Vasily Blokhin

Vasily Blokhin
Василий Блохин
Vasily Blokhin
Chief Executioner and Commander
Kommandatura Branch
Main Administrative-Economic Department, Moscow Oblast People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD)
In office
1926–1953
Personal details
Born
Vasily Mikhailovich Blokhin

19 January [O.S. 7 January] 1895
Gavrilovskoye, Vladimir Governorate, Russian Empire
Died3 February 1955(1955-02-03) (aged 60)
Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
NationalitySoviet
Political partyCommunist Party of the Soviet Union (1921–1953)
AwardsOrder of Lenin
Military service
AllegianceRussian Empire
Soviet Union
Branch/serviceImperial Russian Army
Soviet Army
RankMajor general
Battles/warsWorld War I
World War II

Vasily Mikhailovich Blokhin (Russian: Васи́лий Миха́йлович Блохи́н; 19 January [O.S. 7 January] 1895 – 3 February 1955) was a Soviet secret police official who served as the chief executioner of the NKVD under the administrations of Genrikh Yagoda, Nikolay Yezhov and Lavrentiy Beria.

Blokhin was selected for the position by Joseph Stalin in 1926 and led a company of executioners that performed and supervised numerous mass killings in the Soviet Union during Stalin's reign, mostly during the Great Purge and Eastern Front of World War II.[1] Blokhin is recorded as having executed tens of thousands of prisoners by his own hand, including his killing of about 7,000 Polish prisoners of war during the Katyn massacre in spring 1940, making him the most prolific official executioner in recorded world history.[1][2][3] Blokhin was forced into retirement in 1953 after the death of Stalin and condemned during de-Stalinization shortly before his death in 1955.

  1. ^ a b Parrish 1996, p. 324.
  2. ^ Montefiore 2005, pp. 197–8, 332–4.
  3. ^ Glenday, pp. 284–5.