Oskar Paul Dirlewanger (26 September 1895 – ) was a German military officer (SS-Oberführer) who served as the founder and commander of the Nazi SS penal unit "Dirlewanger" during World War II. Serving in Poland and in Belarus, his name is closely linked to some of the most notorious crimes of the war. He also fought in World War I, the post-World War I conflicts, and the Spanish Civil War. He reportedly died after World War II while in Allied custody. According to Timothy Snyder, "in all the theaters of the Second World War, few could compete in cruelty with Dirlewanger". Early life Dirlewanger was born in Würzburg on 26 September 1895. He was the son of a merchant, and spent much of his childhood in Esslingen Am Neckar after his family moved there in 1906. He attended the Esslinger Gymnasium (known today as the Georgii-Gymnasium) and the Schelztor-Oberrealschule. He completed his Abitur in 1913. World War I Dirlewanger enlisted in the Württemberg Army on the 1 October 1913, and served as a machine gunner in the "König Karl" Grenadier Regiment 123, a part of the XIII (Royal Württemberg) Corps and as a one-year volunteer. He would fight as a part of this unit on the Western Front of World War I, where he took part in the German invasion of Belgium and later fought in France. He received the Iron Cross 2nd Class and 1st Class, having been wounded six times, and finished the war with the rank of lieutenant, in charge of a company on the Eastern Front in southern Russia and Romania. At the cessation of hostilities, the German units in Dirlewanger's area were ordered to be interned in Romania, but Dirlewanger disobeyed orders and led 600 men from his and other units back to Germany. According to German biographer Knut Stang, the war was a contributing factor that determined Dirlewanger's later life and his "terror warfare" methods, as "his amoral personality, with his alcoholism and his sadistic sexual orientation, was additionally shattered by the front experiences of the First World War and its frenzied violence and barbarism." Interwar period After the end of World War I, Dirlewanger, described in a police report as "a mentally unstable, violent fanatic and alcoholic, who had the habit of erupting into violence under the influence of drugs", joined various Freikorps right-wing paramilitary militias and fought against German communists in Ruhr