Oswald Ludwig Pohl (German: [ˈɔsvalt ˈpoːl] ^ⓘ; 30 June 1892 – 7 June 1951) was a German high-ranking SS official during the Nazi era. As the head of the SS Main Economic and Administrative Office and the head administrator of the Nazi concentration camps, he was a key figure in the Holocaust.

Born in Duisburg, Pohl served in the Imperial German Navy in the Baltic Sea and at the Flemish coast during the First World War. After the war he worked with the Freikorps and took part in the Kapp Putsch, after which he joined the Reichsmarine. Pohl became a member of the SA in 1925 and a Nazi Party member a year later. He subsequently became a close associate of Heinrich Himmler and established himself as a capable administrator within the SS. In 1942, Himmler appointed Pohl chief of the SS Main Economic and Administrative Office, placing him in charge of all concentration camps and their exploitation of forced labour, SS and Police building projects and SS economic enterprises; he was also made SS-Obergruppenführer. At the time he was the third most powerful SS figure after Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich.

Pohl went into hiding after the war but was apprehended by British troops in 1946. He stood in the eponymous Pohl Trial in 1947, was found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity and sentenced to death by an American military tribunal. After repeated appeals, he was executed by hanging in 1951.

Oswald Pohl was born in Duisburg-Ruhrort on 30 June 1892 to blacksmith, Hermann Otto Emil Pohl, and his wife Auguste Pohl (née Seifert); he was the fifth of eight children. His parents were financially secure, and he attended a Realgymnasium where he studied classical Greek and Latin texts. From what Pohl claimed, he always wanted to study science but his father did not have the means to send him straight to university. In 1912, he became a sailor in the Imperial Navy. During World War I, he served in the Baltic Sea region and the coast of Flanders. Pohl attended a navy school, and became paymaster on 1 April 1918. On 30 October of the same year, he married.

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. He dropped out of university, and became paymaster for the Freikorps "Brigade Löwenfeld", working in Berlin, Upper Silesia and the Ruhr basin. In 1920, like many others involved in the Lüttwitz-Kapp Putsch, he was accepted into the Weimar Republic's new navy, the Reichsmarine. Pohl was transferred to Swinemünde in 1924.

In 1925, Pohl became a member of the Sturmabteilung (SA), then joined the re-founded Nazi Party on 22 February 1926 (membership number 30,842). Pohl proclaimed in 1932, "I was a National Socialist before National Socialism came into being." Commissioned as an SA-Sturmführer in August 1932, he advanced to SA-Obersturmführer in June 1933 and to SA-Sturmbannführer in August 1933. 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". Pohl quickly made himself available to the younger Himmler after their first meeting at a Kiel Biergarten. 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). Pohl promised Himmler that he would serve him always and rose quickly due to his "ruthlessness" and his unwavering "loyalty". He entered the SS with an effective date of 1 February 1934 (SS number 147,614) with the rank of SS-Standartenführer.

Pohl set to work, putting his 20-plus years of administrative experience into action; he managed to successfully standardize and professionalize the SS accounting operations, so much so that it was able to withstand a public audit, which garnered more respect from national agencies for Himmler's SS. Pohl was quickly promoted as a result, and by 9 September 1934 was advanced to SS-Oberführer. Capable administrative officers were recruited and assigned to the concentration camps due to Pohl's efforts. Eventually Pohl was appointed chief of the administration department in the personal staff of the Reichsführer-SS. His career continued to thrive when Himmler made him administrative chief over the SD Main Office and the Race and Settlement Office on 1 June 1935. He was promoted to SS-Brigadeführer the same day. Two of Pohl's predecessors, Paul Weickert and Gerhard Schneider, were dismissed from the SS for embezzlement. Pohl founded the "Gesellschaft zur Förderung und Pflege deutscher Kulturdenkmäler" ("Society for the preservation and fostering of German cultural monuments"), which was primarily dedicated to restoring Wewelsburg, an old castle that was supposed to be turned into a cultural and scientific headquarters of the SS at Himmler's request. The "society" soon became a part of Pohl's SS administration office. Pohl left the Roman Catholic Church in 1935. Apart from his work in the SS, Pohl served briefly in the Reichstag as a deputy for electoral constituency 22 (Düsseldorf East) from July 1942 to March 1943.

Over time, Pohl's orbit of responsibility began to include the concentration camp system since he lived near the camp at Dachau and inspected them from time to time. He was promoted to SS-Gruppenführer on 30 January 1937, and Himmler gave him responsibility for all SS building construction in April. During the early establishment of the concentration camps in the mid-1930s, Pohl already recognized the economic potential of forced labor. 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. Administrative and financial authority for the camps and the SS Death's Head troops were conveyed to Pohl by 1938, which pitted him against his contemporary and peer, Theodor Eicke, particularly on matters of administration, budget, and building projects.