of lieutenant colonel, and turned to a scholastic career. On 31 July 1933 he presented a thesis entitled Growth and Migration in the Russian Nation and took up a position as a lecturer in Geography and at the University of Berlin. On 27 July 1937, at the express request of Adolf Hitler, Niedermayer took up a teaching post at the Institute for Compulsory Military Doctrine at Berlin University. Meanwhile, he had re-enlisted on 1 November 1935 as a reserve officer in the Army. On 1 October 1939 he was called up from the Reserve List and appointed to a post as Colonel in the supreme command of the Wehrmacht (OKW). World War II On the outbreak of the War the Nazi leadership sought to utilize Niedermayer's knowledge of Slavic culture to assist with the management of occupation of Poland, however, he used personal contacts amongst the Army general staff to agitate for a more active role in the war for himself. Nevertheless, he rejected the High Command of the Army’s request on February 20, 1941 again. Thus Niedermayer turned down on 25 May 1941 again personally to Wilhelm Keitel (1882–1946), the chief of OKW. Admittedly, he had the opportunity to participate in some courses, but until May 30, 1942 Niedermayer stayed with the leadership of the 162nd Turkoman Division instructed. This was not a regular Division, but simply a bar, which was scheduled, in the hinterland of the Army Group in the South of Ukraine, from (Caucasian, Turkestani, Georgian, Armenian) POWs troops formed against the Soviet Union’s advance in Ukraine. This task was transferred to him, because he was known in the previous years, due to many articles and memoirs as a connoisseur of the geography and peoples of the profiled regions. The division was first installed in the Ukraine, where they and Niedermayer were responsible for the training of the so-called "Ostlegionen", until February 1943, and from then to autumn of 1943 they were reinstalled in Neuhammer German Reich. There the Legion was reclassified as a Division, but it was still made of Caucasian, Georgian and Turkotartari soldiers. As commander of this division in Operational Zone of the Adriatic Littoral, he fought against Slovene Partisans in the Battle of Kočevje, rescuing the besieged garrison in Kočevje. In March 1944, the Ostlegionen relocated to Italy, to try to halt the Allied advance there as a part of the 10th Army,