The Blockfuhrer (German Blockführer) was an official in the system of Nazi concentration camps, one of the key links in the machinery of mass killing during the Holocaust. The term translates literally as "block leader" and denoted the lowest administrative post in a concentration camp, one filled exclusively by members of the SS.
Structure and hierarchy
The Blockfuhrer was in charge of a "block," which grouped together several barracks of prisoners. Within the camp hierarchy, he answered directly to the Rapportfuhrer (Rapportführer) — the officer responsible for order and discipline in the camp. The post of Blockfuhrer was usually held by an SS non-commissioned officer with the rank of Unterscharfuhrer (Unterschärfuhrer), equivalent to a sergeant in a regular army.
Unterscharfuhrer was the first NCO rank in the SS and the most common among its rank-and-file. The rank existed from 1934 to 1945 and was created after the "Night of the Long Knives" as part of a reorganization of the SS meant to separate it from the SA (Sturmabteilung, or storm troopers).
Duties and authority
The Blockfuhrer's functions were wide-ranging, and included total control over the lives of the prisoners in the block under his authority. He reported to his superiors on the number of prisoners and the state of affairs in the block, and oversaw the work of auxiliary prisoner-staff known as kapos (Kapo). The Blockfuhrer drew up assessments of prisoners that could determine their subsequent fate.
His remit included overseeing roll calls and searches, as well as assigning prisoners to various work details around the camp. Blockfuhrers had direct daily contact with prisoners and were the primary enforcers, at the ground level, of the camp leadership's orders.
Role in the machinery of extermination
It was the Blockfuhrer, first and foremost, on whom a prisoner's life or death depended. Together with the Sonderkommandos (special units drawn from the prisoners themselves), these officials directly carried out the mass killing of Jews and other categories of people the Nazi regime deemed "undesirable elements." The post of Blockfuhrer became one of the grim symbols of the Holocaust.
Blockfuhrers took part in selecting new arrivals at the camp, deciding who would be sent to work and who would go straight to the gas chambers. They oversaw the process of extermination and made sure killing quotas were met.
A specific example: Stefan Baretzki
A typical Blockfuhrer was Stefan Baretzki (1919–1988), an SS Rottenfuhrer who served at the Auschwitz concentration camp. Born in Chernivtsi to a mechanic's family, he became a Volksdeutsche and joined the SS troops in 1942. At Auschwitz, Baretzki took part in selecting prisoners for the gas chambers, committed individual killings, and participated in the liquidation of the so-called "Theresienstadt Family Camp."
At the postwar Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial in 1965, Baretzki was sentenced to life imprisonment for murder in 5 cases, complicity in murder in 11 cases, and complicity in the killing of 3,000 people. He took his own life in prison in 1988.
The term's historical significance
By the mid-1990s, the term "Blockfuhrer" had become firmly established in historical literature as a designation for one of the cruelest links in the Nazi machinery of extermination. In Russian, the word took on a generic meaning as well, coming to denote an extremely cruel, inhuman overseer or boss who abuses his authority over subordinates.
Using the term in this figurative sense draws a parallel between the methods of control and management characteristic of Nazi concentration camps and authoritarian practices in other contexts.