The Nazi Murder Machine: 13 Portraits in Evil by Ben Stevens Read Free Book Online Page A

shot so that they fell down into the ravine. Pronicheva threw herself down, and there hid among the corpses even as the Germans used flashlights and guns to ‘finish off’ any wounded. Finally, when the Germans began throwing earth over the bodies, Pronicheva somehow managed to crawl out of the ravine undetected and escape.

    In November that same year, Blobel took possession of a ‘gas van’ or ‘gas wagon’. As such names suggest, these were basically ‘mobile gas chambers’, with an airtight compartment into which exhaust fumes were transmitted while the vehicle’s engine was running. Death thus occurred by carbon-monoxide poisoning.

    A mobile ‘gas van’

    Originally invented by the Soviet secret police during the ‘Great Purge’ of the late 1930s, it was ‘adopted’ by the Nazis once Heinrich Himmler had discovered how the Einsatzgruppen (‘task forces’) – paramilitary death-squads such as Blobel’s Sonderkommando 4a – were continually losing members due to the mental trauma caused by shooting innocent men, women and children. Seemingly hardened Nazi soldiers would experience nightmares from which they awoke screaming; there was often no other choice but to have them committed to a sanatorium.

    Testified one anonymous member of the Einsatzgruppen :

    ‘ …The interior of the vans were covered with sheet metal and fitted with a wooden grid. The fumes from the exhaust were piped into the interior of the vans. The Jews hammered on the sides, screaming – ‘Please let us out!’... ’

    Testified Blobel’s driver, following the end of the war:

    ‘… The back doors of the van were opened, and the bodies unloaded by those Jews who were still alive. These bodies were covered with vomit and excrement. It was an appalling sight. Blobel supervised all of this, and then we drove away. Always he drank alcohol afterwards... ’

    Alcohol was often used by members of the Einsatzgruppen death-squads as a way of ‘blocking out’ the reality of the unspeakable acts they were committing.

    Entirely sympathetic with the ‘plight’ of such men, Blobel remarked:

    ‘… From a purely psychological point of view, my men had a terrible time... The nervous exhaustion of the soldiers carrying out the executions was immense… they suffered far more than those who were being executed… ’

    Blobel was himself relieved of command of his unit in January 1942, due to his chronic alcoholism. His ‘skills’, however, soon proved too valuable to waste.

    Blobel was subsequently tasked with organizing the exhumation of all mass graves in Eastern Europe (so to ‘cover-up’ Nazi atrocities, an operation given the codename ‘Aktion 1005’). Blobel perfected an extremely efficient way of incinerating the corpses – alternating layers of bodies with firewood on a frame of iron rails.

    Described one of Blobel’s associates:

    ‘… There were strange movements of the earth itself. Clumps of earth suddenly blew up into the air… there was smoke; it was almost like some miniature volcano... Blobel laughed, and pointing at all of this said ‘There lie my Jews!... ’

    Overall, Blobel is believed to have been responsible for some 60,000 killings. Sentenced to hang by a US Military Tribunal at the Nuremberg Einsatzgruppen trials, he met his death June 7, 1951. Entirely unrepentant, Blobel’s last words are reported to have been:

    ‘… May the German people be aware of its enemies …’

Brandt, Rudolf

    Rudolf Brandt, who had what might be termed an important ‘clerical role’ in the Nazi’s so-called ‘Final Solution’ – the proposed, total extermination of the Jewry.

    At the start of 1932, the twenty-two-year-old Rudolf Brandt became the 1,331,536 th member of the Nazi Party. In October the following year, he joined the SS, ultimately rising to the rank of Standartenfuhrer (Colonel).

    Brandt’s exceptional ability at shorthand and transcribing (he averaged around 360 syllables a minute) soon