Paul Blobel was a member of the SD and an SS-Standartenfuehrer under the Nazi rule of Germany. He was born in Potsdam and served in World War I as a German soldier. After the war, he became an architect. This lasted through 1931 when Blobel lost his job. At that point, he joined the Nazi Party and then the SS, becoming one of the men responsible for covering up the mass murders that were carried out by other Nazi leaders and SS men. He commanded many units and was very responsible for a lot of the killing that took place during the Holocaust.
Paul Blobel was a commander of a mobile killing unit in the Ukraine, where racial and political prisoners were simply killed. He was also the primary one responsible for the Babi Yar massacre in Kiev. He was dismissed from this post in 1942 due to health problems caused by alcoholism, and then put in charge of other efforts.
Perhaps the most famous thing Paul Blobel did was to take control of an operation called
Aktion 1005, which was designed to obliterate all traces of genocide in the Soviet Union so that no one could connect the Nazis back to the problem. He created a plan for removing bodies from mass graves and cremating them. It took some practice, but eventually Blobel developed a method that was highly effective for burning the bodies completely. This involved alternating layers of body and firewood, or using rails as grills to burn the bodies.
There are almost 60,000 deaths that are attributed to Paul Blobel. He claimed to have only been responsible for 10,000-15,000 deaths during his trial, but was convicted of the crimes anyway. He was a part of the Einsatzgruppen Trial at the Nuremberg U.S. military tribunal. He was sentenced to be executed for his involvement in the Holocaust, and was hanged in 1951 at Landsberg Prison.
Paul Blobel was a mastermind and a dedicated Nazi follower. He believed everything Hitler preached and followed orders well. As he worked to cover up the events of the Holocaust by burning bodies, he became an accomplice to conspiracy and other crimes, as well. Paul Blobel was tried for various crimes, including war crimes, crimes against humanity, and outright murder. He refused to accept the severity of his involvement in the slaughter of
Holocaust victims, but was still held accountable and punished for his crimes, which is a fate some Nazi leaders never saw.