Paul Blobel

Who was Paul Blobel?

Paul Blobel was a German Nazi war criminal, an SS-Standartenführer 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 practiced this profession from 1924 until 1931, when upon losing his job, he joined the Nazi Party, the SA and the SS.

In 1933 he joined the police force in Düsseldorf. In June 1934 he was recruited into the SD. In June 1941 he became the commanding officer of 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. In August 1941 Blobel decided to create a ghetto in Zhytomyr to enclose 3,000 Jews who would be murdered a month later. On 10 or 11 August 1941, Friedrich Jeckeln ordered him, on behalf of Adolf Hitler, to exterminate the whole Jewish population. On 22 August 1941 the Sonderkommando murdered Jewish women and children at Bila Tserkva with the consent of field marshal Walther von Reichenau, commander of the 6th Army.