Walter Blume

Walter Blume (23 July 1906 – 13 November 1974) was a mid-ranking SS commander and the leader of SS-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 helping organize 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.

Gaining the attention of his superiors, he served in the State Police Offices of Halle, Hanover and, in December 1939, he was appointed the Gestapo chief in Berlin.

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 pistol. Blume also prepared the extermination contingent for operation in Moscow when it was conquered, which ultimately did not occur.

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,

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". The indictment specified Blume's direct responsibility for the murder of 996 people between June and August 1941.

Concerning his motivation for helping to perpetrate the Holocaust, Blume said that he admired, adored, and worshipped Hitler because Hitler was successful not only in the domestic rehabilitation of Germany, as Blume interpreted it, but successful in defeating Poland, France, Belgium, Belarus, Bulgaria, the Netherlands, Norway, Yugoslavia, Greece, Luxembourg, Lithuania, Russia, and other countries. To Blume these successes were evidence of great virtue in Hitler. Blume believed that Adolf Hitler "had a great mission for the German people."

Dr. Günther Lummert, Blume's lawyer, collected affidavits on Blume's character describing Blume's honesty, good nature, kindness, tolerance, and sense of justness. The Tribunal expressed "regret that a person of such excellent moral qualities should have fallen under the influence of Adolf Hitler."

On 10 April 1948, Blume was sentenced to death by hanging, but his sentence was commuted to 25 years in a 1951 amnesty hearing, based on the "Peck Panel" recommendation. Blume was released from prison in 1955 after serving only ten years of his sentence.

Second trial After 1957 Blume worked as a businessman in the Ruhr Valley. He remarried in 1958 and had six children (including two by adoption).

In 1968, Blume was arrested and re-tried by a state court in Bremen, together with his subordinate Obersturmführer Friedrich Linnemann, for charges related to the deportation of Jews in Greece. In spite of considerable evidence against him, all charges were dropped on 29 January 1971. Blume was released from custody, and died in 1974 at the age of 68.

In 1997 a cache of luxury watches, rings, gold bars and gold teeth worth approximately $4 million, together with identity documents and Gestapo promotions belonging to Colonel Walter Blume were uncovered in Brazil in the possession of a family member, pawnbroker Albert Blume.

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