Paul Blobel, SS-Standartenführer
Paul Bobel (1948)
Wilhelm Hermann Paul Blobel (*13 August 1894 in Potsdam, † 7 June 1951 in Landsberg) was a member of the Schutzstaffel (SS) and was responsible for the murder of over 60,000 Jewish people on the territory of the former Ukrainian Soviet Republic during the German occupation. Under his leadership, the "Aktion 1005" was initiated from March 1942, in which all traces of Nazi crimes against humanity were to be eliminated.
Blobel grew up in Remscheid and completed an apprenticeship as a bricklayer and carpenter, after which he studied architecture from 1912 to 1913. Blobel worked as a carpenter until the outbreak of the First World War. After his demobilisation in 1918, Blobel left military service with the rank of vice sergeant. After a short period of unemployment, Blobel resumed his education as an architect and completed it in 1920. In 1924, Blobel settled in Solingen as an independent architect.1
Excerpt from Paul Blobel's personnel report
As a result of the global economic crisis, Blobel became unemployed again. From December 1931 he was an early member of the NSDAP and joined the SS in January 1932. From 1933 to 1935 he worked as an office clerk for the Solingen municipal administration and in 1934 he joined the Sicherheitsdienst of the Reichsführer SS (SD) in the Düsseldorf area as an officer.2 From June 1941 to January 1942, Blobel was the leader of Sonderkommando 4a of Einsatzgruppe C, which was deployed in the rear of the 6th Army of Heeresgruppe Mitte for systematic mass executions. In this function, Blobel was responsible for the murder of approximately 60,000 mainly Jewish people:3
- June to 29 June 1941, Sokal and Lutsk (617 Jewish people)
- June to 29 July 1941, Zhitomir (2,531 Jewish people)
- July/August 1941, Fastov (unknown number of victims)
- September/October 1941, Vіrna and Dederov (32 "gypsies")
- 29 and 30 September 1941, Babyn Yar near Kyiv together with the staff of Einsatzgruppe C and police units (33,771 Jewish people)
- October 1941, Yagotin (125 Jewish people)
- June to 12 October 1941 (over 51,000 people, cumulative number of victims)
- October 1941, Lubny (1,800 Jewish people)
- November 1941 in Poltava (1,538 Jewish people)4
As a result of "indiscipline", Paul Blobel was punitively transferred to Berlin in January 1942, where he was initially at the disposal of Department 4 in the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA). In March 1942, Blobel was appointed leader of "Sonderkommando 1005".5 From summer 1943 Arthur Harder became his adjutant.
Statement by Rudolf Höss about Paul Blobel's cremation attempts in the Chelmno extermination camp in September 1942
It was Blobel's task to develop a method to eliminate the traces of the mass murders east of the German Reich borders of 1933. Blobel gained experience in the exhumation of mass graves in the summer of 1942 in the Chelmno extermination camp, which was located in Poland: Here he worked to develop an "efficient" cremation strategy for the exhumed corpses. The technology developed by Blobel was also to be used at other extermination sites, which is why Rudolf Höss, commandant of the Auschwitz concentration camp, attended such a burning operation on 16 September 1942.6 During the course of the Second World War, Blobel had mobile "1005 units" deployed to remove mass graves; including the "Sonderkommando 1005-Mitte" in the general district of Minsk, where Blobel arrived in October 1943.7
Paul Blobel carried out his duties as head of "Sonderkommando 1005" until the summer of 1944. In December 1944 he fell ill and was in a hospital in Maribor from February to April 1945. At the beginning of May 1945, Paul Blobel was arrested near Rastadt.8
Responsible for content: Frank Wobig
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1 Cf. Trials of War Criminals, pp. 211-213.
2 Cf. ibid.
3 Cf. ibid. and NS-Archiv. Dokumente zum Nationalsozialismus: Paul Blobel: Eidesstattliche Erklärung (1). URL: https://www.ns-archiv.de/einsatzgruppen/blobel/eidesstattliche-erklaerung-1.php. [Accessed on: 2021-07-02].
4 Cf. Trials of War Criminals, p. 18f.
5 Cf. ibid., p. 18f and Klee, Paul Blobel, in: Das Personen Lexikon zum Dritten Reich. Wer war was vor und nach 1945, p.53.
6 Cf. Krakowski, Das Todeslager Chelmno/Kulmhof. Der Beginn der „Endlösung“, p. 119f., 123 and 151.
7 Cf. Angrick, „Aktion 1005“ - Spurenbeseitigung von NS-Massenverbrechen 1942-1945. Eine „geheime Reichssache“ im Spannungsfeld von Kriegswende und Propaganda, p. 558fff.; 566.
8 See Trials of War Criminals, p. 212.