Vasily Blokhin, Joseph Stalin’s head executioner. Having personally killed tens of thousands of people in his career, including 7,000 Polish officers in under a month during the “Katyn Massacre,” Blokhin was the most prolific murderer in human history

Along with a team of about thirty NKVD men from Moscow, mainly drivers and prison guards, Blokhin arrived at the NKVD prison in Kalinin (Tver) and set himself up in a sound-proofed cellar room that had a sloping floor for drainage. He then put on his special uniform, consisting of a leather cap, long leather apron, and elbow-length gloves.

On a table next to him was a briefcase filled with his own personal Walther PPK pistols, for Blokhin, a true artist at his trade, would use no one else’s tools but his own.

After the prisoner’s identity was verified, he was brought handcuffed into the cellar room where Blokhin awaited in his long apron, like some horrible butcher.

One guard later testified: “The men held [the prisoner’s] arms and [Blokhin] shot him in the base of the skull…that’s all”. Blokhin worked fast and efficiently, killing an average of one man every three minutes during the course of ten-hour nights – the killings were always done at night so that the bodies could be disposed of in darkness.

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