Josef Blösche
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Josef Blösche (12 February 1912 – 29 July 1969) was a member of the Nazi Party who served in the SS and SD during World War II. Blösche shot and killed many Jews, and helped send many more Jews to their deaths in extermination camps. He also participated in several massacres. Blösche became known to the world because he was photographed five times with SS forces that suppressed the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, as published in the '' Stroop Report''. The most famous photograph portrays a boy surrendering in the foreground, and Blösche as the SS man who is facing the boy with a sub-machine gun in hand. The Report was used in prosecuting former Nazis for war crimes. Blösche initially avoided detection after the war due to an accident after the war, which permanently scarred his face. However, Blösche's crimes eventually came to light. He was arrested in East Germany in 1967. Blösche was convicted of numerous atrocities and sentenced to death; he was executed in Leipzig on 29 July 1969.


Career

Blösche was born in Friedland in Böhmen, Austrian Empire (today
Frýdlant Frýdlant (; also known as Frýdlant v Čechách, german: Friedland in Böhmen) is a town in Liberec District in the Liberec Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 7,400 inhabitants. The town centre is well preserved and is protected by law a ...
, Czech Republic). This was in the northern part of
Bohemia Bohemia ( ; cs, Čechy ; ; hsb, Čěska; szl, Czechy) is the westernmost and largest historical region of the Czech Republic. Bohemia can also refer to a wider area consisting of the historical Lands of the Bohemian Crown ruled by the Bohem ...
very near the borders of Germany and Poland. His parents were ethnic Germans: his father, Gustav Blösche, owned a farm and a ''
gasthaus A Gasthaus (also called ''Gasthof'', ''Landhaus'', or ''Pension'') is a German-style inn or tavern with a bar, a restaurant, banquet facilities and hotel rooms for rent. Gasthäuser are typically found in smaller towns and are often family-owned. ...
'' (country inn). Josef began to work on the farm and at the inn while going to school, but his father pulled him out of school at the age of 14 to work full time. Blösche participated in right-wing youth organizations promoting Nazi causes, and he joined the Sudeten German Party, a pro-Nazi group advocating German expansion. In 1938, he joined the Nazi Party and the SS after Germany annexed the
Sudetenland The Sudetenland ( , ; Czech and sk, Sudety) is the historical German name for the northern, southern, and western areas of former Czechoslovakia which were inhabited primarily by Sudeten Germans. These German speakers had predominated in the ...
. Blösche, who had previously volunteered for local SS, was drafted by the Waffen-SS on 4 December 1939 and reported to training the following day at Pretzsch Castle. He completed his training on 14 March 1940 and was assigned to Warsaw. He was shortly assigned to patrolling of the Bug River. After serving in Warsaw with the SS, Blösche joined the '' Sicherheitsdienst'' (SD; Security Service), a division of the SS. In 1941, he was briefly transferred to the Eastern Front, where he served with Einsatzkommando 8, a subunit of the death squad
Einsatzgruppe B (, ; also ' task forces') were (SS) paramilitary death squads of Nazi Germany that were responsible for mass murder, primarily by shooting, during World War II (1939–1945) in German-occupied Europe. The had an integral role in the im ...
. The unit was responsible for mass shootings in Belarus. Blösche participated in executions in occupied Belarus, before being transferred back to Warsaw. He served in the SD's Warsaw Ghetto outpost in mid-1942, when the mass deportation of Jews to the Treblinka extermination camp started. Blösche hunted down many Jews who were hiding from deportation. In January 1943, during another wave of deportations to the death camps, he took part in another search, which also involved frequent murders or executions. He participated in the shooting of about 1,000 Jews in April 1943. Blösche later admitted that he personally shot approximately 75 Jews that day. The Jews gave Blösche the nickname " Frankenstein", after the Creature from Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein, for his brutality, including the raping and killing of women in the ghetto. Together with other SS members, he would go on expeditions in the ghetto and shoot random Jews to terrorize the residents, sometimes for merely looking at him. Blösche and one of his acquaintances,
Heinrich Klaustermeyer Karl Heinrich Klaustermeyer (22 February 1914 – 21 April 1976) was a member of the Nazi Party who served in the Gestapo, NSKK, and SA. During World War II, he was stationed in the Warsaw Ghetto, where he personally murdered multiple Jewish c ...
, would sometimes ride a bicycle into the ghetto and shoot any Jews they encountered. According to a Warsaw Ghetto survivor, Blösche "was the worst of all because he killed people for no reason." Blösche participated in the suppression of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, and received the German
War Merit Cross The War Merit Cross (german: Kriegsverdienstkreuz) was a state decoration of Nazi Germany during World War II. By the end of the conflict it was issued in four degrees and had an equivalent civil award. A " de-Nazified" version of the War Merit ...
for his actions during the uprising. He later took part in the suppression of the Warsaw Uprising. In May 1945, he surrendered to the Red Army and became a prisoner of war of the Soviet Union. Blösche was sent to a camp administered by GUPVI (Main Administration for Affairs of Prisoners of War and Internees). He was forced to perform hard labour, with officials having him work in quarries and build roads. In early 1946, Blösche was repatriated to the Ostrava Region in Czechoslovakia, still as an internee. While working at a coal mine in August 1946, Blösche was struck by a descending hoist and suffered a fractured skull and serious facial injuries. He was hospitalised in Ostrava. In the summer 1947, Blösche's labour camp was dissolved and he was set free. His facial scars protected him from discovery as one of the SS troops that were pictured in the official photos taken by Germans of the Warsaw ghetto. He moved to
Urbach Urbach may refer to: Places *Urbach, Baden-Württemberg, Germany *Urbach, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany *Urbach, Thuringia, German *Urbach, village in Moselle, France, which is the burial site of J. F. Oberlin *Urbach, a valley in Oberhasli, Switze ...
in Thuringia, East Germany, to begin living a normal life. There, he met a German woman named Hanna Schönstedt, a mother and war widow, and they had two children together before she agreed to marry him. Schönstedt would later say that Blösche's was a very loving husband and father who constantly worried about every ailment of their children. He became a master tradesman at a
potash works A potash works (german: Aschenhaus, ''Aschenhütte'' or ''Potaschhütte'') was a subsidiary operation of a glassworks in the Early Modern Period. The latter needed potash, as well as quartz and lime as raw materials for the manufacture of glass. Po ...
in
Menteroda Menteroda is a village and a former municipality in the Unstrut-Hainich-Kreis district of Thuringia, Germany. On 1 January 2023 it became part of the municipality Unstruttal. History Within the German Empire (1870-1918), Menteroda was part of t ...
.


Trial and conviction

In 1961, Klaustermeyer, who was now on trial in West Germany, linked Blösche to the atrocities he had committed in Warsaw. He was identified in 1962. In 1965, shortly after Klaustermeyer's conviction, West Germany requested Blösche's extradition so he could serve as a witness. Blösche was eventually found in Urbach, where he was arrested by the
Stasi The Ministry for State Security, commonly known as the (),An abbreviation of . was the Intelligence agency, state security service of the East Germany from 1950 to 1990. The Stasi's function was similar to the KGB, serving as a means of maint ...
on 11 January 1967. He was detained in Hohenschönhausen Prison in East Berlin. However, the extradition request was denied and Blösche was instead put on trial in East Germany in
Erfurt Erfurt () is the capital and largest city in the Central German state of Thuringia. It is located in the wide valley of the Gera river (progression: ), in the southern part of the Thuringian Basin, north of the Thuringian Forest. It sits in ...
in April 1969, and convicted of war crimes. Witnesses at the trial described him as a callous sadist. Blösche did not deny the accusations and openly admitted his guilt. He said he did not remember everything, but that the general accusations were true. During the trial, the Judge asked Blösche about the events depicted in the infamous photograph of the Warsaw Ghetto boy:
Judge: "You were with a submachine gun...against a small boy that you extracted from a building with his hands raised. How did those inhabitants react in those moments?" Blösche: "They were in tremendous dread." Judge: "This reflects well in that little boy. What did you think?" Blösche: "We witnessed scenes like these daily. We could not even think."
Blösche was sentenced to death and executed in Leipzig on 29 July 1969 by a single shot to the back of his neck.


Gallery: Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

File:Stroop Report - Warsaw Ghetto Uprising - NARA05.jpg, File:Stroop Report - Warsaw Ghetto Uprising 06b.jpg, File:Stroop Report - Warsaw Ghetto Uprising 04.jpg, File:Stroop Report - Warsaw Ghetto Uprising 03.jpg,


Citations


References

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Further reading


German TV Documentary (2003)
and accompanying book "Der SS-Mann Josef Blösche - Leben und Sterben eines Mörders" (The SS figure Josef Blösche - A Murderer's Life and Death) by Heribert Schwan. * Richard Raskin. ''A Child at Gunpoint. A Case Study in the Life of a Photo''. Aarhus University Press, 2004. {{DEFAULTSORT:Blosche, Josef 1912 births 1969 deaths Executed Austrian Nazis Austrian people convicted of crimes against humanity Nazis executed by East Germany by firearm Holocaust perpetrators in Belarus Holocaust perpetrators in Poland Warsaw Ghetto Einsatzgruppen personnel Executed German people People executed for crimes against humanity People from Frýdlant Sudeten German people Stroop Report Executed mass murderers