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Kurt Gerstein | |
|---|---|
 Kurt Gerstein wearingSS2 "Germania" collar tab | |
| Born | (1905-08-11)11 August 1905 |
| Died | 25 July 1945(1945-07-25) (aged 39) |
| Allegiance |  Nazi Germany |
| Branch | Schutzstaffel |
| Years of service | until 1945 |
| Rank | SS-Obersturmführer |
| Unit | Death's Head Units |
Kurt Gerstein (11 August 1905 – 25 July 1945) was a GermanSS officer and head of technical disinfection services of theHygiene-Institut derWaffen-SS (Institute for Hygiene of the Waffen-SS). In 1942, after witnessing mass murders in theBelzec andTreblinkaNazi extermination camps, Gerstein gave a detailed report toSwedish diplomatGöran von Otter, as well as toSwiss diplomats, members of theRoman Catholic Church with contacts toPope Pius XII, and to theDutch government-in-exile, in an effort to inform the international community aboutthe Holocaust as it was happening. In 1945, following his surrender, he wrote theGerstein Report covering his experience of the Holocaust. He died of an allegedsuicide while in French custody.
Kurt Gerstein was born inMünster,Westphalia, on 11 August 1905, the sixth of seven children in aPrussian middle-class family that was described as stronglychauvinistic and "totally compliant to authority".[1] His father, Ludwig, a former Prussian officer, was a judge and an authoritarian figure who proudly proclaimed that in his family's genealogical tree there was onlyAryan blood and exhorted generations to "preserve the purity of the race!"[2] As late as 1944, he wrote to Kurt: "You are a soldier and an official and you must obey the orders of your superiors. The person who bears the responsibility is the man who gives the orders, not the one who carries them out".[3]
Kurt Gerstein married Elfriede Bensch, a pastor's daughter, on 31 August 1937.[4] They had a daughter, Adelheid.
Kurt was no more tolerant of discipline in secondary school than within the family. However, in spite of earning many bad reports, he managed to graduate at the age of 20. Going directly on to study at theUniversity of Marburg for three semesters, he then transferred to the technical universities inAachen andBerlin/Charlottenburg where he graduated in 1931 as a mining engineer.[5] While he was at Marburg, he joined, at his father's request, theTeutonia, "one of the most nationalisticstudent associations in Germany".[6] While he was uncomfortable with the frivolity of the fraternity students, he did not seem to mind theirultranationalism.[6]
In 1936, he moved toTübingen where he started studying medicine at theUniversity of Tübingen and lived with his wife, Elfriede.
Although his family was not particularly religious, Gerstein receivedChristian religious training in school. At university, almost as an antidote to what he saw as the frivolous activities of his classmates, he began to read theBible.[7] From 1925 onwards, he became active in Christian student and youth movements and joined the German Association of Christian Students (DCSV) in 1925. In 1928, he became an active member of both the Evangelical Youth Movement (CVJM-YMCA) and the Federation of German Bible Circles, where he took a leading role until it was dissolved in 1934 after a takeover attempt by theHitler Youth movement.[8] At first finding a religious home within the Protestant Evangelical Church, he gravitated toward theConfessing Church, which formed itself around PastorMartin Niemöller in 1934, as a form of protest against attempts by theNazis to exercise increasing control over GermanProtestants.[9] He provoked the ire ofBaldur von Schirach, and consequently, he spent time in prison and concentration camps in the late 1930s.[10]
Like many others of his generation, Gerstein and his family were deeply affected by what they saw as the humiliation of Germany by the terms of theTreaty of Versailles and so were attracted by the extreme nationalism of the Nazi Party. In July 1933, he enrolled in theSA, the original stormtroopers of the Nazi Party. Friedlander describes the contradictions in Gerstein's mind at the time: "Firm defense of religious concepts and of the honour of the Confessional youth movements, but weakness in the face of National Socialism, with acceptance of its terminology and shoddy rhetoric; acceptance, above all, of the existing political order, of its authoritarianism and its hysterical nationalism".[11]
However, in early 1935, he stood up in a theater during a performance of the playWittekind and vocally protested against itsanti-Christian message. In response, he was attacked and beaten by Nazi Party members in the audience.[12]
On 4 September 1936, Gerstein was arrested for distributing anti-Nazi material, held in protective custody for five weeks and ultimately expelled from the Nazi Party. The loss of membership meant he was unable to find employment as a mining engineer in the state sector. He was arrested a second time in July 1938 but was released six weeks later since no charges were filed against him. With the help of his father and some powerful party and SS officials, he continued to seek reinstatement in the Nazi Party until June 1939, when he obtained a provisional membership.[4]
In early 1941, Gerstein enlisted in theSS. Explanations are varied and conflicting. One document indicates that it was the result of his outrage over the death of a sister-in-law, who apparently was murdered under the "euthanasia" programAction T4, directed at the mentally ill.[13][14] Other documents suggest he had already made his decision before she was murdered and that her death reinforced his desire to join the SS to "see things from the inside", try to change the direction of its policies and publicize the crimes that were being committed.[15] Browning describes him as "a covert anti-Nazi who infiltrated the SS",[16] and in a letter to his wife, Gerstein wrote: "I joined the SS... acting as an agent of theConfessing Church."[17]
Because of his technical education, Gerstein quickly rose to become head of technical disinfection services and worked withOdilo Globocnik andChristian Wirth on the technical aspects of mass murder in theextermination camps. He supplied hydrogen cyanide (Zyklon B) toRudolf Höss inAuschwitz from theDegesch company (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Schädlingsbekämpfung Vermin-Combating Corporation") and conducted the negotiations with the owners.[18] On 17 August 1942, together withRolf Günther andWilhelm Pfannenstiel, Gerstein witnessed atBelzec the gassing of some 3,000Jews who had arrived by train fromLwow. The next day, he went toTreblinka, which had similar facilities, and he observed huge mounds of clothing and underwear, which had been removed from the victims.[19] At the time, motor exhaust gases were used for mass murder in both extermination camps.
Several days later, he had a chance encounter on theWarsaw-to-Berlin train with theSwedish diplomatGöran von Otter, who was stationed in Berlin. In a conversation that lasted several hours, he told the diplomat what he had seen and urged him to spread the information internationally.[20] Von Otter talked with high-ranking officials at theSwedish Foreign Ministry, but Gerstein's revelations were never passed on to theAllies or to any other government.[citation needed] In the meantime, Gerstein tried to make contact with representatives of theVatican, the press attaché at theSwiss legation in Berlin and a number of people linked to the Confessing Church.[21]
One of his contacts was theDutch citizen J.H. Ubbink, whom he asked to pass on his testimony to theDutch resistance. A little later, an unnamed member of the Dutch government-in-exile, inLondon, noted in his diary a testimony that is very similar to Gerstein's report. Gerstein's statements to diplomats and religious officials over from 1942 to 1945 had little effect.
After his surrender in April 1945, Gerstein was ordered to report about his experiences with gassing and the extermination camps in French, followed by two German versions in May 1945.
The historianChristopher Browning noted, "Many aspects of Gerstein's testimony are unquestionably problematic.... [In making] statements, such as the height of the piles of shoes and clothing at Belzec and Treblinka, Gerstein himself is clearly the source of exaggeration. Gerstein also added grossly exaggerated claims about matters to which he was not an eyewitness, such as that a total of 25 million Jews and others were gassed. But in the essential issue, namely that he was in Belzec and witnessed the gassing of a transport of Jews fromLviv, his testimony is fully corroborated.... It is also corroborated by other categories of witnesses from Belzec".[16]
The distinguished French historianPierre Vidal-Naquet, inAssassins of Memory, discusses such criticism.[22]
On 22 April 1945, two weeks beforeNazi Germany's surrender, Gerstein voluntarily gave himself up to the French commandant of the occupied town ofReutlingen. He received a sympathetic reception and was transferred to a residence in a hotel inRottweil, where he was able to write his reports. However, he was later transferred to theCherche-Midi military prison, where he was treated as aNazi war criminal. On 25 July 1945, he was found dead in his cell in an alleged suicide.[23][24]
A biography by Pierre Joffroy,A Spy for God, was published in English in paperback in 1971.
His search forChristian values and ultimate decision to betray the SS by attempting to expose the Holocaust and informing the Catholic Church is portrayed in the narrative filmAmen, released in 2002, starringUlrich Tukur as Gerstein and directed byCosta-Gavras.Amen was largely adapted fromRolf Hochhuth's playThe Deputy.[25]
William T. Vollmann'sEurope Central, theNational Book Award fiction winner for 2005, has a 55-page segment,Clean Hands, which relates Gerstein's story.
Thomas Keneally, the author ofSchindler's Ark (on which the filmSchindler's List is based), wrote a dramatic play,Either Or, on the subject of Gerstein's life as an SS officer and how he dealt with the concentration camps. It premiered at the Theater J inWashington, DC, in May 2007.
In 2010, a group of film students fromEmory University produced a short film,The Gerstein Report, which chronicled the events leading up to Gerstein's death. The film won Best Drama at the 2010Campus MovieFest International Grande Finale inLas Vegas,Nevada.[26][27]
The Swedish musicianStefan Andersson wrote the song "Flygblad över Berlin" ("Flyers over Berlin") on his 2018 album of the same name, about Gerstein and his meeting with the Swedish diplomat.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)A more detailed article appears in theFrench edition of Wikipedia. It has been closely consulted for this article.
