Under the direction of Albert Norden, a longtime communist activist
and the regime’s head propagandist, the government of the German
Democratic Republic took this case to its highest court and tried
Oberländer in absentia, finding him guilty of war crimes committed
in Lviv and in the Caucasus and sentencing him to life in prison.
Although Oberländer offered his resignation to Adenauer, the
chancellor refused, fearful that his departure would only encourage
more attacks of a similar nature. In the end, Adenauer gave in to the
pressure that was building in the FRG (including his own party), and
Oberländer left the government on 3 May 1960. Yet the matter was
far from resolved. Not only had Adenauer promised a government
investigation that could help facilitate his rehabilitation but Oberlän-
der brought scores of legal challenges to his critics. In 1965, a Polish
commission examined the witnesses’ testimony during the East Ber-
lin trial, concluding that it was incorrect on all major points and that
the SS and the Ukrainian militia, not Oberländer’s Nachtigall Battal-
ion, were responsible for the deaths in Lviv. Since the MfS kept this
document concealed from public view and continued to disseminate
forged material, it was only after reunification that Oberländer’s legal
rehabilitation in Germany finally occurred. Oberländer, however, had
died four days earlier, on 4 May 1998, in Bonn.ODESSA. An acronym for the Organisation der ehemaligen SS-
Angehörigen (Organization of former SS Members), Odessa was
allegedly a secret international network designed to protect SS and
other Nazi officials from prosecution for war crimes by Allied,
German, and Austrian authorities following World War II. The
organization’s existence, however, has never been confirmed, not
even by the Central Authority for the Investigation into Nazi Crimes
in Ludwigsburg. Nevertheless, numerous Nazi criminals and collabo-
rators relied on certain avenues of escape—dubbed ratlines—which
included the alleged Odessa route: Tyrol, Rome, Genoa, then South
America or the Near East.
OFFIZIERE IM BESONDEREN EINSATZ (OibE). A disguised arm
of the Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (MfS), Offiziere im beson-
deren Einsatz (officers in special deployment) were full-time officers
who worked in key positions in the economy, military, media, arts,
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