The Man Who Personally Executed Over 7000 People in 28 Days, One at a Time
Today I found out about Vasili Blokhin, the “Most Prolific Executioner” of all time, according to the Guinness World Records.
Born to a Russian peasant family in 1895, as a young man he quickly earned a reputation for “chernaya rabota”, or “black work”, while serving in the Tsarist army during World War I- gaining recognition from Stalin himself for his covert assassinations, torture, and executions. Blokhin quickly rose through the ranks of Russia’s secret police at the time—the NKVD—eventually becoming the head of the Kommandatura department.
The members of the department were approved by Stalin and took orders directly from him. Under the guise of other positions, Vasili Blokhin was officially a commandant of a prison- the department carried out black work missions specific to furthering Stalin’s cause. Blokhin oversaw many mass executions and executed several high-profile individuals himself, including Mikhail Tukachevsky, Marshal of the Soviet Union, and two of the former NKVD chiefs under whom he had previously served.
But Blokhin’s most infamous deed was performed at the bloody Katyn Massacre. In 1939, just over two weeks after Germany invaded Poland, Soviet forces entered the eastern side of Poland. Though they didn’t officially declare war, they captured over 20,000 Polish officers and detained them in Soviet prison camps. On March 5, 1940, Stalin himself ordered the executions of all Polish officers, who would then be dumped in mass graves.
Over a twenty-eight day period, Vasili Blokhin personally performed over 7000 of these Polish executions at Katyn. Usually, the executions would take place from dusk til dawn, with Blokhin preferring to work at night for these types of tasks. Blokhin would work nearly uninterrupted each night, reportedly killing a prisoner about every three minutes, averaging around 300 executions per night.
The executions would go like this: after signing identification papers, officers were led with their arms bound into a small room that was equipped with soundproofed walls, a drain, a hose, and a door or hatch- it was a room designed for executions. Forced to their knees, a member of the Kommandatura would deliver a single shot to the back of the prisoners’ heads, killing them instantly. Their bodies would be dragged through the second door or hatch in the ceiling, the room would be hosed down, and the next prisoner would be brought in.
Blokhin favoured the 7.65 mm Walther PPK pistol, a gun which was being used for all the mass executions. For Blokhin, it didn’t have as much of a kickback as other guns, which meant less pain in his wrist after performing hundreds of executions every day. The pistols also rarely misfired, which meant the victims could be killed with one shot nearly every time someone pulled the trigger. For the Soviet government, the pistols were favoured because they were the make carried by German officers. In the event that the mass graves were discovered, the bodies would contain bullets from a German-style pistol and the Soviets could deny responsibility for the deaths.
On April 27, 1940, Blokhin was rewarded with the Order of the Red Banner for carrying out this amazingly bloody organized mass killing. The Order was traditionally given to military personnel who displayed “exceptional courage, self-denial, and valour during combat”. He was given the order secretly in order to protect the secret nature of the killings.
In 1941, Stalin found himself in an alliance with the Polish government after the Germans invaded Russia. He released hundreds of thousands of Poles from prison camps, and was pressed on several occasions to account for the missing POWs. Stalin pled ignorance, but in 1943 the truth began to emerge with the discovery of the mass graves at Katyn. The Soviet government denied all responsibility and blamed the Germans. It wasn’t until 1990 and Mikhail Gorbachev’s institution of openness that the truth was revealed through a series of documents highlighting the country’s role in the massacre.
Blokhin didn’t live to see his deeds publically recognized. Following Stalin’s death in 1953, he was forced to retire. During the deStalinization campaign that followed, Blokhin was stripped of his rank and turned to alcoholism. A combination of drink and insanity reportedly led to his death in 1955, the cause of which is officially listed as suicide.
The legacy of his heinous acts lives on. Along with the 7000 prisoners of war Blokhin personally executed at Katyn, he is reportedly directly responsible for the deaths of many thousands of other people in prison camps during the Second World War, aptly earning him that title of “Most Prolific Executioner” in the Guinness Book of World Records.
If you liked this article, you might also like:
- The Man Who Nearly Single Handedly Captured 132 German Soldiers During WWI
- The Man Who Sniped Over 542 Soviet Soldiers During WWII
- A Japanese Soldier Who Continued Fighting WWII for 29 Years After It Ended, Because He Didn’t Know
- The Story Behind the Man Killed in the Famous “Saigon Execution” Photo
Bonus Facts:
- Blokhin actually received the Order of the Red Banner twice, along with several other awards including the Order of the Red Star, Order of the Patriotic War (first class), and the Order of Lenin.
- Joseph Stalin was also a recipient of the Order of the Red Banner.
- A memorial for the Katyn Massacre was built in 2000.
- In 2010, a plane carrying the President of Poland, Lech Kaezynski, along with a large portion of his cabinet, crashed on the outskirts of Smolensk, Russia, killing everyone on board. Smolensk is the location of the Katyn mass graves.
- Blokhin’s total of over 7000 executions is a drop in the bucket of deaths caused by the Stalin regime, estimated between 10 to 20 million!
- Meis, M. 2011, “A Monument to Forgetting”, The Virginia Quarterly Review, vol. 87, no. 4, pp. 238-VIII.
- Roberts, Geoffrey. “Katyn.” Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity. Ed. Dinah L. Shelton. Vol. 2. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2005. 606-608. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 7 Mar. 2013.
- John, P.F. 2010, “Katyn: Tragedy Upon Tragedy”, History Today, vol. 60, no. 6, pp. 31-34.
- Sedek, G. 1995, “Katyn massacre”, Nature, vol. 377, no. 6548, pp. 380-380.
- Soviet Awards
- Vasili Blokhin
| Share the Knowledge! |
          |
 |
If this is even approaching truth how did this person even stand up straight much less the other things HUMAN BEINGS do? How did this person eat or even look at himself? How in the hell do you even close your effing eyes? And how do you meet your maker if you even believe in anything that ressemble spirituality?
It’s historical fact so please don’t doubt it.
Read more about Katyn massacre and be aware of what soviets are capable to. Those pigs were lying all the time and were covering up this massacre until 90s when they admitted that they did it but ruled-out any responsibility by denying that it was genocide.
Russians are famous for mass murdering and for oppressing bordering neighbors. In the light of recent events in Ukraine this reaches new dimension.
Unfortunately, yes, even though I doubt the guy shot every single pistol round himself. He also had to sleep sometimes.
As far as being able to look himself in the mirror, history is full of despots, tyrants and lesser evil people that did just as heinous deeds without a moment of hesitation.
A very important aspect of being able to act this way is to dehumanize those you have to massacre. Look at the former Yugoslavia and their massacres, look at the Caliphate (ISIS or IS) today.
None of those people have any compunction in killing hundreds of people. In some cases, even fellow Muslims that happen to believe in a slightly different version of their own faith.
So the argument of “how they meet their makers” is not applicable. They would meet their maker with a smile and expecting a medal and a parade, because in their mind they helped their god dispatch a bunch of infidels and apostates.
There is no ‘maker’ to meet.
Oh, here we go, yet another person pushing a baseless assertion.
7000 thousand kills in one month. Im sure his parents must be proud if him. What an honor my son. Disgusting pig.
This article just made me very very sad. What a horrible, detestable man! What a wreched way to die. 🙁
@Hunglikejesus
Some people are able to compartmentalize things. It is sort of like when people “forget” things that happened to them or that they did in the past. You just shut out those memories and continue. Also constantly being busy or performing some kind of job, hobby or what not can keep some from “reminiscing” over anything else. Also not making connections with the victims can make it easier as also the fact that they were shot from behind so you don’t make eye contact. Additionally if the people were gagged so they couldn’t scream, it would further make the whole experience not so “jarring”. And although when he was forced to retire he turned to alcoholism, you may think that all those deaths caught up to him, but instead it may have been because that’s all he was good at, and some men when they cannot perform their duties, their lack of objective ruins them.
“Following Stalin’s death in 1953, he was forced to retire. During the deStalinization campaign that followed, Blokhin was stripped of his rank and turned to alcoholism. A combination of drink and insanity reportedly led to his death in 1955, the cause of which is officially listed as suicide.”
Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.
People think taking a life is very very hard to do, but as soon as they do this it gets easier and easier. After about 10-20 killings I would imagine it becomes routine, just like killing chicken or cattle or mosquitoes for you and I. This happens because the brain has this amazing feat witch let’s us adjust to horrible things, sure it takes a while but it DOES adjust. Not to mention people in these lines of work are from the start a bit deranged, meaning they can accept the fact that a life is extinguished by their hands more easily than normal people. Add in the fact that propaganda does it’s job and the things that they are killing aren’t really humans in their mind and there is a recipe for the perfect serial criminal. Also you should think more before calling anyone a pig (especially whole nations) because that is the exact intent of propaganda, dehumanize people so they can be slaughtered more easily.
Why does he remind me of the egyptian god of evil, Set?…..Oh yeah,he IS evil itself!
It sure is scary and sad, huh.
Still less scarier than the realization how many people are unable to think logically. Specially ordered German-made pistols and bullets with German markings on the shells. German-made ropes to tie the hands, which was never an usual practice for the NKVD. To blame the Germans for a deed performed farther than 370 miles from the border (according to the maps of that time)—covering the whole length of Belarussia. In early 1940, to drive the point further. When the Soviet government was more than confident of the army’s might and esteemed the chances of a devastating war as low, which really came back to bite ’em in the ass a year later.
You gotta say, that’s one scary case of selective ignorance and tendency to blame the more convenient scapegoat that are so characteristic of humanity.