Blaskowitz, Johannes  ( born July 10, 1883 , Peterswalde,
Ger.—died Feb. 5, 1948 , Nürnberg )  German field
marshalcolonel-general, a tank specialist who commanded German
military forces on several fronts during World War II and who
deplored and protested Nazi atrocities.  A professional soldier
who served in World War I, Blaskowitz rose rapidly during the
Third Reich, acting as a field commander in the invasion of
Austria and the Czech Sudetenland and becoming commander in
chief of the 8th Army in the Polish campaign. On Oct. 22, 1939,
he was made military governor of the German occupying forces in
Poland. There he directed two memoranda to higher authorities
documenting cases of rape, murder, and looting of Jewish and
Polish shops by the SS and other nonmilitary Nazi police and
complaining that they operated outside the law and that he had
no control over them. Adolf Hitler, infuriated at such
statements, dismissed him from several army commands.
Blaskowitz was eventually returned to command and served on