Karl-Otto Saur (16 February 1902 – 28 July 1966) was a high ranking official in theReich Ministry of Armaments and War Production inNazi Germany and was named asReichsminister of Munitions inAdolf Hitler’s will.

Saur was an engineer by profession. After graduation, he joinedThyssen AG, where he became the director of theAugust Thyssen-Hütte. He was a member of theNazi Party from 1931. He joined the National Socialist Guild of German Engineers and theOrganisation Todt where he rose to be the right-hand man toFritz Todt. When Todt became the first Minister of Armaments and Munitions in March 1940, Saur joined him in the new ministry.

Following Todt's death in a 1942 plane crash, Saur became the Head of the Technical Department and reported directly to the new armaments ministerAlbert Speer.^[1] From 1 March 1944, he was Chief of Staff of the newly establishedJägerstab (Fighter Staff), despite having no knowledge or experience with aircraft design or production.^[2] This was a joint task force of the Armaments Ministry and theReich Ministry of Aviation, and Saur managed its day-to-day operations. It was tasked with increasing fighter aircraft production, reconstructing damaged industrial facilities, and moving air armament works to safer, underground facilities.^[3] On 1 August 1944, Saur was named Deputy Chief and Chief of Staff of the newRüstungsstab (Armament Staff) into which theJägerstab was merged and which oversaw production for all armaments industries.^[4] In all these positions, Saur was seen as particularly ruthless in the enforcement of military targets, and was involved in all aspects of increasing production, including orders that regulated the flow of slave labour.

In his political testament of 29 April 1945,Adolf Hitler named Saur as the newReichsminister of Munitions in place of Speer.^[5] However, the newReich President,Karl Dönitz, ignored this directive and kept Speer on asReichsminister of Industry and Production in theFlensburg government. From May 1945 Saur was in American custody. In 1948 he became a witness for the prosecution at theKrupp trial in Nuremberg - the Americans offered him immunity from prosecution for war crimes if he turned in state evidence, as they wanted a trial to demonstrate the collective guilt of German industry. For this he was viewed as a traitor by industry and was socially isolated. Duringdenazification he was classified as a "fellow traveler" and was released shortly afterward.

Saur founded an engineering consultancy in 1949, and also started a small publishing house. The resulting companySaur Verlag only became economically successful from the beginning of the 1960s under his son Klaus Gerhard Saur.

• Faber, Harold (1977).Luftwaffe: A History. New York: Times Books.ISBN 0-8129-0725-6.
• Speer, Albert (1970).Inside the Third Reich. New York: Avon Books.ISBN 978-0380000715.
• Uziel, Daniel (2011).Arming the Luftwaffe: The German Aviation Industry in World War II. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Co.ISBN 978-0-7864-6521-7.

• 1902 births
• 1966 deaths
• Politicians from Düsseldorf
• People from the Rhine Province
• Engineers from North Rhine-Westphalia
• Nazi Party politicians
• Recipients of the Knights Cross of the War Merit Cross

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