Walter Blume (SS)

Walter Blume ( Dortmund , Germany , 23 of July of 1906 - 13 of November of 1974 ) was a lawyer and Standartenführer of the SS (Colonel), head of the Sonderkommando 7a, which was part of the command of extermination Einsatzgruppe B, which was highlighted by The massacres of thousands of Jews in Belarus and was responsible for the deportation of Greek Jews to the Auschwitz concentration camp .

Biography

Walter Blume was born in Dortmund , Germany in 1906, the son of a Protestant family, whose father was a schoolteacher. Blume studied law at the Universities of Bonn , Jena and finally in Münster , graduating formally in 1933. His first steps as a law practitioner was as unpaid counsel in a district court in Münster. The opportunities arose when he enrolled in the NSDAP and found paid employment as a police advisor in March 1933, exercising equal functions in the SD . He was finally registered in 1935 on the SS ranks, joining the staff of the Reich Security Office (RSHA).

It is at this point that Blume stands out for his initiatives in the persecution of Jews, calling the attention of his superiors, who in 1939 appoint him Director of Staff of the Gestapo .

In March 1941, Blume given the responsibility to collect, reorganize and select the components squads Einsatzgruppen , putting the command of Sonderkommando 7A (Commander Eugen Steimle ) attached to Einsatzgruppe B and assigned to the Central Army overlooking the Operation Barbarossa or Invasion of the USSR , which left on June 22 of that year.

Blume and his squadron assaulted the region of Belarus (Vitbesk, Klintsy, Nevel, Esmolensko) by murdering 1517 Jews, a figure quickly reached in September 1941 and of which Blume carried a careful personal record. ¹ Blume also prepared the extermination contingent to operate in Moscow when it was conquered, which did not happen. By 1942, Blume had reached the figure of 24,000 Jews murdered. ²

For his achievements, Blume was promoted to Standartenführer of the SS and assigned as commander in chief of the Security Police in Athens ( Greece ) in 1942.

Blume managed in that post - under the direction of Adolf Eichmann - the deportation of Greek Jews to the extermination camp of Auschwitz. Blume rewarded his subordinates with fine clothes stolen from the deportation victims. In 1944, Greece was considered a Jewish-free zone and Blume returned to the headquarters of the RSHA in Berlin.

In 1945, Blume was captured in Salzburg by the Americans and taken to the Landsberg prison , prosecuted for his crimes and sentenced to death in the first instance, but the sentence was commuted to 25 years’ imprisonment, leaving in 1955 with Only 10 years of fulfillment of the sentence.

Blume stated about the motivation of his zeal in the Holocaust : ³

“It was not a job for the German soldiers to eliminate the defenseless, but the Fiihrer had ordered these actions because he was convinced that they (the Jews) would turn against us, and that these executions were to protect our women and our children.”

Walter Blume, during the Trial to the Einsatzgruppen in 1947.

Blume passed away in 1974 to the 68 years of age.

References