After graduating from secondary school in Bamberg, von Oelhafen joined the Bavarian army in 1899 and was appointed to the rank of lieutenant in 1907. He served in field artillery regiments from 1913, taking part in the First World War in various theaters. After the war, he initially remained in the army but also played a leading role in the Free Corps in battles against communist groups in Bavaria and Thuringia. From 1920 to 1922 he was a member of the extreme right-wing ‘German Protection and Defiance Federation’. Von Oelhafen transferred from the army to the Bavarian State Police in 1920. From 1931 he was section commander of the Munich constabulary, from 1933 commander, and from 1934 to 1937 he also served as deputy president and for a time also as acting president of the Munich police. Having joined the Nazi Party, von Oelhafen held various commanding officer posts in the Order Police from 1937 onwards, first in Dresden, then in Graz, Aussig, Königsberg and Prague.
In September 1941 he became commander of the Order Police in the Reich Commissariat of Ukraine. Quickly promoted to lieutenant general of the police and SS Group Leader, von Oelhafen was a leading figure involved in the murder of Ukrainian Jews. In November 1941 he organized a large-scale shooting in Rivne, the capital of the Reich Commissariat of Ukraine, involving 17,000 victims. Von Oelhafen was responsible for the Order Police taking part in the complete extermination of the Jews in the Reich Commissariat of Ukraine, especially between May and October 1942. In September 1942 he also headed the ‘Anti-Gang Unit’ which coordinated the fight against partisans and the murder of Jews. He returned to Munich one month later, where he served as commander of the Order Police again until his retirement in March 1943. Although von Oelhafen was heard as a witness in Nuremberg after the war, he was not brought to trial.
