Walter Blume (SS officer)

Walter Blume (23 July 1906 – 13 November 1974) was a mid-ranking SS commander and leader of ''Sonderkommando'' 7a, part of the extermination commando group Einsatzgruppe B. The unit perpetrated the killings of thousands of Jews in Belarus and Russia. Blume was also responsible for the deportation of over 46,000 Greek Jews to Auschwitz. Although imprisoned in 1945 and sentenced to death for war crimes in 1948, his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment in 1951 by the "Peck Panel" and he was released in 1955.

Early life

Blume was born into a Protestant family in Dortmund, Germany. His father was a schoolteacher and held a doctorate in law. Walter also studied law at the Universities of Bonn, Jena, and the University of Münster, passing the bar examination and receiving his doctorate in law from the University of Erlangen in April 1933. He was hired as a police inspector in his hometown of Dortmund on 1 March 1933, serving under Wilhelm Schepmann, and joined the SA and Nazi Party (member 3,282,505) on 1 May 1933. In 1934 he was transferred to the Prussian Secret State Police Office, where he also worked for the SD. He was registered on 11 April 1935 in the ranks of the SS (member 267,224), joining the staff of the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA).Ernst Klee: ''Das Personenlexikon zum Dritten Reich. Wer war was vor und nach 1945''. Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Zweite aktualisierte Auflage, Frankfurt am Main 2005, p. 55.

Gaining the attention of his superiors, in 1939 he was appointed the Director of Staff of the Gestapo. He served in the State Police Offices of Halle, Hanover and Berlin until 1941.

Gestapo career

In March 1941, Blume was called to Düben where he was given responsibility for collecting, reorganizing and selecting the components of the '' Einsatzgruppen'' squads. In May he assumed the leadership of ''Sonderkommando'' 7a attached to ''Einsatzgruppe'' B (under Arthur Nebe) assigned to the 9th Army, part of Operation Barbarossa which started on 22 June 1941.

Blume had been personally informed by Reinhard Heydrich that he and the 91 men under his command had a single task: the ''Judenvernichtungsbefehl'' (order to exterminate the Jews). Heydrich made it clear that this was on Hitler's orders. Mark Mazower. ''Inside Hitler's Greece: The Experience of Occupation, 1941-44'', pp. 231-232. Yale University Press, 1993.

Activities in Belarus and Russia

Blume and his squad ravaged the region of Belarus (Vitebsk), and parts of western Russia (Klintsy, Nevel, Smolensk) killing 1,517 Jews by September 1941 of which Blume personally took a careful record. On 26 July 1941, Blume participated in the killing of 27 Jews who, not having reported for work, were shot down in the streets. Blume himself shot an unspecified number of victims at point-blank range with his revolver. Blume also prepared the extermination contingent for operation in Moscow when it was conquered, which ultimately did not occur. Blume only stayed in command of ''Sonderkommando'' 7a until 17 August 1941 and was succeeded in this post by Eugen Steimle. It appears that he was recalled to Berlin due to his reluctance to shoot women and children, which led him to acquire a reputation among his fellow SS officers for being "weak and bureaucratic". He spent the next two years in charge of the Gestapo office in Düsseldorf.

Later during his affidavits Blume stated:

Although Blume insisted at the trial that the Führer's orders filled him with revulsion, he was reported to have announced to the firing squad after each shooting,

Activities in Greece

In late 1943 Blume was promoted to ''SS- Standartenführer'' and assigned as commander in charge of the '' Sicherheitspolizei'' (SiPo, Security Police) in Athens, together with ''Hauptsturmführer'' Anton Burger, during the Axis occupation of Greece.

Between October 1943 and September 1944 Blume managed, under the direction of Adolf Eichmann, the deportation of over 46,000 Greek Jews, the majority of them from Salonika, along with approximately 3,000 from Rhodes, Kos, Athens, Ioannina, and Corfu, to Auschwitz Concentration Camp. Blume rewarded his subordinates, including Anton Burger, with gold coins, jewelry and fine clothes stolen from the victims of deportation.

In mid-1944 Blume gained some notoriety among his Nazi colleagues for proposing the "Chaos Thesis", arguing that if the Germans were forced to leave occupied territories, they should blow up factories, docks and other installations; they should also arrest and execute the entire political leadership of Greece, leaving the country in a state of anarchy. Blume also proposed sending the entire able-bodied