Karl Friedrich Otto Wolff (13 May 1900 – 17 July 1984) was a German SS functionary who served as Chief of Personal Staff Reichsführer-SS (Heinrich Himmler) and an SS liaison to Adolf Hitler during World War II. He ended the war as the Supreme SS and Police Leader in occupied Italy and helped arrange for the early surrender of Axis forces in that theatre, effectively ending the war there several days sooner than in the rest of Europe. He escaped prosecution at the Nuremberg Trials, apparently as a result of his participation in Operation Sunrise. In 1962, Wolff was prosecuted in West Germany for the deportation of Italian Jews, and he was sentenced to 15 years in prison for being an accessory to murder in 1964. He was released in 1971 due to his failing health, and died 13 years later. Early life and career Karl Friedrich Otto Wolff was born the son of a wealthy district court magistrate in Darmstadt on 13 May 1900. During World War I he graduated from school in 1917, volunteered to join the Imperial German Army (Leibgarde-Infanterie-Regiment Nr. 115) and served on the Western Front. He rose to the rank of lieutenant and was awarded both the Iron Cross second class and first class. After the war, Wolff was forced to leave the army because of the reduction of the German armed forces following the terms imposed by the Treaty of Versailles. Wolff was in the paramilitary Freikorps from December 1918 to May 1920. He started a two-year apprenticeship at the Bethmann Bank in Frankfurt and married Frieda von Römheld in 1923. The couple moved to Munich, where Wolff worked for Deutsche Bank. In June 1924 he was laid off and joined a public relations firm. Wolff may also have studied law, but never took any state exams. In 1925 he started his own public relations company which he operated in Munich until 1933. Nazi Party and SS Wolff joined the Nazi Party with card number 695,131 and the SS in October 1931. His SS membership number was 14,235 and he was commissioned as an SS-Sturmführer in February 1932. 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. Here he came to the attention of the head of the SS Heinrich Himmler who appointed Wolff his personal adjutant in