Execution of Paul Blobel
- Brutal Nazi Einsatzgruppen Commander & Organizer of Babi Yar Massacre

6 November 2022

Category: High Ranking Nazi Representatives

Paul Blobel was born on the 13th of August 1894 in Potsdam then part of the German Empire. In 1924 he set up his own business as an architect. Due to deteriorating economic conditions in Germany, Blobel had no more orders and was registered as unemployed for the next 4 years. The Great Depression also played a role in the emergence of Adolf Hitler, the leader of the Nazi Party, which Blobel joined on the 1st of December 1931. In June 1935 he joined the SS Security Service SD which was the intelligence agency of the Nazi Party and was considered a sister organization with the Gestapo which was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Over the course of the Nazi era, the SD took on an increasingly prominent role in Nazi anti-Jewish policies.

Kristallnacht

On the 9th – 10th of November 1938, the Nazi leaders unleashed a series of coordinated violent riots against the Jews throughout Nazi Germany and recently incorporated territories. The Nazi SA and German civilians not only ransacked Jewish homes, businesses, synagogues, hospitals, and schools but the German SS and police sent almost 30,000 Jewish males to concentration camps, primarily Dachau. This event came to be called Kristallnacht or The Night of Broken Glass because of the shattered glass that littered the streets after the vandalism and destruction of Jewish-owned businesses, synagogues, and homes. During the pogroms, Blobel coordinated the securing of materials from destroyed synagogues in Solingen, Wuppertal and Remscheid.

The Second World War

The Second World War began on the 1st of September, 1939 when Nazi Germany invaded Poland. On Sunday, the 22nd of June 1941 started Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union. The 3,000 personnel of four Einsatzgruppen were sent to the Eastern Front and Blobel became the commanding officer of the Sonderkommando 4A which was assigned to the Einsatzgruppe C which was under the control of Otto Rasch. On the 10th or 11th of August 1941, Friedrich Jeckeln the Higher SS and Police Leader of Southern Russia, ordered Blobel, on behalf of Adolf Hitler, to exterminate the entire Jewish population of Bila Tserkva, Soviet Ukraine.

On the 19th of September 1941, German forces entered the city of Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine. Along with a large part of German-occupied Ukraine, the city was incorporated into the Reichskommissariat Ukraine which had been established on the 1st of September with Erich Koch as administrator. On the 29th and 30th of September 1941, SS and German police units and their auxiliaries, under the guidance of the members of Einsatzgruppe C, ordered the Jews to assemble the next morning for resettlement. According to reports sent to the Einsatzgruppen headquarters in Berlin, 33,771 Jews were massacred during this two-day period and it was one of the largest mass killings at a single location during World War II.

At least 29 survivors are known. One of them was Dina Pronicheva. In June 1942 Blobel was assigned with a secret task to excavate and destroy evidence of Nazi mass murder throughout the German-occupied east. The order was only given verbally as any written correspondence had been prohibited.

Special Action 1005

This top-secret Nazi operation was called “Special Action 1005” and Sonderkommandos made up of Jewish and Soviet prisoners of war were forced to unearth and burn the bodies of Jews and other victims who had been shot or murdered earlier in the war. The Sonderkommando prisoners were often put in chains to prevent them from escaping. Special Action 1005 officially began at the Sobibor killing center and continued until 1944. The project was carried out at other killing centers, including the other Operation Reinhard camps Belzec and Treblinka, as well as at Chelmno.

Auschwitz had onsite crematoria, so the services of Sonderkommando 1005 were not needed there. The operation also returned to the scenes of earlier Einsatzgruppen killings, including the scenes of major massacre sites, such as Babi Yar. After the end of the war, Paul Blobel was then finally to face justice and pay for his crimes. During the Einsatzgruppen trial which started on the 29th of September 1947, Blobel was one of the main defendants. On the 10th of April 1948 the tribunal found Paul Blobel guilty on all three charges and sentenced him to death by hanging.

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