. NMT04-T0479
Volume IV · Page 479
| But, if it were true that the defendants
regarded the Jews as equals in Germany, why did they consider them subhuman in
Russia? If they did not recognize them as a potential danger in Germany, why
should they regard them as a threat in the Crimea 2,000 miles away? It is not
too much to say that most of the Jews did not know of Hitler and his doctrines
until the Einsatzgruppen arrived to kill them. Although forming no part of the charges in the indictment, the systematic attempts to destroy the graves of the slain as described in official German documents are interesting in that they shed some light on the mental attitude of the executioners. Did they regard the executions as culpable acts, ocular evidence which should be destroyed? The defendant Blobel in his affidavit, signed 18 June 1947, stated that in June 1942, he was entrusted by Gruppenfuehrer Mueller with the task of removing the traces of the executions carried out by Einsatzgruppen in the East. He leaves nothing to the imagination. |
"I myself witnessed the burning of corpses in a mass grave near Kiev, during my visit in August. This grave was about 55 m [meters] long, 3 m wide, and 21/2 deep. When the cover had been lifted, the bodies were covered with fuel and set on fire. It took about two days for the grave to burn down. I myself saw that the grave became red-hot right down to the ground. Afterwards the grave was filled in, and thus all traces were as good as eliminated. |
| So intent was Blobel, evidently in obedience to orders, to wipe out the incriminating evidence of the killings, that he even tried to destroy the corpses by means of dynamite. Rudolf Hoess, Commandant of the Auschwitz concentration camp, who supervised these experimentations, stated that the dynamiting method was not successful. |
| "Blobel constructed several experimental ovens and used wood and gasoline as fuel. He tried to destroy the corpses by means of dynamiting them, too; this method was rather unsuccessful." |
| Hence other means were used. |
"The ashes, ground to dust in a bone mill, were thrown in the vast forests around. Staf. Blobel had the order to locate all mass graves in the entire Eastern Territory and to eliminate them * * *. The work itself was carried out by Jewish work units, which, upon finishing their particular task, were shot. |
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