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Oberg, Karl (1897–1965) Supreme Head of the SS and Police in occupied France from 1942 to 1945, Karl Oberg was born in Hamburg on 27 January 1897, the son of a Professor of Medicine. He enlisted in the army in August 1914, fighting as a Lieutenant on the western front in September 1916 and receiving the Iron Cross (First and Second Classes). After the war he was involved in suppressing a mutiny and participated in the Kapp putsch in Berlin. In January 1921 he was business manager of the Escherich Organization in Flensburg and then liaison man between various Reichswehr formations, the government and local patriotic leagues in Schleswig. In 1926 he returned to Hamburg as the representative for a wholesale paper merchant and two years later took a job with a wholesale tropical fruit firm. As a result of the world economic crisis the firm was liquidated within a few months and Oberg remained unemployed until the end of 1930. He then bought a tobacco kiosk in Hamburg with the help of a small family loan. In 1932 Heydrich (q.v.) took him into the SD where he became one of his closest collaborators, following him to Munich and then Berlin, to found the main office of the Security Service. Oberg's promotion was rapid. SS Captain in March 1934, SS Major in July 1934, Oberg was promoted to SS Colonel in 1935 and acted as Heydrich's right-hand man in the SD, respected for his ‘decency’, his bureaucratic meticulousness and discipline.