J. Otto Pohl

Pohl is American, and was born in 1970.^[1][2] Pohl received a BA in history from Grinnell College.^[2] He received a Masters degree in history from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, and went on to receive a PhD from the same institution.^[2][3]

From 2007 to 2010 he was an associate professor at the American University of Central Asia in Kyrgyzstan, teaching international and comparative politics. In 2011, Pohl became a visiting scholar at the University of Ghana in the history department, and was a lecturer at the same institution from 2012 to 2016. He was an assistant professor of social sciences at the American University of Iraq, Sulaimani from 2016 to 2019.^[4][5][6]

Pohl has written four books; his works are primarily focused on ethnic cleansing in the Soviet Union.^[7] His first book, The Stalinist Penal System: A Statistical History of Soviet Repression and Terror 1930-1953, was published in 1997 by McFarland.^[8][9][10] The book is based on quantitative data and statistics rather than testimonies.^[9] Michael Gelb called the book useful, particularly for making accessible much scholarship previously unavailable in English, but criticized its editing;^[10] Christopher Ward, writing in the Journal of European Studies, said it was "a statistical handbook rather than a history, and is best approached in that manner."^[8]

His second book, Ethnic Cleansing in the USSR, 1937-1949, was published by Greenwood Press in 1999.^[11][12][13] Pohl criticizes statements from other scholars, particularly Charles Maier and Deborah Lipstadt, both of whom argued that Soviet citizens were not victims of forced deportations based on their ethnicity. He argues that this is "willful ignorance" of the systematic deportations of many Soviet citizens of varying ethnicities, which he contends constituted ethnic cleansing. The book surveys the peoples who were forcefully deported by the Soviets.^[14][15] Scholar Brian Glyn Williams described the book as "groundbreaking" and said that Pohl "makes a strong case" for describing it as ethnic cleansing.^[15] John Klier said the book "achieves the valuable task of chronicling the fate of the deported peoples", but criticized it for painting the different deported peoples as overly similar.^[14]

In 2009, his Catherine's Grandchildren: A Short History of the Russian-Germans under Soviet Rule was published by the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia.^[16] The Years of Great Silence: The Deportation, Special Settlement, and Mobilization into the Labor Army of Ethnic Germans in the USSR, 1941–1955, was published in 2022 by Ibidem Press.^[7] A review of The Years of Great Silence in Slavic Review, describing Pohl as a "an established chronicler of repression and ethic cleansing in the Soviet Union", praised the book as a "detailed and highly informative account" with "extensive factual information", though criticized the tone as overly opinionated.^[7]

Pohl contributed a chapter to the 2008 edited volume Migration, Homeland, and Belonging in Eurasia, about Soviet deportations.^[17][18] He also contributed a chapter to the 2016 book Kwame Nkrumah, 1909-1972: A Controversial Visionary by Bea Lundt and Christopher Marx, about Ghanaian president Kwame Nkrumah. His chapter focuses on the coup against Nkrumah, and the CIA's role.^[4][19]