Paul Wilhelm Hermann Blobel (13 August 1894 – 7 June 1951) was a German Sicherheitsdienst (SD) commander and convicted war criminal who played a leading role in the Holocaust. He organised the Babi Yar massacre, the largest massacre of the Second World War at Babi Yar ravine in September 1941, pioneered the use of the gas van, and, following re-assignment, developed the gas chambers for the extermination camps. From late 1942 onwards, he led Sonderaktion 1005, wherein millions of bodies were exhumed at sites across Eastern Europe in an effort to erase all evidence of the Holocaust and specifically of Operation Reinhard. After the war, Blobel was tried at the Einsatzgruppen trial and sentenced to death. He was executed in 1951.

Early life

Blobel was born in Potsdam into a Protestant family of small trade artisans, who moved to Remscheid in 1899. He graduated schooling there without Abitur and between 1908 and 1911, Blobel completed training as a carpenter and bricklayer. In 1913, he began attending Barmen's Kunstgewerbeschule (a precursor to the University of Wuppertal), studying architecture. having received an Iron Cross first class.

After the war, Blobel finished his studies and around 1920, he gained a position as construction manager in the Solingen office of Franz Perlewitz, with a focus on industrial and residential buildings. Blobel married in 1921 and in late 1922, he began studying at Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. Upon his graduation in 1925, Blobel became a freelance architect, building a house for his family in Solingen's Schaberg district the following year. and become a member of the Schutzstaffel (SS) by 1 December. Additionally, he was already known to have ties with the Sicherheitsdienst (SD), the Nazi Party's intelligence service, shortly after entering the SS, while the organisation was still in its early stages, contributing to his rapid promotions within the SD.

thumb|upright=.8|Blobel in [[Schutzstaffel|SS uniform]]

On 10 or 11 August 1941, Friedrich Jeckeln ordered him, on behalf of Adolf Hitler, to exterminate the entire Jewish population. On 22 August 1941, the SS-Sonderkommando murdered Jewish women and children at Bila Tserkva with the consent of Field Marshal Walther von Reichenau, commander of the 6th Army. SS-Obersturmführer August Häfner testified at his own trial in the 1960s:

Blobel, in conjunction with Reichenau's and Friedrich Jeckeln's units, organised the Babi Yar massacre in late September 1941 in Kyiv, where 33,771 Jews were murdered.

thumb|Blobel just before his execution

In the media

  • Blobel was portrayed by actor T. P. McKenna in the 1978 miniseries Holocaust.
  • Blobel is an historical character in Herman Wouk's book War and Remembrance. He was portrayed by actor Kenneth Colley in the television adaptation of the book.
  • Blobel appears as a historical character in the Philip Kerr novel A Man Without Breath

References

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