Wassili Michailowitsch Blochin

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Blochin with the rank of major general (1945-1954)

Vasily Blokhin ( russ. Василий Михайлович Блохин * 7 . Jul / 19th January  1895 greg. In Gawrilowskoje (Vladimir) ; † 3. February 1955 in Moscow ) was a Soviet NKVD -Offizier.

He is considered one of the cruelest executors of the Stalinist purges and personally executed several thousand people with his service pistol.

Life

Blochin came from a farming family. He served in the Tsar's army and, after the October Revolution, from 1918 in the Red Army, initially in the ranks of non-commissioned officers . He came to the Cheka in 1921 . From 1924 until Stalin's death in March 1953, he was entrusted with executions, particularly of "public enemies". In addition, he took part in correspondence courses at the Institute for the Improvement of Qualifications of Engineering Workers.

An investigation by the human rights organization Memorial revealed that Blochin was personally involved in the shooting of top officials and intellectuals, who were sentenced to death by Stalin . In the early 1930s he commanded a firing squad that included a solid group of half a dozen secret police officers. During the Great Terror from 1936 to 1938, almost all members of the commando were sentenced to death . Blochin personally shot his former comrades. In 1937 he ordered the execution of the members of the top military command sentenced to death, including Mikhail Tukhachevsky and Iona Jakir . He personally shot his two disgraced former NKVD chiefs Genrich Jagoda and Nikolai Jeschow as well as numerous well-known intellectuals and artists, including the writer Isaak Babel , the journalist Mikhail Kolzow and the director Vsevolod Meyerhold .

Yezhov's successor at the head of the NKVD, the Georgian Lavrenti Beria , put Blochin on the execution lists to be signed by Stalin, according to the memorial report. But Stalin deleted his name. Blokhin, the former, according to intelligence officers in his executions always leather butcher aprons contributed to conserve his uniform, in spring 1940 with a German Walther in the basement of the NKVD headquarters from Kalinin shot thousands of prisoners of war, Polish officers and intellectuals in person, previously Ostashkov special camp were interned. He came up with a rate of 200 to 350 victims per night. In 1945 he was promoted to major general in the leadership of the secret police.

A turning point in his biography was the death of Stalin in March 1953. On June 26, 1953 Beria was arrested and shot on December 23, 1953. Nikita Khrushchev prevailed in the power struggle to succeed Stalin. Part of the previous secret service leadership around Beria was also shot. Blochin was retired, officially "for health reasons". In the last years of his life he suffered from alcoholism and mental health problems. In 1954 he was stripped of his general rank "because he discredited himself in his work in the organs" ( как дискредитировавший себя за время работы в органах ).

He died a few months later, and his personnel files state that the cause of death was a heart attack . According to the former KGB General Dmitry Tokarev , who in 1940 for organizing the execution of Poles in Katyn had been responsible, Blokhin has suicide committed. He was buried with military honors in the cemetery of the Donskoy Monastery , where many of his victims were buried in mass graves.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The Man in the Leather Apron (Russian) Novaya Gazeta , August 2, 2010.
  2. ↑ The Man in the Leather Apron (Russian) Novaya Gazeta , August 2, 2010.
  3. ↑ Jewrejskij Obosrewatel 3.2004
  4. ↑ Katyn 1940-2000. Documenty. Red. NI Lebedewa. Moscow 2001, p. 35.
  5. ↑ The Man in the Leather Apron (Russian) Novaya Gazeta , August 2, 2010.
  6. ↑ Katyn 1940-2000. Documenty. Red. NI Lebedewa. Moscow 2001, p. 36.
  7. ↑ Vitali Šentalinskij : Donos na Sokrata. Documental'nye povesti. Moscow 2011, p. 91.
  8. ↑ NW Petrov , KW Skorkin: Кто руководил НКВД. 1934–1941 (Russian; German translation of the title: Who was in charge of the NKVD 1934–1941 )
  9. ↑ Katyń. Documentary zbrodni. Tom 2. Zagłada marzec - czerwiec 1940. Red. W. Materski et al. Warsaw 1998. p. 465.
  10. ↑ Thomas Urban : Katyn 1940. History of a crime. Munich 2015, p. 184.
personal data
SURNAME Blochin, Wassili Michailowitsch
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Блохин, Василий Михайлович (Russian spelling)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Soviet NKVD officer
DATE OF BIRTH January 19, 1895
PLACE OF BIRTH Gavrilovskoye (Vladimir)
DATE OF DEATH 3rd February 1955
Place of death Moscow