Paul Blobel (August 13, 1894 – June 8, 1951) was an SS-Standartenführer (Regiment Leader/Colonel) and a member of the SD. Born in the city of Potsdam, he participated in the First World War, where by all accounts he served well and was decorated with the Iron Cross first class. After the war, Blobel studied architecture and practised this profession from 1924 until 1931, when upon losing his job, he joined the Nazi party and joined the SS.
During the German invasion of the Soviet Union, he commanded Sonderkommando 4a of Einsatzgruppe C that was active in Ukraine. Following Wehrmacht troops into Ukraine, the Einsatzgruppen would be responsible for "liquidating" political and racial undesirables. Blobel was primarily responsible for the Babi Yar massacre at Kiev.[1]
Owing to health reasons brought about mostly by his alcoholism, he was dismissed from his command on January 13, 1942.
In June 1942 he was put in charge of Aktion 1005, with the task of destroying the evidence of all Nazi atrocities in Eastern Europe. This entailed exhumation of mass graves and then incinerating the bodies. Blobel developed efficient disposal techniques such as alternating layers of bodies with firewood on a frame of iron rails.
Up to 59,018 executions are attributable to Blobel, though during testimony he alleged to have "only" killed 10,000-15,000. He was later sentenced to death by the U.S. Nuremberg Military Tribunal in the Einsatzgruppen Trial. He was hanged at Landsberg Prison on June 8, 1951, His last words before being hanged were "I die in the faith of my people. May the German people be aware of its enemies!"[2].
In fiction
- Paul Blobel is described in Jonathan Littell's docudrama Les Bienveillantes.
- Blobel was portrayed by T.P. McKenna in the miniseries docudrama Holocaust starring Meryl Streep.
- Blobel was portrayed by Kenneth Colley in the miniseries War and Remembrance
References
- ^ 1941: Mass Murder The Holocaust Chronicle. p. 270
- ^ http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,814963,00.html
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