otto Moll was chief of the crematoria. SS Hauptscharführer Otto Moll is said to have personally killed thousands of innocent victims (over 20 thousand according to some reports) during his time at Auschwitz-Birkenau. According to the infamous Auschwitz Kommandant Rudolf Höss, he and Sergeant Major Moll were both decorated by the Führer with the Cross of Merit, First Class, with Swords. Whether or not this is true has yet to be proven.

Otto Moll was transferred to a sub-camp of Dachau after Auschwitz-Birkenau was abandoned by the SS on January 18, 1945. On April 28, 1945, one day before the Dachau camp was liberated by American soldiers, Moll arrived at the main camp, along with a group of prisoners that he had led on an evacuation “death march.” Moll was put on trial by an American Military Tribunal at Dachau in November 1945. He was charged with not allowing the prisoners to escape from the death march, which was a war crime, according to the Allies. He was executed on May 28, 1946 at the Landsberg am Lech prison. Moll appears several times in the photo album of Karl-Friedrich Höcker of camp staff at a retreat. He always said to his man: “Befehl ist Befehl!” (“An order is an order!”). This famous quote was made by scores of Nazis regardless of their rank when trying to justify or excuse themselves for their behavior. Unsurprisingly, these words were spoken at one time or another by a number of defendants at the Nuremberg Tribunal.