1941, Blobel received and activated the first gas vans at Poltava. Blobel was officially relieved of his command on 13 January 1942 for health reasons due to alcoholism. This was an elaborate cover, however. Whilst in the hospital, Blobel was visited by Reinhard Heydrich and tasked with a top secret Reich matter that was presumably suspended upon the fatal shooting of Heydrich in Prague by British-trained Czech partisans. During this time, according to Dieter Wisliceny, Blobel developed the concept of the gas chambers for the extermination camps in Poland. In June 1942 Blobel was contacted by Heinrich Müller, Chief of the Gestapo and secretly placed in charge of Sonderaktion 1005 with his official cover being SD Chief of the City of Nuremberg. This secret task consisted of the destruction of the evidence of all Nazi atrocities in Eastern Europe, beginning at Chelmno and continuing on to Sobibor Extermination Camp, Auschwitz, the camps in the Independent State of Croatia, the Baltic States, and eventually back to the site of the Babi Yar Massacre in Ukraine. This entailed exhumation of mass graves, then incinerating the bodies. Blobel developed efficient disposal techniques such as alternating layers of bodies with firewood on a frame of iron rails. In October 1944 he headed an anti-partisan group in Yugoslavia. Gitta Sereny related the conversation about Blobel she once had with one-time Chief of the Church Information Branch at the Reich Security Head Office, Albert Hartl. Trial and conviction Over 59,018 killings are attributable to Blobel, albeit he personally claimed to have killed 10,000–15,000 people. He was later sentenced to death by the U.S. Nuremberg Military Tribunal in the Einsatzgruppen trial. He was hanged at Landsberg Prison shortly after midnight on 7 June 1951. Blobel's last words were "Whatever I have done, I did as a soldier who obeyed orders. I have committed no crime. I will be vindicated by God and history. God have mercy on those who murder me." In the media Blobel was portrayed by actor T. P. McKenna in the 1978 miniseries Holocaust. Blobel is an historical character in Herman Wouk's book War and Remembrance''. He was portrayed by actor Kenneth Colley in the television adaptation of the book. References 1894 births 1951 deaths People from Potsdam Executed people from Brandenburg German Army personnel of World War I Recipients of the Iron Cross (1914), 1st class Sturmabteilung personnel SS-Standartenführer Einsatzgruppen personnel Babi Yar