Kurt Gerstein, the Ambiguity of Good

Citation preview

Books by Saul Friedlander Pius XII and the Third Reich

(1966) Prelude to Down/all

(1967) Kurt Gerstein: The Ambiguity of Good

(1969)

These are Borzoi Books, published in New York by ALFRED•A•KNOPF

,

KURT GERSTEIN

Kurt Gerstein in April 1941 after entering the S.S.

Saul Friedlander KURT GERSTEIN

The o Good

Translated from the French and German

by Charles Fullman

New York: Alfred·A·Knopf·1969

IHIS JS A BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHBD BY ALFRED A. KNOPP, INC.

First American Edition Copyright© 1969 by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. All rights relCI ved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Can11da by Random Home of Canada Limited, Toront9. Distributed by Random House, Inc., New York. Originally published in France as Kurt Gtrstein ou L'Ambiguitl du Bien by Cuterman, Paris. Copyright © 1967 by Casterman.

Library of Congrta Catalog Card Number: 69-10716 Manufactured in the United States of America

In homage to Leon Poliakov

•

FOREWORD of July 25, 1945, S.S. Lieutenant Kurt Gerstein was found dead in his cell in the Cherche-Midi military prison in Paris. Three months earlier he had surrendered to the French authorities to offer • t~timony. Dr. Jacques Trouillet, who confirmed Gerstein's death at 5:00 p.m. on the same day, found the body stretched out on the camp bed in the cell, wrapped in a

0

N THE AFTERNOON

blanket, part of which had been tom away; it was with this portion that the prisoner had hanged himself.1 To the doctor who performed the official autopsy, this seemed a certain case of suicide. Dr. Piedelievre wrote in his report of

August I, 1945:

1

The autopsy shows that this was an ordinary case of hanging, that is, it displays no trace of violence but a typical groove due to hanging free from any deep lesions in the neck. 1

Statement by Dr. Jacques Trouillet, 1965. Archives of the KurtOerstein-Haus, Bercbum (hereafter referred to as KOH).

[Vii]

Foreword It must be concluded that this was a case of suicide ( no suspicious lesion, no trace of violence) ... 2 A report by the Superintendent of Police of the NotreDame-des-Champs precinct, dated July 25, 1945, contains the following sentences: ''Gerstein left a number of letters in which he made known his intention to take his own life. They were handed over to us and are to be passed on to Major Mattei. ''3 These letters have never been found. On August 3, Gerstein was buried in the Thiais cemetery under the Jtame ''Gastein.''' For three years, his family remained in a state of uncertainty as to his fate. It was not until I 948 that they were officially informed of his suicide. On October 26, 196o, the chief clerk at the central archives of the Judge Advocate General's office at Meaux addressed a report to the French War Department. After summarizing the presumed circumstances of Gerstein's death, the chief clerk stressed that: ,i ... by a decision of no true bill (public action rescinded) dated October 18, 1945, the papers relating to the terminating procedure never reached the Meaux

central depot. In their place was a note entered at the time by the office of the clerk of the Paris Military Court: ''File lost.'' 1

Autopsy report by Dr. Piedelievre, August 1, 1945, KGH. 3 Information given in January 1967. 'Letter from Fr. Brockhoff, June 30, 1958, KGH.

[viii]

Foreword . . . neverthelea, it transpires from telt;gram No. 32827/MG/DJM/2 CDC dated October 23, 1945, discovered in the central administrative archives, which were preserved by my care, that your consent was given to the government co,,.missioner with the Second Paris Military Court to have the said papers relating to the te1,,.;oating procedure addressed to the Director of ReSf'Jlrch on Enemy War Crimes. On November 10, 1945, that organiution sent the file of the Second Standing Military Court in Paris together with certain documents, all under the number 8786, to Profeuor Gros at the French Embassy, 4 Carlton Gardens, London, requesting him to be good enough to convey the papers in question to the Polish delegate to the United Nations Commission on War Crimes. . . . all searches have failed to tum up any trace of the return of this file . • . . on July 26, 1945, the commandant of the military prison did send to the government commissioner with the Second Standing Military Court in Paris a report giving an account of the suicide of the person in question, together with a letter from the latter (probably written shortly before he took his life, with the object of justifying his action). However, no trace of these documents has been found in the archives of that establishment ...1 •

• Report quoted by Uon Poliakov in "Le dossier Oe11tein," IA

MOlllk Juli (January-Mardi 1964).

[ i X]

Foreword

In 1956, Gerstein's grave in the Thiais cemetery (section 14, row 5, according to the 1945 registers) was leveled along with an entire segment of the cemetery. From that moment, identification of any kind bec.ame impossible. The mystery surrounding the death of Kurt Gerstein constitutes the final pltase of the enigma that was his life. This firm Christian, apparently an uncompromising antiNazi, had joined the S.S., the black-shirted Elite Guard of the Hitler regime. He was to serve in it to the end, taking part in the delivery of chemicals to be used for the exte11,1ination of Jews, and was one of the key witnesses to the vilest mass executions. Yet to many who knew him, he was a 11nique personality by reason of the destiny he had fteely chosen for himself, a man who had penetrated hell with the sole intention of bearing witness before the world and aiding the victims_ Thus, to Bishop Otto Dibelius, Gerstein ''was a convinced Christian''; to Pastor Otto Wehr, ''the unswerving character of his Christian convictions is beyond doubt''; to Pastor Martin Niemoller, head of the Confessional Church and leader of the Protestant opposition to Hitler, Gerstein ''was certainly rather a 'peculiar saint,' but a man of absolute purity and straight as a die.',. Nevertheless, even in the testimony of his most convinced defenders, one feels a certain malaise, an inability to arrive at a full explanation of Gerstein as a person. Otto Wehr says: • Evidence given to the Tilbingen Denaziflcation Court (1950).

[ X]

Foreword

1 A figure such as

Gerstein, judged in half-light, or better still, in the glaring light of bourgeois criteria, cannot fail to seem improbable. His uncanny skill in hiding his deep, inner, Christian life under a mask, for the sole purpose of helping others, defies judgment. It is impossible to do justice to this man • . . if one applies normal moral standards or if one attempts to explain

him in political or psychological U;t •••S.'

In 1950, the Ttibingen Denazification Court pronounced a posthumous condemnation of Oerstein. His ~ase was weighed down by too many "objective" circumstan,;:es. For fifteen years, all appeals were rejected. Not until the end of 1964 did the Baden-Wtirttemberg authorities decide to review the case. On January 20, 1965, Kurt Gerstein was officially declared not guilty. However that may be, the verdict of the Baden-Wiirttemberg authorities failed to provide genuint, clarification of the enigma of this lonely man and of the complex and contradictory links that bound him and brought him into opposition to the society from which he bad sprung. The purpose of this book, first and foremost, is to ttace» mainly through unpublished documents, the course of Kurt Oerstein's life. During the years before he joined the S.S., it was the same as that of many Oermaos, particularly Protestant citiz.ens of the Reich confronted with National Socialism. I shall attempt, by telling the story of one man, to come to grips with the dile111mu of an entire society. Subsequently, Oerstein's fate became unique, but as f

Ibid. [ X

i]

Foreword we shall see, the problems it poses are universal in scope. Lastly, faced with the fate of the Jewish victims, we shall be led to e~amioe not only the attitude of their executioners, the Nazis, but also that of the spectators whom Gerstein tried to alert: the churches of Germany, the Allies, the Holy See. Thus, the roaio phases of the ''final solution'' and its direct manifestations will form the background to the second part of this account. The documents that have been

11sed

for the

e§eD•

tially biographical section of this study are heterogeneous in nature: there are first of all the three reports drawn up by Kurt Gerstein himself, one of them in French, the other two in German. All three are almost identical texts, relating the story of Gerstein's life, the things he witnessed in the extermination camps at Be]zec and Treblinka, as well as his attempts to alert the world and to sabotage the delivery of gases to the camps. The French text is the only one written out by Gerstein himself. It is dated ''Rottweil, April 26, 1945.'' Gerstein attached to it twelve invoices from the Degesch Company made out in his name, concerning deliveries of the toxic gas Zyklon B to the Oranienburg and Auschwitz camps, together with a letter addressed to him by the Degesch Company on June 3, I 944. The typewritten German text, dated ''Rottweil, May 4, 1945,'' was intended for Frau Gerstein; she did not discover it until 1946, at the Hotel Mohren in Rottweil. Another German text of the report, dated ''Tilbin..

[Xii]

Foreword

gen, at present at the Hotel Mohren, Rottweil, May 6, 1945,'' was supplied by a certain StaM, who himself claims to have received it from a police officer in Hersfeld in the summer of 1945 when he was returning from the Buchenwald camp to Cologne. The three texts have been subjected to a detailed critical examination by Professor Bans Rothfels and other specialists. Today, their authenticity is beyond all doubt. In my study, I have ~ntially used the French version of the Gerstein report. In style, it is hesitant and awkward, but by its very naivete it gives more intense expression to the author's emotions than do the correct veisions in German. I have supplemented this text with a number of fragments discovered among the papers left behind by Gerstein when he died and from the statements he made to two officers, Major D. C. Evans, an Englishman, and John W. Haught, an American, when, on May 5, I 945, he handed over to them the French text of his report. These statements are commentaries on certain passages in the report; they are thus translations from English and were published by M. T,enn Poliakov in 1964, at the same time as the full text of the French report, in Le Monde juif (March-April 1964). In addition to the three versions of the Gerstein report and Gei:stein's statements made in May 1945, I have drawn on the texts of two inter1ogations to which he was subjected on June 26 and July I o, I 945, by officers of the French military judicial authority. The most important part of my documentation,

[xiii]

Foreword consifflllg almost entirely of unpublished material, is made up of letters from Kurt Gerstein to his wife, to his father, and to various friends, as well as some service letters; the latter, found in the files of the Brown House in Munich, were addressed to the National Socialist Party Court between 1936 and 1940 in the course of his eff01ts to secure his rehabilitation. Last of all, I have used the mass of ~timony concerning Gerstein's personality and the role he played. This material, which is very rich and to a large extent unexploited up to now, was difficult to handle. The individual pieces of temmny are derived from a great variety of sources. Certain of them date from 1949, others from 1965, or even as late as 1966. How was one to sift fiction from truth? I have 11sed various methods of intemaJ criticism on these sources and have attached great importance to different items of testimony that are in ag1ecment on the vme fact. The essential component that is missing from my

documentation is the file of the French military judicial authority, which might have been expected to contain, notably, Gersteio's letters explaining the reasons for his presumed suicide. Various indications have led me to suppose that this file is to be found in the archives of ~e United Nations, . which are extremely difficult of access. One document f01warded to me by the Yad Vashem Institute in Jerusalem seems to be an element in this file. This work would not have been possible without the

[ Xi V]

Foreword

collaboration of many people. My thanks go first of all to Frau Elfriede Gerstein, who was kind enough to authorire me to consult her husband's letters and who made a vital contnbution to the book by filling out the written documents with personal rea11inisc~nces. By the same token, I aro grateful to Herr Herbert Weisselberg, director of the Kurt-Gerstein-Haus at Berchum, who for nearly twenty years has been collecting all the documents and personal testimony concerning Gerstein. Without his aid this book could never have been written. The initiators of this biography were my two friends I eon Poliakov and Rene Wintzen. I want to express my profound gratitude for their constant and effective support. Finally, my thanks are due to Miss Lucille M. Petterson, director of tho U.S. Document Center in Berlin; to Mr. Gert H. Theuni5-1en for making available the text of his West Geiman radio broadcast of 1967 on Kurt Gerstein; to Messrs. Brand and Ben-Zion Meiry of Jerusalei1a; to Mlle. Astrid von Borcke and M. Michael Hofmann of the Institut de Hautes ~tudes Intemationales. in Geneva; to M. JMn-Claude Favez; and very specially to Mlle. Francine Miroux, who provided remarkable collaboration both in translation and in the final editing of the original text. I am. deeply grateful to Sophie Wilkins for. her constant help in the preparation of the present edition of this book. It goes without saying that the assessment of Gerstein as a person and of his role are solely the responsibility of the author.

[xv]

CONTENTS

Page PART ONB

A German Like So Many Others I. The Weight of Tradition 11. A Christian at the Start of the Naz.i Regime 111. Mental Turmoil IV. The Decision PART

3 23

43 73

Two

The Ambiguity of Good V. Belzec and Treblinka VI. Appeal Without Echo V 11. Gerstein in Berlin VIII. Zyklon B IX. The End

201

FINAL REMARKS

224

87 122 162 180

Part One

A GERMAN Like So Many Others

Chapter I THE WEIGHT OF TRADITION

1933, three months after Hitler took power, Kurt Gerstein, a young mining engineer, joined the National Socialist Party. His choice, like that of millions of other Protestant Germans, was in part the outcome of an authoritarian education, a nationalistic tradition, and religious influences that combined the two. Kurt Gerstein was born at Munster on August I I, 1905, the sixth of a family of seven children. According to his father, Ludwig, the Gersteins were ''of pure Aryan blood" and had originated for the most part in Lower Saxony. Domiciled on the left bank of the Rhine from the sixteenth century onward, they had supplied their sovereigns with a long line of officials, mainly judges. Kurt's gieat-grandfather was the sole exception: after a brief career as a lieutenant, he retired to live on his income, squandered his fortune and tried to become a writer. He was the only member of the family who did not ''succeed'' ... On the distaff side, the Schmemanns, who had been established for generations at Dortmund, were almost all entrepreneurs and merchants. 1 On both sides, then, Ger-

I

N MAY

Llldwi, Gerstein: Ahnen-Tafel der Fanulien Schmemann llrin (published by the author, 1934).

1

11.

Ger-

KUllT GERSTEIN

stein's ancestors were exemplary representatives of a Prussian middle class that was in the main naa 1'.owly chauvinistic, unreservedly committed since 1871 to the greatness of the Empire and totally compliant to authority:

11 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. There can be no question of disobedience. You must do what you are ordered to do. As an old official and a former Prussian officer, that is the way I learned things ..•2 These lines, written by Ludwig Gerstein to Kurt in the spring of I 944, represent the entire lifetime ethic of the magistrate. They were his sole answer to a son who

had asked:

1 Have we, in fact, any right at all to dispose of one of these pledges, 11amely Justice? Is it permiuible for us ever to sacrifice kindness, which, we are told, distinguishes us from all other creatures known to man?' During World War I, Ludwig Gerstein joined up with three of his sons; the eldest fell at Carnbrai in I 9 I 8. For the Gerstein family, mourning and defeat were fols Letter from

Luchria

Oentein to Elfriede Oeaatein, March

1946, KOH. 1 Letter &om Kurt Oentein to his father, March

[ 4]

s.

24,

19◄◄, KOH.

Ch. I · The Weight of Tradition lowed by the evacuation ordered by the French Occupying authorities, which also expelled the father from the post he had held with the Saarbriicken court since I 9 I I. Appointed a judge at Halberstadt and subsequently, in I 92 I, at Neuruppin, Ludwig Gerstein imposed on his family an even stricter and more severe regimen than the life they had lived up till then: ''We have lost the war and we have become poor,'' he was wont to say4 in justification of his growing parsimoniousness. Punishments were frequent, but above all they were inflicted with a coldness and hardness that Kurt was to remember.for a long time.15 Nor did young Gerstein get the warmth he needed from his mother. He felt for a long time that she had neglected him, and it was not until much later, after her death, that the chance discovery of a letter made him see how much she had suffered from not being able to devote more time to him. 8 This, then, was the atmosphere, totally dominated by paternal authority, in which the tension between Kurt and his family developed, as Karl Gerstein, Kurt's brother, later pointed out:

11 He was certainly the most difficult of my parents' seven children. There was a good deal of tension between him, his parents, and his brothers and sisters. He had always gone very much his own way, so that he was not exactly easy to approach. Many things about him 'Letter from Elfriede Gerstein to the author, January 16, 1967. 1 Ibid. I Ibid.

[ s]

KURT GERSTEIN

st.ein's ancestors were exemplary representatives of a Prussian middle class that was in the main n&tto"1ly chauvinistic, unreservedly committed since 187 I to the greatness of the Empire and totally compliant to authority:

1J 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. There can be no question of disobedience. You must do what you are ordered to do. As an old official and a former Prussian officer, that is the way I learned things ...2 These lines, written by Ludwig Gerstein to Kurt in

the spring of I 944, represent the entire lifetime ethic of the magistrate. They were his sole answer to a son who had asked:

11 Have we, in fact, any right at all to dispose of one of these pledges, 11arnely Justice? Is it penniuible for us ever to sacrifice kindness, which, we are told, distinguishes us from all other creatures known to man?' During World War I, Ludwig Gerstein joined up with three of his sons; the eldest fell at Carnbrai in 1918.

For the Gerstein family, mourning and defeat were fol9

Letter from Ludwia Gc,i ,teio to Elfriede Oeratc,io, March 24, 1946, KOH. • Letter from Kurt OellteV' to his fatber, March 5, 1944, KOH.

I'

[4]

'

i

I (

'

i

I

i

j

Ch. I • The Weight of Tradition lowed by the evacuation ordered by the French Occupying authorities, which also expelled the father from the post he had held with the Saarbriicken court since 1911. Appointed a judge at Halberstadt and subsequently, in 1921, at Neuruppin, Ludwig Gerstein imposed on his family an even stricter and more severe regimen than the life they had lived up till then: ''We have lost the war and we have become poor," he was wont to say4 in justification of his growing panimoniousness. Punishments were frequent, but above all they were infti~ted with a coldness and hardness that Kurt was to remember.for a long time.1 Nor did young Gerstein get the warmth he needed &om his mother. He felt for a long time that she had neglected him, and it was not until much later, after her death, that the chance di,rovery of a letter made him see how much she had suffered from not being able to devote more time to him_ 8 This, then, was the atmosphere, totally dominated by paternal authority, in which the tension between Kurt and his family developed, as Karl Gerstein, Kurt's brother, later pointed out:

1 He was certainly the most difficult of my parents' seven children. There was a good deal of tension between him, his parents, and his brothers and sisters. He had always gone very much his own way, so that he was not exactly easy to approach. Many things about him 'Letter from Elfriede Gerstein to the author, January 16, 1967. I Jbid. • Ibid.

[s]

KURT GERSTEIN

stein's ancestors were exemplary representatives of a Prussian middle class that was in the IJ'ain na•towly chauvinistic, unreservedly committed since 1871 to the greatness of the Empire and totally compliant to authority:

,r 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. There can be no question of disobedience. You must do what you are ordered to do. As an old official and a former Prussian officer, that is the way I learned things ...2 These lin~, written by Ludwig Gerstein to Kurt in the spring of 1944, represent the entire lifetime ethic of the magistrate. They were his sole answer to a son who had asked:

,r Have we,

in fact, any right at all to dispose of one of these pledges, namely Justice? Is it pet•• eissible for us ever to sacrifice kindness, which, we are told, distinguishes us from all other creatures known to man?'

During World War I, Ludwig Gerstein joined up with three of his sons; the eldest fell at Csrnhrai in 1918. For the Gerstein family, mourning and defeat were folLetter from Ludwia Gerttein to Blmede Gerstein, March 24, 1946, KOH. 1 Letter from Kurt GeJlte;,J to hia father, March S, 1944, KOH. 9

'\

• I

i" ,,•

f

~

[4]

Ch. I · The Weight of Tradition lowed by the evacuation ordered by the French Occupying authorities, which also expelled the father from the post he had held with the Saarbriicken court since I 911. Appointed a judge at Halberstadt and subsequently, in I 921, at Neuruppin, Ludwig Gerstein imposed on his family an even stricter and more severe regimen than the life they had lived up till then: ''We have lost the war and we have become poor,'' he was wont to say' in justification of his growing parsimoniousness. Punishments were frequent, but above all they were inflicted with a coldness and hardnea that Kurt was to remember for a long tirne.1 Nor did young Gerstein get the warmth he needed from his mother. He felt for a long time that she had neglected him, and it was not until much later, after her death, that the chance discovery of a letter made him see how much she had suffered from not being able to devote more time to him. 8 This, then, was the atmosphere, totally dominated by paternal authority, in which the tension between Kurt and his family developed, as Karl Gerstein, Kurt's brother, later pointed out: •

1 He was certainly the most difficult of my parents' seven children. There was a good deal of tension between him, his parents, and his brothers and sisters. He had always gone very much his own way, so that he was not exactly easy to approach. Many things about him • Letter from Elfriede Oersteio to the author, January 16, 1g67. • Ibid.

• Ibid.

[s]

KURT GEllSTEIN

stein's ancestors were exemplary rep~ntatives of a Prussian middle clau that was in the u,ain naa ,owly chauvinistic, unreservedly committed since 1871 to the greatness of the Empire and totally compliant to authority:

,r 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. There can be no question of

disobedience. You must do what you are ordered to do. As an old official and a former Prussian officer, that is the way I learned things ...• These lines, written by Ludwig Gerstein to Kurt in the spring of 1944, represent the entire lifetime ethic of the magistrate. They were his sole answer to a son who had asked:

1 Have we,

in fact, any right at all to dispose of one of these pledges, namely Justice? Is it permis.vble for us ever to sacrifice kindnea, which, we are told, distinguishes us from all other creatures known to man?8

During World War I, Ludwig Gerstein joined up with three of his sons; the eldest fell at Carnbrai in 1918. For the Gerstein family, mourning and defeat were fols Letter from Ludwig Oer,tein to Elfriede Oer•fein, March 24, 1946, KOH. • Letter from Kurt Oeratei" to his father, March 5, 1944, KOH.

[4]

f

Ch. I · The Weight of Tradition lowed by the evacuation ordered by the French Occupying authorities, which also expelled the father from the post he had held with the Saarbriicken court since I 911. Appointed a judge at Halberstadt and subsequently, in 1921, at Neuruppin, Ludwig Gerstein imposed on his family an even stricter and more severe regimen than the life they had lived up till then: ''We have lost the war and we have become poor,'' he was wont to say4 in justification of his growing parsimoniousness. Punishments were frequent, but above all they were inflicted with a coldness and hardness that Kurt was to remember for a long time.1 Nor did young Gerstein get the warmth he needed from his mother. He felt for a long time that she had neglected him, and it was not until much later, after her death, that the chance discovery of a letter made him see how much she had suffered from not being able to devote more time to him.• This, then, was the atmosphere, totally dominated by paternal authority, in which the tension between Kurt and his family developed, as Karl Gerstein, Kurt's brother, later pointed out:

1 He was certainly

the most diffl&1 of several teeth.1

From 1935, the year of the Nuremberg Laws, the Jews were segregated from the rest of German society and all contact with them was legally defined as a taint. What would be the reaction of the Christian elites of the Reich? Above all, what would be the attitude of the Confessional Church? When Hitler eame to power and the anti-Semitic excesses of the Nazis took on organized and official form, Christians who would defend Jews, as such, were rare. The anti-Jewish tradition of German Protestantism bore fruit. Only men like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Vogel and Karl Barth, the Swiss, made any attempt to fight for the Jews. The great majority of those who, in other respects, formed the resistance wing of the Protestant churches, who defended the Biblical heritage in matters of doctrine and Ein Au111emeiter des Widentandes: Kurt Gerstein; lrin Leben und aein Wirken in der Sicht eines Freundes," Ut&Mre Kirche (1964).

'Kurt Rehling:

14

KURT GERSTEIN

worship, and who took up the cudgels for converted Jews, remained, at best, completely passive, refusing to face up to the problem.8 Dietrich Bonhoeffer was the only one to call upon the leaders of the Confessional Church not only to help the victims of anti-Semitism but also to arrest the wheel that was to crush them.9 There were, of course, members of the church who expected their pastors to take a stand showing that they were not forgetting the fundamental Christian obligations.1 On this crucial point, however, the official attitude in Confessional quarters remained highly accommodating toward the regime: it defended Jews who had become Christians, but made scarcely any effort to restrain the excesses coa1amitted against unbaptized Jews. None less than Martin Niemoller himself stated in 1933, in his Remarks on the Aryan Question in the Church, that ''the Germans have suffered much from Jewish influence'' and that it required ''a large measure of self-denial to defend, despite all this, the presence of non-Aryans in the bosom of the Church ...''2 As for Superintendent Dibelius, he openly encouraged the anti-Semitic measures of the regime, stressing the 8

Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Gesammelte Schriften (Munich, 1958), II, 46. 9 Ibid. 1 Otto L. Elias: "Der evangelische Kirchenkampf und die Judenfrage," Jn/ormationsblatt fur die Gemeinden der niederdeutschen lutherischen Landeskirchen (Hamburg, 1961), p. 216. 2 Quoted by Kurt Meier: "Kristallnacht und Kirche Die Haltung der evangeliscben Kirche zur Judenpolitik des Fa!Cbismus," Wi.tsenscha/tliche Zeitschri/t der Karl Marx Universitat (Leipzig, 1964). p. 97.

Ch. II • A Christian at the Start of the Nazi Regime need to boycott Jewish enterprises, to exclude Jews flom administrative posts, etc.1

Under such conditions, reactions within the churches to the Nuremberg Laws tended to be isolated, tim()R)US, and ambiguous. As Max Geiger wrote:

1 Much as they were ready to fight the process of bringing the Church into line ( Gleichschaltung), they feared to intervene in what seemed to them the exclusive preserve of the State ••• Added to this was an element defined by the Wiirttemberg Pastor Julius von Jan in this way: "All of us were afraid to attack the regime at . most sem1tive . . spot ..."' its Gerstein's attitude toward the Jews seems to haw been that of the great majority of members of the Confessional Church, even to the point of picking up and 11sing SO•••e of the regime's anti-Semitic slogans. However, he went out of his way to come to the aid of converted Jews such as Ludwig Dewitz, a young theological student affected by the racial laws. Dewitz writes:

1I

still remember how glad it was that, in spite of all the obstacles in my path as a baptiuxl Jew ( /udenchrist), I was nevertheless able, early in 1935, to take up my tboo,ogical studies. Quite apart from the political prob-

•Ibict., p. 98. • Max Geiger: Der Deutsche Kirchenkampf 1933-1945 (Zurich: EVZ Verlq; 1965), pp. 47-8.

[ 3 9]

KUB.T GERSTEIN

terns of that time, the question of money was 1J1aJcing my studies problematical. Kurt Oerstein's willingness to help and his intervention made it possible for me to cover the cost. At a time when so many Christians were trying to evade the problem of the non-Aryan Christian, it is worthy of special recognition that, in my case)/ Kurt offered such forceful proof of his attention and selfsacrifice.1 But the main thrust of Gerstein's preoccupation continued to be directed at the young people's groups for which he was responsible. From this time onward, incidents with the Hitler Youth and with the Gestapo itself were constantly the order of the day. In June 1935, the Gestapo carried out a search of a vacation camp organivid by Gerstein at Whitsuntide. He was not slow to react and his firmness of tone was astonishing. The letter he wrote on June 9, 1935, to the Gestapo at Do,bnund ended with the following lines:

,r Since you are so deeply interested

in youth questions,

you may care, perhaps, as the Secret State Police, to create conditions in which the right to religious convictions and the right to practice one's religion, which have so often been postulated by the Fuhrer and which are equally the prerogative of the young, are respected, formally as well as in fact. H and when you do that, 'Letter from Ludwia R. Dewitz, December

12,

1955, KOH.

Ch. II · A Christian at the Start of the Nazi Regime

peace and unity will prevail am'>ng our youth under the grand concept of a National Socialist Germany, in spite of inevitable differences of conviction. But that goal will never be achieved by measures that provoke nothing but bitterness. Heil Hitler! . . .• To Gerstein's friends, his intense activity during these years seemed unduly hectic. Helmut Franz comments:

1 He lacked calm and method

in his work. Night and

day, he had a thousand and one things to do and did not know what it was to let up for a minnte. To him, any artistic activity,-music, for ~ample was a waste of time. Whenever he visited a famous building, he would study it closely for a few minutes, and then say: ''Good, now we know all about it,'' and move on. One day, when he lost a rather large sum of money, he said that he was very annoyed about it for five minutes, but after that he had refused to give it another thought because he simply hadn't the time to waste on such things. Already, something else had come into his head to preoccupy him~ Eating and drinking were regarded as tiresome interruptions which had to be tolerated--so that he could work. ActuaJJy this rather simple and idealized portrait of Ge,stein leaves out a strange streak already observed: • Letter ftom Xurt Genteio to the Ocatapo at Dortmund, J11oe 9, 1935, KOH.

KURT GERSTEIN

Gerstein's basic concern as an educator remains strangely fixated on the maintenance of "chastity" amQng the German male youth. His stl uggle for moral purity entailed not only lecturing and pamphleteering. During his stay in Berlin, he used to slash "pornographic'' pmters on advertising billboards; later, he came to blows with a member of the S.A. who had "importuned'' a young man. We have to keep this fanatical aspect of Gerstein's personality in mind; yet at the ~ame time there is something unexpected and quite at variance with this that is also reported in Franz's recollections:

1 . . . The only thing that could take up

his time for

hours at a stretch was making jokes-not just repeating stories that he had beard somewhere, but turning everything into a joke on every possible occasion and thinking up comic situations. Irony and banter were his forte ...'

It was, in fact, one such joke that was to touch off the investigation which led to Gerstein's first arrest-on September 26, 1936. Since May of that year he had been living in Saarbriicken, where he organized the first congress of German miners after the Saar was restored to the Reich.

'Helmut Franz: Kurt Gerstrin, p. 16.

Chapter III MENTAL TURMOIL

8, 1936, Commissar Miiller of the Saarbriicken Gestapo wrote to the regional office of the National Socialist Party:

O

N OCTOBER

1 Kurt Gerstein, a mining engineer, was imprisoned on September 26, 1936. The reason for his arrest was as follows: In his capacity as organiz.er of the first congress of the German Miners' Association, which was held at Saarbriicken, Gerstein had attached to the invitations, which he himself had sent out for the occasion, two documents with the following texts: "Compartment for travelers accompanied by mad dogs.'' "Compartment for travelers with contagious diseases.''1 When a search was made at Gerstein's home, the officers found, in addition to the residual stocks of the documents in question, more than a thousand letters ready for postage, addressed to high officials of the 1

Such witticisms entailed the risk of prosecution under a Nazi law of Decc:oeber 20, 1934, concooins the defemo of the party

uoifo.m.

KURT GERSTEIN

government and of the judiciary. These letters contained prohibited pamphlets issued by the Confessional Church ...2 . . . Over and above all these letters containing seditious printed matter, the officers found hidden in Gerstein's residence about 7 ,ooo envelopes, all of them addressed to high officers of the law ... . . . Gerstein has been charged with having prepared and, in large measure, carried out during the month of July 1936 a mass distribution of the said pamphlets, which, as already stated, were prohibited and hostile to the State. He admits these facts and states in justification of his action that in the course of conversations with judges and lawyers in his father's homehis father is the presiding judge in a court of primary jurisdiction-over a period of about a year, he had noted that persons officiating in German magistrates' courts were not as well informed as their profession would warrant on the extent of the battle that was being waged against the Church ...8 The years of Gerstein's life between his first &11est and his fateful decision of March I 941 are the most 2

Four pamphlets were involved: a discussion of the decbristianization of the youth, a discussion of the situation in the church, a sermon delivered on May 3, 1936, and an apologia in response to a denunciation of certain churches in Upper Bavaria for failing to fly flags OD May I, 1936. 8 Letter from the Saarbriicken Gestapo, October 8, 1936, Document Center, Berlin.

Ch. Ill · Mental Turmoil baffling in an existence that is full of contradictions. The vacillations in his attitude toward the National Socialist regime are difficult to explain, for collaboration alternates with opposition, or else both are inextricably intermingled. And to the conflicting tendencies that were already discernible during the preceding years, there was now added another element, the constant pressure of a paternal authority from which Kurt Gerstein had seemingly never succeeded in freeing himself. In his report of 1945, he very briefly summarizes the events of that period.

1 In p1iso11 up to the end of October 1936. Excluded from the State Service December 1936 until the outbreak of war. Medical studies at Protestant Missions Institute for Tropical Medicine, Tiibingen. Since 1931, I have devoted a third-or thereabouts-of my income, i.e., a third of RM 18,000' per annum, to my religious objectives. I have had printed and mailed, at my own expense, around 230,000 anti-Nazi religious pamphlets. Second imprisonment in Welzheim concentration c.amp, July 14-August 28, 1938.1 The leading officials of the Confessional Church were alerted to Gerstein's arrest at Saarbriicken the day after it took place. On September 25, 1936, Elfriede Bensch 'Approximately $7,ooo. 1 OerllciD report.

KURT GERSTEIN

wrote to Martin Niemoller: '' I have just learned that my fiance was arrested yesterday morning by the Gestapo. I assume that he is still here ( at Saarbriicken) ...''8 All necessary steps were taken to secure the early release of this ''exceptionally active member . . . from whom the BK (Bible Circles) in particular have received considerable assistance. ''1 Six weeks later Gerstein was released, but he lost his position in the State mines and on October 15, 1936, the provincial court of the Saar-Palatinate decreed his exclusion from the Party, on the grounds that Gerstein had sent out interdicted church pamphlets containing, on his own admission, criticism of the Party and the State, to hundreds of Reich officials. Then his family-notably his father-brought considerable pressure to bear on him, and he was forced to seek rehabilitation. On November 29, 1936, he wrote to the Regional Party Court:

,I I was impelled to act as I have been accused of doing by religious conflicts among the German people which reached their peak during the spring of I 93 6. In this struggle, I conducted myseH as a man of Christian conscience, free from any particular dogmatic bigotry . . . . . . At the very time when I was committing the acts with which I am charged, a conversation with a responsible leader (Jungbannfuhrer) of the Hitler e Letter from Elfriede Bensch to Martin Niemoller, September 25, 1936, KGH. "Letter from Martin Niemoller to Otto Wehr, October 2, 1936, KGH.

Ch. Ill · Mental Turmoil

Youth, who was a close friend of mine, brought me back completely to the path of National Socialist responsibility . . . . . . I am fully aware that, in allowing myseH to be earned away into committing the acts in question, I behavoo in a manner that was wrong and reprehensible. I have given the State Police satisfactory assurances concerning my future activities ... . . . Furthermore, I would stress that I have fought for years against the Judaeo-Bolshevist attacks upon the substance of the German people. When I was deserted by my Church, I was obliged to continue this struggle alone and at my own expense ... a struggle which I finally was able to bring to a victorious conclusion. The Minister of the Interior is in possession of files relating to my fight, over a period of years, against the disgraceful Judaeo-Galician firms, Fromms Act and Prim Eros, which distributed millions of free samples to very young adolescents through the medium of the Communist League for the Protection of Mothers. The files concerning my fight against the Remarque film.8 are held by the court at Herne. I am not attempting to evade punishment because I fully recognize that it is deserved. Nevertheless, I ask the Court to desist from the extreme penalty, that of exclusion from the Party ...9 8

He is probably referring to the film All Quiet on the Western Front, based on the anti-war novel by Erich Maria Remarque. 9 Letter from Gerstein to the Regional Party Court, November 28, 1936, Document Center, Berlin.

KURT GERSTEIN

On January S, 1937, Gerstein appeared before the Regional Party Court at Bochum. He declared, amQng other things: ,I I admit that I acted in a manner particularly and gravely prejudicial to the objectives of the NSDAP. By

sending the pamphlets in question to German judges, I would have sown great confusion in many minds, which has, in fact, occurred in the case of pamphlets already distributed. Very serious damage has thereby been done to the Party. I wish to state categorically that about the middle of August I realized that to send out even a single one of the pamphlets in question would be incompatible with my duties as a citizen and that I intend~ at a suitable moment, to destroy all those left in my possession.1 At the end of the same month, Gerstein appealed to the Supreme Court of the NSDAP in M11nich to rescind the order for his exclusion. After vigorously denying that, in mailing his pamphlets, he had ever had the slightest intention of harming the interests of the Party, he added:

,r ...

Moreover, I have always refrained from dragging young people into the conflict in which I felt myself to

1

Record of the Session of the Party Court at Bochum, January S, 1937, Document Center, Berlin.

Ch. Ill • Mental Turmoil be involved. On the contrary, whenever I was with young people, I made no reference to the tragic conflict

caused by the religious struggle and was always at pains to depict the achievements of National Socialism to these yo~g people in the boldest possible colors. Within the Confessional Church, I was the spokesman of a group of young people who were not only the enemies of all reaction, but always affirmed their desire to be gen11ine Christians and, at the ~ame time, genuine National Socialists and to be members of an Evangelical Church in and with the state created by Adolf Hitler ... . . . In view of all this, I cannot adroit that I have broken faith with the National Socialist movement and ranged myself with those enemies of the movement who are endeavoring to sabotage the Fiihrer's work. I feel iPtirnately bound up with this movement and passionately desire to serve it and the work of Adolf Hitler with my life, with all my strength, with all I posseu. If I have done wrong, I cannot regard exclusion as a just penalty. I consider such punishment a defamation of character, as any good German would. I have not d~rved it.1 Ludwig Gerstein, as well as Kurt's elder brothersaD of them convinced National Socialists-had pressed him to take these steps. • Letter from Kurt Gentein to the &.preme Court of the Party, January 25, 1937, Document Center, Berlin.

KUIT GEltSTBIN

Johann Daniel Gerstein w1ote later: "Fritz ( a third brother) told me that it wu he who drafted the appeal and that Kurt signed it under prmure from his father, in spite of the fact that it ran counter to his inne~ convictions. However, at the time, he did it to please his father.'• Motives of this kind may seem inadequate in a matter of conscience of such gravity. That Gerstein was still deeply influenced by his father's authority is beyond doubt. But were the anti-Semitic slogans he employed and the exalted tone of his declarations of loyalty anything but parodies, meant to satisfy the de•xiands of his family? It is not inconceivable that for him, as for the great majority of Ge1 ■i 1 ans then, National Socialism had genuine attractions. Like so many other German Protestants, Gerstein was suffering from the increasing incompatibility between his sincere religious faith and the loyalty demanded by the Nari regime. This chronic dilemma, exac.erbated by family pressures, undoubtedly accounts for his baffling vacillations. Being without employment, Kurt Gerstein took up residence at Tilbingen where at first he began to study theology. He soon gave this up in favor of medical studies at the Protestant Missions Institute. In November 1935 he ~aroe engaged to Elfriede Bensch, a pastor's daughter, and married her on August 3 I, I 937; but his plans for the future languished under a cloud of uncertainty. His media Letter from Jobaon Daniel Gerstein, August 4, 1964, KOH.

[so]

Ch. Ill • Mental Turmoil

cal studie., did not appear to exercise any particular attraction and the decision of the Party in his regard robbed him of any chance of finding a situation in the mines or in industry. In January 1937 Gerstein had given some thought to resolving his proble-11s by leaving Germany, as shown in a letter to his fiancee:

1 About myself, there

is unfortunately almost nothing I

can tell you. My "studies'' are not very much to my taste and I should be willing to accept any reasonably suitable post, even a post abroad, if I could get it. . . . Today, my written defense was due for submission to the Party Court. In this matter my family is virtually forcing me to behave deceitfully, which has put me into an extreu1ely unhappy mood. Perhaps one oughtn't to write letters in a state like this ••.' In spite of his mental turmoil, Gerstein soon resumed his religious activities, notably the distribution of pamphlets he had written. To this he devoted a considerable part of the income from bis share in the family enterprise, De I ,imon F111bme & Co. of Diisseldorf. His brochures were essentially religious in character; the criticism of the meas1u-es taken by the regime in its fight against the churches was very oblique. In the series entitled Um Ehre und Reinheit, the first edition of which had appeared in I 936, the author was preoccupied JI1ainly with the moral • lea.er firm Kurt O«atein, January

22,

1937, KOH.

KURT GERSTEIN

problems of the male youth of Geimany; Was glauben wir denn nun wirklich? and Materialsammlung contained allusions to the policy of the regime which were scarcely any clearer; in both cases, Gerstein piled up quotations designed to prove the compatibility of the Christian faith with the nationalist tradition, as well as the weakness of the positions adopted by the ''German Christians.'' The addresses which he again began to make to various meetings of young people were devoted to the same themes as his writings and the whole approach was innocuous. Nevertheless, on July 14, 1938, he was arrested for the second time. According to the order for his imprisonment of July

23, 1938, ''investigation by the State Police has established the fact that Kurt Gerstein has behaved in a manner prejudicial to the interests of the people and of the State.''~ The reason for this arrest, indicated in a letter of September 2, I 93 8, addressed by the public prosecutor at the Stuttgart Court to the People's Court in Berlin, was a most peculiar one. Gerstein had been arrested with six other persons. What they were accused of were monarchist plots:

1

The suspicion that the accused had participated in highly treasonable intrigues . . . with the object of paving the way for a restoration of the monarchy has been 6

"Le dossier Gerstein," Le Monde juif (January-March 1964).

Ch. Ill · Mental Turmoil confirmed by the inte11ogations which have so far taken place. Thus, the inte11ogation of two of the acc11sed, Gerstein and Mayer, in particular has brought to light a considerable amount of material that is damaging to all those involved. It is established that they were all engaged in active personal contact and co11espondence with Wulle,• whose efforts were directed at forming, in company with other reliable persons, a sort of rallying organintion to operate in the event of a political coup and so prepare for the restoration of a monarchy. At the moment, accused No. 2 (Gerstein) is suspected only of having knowledge of the circumstanr_es ..•7 From Stuttgart Prison, Gerstein was transferred to the Welzheim concentration camp, in which he spent six and a half weeks before being released for want of proof aod, as we shall see, thanks to the goodwill of one of the Gestapo agents. This second period of imprisonment affected him greatly. His strength seemed to be stretched to the limit: ''This was the most terrible time of my life,'' he wrote shortly afterward. Several tim~ he weighed the pouibility of suicide. Two letters addressed to his wife

show that from the moment he was incarcerated in Stuttgart Prison, and even before he was transferred to the Welzheim camp, Gerstein was profoundly dejected. On July 25, he wrote: • Jleinbold Wulle was a monarchist politician of the extreme right. ' Letter from the public prosecutor at the Stuttgart Court, Septem• ber 2, 1938, Document Center, Berlin.

KURT GEllSTEIN

1J

This morning, I suppose, you can't have gone away

with a very good impression of me. Poor darling, I don't doubt you were sad and depressed when you left. But there are times or moments when, with the best will in the world, even if he forces himself, a man can push himself no further. So it was that when you came this morning, you saw me at my lowest ebb since I was arrested. I couldn't prevent it or do anything about it. Now, slowly, very slowly, I am pulling myseH together again. It's a good thing I am, because sometimes at such moments one gets some odd ideas. I think that, so far as my state of mind is concerned, I'm over the hump again~''8 And on August 29:

,r

I realize that I've been absolutely at the end of my rope. I have never lived through such days before and I must honestly admit that I wasn't inwardly prepared for them. And yet I must say that I'm relatively well treated both by the Gestapo and by the police whose business it is to keep an eye on me. What is unbearable is not having the least idea how long this business will last. This afternoon, the pastor came to see me. I'm afraid I

didn't give him a very good reception ...9 A letter of September 9, 1938, from Ludwig Gerstein to the Party Court in Munich is equally revealing: ''In 8

Letter from Kurt Gerstein, July 25, 1938, KGH. 9 Letter from Kurt Gerstein, August 29, 1938, KGH.

Ch. Ill • Mental Turmoil

spite of the fact that he has been well treated, this new blow has brought on a physical and mental collapse. The doctor has diagnosed a heart disorder which he hopes is only nervous in character ...''1 As Kurt indicated, one of the Gestapo agents, Ernst 7.e,,er, in charge of his case was favorably disposed toward him, and it was partly due to this man's help that Gerstein was released as early as six and a half weeks after his imprisonment. Eight years later Zerrer sent Gerstein, who by then was already dead, a curious petition:

1 It will soon be seventeen months since I was shut up here ( in an Allied internment camp) in return for my correct attitude toward all political prisoners and for treating them well. Now, at long last, rm getting a chance to defend myseH before a De11azification Court. I should be very grateful if you would be kind enough to send me a statement corroborating my attitude to you. Everything I did at that time was done with the object of helping you and shortening your period of imprisonment as far as possible .•.2 But in October 1938, when Gerstein came out of the w~Jzbeim camp, he found himself in a most precarious 1

Letter from Ludwig Gerstein, September 9, 1938, Document Center, Berlin. 1 Letter from Ernst ~11er to Kurt Gerstein, December 8, 1946, KOH. According to Kurt Rehling, Ernst Zer1er is said to have read Oerstein's pamphlet Um Ehre und Reinheit with great interest aod to have recommended it to his eon. Statement by Kurt Rehling, February 1, 1949, KOH.

[ ss]

KURT GERSTEIN

situation: he was unemployed and the considerable sums which he had devoted to his religious activity had exhausted his own resources, as he had written to a friend on March 28, 1938: ,I . . . Have you been able in the meantime to visit Wehr and discuss financial matters with him? . . . I am in serious difficulty. A large number of pastors are profiting, unwittingly no doubt, from the fact that the Gestapo has seized the bulk of my files and will not return them to me. Practically no one is paying me on the strength of my first invoice and, with things as they are, I cannot send reminders. So I shall have to write off this sum amounting to more than 1 ,ooo Marks-against my account, naturally. A few days ago, your friend N.N. came to see me. He needed I oo Reichmarks because, of course, X.X. had let him down. He has been promised payment for two invoices amounting to a total of 250 RM and they are due at the end of April . . . Although I'm in very great straits myself, I pawned my gold watch and gave him 50 RM. I had the feeling that he had had nothing to eat. Can you lend him the other 50 RM? He strikes me as sincere and I really do believe that he will be

getting those 2 50 RM. I'm not in very good shape. My wife has just been in a clinic for three weeks and came out only yesterday ... The result of all this is that what I'm writing today

Ch. Ill · Mental Turmoil

rather like a businea letter, but I'm not in the mood to do any better ••.•

sounds

Ludwig Gerstein, in a letter addreued to the Party Court, gave a clear outline of his son's situation at the moment when he emerged from the camp:

1 He gave up his plan to study theology during his first semester because he realil:Cd that he would not find fulfillment in that calling. He turned his attention to medicine, but he will not be able to finish the prolonged course of study for this since he lacks the means to support himself and his family-he is mamed-for the length of time it would take ... My son, then, has cause for deep concern, the most serious aspect being his uncertainty as to what is to become of him ...' At the end of the thirties, the situation of the Confessional Church as a whole had become precarious. The number of arrests was mounting: there were 804 in 1937 alone. Martin Niemoller was in a concentration camp. Any overt resistance had become increasingly difficult, and the slightest manifestation of hostility toward the regime would have meant risking imprisonment once more, this time for good. Otto Volckers, an architect, provides details~ • Helmut Fnoz: Kurt Gernein, Auae,ueiter de, Widentande, der Kirche gegen Hitler (Zurich: EVZ Verlag; 1964), p. 59. • Letter from Ludwig Gerstein, September 9, 1938, Document Center' Berlin.

KURT GERSTEIN

,t' I first met Gerstein on an Italian steamer in October 1938. He had been on a vacation trip to Rhodes. He had an air of great reticence, as if he had been through grim experiences. After a few days, I learned that he had just come out of a concentration camp, having left the Party, and that since then he had been under constant surveillance and persecution. At Fiume, he received news that his house at Tiibingen had once again been the object of a search, and he mulled over in his mind whether to go back to Germany at all or whether it would not be better to flee to Switzerland. In the end, he opted to return home. I had no reason to doubt the truth of what he said. Having seen him write several long letters, I suggested half jokingly that he should take time out to do nothing for a while. He replied that he could not risk posting such letters in Germany because they would cost him his head. He was, therefore, obviously a fierce and active enemy of the Party . . . and that fact alone would have been enough to make him a kindred spirit ...1 A letter addressed to his uncle Robert and to his nephew, Robert Pommer, in the United States must have been among the letters that Gerstein wrote during this •

crwse: ,I I should like to inform you both about a situation which is an extremely serious one for me. During the 1

Testimony by Otto Volckers, November 16, 1949, KOH.

[ S 8]

Ch. Ill • Mental Turmoil

' I

past three years, as Uncle Robett probably knows, I have been through various highly unpleasant experiences at the bands of the Gestapo. These were due to my religious convictions • . • The totalitarian pretensions of National Socialism aim at dominating and controlling men and women, body and soul, down to their innermost beings. In Germany today, in spite of everything that is said and written to the contrary, all religions are regarded as superfluous and extremely harmful; this applies not only to the Evangelical and Catholic faiths but to every kind of serious attachment to God ..• In the political sphere, we have given our fullest approval to National Socialism from the outset, ''rendering unto Caesar that which is Caesar's." But, mating no distinction between Catholics and Protestants, we have pointed out that a nation-and the youth of a nation~without God is a dangerous thing. . . • Since 1933, in religious matters, we have been led around by the nose by the National Socialists in the most incredible manner and •.. their cultural aim is to destroy not only the Catholic and Evangelical churches but every fo1m of serious belief in God in Ge1many as such • . • The question at issue is this: are the German people, is the youth of Germany, to continue to know and hear about God in any form that can be taken seriously, or are they to believe only in the red banner (the Nazi swastika flag], in blood, soil and race? Is it to

KURT GERSTEIN

be known in Oamdlly that justice is a sublime concept elevated above others, safe from h11man intervention and "hanging in the stars," as Schiller puts it, and that the man who applies the law does so with the full authority of the Supreme Judge and will be answerable to him? Or is it true to say that law is what serves the people? Is it purely a matter of expediency? Is Justice a whore of the State? Wherever we have felt obliged to offer rcsistan~.e, we have been at pains not to strike at the political aspects of National Socialism, because that is not our business. We have simply tried to defend the rights and re&pClnsibilities which have been, and are being, solemnly guaranteed to us time and time again by Herr Hitler. In doing so, we have been careful to distinguish between euentials and things of no account, between the substance and the shadow. But under the as~ault of pauionate opponents, we have found ourselves up against dishonesty and deceit, coupled with clarity of

purpose ... • . • I myself have had severe clashes with the Gestapo. Although I have always made the most strenuous efforts not to expose myself uuneceuarily or at the wrong time, the fact that I am widely recognized in Oeimany as a spiritual leader of Evangelical youth and my considerable literary successes have caused me to be treated with extreme distrust by the ~tapo. My books for young people, in particular, of which 250,000 [ 6 0]

Ch. Ill • Mental Turmoil copies have been distributed, have drawn down upon me the personal ire of Baldur von Schirach, the Reich Youth Leader. In the autumn of 1936, this resulted in my having to spend a month in protective custody. It was a very difficult time, which I cannot descnl>e in detail and should not wish to. To people who have not experienced such things, some of the details would not seem possible. I am aware of what foreign newspapers are writing and saying about these things and I must say

that their .reports, generally speaking, are not exaggerated ...

On July 14, 1938, I was again arrested and, after some agonizing days, I was hauled off to a concentration camp where I was kept for six and a half weeks. The time I spent there was the most terrible period of my entire life. I cannot describe the h11miliations, the illtreatment, the hunger, and the way I was forced to live crowded together with pimps and criminals. Some of those who were imprisoned with me, and had been brought from the penitentiary, had only one desire: to go back there. Lice, bugs, and other vermin, hunger, forced labor, and treatment that was beyond description! Fortunately for me, my case was handled by a Gestapo man who took a liking to me, and he secured my release. Several times I came within an ace of hanging myself or putting an end to my life in some other way because I hadn't the faintest idea if, or when, I should ever be released from that concentration camp.

[6

I ]

KURT GERSTEIN

Since I came out, I have been left unmolested. There is no telling what the next few months, or years, will bring in Germany. One can only assume that the successes of the National Socialists in foreign affairs will enormously enhance Herr Hitler's prestige and that of the Party and that, on the strength of this, the Fiihrer will feel entitled to do as he likes in domestic politics as well. There is, today, no doubt in our minds that the entire campaign against the churches and religion not only is known to Hitler and was conceived by him, but that he is conducting it. In view of this, and because of the determination of the National Socialists in pursuit of their aims, we must look forward to very difficult • t1mes. For me, a third arrest would undoubtedly mean that I couldn't go on living. European friends in France and in Switzerland would certainly take in my wife and myself for a few days or weeks, although, if this happened, I should run the risk of being shoved off to Germany within a short time. H the worst should come to the worst, could we count on you to help us and give us shelter until I, as an engineer with a known record of efficiency, had managed to find a suitable position abroad? ... It would be a tremendous relief to me if I knew that I should be able to find help in case of an extreme emergency ... You, dear uncle Robert, in your frequent visits to Germany, have seen many of the unquestionably good [ 6

2 ]

Ch. Ill • Mental Turmoil

and outstanding things that the Hitler regime has done: model achievements in such areas as roads and 11nemployment, comtructive activity eve1ywhere. But what you probably have not been able to see me the tragedies that arise from loa of intellectual frealom, religious f:cedom, and justice. It must be diffic:ult, very diffieult, for a foreigner to such things. I have heard that your nephew Robu t does have an insight into the situation. That is why I arn addreuing this letter to him, too, as your adviser in these matters. With deep gratitude for much love and 1dndneu that I have experienced at your bands, Your nephew, Kurt. 1 11.U,L

In the meantime, Ludwig Gerstein did not de.,pair of obtaining his son's rehabilitation. He stepped up his efforts with the Central Party Court in Munich and on October 8, 1938, he infmmed Kurt how matters stood:

1

After 11urnerous requests, I had an interview yesterday with the official of the Supreme Party Court in Munic:h who is dealing with your case It lasted more than an lloo.r- .•• • • • I think I c.an say that your case is in good

hands and I confidently hope for a good result .•. • • . I emphasized that you are a devout Christian • Leuer from Kurt Gerstein to Robert Pommer, written at the ~ginning of November 1938, KOH.

KUllT GERSTEIN

and wish to remain so, but that there was no thought in your mind of carrying on militant activity . . . I added that, though you were attracted by the Confessional Church, you were not by any means in agreement with it on every point, which explained why you had given up the study of theology. The official said he felt that anyone belonging to the Confessional Church could be a good National Socialist at the same time and that the one did not at all exclude the other; but a struggle carried on against National Socialism by the Church was something that could not be tolerated and that anybody who behaved provocatively along these lines could not be tolerated in the Party. He stressed that the reprehensible dictum that God must be obeyed above men was an idea that was being greatly abused. The Party Court takes the view, he said, that no man who genuinely wishes to be, and is, a National Socialist should be excluded from the Party. I assured him that I was convinced that this applied in your case~ I have every reason to hope that this business will soon be settled, in a o,anner favorable to you ... Ludwig Gerstein then went on to disc11ss political matters. The Munich Pact had just been signed and Hitler was at the peak of his diplomatic successes:

1 What great times we are living through! . . . While walking along lonely paths in wonderful mountain

Ch. Ill • Mental Turmoil

country, I have thought a great deal . . . about all of you, about our beloved Fatherland, about our magnificent Get, ,,an people, about our great and loving Fiihrer and much else besides. I can truly say that I was solitary, but not alone ..• . . . While I was in Upper Bavaria, I met many peasants and woodworkers and had many conversations with them. I was happily surprised to find that all of them, without exception, felt the greatest pleasure and satisfaction at the way things are going and an overwhelming love for our Fiihrer. How proud-in the best sense of the word-we can again all feel to be Germans! Of course, it cost me a great effort to have to give up our beloved black, white, and red flag. But now I'm unswervingly loyal to the swa.~tika flag and I see that it is a necessity for the new Reich ...7 On October 9, Kurt replied with a letter which was

obviously intended for the eyes of the Party authorities:

,r Dear Father: Thank you for your letter and for the steps you have taken on my behalf. I should like to give you my views on this whole affair . • • Since September 193 6 I have ceased all activity within the Confessional Church and have directed my efforts more generally at preserv1

Letter from Ludwig Oe,stcia to Kurt Gerstein, October 8, 1938, KOH.

[6S]

ICtmT GBllSTBIN

ing a genuine faith in God among our youth and among the Getma.D people. From time to time, I may have listened to or told this or that political story and briefed myself on the "news.'' But fundamentally, I have always shown an absolutely positive attitude in regard to the political events of our time. Certain things, such as Niemoller's imprisonment, have affected me deeply. However, I could not see any injustice in that because I myself had often warned him that the direction he was ta1cing was not that of the young folk, who, to a man, were solidly and joyously behind the political aims of the Fuhrer and of National Socialism ..• I have always condemned and rejected any reactionary attitude as base and irresponsible. This, incidentally, was the reason why I was listened to more than others. Our youth, in fact, has strongly supported National Socialism and would have nothing to do with the reactionary attitude of older people with hidebound ideas. My role was not in the least ambiguous, not only within the Confessional Church but also vis-a-vis the Church as a whole. I often dangerously exposed myself by my harsh criticism and by great openmindedness on questions of dogma. An important study I made concerning the Evangelical hymnbook provoked the most violent protests. Going far beyond Alfred Rosenberg in this matter, I called for the suppresdon of, among others, such hymns as ''To thee, to thee Jehovah I will sing!'' and rigorously scrutini?ed every line and verse of every single hymn in the

(66]

Ch. Ill • Mental Turmoil

context of contemporary events. That work is held at the Stuttgart office of the Gestapo ... I have successfully proved .•. that I have not only always voted for AdoH Hitler without hesitation, which was normal, but that I have also sttaightened out certain ''waverers'' and brought them back onto the right path ... Since 1936 I have considerably modified my circle of friends so that I now number among them only those who are fundamentally in favor of National Socialism •..8 On November 26 Kurt sent his father a letter that to offer a more accurate picture of his state of mind. In the interval violent anti-Semitic riots ( the Kristallnacht) bad taken place all over the Greater Reich:

W•••S

1 Dear Father: I want to tell you how deeply grateful I wu for your letter of November 12.9 Naturally enough, I was very much moved by it. As I have written to Hans in the meantime, after my own experiences, I cannot think nearly as optimistically u you do. I, too, think it possible that the Party Court may quash the verdict against rne and, by doing so, take me back into the Party. But I don't regard this as very probable. I rather take the view that, at best, they will grant me a simple, i.e., not dishonorable, dismissal, on the grounds that I have • Letter from Kurt Gentein, October 9, 1938, Document Center,

Berlin. • This letter has never been found.

KURT GERSTEIN

committed an ''offense out of conviction.'' In either case, any appeal from me to be reinstated in the State service would have to pass through the hands of the Filhrer's deputy. Even if my Party membership was restored, I don't think I should get past him without difficulty. Service with a private organization of course would be a different matter. I imagine it would be possible to get into one of those, but even in that eventand I have to be clear in my mind about this beforehand-I should get hell at the slightest provocation ... In other respects, unfortunately, I can't share your view of the way things will develop in future. Ever since 1933, we have seen radical policy constantly coming out on top and it will continue to do so . . . Even in someone as passionately pro, as I am, this may lead to far more serious conflicts of conscience than those caused by having to acknowledge that one shares responsibility for the things that have been done recently. Although, inwardly, I was already a long way toward toeing the Party line, these latest happenings have hit me hard. My willingness to go back to mining and work hard and well, and put everything I have into it, is unchanged. But that doesn't mean that I can overlook the things I have referred to ...1 Gerstein's situation remained very shaky. His father summarized it clearly in a letter to the Party Court dated January 30, 1939: 1

Letter from Kurt Gerstein to his father, November 26, 1938, KOH.

[68]

Ch. Ill · Mental Turmoil

1 My son has recently applied in various places for a post in a nrining or industrial concern ... As you know, there is an urgent demand for engineers everywhere. People would be happy to take him on at once, but the fact that an action is pending against him stands in the way. My son now has been unemployed and without earnings for more than two years. He is in his thirtyfourth year and his situation weighs more and more heavily upon him ...2 Finally, on June 22, 1939, the Party Court converted the "exclusion'' of Gerstein into ''dismissal.''8 It was then that with the support of Hugo Stinnes, the son of one Germany's most famous industrial magnates, he was able to find a job in a potassium mine in Thuringia,' where he spent two years. War broke out in September 1939. Poland was conquered in three weeks. In April I 940, Denmark and Norway were occupied. Then began the victorious campaign against France. In August I 940, Gerstein took steps at the Brown House in Munich to have himself reinstated in the Party.G His political attitude at the time emerges from a letter he wrote to a friend on May I 4 of that year. True, the letter 2

Letter from Ludwig Gerstein, January 30, 1939, Document Center, Berlin. 1 Verdict of the Supreme Court of the Party, June 22, 1939, Document Center, Berlin. • Letter from Hugo Stinnes to Kurt Gerstein, July 24, 1939, KGH. 6 Verdict of the TUbingen Dcnazification Court ( 1950).

ICUllT GERSTEIN

dealt primarily with his daily life; but the last lines indicate a readine.u to effect a rapprochement and collaborate with the regime:

11 Dear Albert: My long silence does not mean that Kurt Gerstein is now living elsewhere in different conditions and that he has forgotten everything. That is far from the truth! Kurt Gerstein has re111ained the same as ever toward his old friends and comrades, even if only "in spirit.'' But he is clamped in such a vise by his work that he can scarcely breathe. Thank God, things will soon be a little different. In my present employment, I am obliged to get up every day at five o'clock in order to be on the job at six, a job that keeps me busy until seven thirty or eight o'clock in the evening, with a short break at noon. Furthermore, since our line of b11siness is euential to the war effort, we work two shifts almost every Saturday. I don't have to tell you that this pace leaves one with practically no time for anything else and one has to husband what little nervous energy and inner life one has left in order to stick it out. Gerstein has to hit the hay at nine o'clock, otherwise he can't take it. You can work out for yourself how much time he has left for himself, his family, and so on. I hope tbat this ''factual report'' will clarify many things. Some very high-level people in the Hitler Youth have offered me the possibility of writing large-scale [ 7 O]

Ch. Ill • Mental Turmoil works on areas of life that are impmtant to the whole of German youth, or to organire such tasks.

So far rve virtually been unable to do anything about this, but I intend to find time for it as soon as I take over my new post ... What I have been able to see of the fairly high echelons of the Hitler Youth compels me to give them a hand, without betraying my convictions in any way. I have no right to let down all the splendid people with whom rve become friends. After being involved in a political affair which has since been settled in my favor, I have peace in that area. Please tell Albert A. this, if you see bim ~ ..

The letter ended with the words: ''Heil Hitler!''' Gerstein's attitude to the regime was identical with that which the Confessional Church had shown since the outbreak of war. The Party had muted its anti-religious activities and a sort of truce had been forged between the National Socialists and the militant wing of the German Protestants. ''It has always been the custom of the Evangelical Church in Germany to maintain clme relations with the State in time of war, and to hope and pray for victory.''7 It would have been all the less possible for the Confessional Church to escape from the burden of this tradition while its most active leaders remained shut • Letter from Kurt Gerstein, May 14, 1940, KOH. 1 Ernst Wolf: Kirche im Wider8tand? (Munich, 1965), p. 10.

KUllT GERSTEIN

up in camps and many members of its flock were serving in the ranks of the W~hrmacht. It was in this atmosphere of "conciliation'' that Gerstein was about to make a decision that would change the course of his life.

Chapter IV THE DECISION

1

When I heard about the massacres of the feebleminded and the mentally deranged at Grafeneck, Hadarnv, etc., I was shocked and hurt to the very roots of my being; and since there was such a case in my own family, I had but one desire: to see, to see clearly into this whole mechanism and then cry it aloud to the whole nation! Even if it meant that my life would be threatened, I had no compunction. I myseH had twice been fooled by agents of the Security Service who had infiltrated into the innermost circles of the Protestant Church and had prayed at my side. I thought to myseH: ''H you can do it, so can I!'' and I volunteered for the S.S. In doing so, I was spurred on by the fact that my own sister-in-law, Bertha Ebeling, had been murdered at Hadarnar. I was introduced by two Gestapo agents who had been concerned in my case, and I was readily accepted by the S.S. On one occasion, an S.S. man said to me: ''An idealist like you should be a fanatical member of our Party.''1 1

Gerstein report.

KUitT GERSTEIN

The following is an extract from the interrogation of June 26, 1945: G:

Q:

G:

Q:

G:

In 1940, I was told by the Bishop of Stuttgart that mentally sick people were being killed at Hadaroar and at Grafeneck. My sister-in-law, Bertha Ebeling, was among the victims. That was when I decided to join the Waffen-S.S. Did you join the Waffen-S.S. with the object of spying to further your religious ideals? Yes, to carry on an active fight and learn more about the aims of the Nazis and their secrets. How were you able to join that organization when you yourself had been arrested several times by the Gestapo? I simply accepted the proposals put to me by the Gestapo the second time I was arrested.2

and his interrogation are in accord on one essential point: rumors about euthanasia and more particularly the death of Bertha Ebeling at Hadamar had prompted him to take the decision that was to be the most fateful of his life. The killing of mental cases and of the feebleminded had been secretly decided upon by Hitler in September 1939. The implementation of the euthanasia plan

G

2

ERSTEIN'S llEPOllT

Interrogation of Kurt Gerstein by Major Beckhardt of the O.R.C.G., Paris, June 26, 1945, Doc. WC-90, CDJC, Paris.

Ch. IY • TM Decision was made subject to the direct control of the Filhrer's

Chancellery and camouftaged with meticulous care. A first killing center was set up in Brandenberg at the end of 1939 and five others, Grafeneck and Hadamar among

them, went into service in 1940. In charge of the executions was Christian Wirth, Superintendent of the Criminal Investigation Department of the Stuttgart Police. To begin with, Wirth executed the patients with a revolver, but soon a more perfected technique was devised-the first gas chambers operated with carbon monoxide. 1 hln Poliskov decribes this:

1 The installation was simple and was facilitated by the relatively low "output" of the euthanasia centers. In each establishment a room ~amouftaged as a shower room was hermetically sealed. This was connected to a system of pipes linked to cylinders of carbon monoxide. The patients, before being taken in groups of ten or fifteen into this gas chamber, were generally made drowsy with the aid of morphine or scopolamine shots or drugged with soporifics. The euthanasia centers also housed a small crematorium in which the bodies were burned. The families were notified by means of form letters which inf01med them of the patient's dec~ase as a result of "heart failure'' or ''pneumonia."'

• Uoa Poliakov: 1951), p. 212.

u

Brlviaire de la halne (Paris: C•Jroano-Uvy;

KtmT GEllTEIN

Between January 1940 and August 1941, a totaJ of 70,273 patients were put to death. Having thus proved its usefulness), this combination of gas chamber and crematorium later becam~ the chief means for effecting the mass extei111ination of Jews, which began in 1941. If the euthanasia program was top secre'7 how could Kurt Gerstein or the Bishop of Stuttgart, who bad brought them to bis notice, know the details? The fact is that Germany was full of rumors on this subject. The high rate of deaths, always in mysterious circurnstanra), in the psychiatric clinics from 1940 onward arouSNI suspicion. Indiscretions did the rest. A protest sent in May 194 I by the Frankfurt Court to Herr Franz Gilttner, Reich Minister of Justice, suggests that the practice of euthanasia was notorious. The children of Hadarnsu- 11SNI to greet the buses bringing the patients with the cry: ''Here come some more to be gassed!'' The smoke from the crematorl1•rns was visible for miles around.4 Soon Catholic and Protestant bishops were taking a more and more open stand. A memorandum was presented to the Reich Chancellery by Pastor Braune:

1 How far

is the extet,,aination of those considered un-

worthy of life to go? The massive operations now in progress have shown that many of the people included have been clear in mind and sentient . . . Is the exter'Gerald ReitJinger~ The Final Sollltion (New York: Barnes; 1961 MD,), p. 131.

Ch. IV · The Decision mination directed solely at completely hopeless cases, such as those of idiots and imbeciles? . . . Will it stop short of suffers from tuberculosis? The euthanasia program is already being applied to prison inmates. Will the attack be extended to other abnormal and anti-social persons? Where is the limit to be? Who is abnormal? Who is anti-social? Which are the hopeless cases? What will be the fate of soldiers who, while fighting for their country, run the risk of contracting incurable disease~? Some of them are already asking themselves questions of this kind .•.G Pastor Braune was arrested by the Gestapo, but three months later he was at liberty. The agitation continued. At this point, on August 3, 1941, Msgr. Clemens, August von Galen, Bishop of Milnster, spoke out publicly against the euthanasia program in a sermon preached in St. Lambert's Church:

1f There are obligations of conscience from which no one can release us and which we must discharge, even at the cost of our lives. No man has the right to kill an innocent person, no matter what the reason, except in case of war or in legitimate self-defense. I have already had occasion to use these words in my general pastoral letter of July 6 and to add the foil owing clarifications: We have been hearing for some months past that, on 1

Uon Poliakov:

u

Breviaire de la haine, p. 217.

KURT GERSTEIN

orders from Berlin, mentally sick patients, who long have been under treatment and who may seem incurable, are being forcibly removed from psychiatric clinics. Shortly afterward, as a regular practice, the family re.. ceives a notification stating that the patient is deadt that the body has been cremated and that the ashes may be collected. Broadly spr.aldng, there is near certainty that all of the unexpected deaths of these mental cases have not been due to natural ca11~, but were artificially induced, in accordance with the doctrine that authorizes the elimination of what are called ''unworthy lives'' and, consequently, the killing of innocent people, if their existence is no longer held to be productive for the nation or for the State. It is a frightful concept that affects to justify the murder of innocents and allows the killing of invalids incapable of work, of the infirm, of incurables, and of old men and women afflicted by senility. Confronted with this doctrine, the German bishops declare: No man has the right to kill an innocent person, no matter what the reason, except in case of war or in legitimS\te self-def~nse ...e Shortly after Msgr. von Galen delivered his sermon, the euthanasia program r.arne to an end. The Bishop of Milnster was left unmolested. Karl Gerstein takes up the story:

l

•Sermon given by Magr. Clemens August von Galen, August 3, 1941, quoted by H. A. Jacoblen and W. Jocbm•oo: A.,ug~lte Dolcum~nt~ t.lU' Guchichte du National..Sot.ialism,u ( Bielefeld, 1961).

Ch. IV · The Decision

,r

On February 20, 1941, the interment of the um containing the ashes of my sister-in-law took place at Saarbriicken. My brother Kurt was among those present. Bertha's sudden death had occ1.&11ed in strange circumstances. A letter had been sent to her mother to the effect that it had suddenly become necessary to move her daughter from a clinic in the Saar to Hadamar, where she had then fallen victim to an epidemic. For reasons of epidemic control, the body had had to be cremated immediately, before her relatives could be consulted; the remains, the letter concluded, had been sent to the Saarbriicken city authorities, from whom they could be retrieved. Dumbfounded though we were, there was no hint of suspicion in our minds. It was my brother Kurt who, on the way home from the funeral, enlightened my unsuspecting wife and me. Our utter consternation was only heightened when Kurt then further revealed to us that he was going to join the W affenS.S. ... By this means, he said, he would be able to get to the bottom of the many rumors and find out what was really going on in the S.S. I must confess that at the time we couldn't believe that Kurt was serious .. .1

Pastor Otto Wehr, who had conducted the funeral service, also had a talk with Gerstein: ''. . . He then informed me of his decision to check into the truth of the rumors circulating about this type of crime, no matter 1

Karl Gerstein: "Mein Bruder Kurt Gerstein," lecture delivered at Bonn, October 1964, KOH.

KUllT GERSTEIN

what the cost. I advised him not to try to penetrate into the camp of the powers of darkness, but he met my objections with passionate and 11nshakable resolution. ''8 Helmut Franz adds: ''Naturally, I was horrified when he info1med me of his decision. I told him that this was madness, that it was tempting Providence, that it was a provocation in the face of fate which could only end in disaster for him.''9 Pastor Kurt Reh1ing had much the same things to say about another meeting he had with Gerstein in the course of 1941. Kurt told him:

1 H you hear strange things about me, don't think that I have changed. Please tell that to (Church) President Koch as well. I shouldn't like him to think badly of me. I have joined the S.S. and now, at times, I talk their language. I do this for two reasons: the collapse is coming. That is absolutely certain., There will be a Day of Judgment. When that moment comes, these ruthless desperados will do all they can to get rid of anyone left whom they regard as their enemy. At that point, help from outside will be useless. Help then can only possibly come from a person who can suppress orders or deliver them in garbled form. That is where I come in. The second reason is that I am on the trail of so many crimes! My aunt [sic] was killed at Hadaroar. I want to 8

Testimony by Otto Wehr: "Aug~n7,eugenbericht zu den Massenvergasungeo;' Yierteljahrshefte fur Zeitgeschichte, 1953, No. 2, note 34. 9 Helmut Franz: Kurt Gerstein, Aussenseiter des Widerstandes der Kirche gegen Hitler (Zurich: EVZ Verlag; 1964), p. 24e

[ 8 0]

Ch. IY · The Decision know where and by whom the orders for these murders are given! 1 If we confine ourselves to the documents quoted, the motive for Kurt Gerstein's decision appears simple and unequivocal. However, what we know about his hesitant attitude toward the regime during the preceding years leads us to believe that his motives for joining the S.S. were more complex than those statements would suggest. The murder of Bertha Ebeling was probably an element in this decision, but it undoubtedly was not the only one. Moreover, various other pieces of evidence are less completely in accord than those we have seen so far. According to Pastor Heinz Schmidt, Gerstein and he bad the idea of joining the W affen-S.S. as early as the end of I 939, after the Polish campaign, their object being to ''see things from inside.'' ''We did not follow up these thoughts at the time," adds the Pastor, ''because they seemed to us pretty much of an illusion. ''2 H his evidence is accurate, euthanasia could not have been the cause of such a decision ( the first killings did not take place until the beginning of I 940), and one has difficulty in understanding what Schmidt and Gerstein hoped to discover in the Waffen-S.S. in the autumn of 1939. But it is known that at the time Gerstein was anxious to join the Wehr-

macht. Kurt Rehling: •'Ein Aussenseiter des Widerstandes Kurt Gerstein; aein Leben und sein Wirken in der Sicht eines Freundes,'' Unsere Kirche ( 1964). 1 Testimony by Heinz Schmidt, KOH.

1

[8

I ]

KUR.T GERSTEIN

In the course of the Gerhard Peten-8 case in 1955, the Frankfurt Court itself drew attention to some contradictions among the reasons why Gerstein joined the W affen-S.S.:

1

According to the evidence given by his wife, he offered her no explanation but simply told her: ''They don't want me, but they'll have to accept me.'' He did not elaborate on the phrase ''have to.'' It cannot be true, as be told the witness Nebelthau, that he joined the S.S. by agreement with Pastor Niemoller because the latter had in fact been in a concentration camp since 1937 and was not in direct contact with Gerstein. Similarly, he told the witness Eckhardt that he had joined the S.S. after consulting his spiritual advisers, but no witness has been able to substantiate this point. The statement that he is reported to have made to the witness Scharkowski, his old friend, contradicts to a certain extent the previous explanations. Gerstein is said to have told him that he was constantly under surveillance by the Security Service and Scharkowski is stated to have suggested that he join the S.S. Gerstein interpreted this as a sign from God to make him enter the enemy's camp ...'

In I 940, Gerstein renewed his efforts to be reinstated in the Party. In a letter to the Brown House in Munich, he 1

Seep. 183. " Verdict of the Frankfurt Court in the Gerhard Peters case. May 27, 1955, p. 13, KOH.

[82

]

Ch. IV · The Decision reportedly said that he now once again felt himself to be fully in support of the Fuhrer and that he had become a firm opponent of the Confessional Church.' There can be little doubt that such declarations did not reflect Gerstein's true state of mind. But he was still preoccupied with the question of his reinstatement in the Party, and the idea of volunteering for the Waffen-S.S. may have seemed to him a means of realizing this aim. A mysterious element of enigma is added to these unclarified matters by the previously quoted statement made by Gerstein during his inte11ogation in June 1945:

Q:

G:

How were you able to join that organiz.ation [the Waffen-S.S.] when you yourself had been arrested several times by the Gestapo? I simply accepted the proposals put to me by the Gestapo the second time I was arrested . . .

What proposals was he talking about? This cryptic answer, strangely enough, provoked no reaction on the part of the interrogator. In any event, whatever particular motives Gerstein may have had and whenever it may have been that he conceived the idea of joining the Waffen-S.S., his request to be admitted to that organization did not occur after Bertha Ebeling's funeral, but before. During his interrogation on July 10, 1945, he in fact stated: " ... I remained 1

Report by the Gestapo, January 4, 1940, German Democratic

Republic (henceforth GDR), Central Archives, Potsdam.

KURT GERSTEIN

with that company [De Limon FJ11hme & Co.] as a civilian until March S [1941 ]. Before that date, that is, in December [1940], I had applied to be accepted for service in the W affen-S.S.•.." Again, according to a letter from an inspector in the Employment Service addressed to the Wintershall Company, for which Gerstein was working at the time, he is stated to have volunteered for the Waffen-S.S. as early as September I 940. 8 In other words, both the motives for Gerstein's decision and even the date of that decision are not altogether clear. However, in the words of the Frankfurt Court, one thing is certain: ''He did not go into the S.S. because he was a convinced National Socialist, nor to render assistance to the National Socialist cause ..." 1 He joined up on March 10, 1941. Until that moment, nothing seemed to have destined Gerstein for the role that was to be his. He was a German who, like many others, had not entirely escaped the influences that marked the evolution of German society during the thirties. Neither his origins, nor his environment, nor his education had in any way prepared him for his destiny. What befell him might equally well have happened to millions of Germans. But he was to be the only one. Letter from the Eisenach Employment Office, September 18, 1940, GDR, Central Archives, Potsdam. 7 Verdict of the Frankfurt Court in the Gerhard Peters case, p. 8

14-

Part Two

The Ambiguity of Good

Chapter V BELZEC AND TREBLINKA

1

March 10-June 2, 1941, basic military training with 40 doctots at Hamhurg-Langehoom, Arnheim and Oranienburg. On account of my two lines of study ( technical and medical) .I received orders to enter the medico-technical service of the S.S.-Fuhrungshauptamt -medical service of the Waffen-S.S.-Amtsgruppe D, Hygiene. In that unit, I immediately chose for myself the task of constructing disinfection apparatus and filters for drinking water for the troops and for the prison camps and concentration camps. Thanks to my industrial experience, I soon succeeded where my predecessors had failed. My work made it possible for the mortality rate of the prisoners to be considerably cut down. In recognition of my success, I was soon promoted to lieutenant. In December [sic] 1941, the court which had ordered my exclusion from the NSDAP became aware that I had joined the WaffenS.S. Great efforts were made to drive me out and persecute me. But because of my success, I was judged to be sincere--and indispensable.1 1

Gerstein report.

KURT GERSTEIN

UCH WERE THE TERMS

S

which Gerstein used in April

1945 to describe his early days in the S.S.

To his father and his brothers, Gerstein painted a warm portrait of the comradely spirit and the exemplary honesty that prevailed in his 11nit and also of the excellent relations between the training staff and the recruits.2 In contrast, the letter he sent his wife from Arnheim (Holland), on April 26, 1941, was not free from undertones: 1J • • • It's an odd existence that I'm obliged to lead here • . . . I'm often reminded of Welzheim because many things about the place have a mighty close resemblance . . . Nevertheless, I don't regret having come here. My

perspectives are much richer and I am infinitely more lucid in my mind. I often think of Nietzsche's well-known phrase that I've so frequently quoted to you.8 Arnulfs generation will have many, many problems to face. I can now distinguish-much more clearly than before what matters and what doesn't. 4 At this same time, Gerstein renewed acquaintance with an old friend, a Dutch engineer named H. J. Ubbink. Writing in 1949, Ubbink related the occasion:

1

When Kurt Gerstein telephoned me from Arnheim in 2

Karl Gerstein: "Mein Bruder Kurt Gerstein," lecture delivered at Bonn, October 1964, KGH. 8 Note by Frau Gerstein in the margin of the letter: "Live dangerously?" 'Letter from Kurt Gerstein to his wife, April 26, 1941, KOH.

[ 8 8]

Ch. Y · Belzec and Treblinka

94 I and asked if he could pay me a visit in spite of the fact that he was wearing the S.S. uniform, I replied spontaneously: ''You, any time!" I knew him too well not to realize that he would never have joined the S.S. of his own free will. He explained to me at once the reasons which had driven him to volunteer. After that, during the summer of I 94 I, he often visited my home ... Our conversations revolved around the war and National Socialism; in these he turned out to be a very great enemy of the regime . . . We used to listen to the B.B.C. news together. I remember some very striking statements from these talks: ''We must lose this war. fd rather we had Versailles a hundred times than have this gang of criminals remain. What shall it avail a people if it gain the whole world and lose its own soul?'' I gave him Hennann Rauschning's book, Hitler Speaks, to read, a book which at that time was being passed from hand to hand, illegally, in Holland. Whenever he had an hour to spare, he would come to Doesburg and read it. ''Unhappily, everything in the book is only too true. It hits the nail right on the head,'' he told me. The book impressed him particularly because it stated in plain language what he knew and suspected. In the end, he took it with him to Germany for his friends in Niemoller's group .••G I

15

Letter from H. J. Ubbink to the Bavarian Ministry of Justice, September 14, 1949, KOH.

KURT GERSTEIN

A statement by Kurt Rehling confirms that Gerstein read the Rauschning book at that time and had made it known to friends in Germany:

,r

One day, the bell rang at the parsonage and a boot was heard to drop on the floor of the vestibule . . . It was Rauschning's work, Hitler Speaks. What we thought was a Gestapo trap threw us completely off balance. A few days later, after we had already contemplated taking the forbidden volume to the police, that man Gerstein, theologian, doctor, brilliant chemist, and a member of the S.S., showed up at the parsonage and confessed to us laughingly that he had dropped the book in so that we might get to know it.•

The service report on Gerstein of May 5, I 94 I, made at the end of his training period at Arnheim, was very positive: ''G. is particularly well suited for all tasks, training proficient and sure . . . He is disciplined and has authority. ''7 Because Gerstein had both technical and medical knowledge, he was now assigned to the hygiene service of the W affen-S.S. in which his duties were particularly concerned with the drinking water and disinfection systems in military camps. From the moment of his return to Germany, Gerstein e Testimony by Kurt Rehling during the Degescl> case. Frankfurter Neue Presse, March 12, 1949. 'Military report of May S, 1941, KOH.

Ch. Y · Belzec and Treblinka

gave glimpses of his innermost thoughts to some of his old comrades in the youth movements. Helmut Franz comments:

1 . . . During the summer of I 94 I, shortly before our period of military training, he visited me at Bad

Kreuzna.ch where I had been sent to pass a course in nursing. According to him, the times left him no choice but to seek knife-edge paths and live dangerously.' His special miAAion made it nece.,sary for him to accept being considered a renegade by many of his old friends. Yet no matter what suffering it might cost him to be misread, he was obliged to congratulate himself on it for the sake of bis camouflage .•.• That November, Gerstein's career in the S.S. faced the danger of being suddenly cut short. He was at Hamm, attending the n1neral of his brother Alfred, when one of the judges of the Party Court which had dealt with his exclusion caught sight of him in uniform.1 The high command of the Waffen-S.S. was immediately notified and the Party demanded that he be transferred. But the trump card of his technical knowledge proved invaluable, and he was left at bis posL • If the quotation uaed by Franz is aCCJ1rate, it was indeed Nietzacbe'a phrase to which Gerstein referred in his letter to his wife dated April 26, 1941. • Helmut Franz~ Kurt Gernein, AU#eMeiter des Widerstandu Kirche gegen Hitler (Zurich: EVZ Verlag; 1964), p. 26. 1 Karl Gerstein: ..Mein Bruder Kun Gerstein."

ur

KURT GERSTEIN

During that ti11,e Gerstein became increasingly absorbed in his work. He soo;11ed to have forgotten the reasons that had prompted him to join up. However, one sentence in a letter written to his wife on August 7, 1941, may have indicated that his intentions were unchanged:

1 I had actually wanted to come to Tiibingen once more, but ... unfortunately it won't work out. I have again been traveling a great deal, mostly east and north (Bremen, Hamburg). At present, I am hard at work constructing a rather large number of disinfection trucks, a very nice job but extremely dull • • . In any event, these past few months my work and my interests have at last coincided again ..• I am in a place here where I can really be enormously useful and prevent a great deal •••2 However, these words may also just refer to Gerstein's daily work. On September 5, he again wrote to his wife: ''.•• I shall soon be off by car for about five days to Asnieres in France, then move on to Munich and Celle. I really have a very fine job, but a very tough one on account of the fact that I have full responsibility ...''1 Suddenly Gerstein's state of mind was completely transformed. What had happened? No one has any precise 9

1.etter from Kurt Gerstein to his wife, Auaust 7, 1941, KOH (italics mine). • Letter from Kurt Oerstt:in to hia wife, Septernber S, 1941, KGH.

Ch. V • Belzec and Treblinka knowledge on this point. Helmut Franz fills in some details:

,r

I myself was sent to the front after our meeting at Kre11mstch. In January 1942, I was wounded, and, after spending several months in military hospitals in Lith11ania, I arrived at a German hospital at Neustrelitz at the end of April of that year. I had only just got there when Gerstein cam~ from Berlin to visit me. He had kept in constant touch with my parents at Saarbriicken, and that was how he had found out that I was at Neustrelitz. One day, to my great astonishment, he loomed up, phantomlike, at the foot of my bed in S.S. uniform. I was very much disturbed to see him looking so grim and pessimistic, though he bad then not yet visited the extermination camps in Poland. But what he had seen and heard in the S.S. already had been enough to make him a desperate man and drain the life out of him. His permanent fear of being discovered had stretched his nerves to the limit. He was so appalled by the satanic practices of the Nazis that their eventual victory did not seem to him impossible. This feeling only intensified his general pessimism and the breakdown that was going on within him. Compared with this bundle of nerves made ap of hate, fear, and despair, I thought myself calm and collected.'

• Helmut Franz: Kurt Gerstein, p. 27.

KURT GERSTEIN

A few months later, in June 1942, Helmut Franz wrote to his brother:

,r . . . How he has changed! Only a few years ago, he was still a veritable genius in my eyes. Today, the roan is finished; he's utterly indecisive and without strength or

poise. It is terrible! The worst of it is that he is not merely in a slough of despond, but that his job has put him irrevocably in a hopeless situation from which he can scarcely escape without disaster ...1 Perhaps it was only rumors that were weighing so heavily on Gerstein. But in June of that same year he suddenly became the ''witness'' that he wanted to be. It was now that he assumed his historic role. He was about to become involved in the ''final solution'' of the Jewish problem. It is not known precisely at what moment the idea of attempting the physical extermination of the Jews took root in Hitler's mind. Up to the outbreak of war, the antiSemitic policy of the Nazis had had as its principal objective the forced emigration of the Jews in the Reich and then of those in the annexed territories. The hostilities soon put an end to this as a possibility. For a while, discussion in Berlin turned on various ''colonial" projects. One idea was to herd all the European. Jews onto the island of Madagascar, which would become 1

Ibid., p. 63.

Ch. Y • Belzec and Treblinka

a sort of immense Jewish "reserve'' under Gennan control. Supreme authority on the island would be in the hands of the German police. SimuJtaneously, another territorial solution was developed that was more "realistic" than the former: in accordance with a plan worked out by Reinharif Heydrich, head of Central Security, concentration of the Polish Jews, soon followed by Gennan and Cze.ch Jews, began in the region of Lublin in eastern Poland. Jews living in the large Polish cities were left where they were, cooped up in the ghettos. At the beginning of 1941, the fate reserved for these Jewish populations was not yet clear. It was at the beginning of the campaign in Russia that the decision was made to exterminS\te them and all the Jews of Europe:

1 To complement the task that was assigned to you on January 24, 1939, envisaging the most advantageous possible solution of the Jewish question through the medium of emigration and evacuation, I hereby instruct you to make all the necessary preparations to organiie the complete solution of the Jewish question within the German sphere of influence in Europe. All other organs of gover11,oent are to cooperate with you to this end. I further instruct you to submit to me at an early date an over-all plan concerning the organizational measures and the material required to implement the solution of the Jewish problem.' 8

Nuremberg Doc. PS-7 I o.

KURT GERSTEIN

Such were the terms of the instruction add~ by Reich Marshall Hermann Goering to Heydrich in the summer of 194 I. As the German armed forces moved into Russian territory, even before ''the final solution'' had been drawn up, special task forces began to round up Jews and execute them by mass shooting. From mid-1941 onw~ scenes such as the one described, the extermination of the Jews of Dubno, by an engineer named Graebe in 1942, were a daily occurrence:

1

The people climbed down from the trucks, men, women and children, and were forced to take off their clothes under the supervision of an S.S. man, whip in hand. They were obliged to deposit their effects in certain places: shoes, clothing, and underwear separately. I saw a heap of shoes, around 800 to I ,ooo pairs, and some large piles of underwear and clothing. The people undressed, without weeping or moaning, and stood about grouped in families, with their arms around each other and making their farewells, while they waited for a sign from the S.S. man standing by the graveside, he, too, whip in hand. During the quarter of an hour that I stayed there, I never heard anyone complain or plead for mercy. I watched one family of eight: a man and woman of about fifty, surrounded by their children of roughly a year, eight and ten, and two grownup girls who seemed about twenty and twenty-four. A white-

Ch. Y • Belue and Treblinka haired old lady was rocking the baby in her arms and

singing a song. The child, very content, was crowing happily. The parents bad tean in their eyes as they looked around the group. The father held the boy of ten by the band, ~aking softly to him while the lad fought back tears. Then the father raised bis finger toward the heavens and seemed to explain something to the boy as he stroked his head. At that moment, the S.S. man standing by the grave shouted something to his comrade. The latter checked off about twenty people and ordered them to go behind the embankment. Among the group was the family I have just spoken of. I still reeall how the girl, a slender brunette, pointed to herself as she pa&1Cd close to me and said ''23'' . . • I walked around the embankment and found myself looking into a frightful common grave. The bodies were packed so tightly together that only their heads were visible. Most of the,11 had head wounds and blood was running down over their shoulders. Some of those who had been shot were still moving. Others raised their bands and turned their heads to show that they were still alive. The trench was two thirds full. I would e.~timate that it contained something like a thousand bodies. I looked around for the man who had carried out the execution. It was an S.S. man, and he was sitting on the na, tow rim of the grave smoking a cigarette, with his legs dangling and an auto11 1atic rifle across his knees. Other people, completely nude, came down some steps dug in the clay

KURT GERSTEIN

wall and went to the place indicated by the S.S. man. Stretched out facing the dead and wounded, they spoke to them, in low voices. Then I heard a burst of rifle shots; I looked down into the trench and saw bodies twitching and heads already motionless above the bodies that lay in front of them. The backs of their necks were bleeding. I was astonished not to be ordered to leave . . . A new batch of victims was on the way. They marched down into the trench, lined up facing the

previous victims and were shot .••' Within the framework of this UDCOOrdinated work of exte,,,,ination, shooting was often replaced by the use of gas trucks. As the gas cbamber used in the euthanasia program was the original technical means 11sed in mass extermination by gas, begun in 1942, the gas truck was the second. In these trucks, the exhaust gas was reintroduced into the rear section of the vehicle in which the victims were locked up. The ttucks moved around with the task force, or else they were parked in an area having a large Jewish population, as a sort of extermination camp in nucleus. In 194 I, using this method with three such trucks in the region of ChelmnQ, Gauleiter Artur Greiser of the Wartheland exte111,inated most of the 100,000 Jews under his control. Early in I 942, the over-all plan for the syste,,,atic ' Nurembera Doc. PS-2992.

Ch. Y • Belzec and Treblinka

extennination of the Jews was ready. On January 20, 1942, Heydrich expounded his plan to the so-called Wann~ Conference, which was attended by high officials of the principal ministries of the Reich ( including the Mioistii~ of Justice, of the Interior, and of Foreign Affairs), as well as members of the Reich Chancellery and high-ranking officen of the S.S.:

1 The final solution of the Jewish problem in Europe will have to be applied to around eleven million people ... The Jews are to be transferred to the East under strong escort and assigned there to the tabor service .•. It goes without saying that a large proportion of them will be eliminated quite naturally as a result of their defective physical condition. The remainder surviving at the end-who must be regarded as having the greatest resistanr,e-:are to be treated accordingly. In fact, history has shown that this natural elite, if liberated, would carry within the,.,se~ves the seeds of a new Jew. • • •8 ish rena1s4;ance

As part of the systematic campaign of extermination and on the basis of experience obtained earlier with gas (in the euthauuia program) or trucks, the Nazis set up spec~al camps equipped with gas chambers, some of which would have a "capacity'' of close to fifteen thousand persons per day. • Nuremberg Doc. PS-710.

KURT GERSTEIN

In the spring of I 942, Police Superintendent Christian Wirth, whose activity in the euthanasia program has already been described, received orders to place himseH at the disposal of Group Leader Odilo Globocnik at Lublin for the purpose of putting into service the first camps of this type. Soon four extermination centers were in action in the territory of the General Government ( the central and eastern portions of what had been Poland) : Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, and Lublin (Maidanek). The gas used was still carbon monoxide and was fed into the gas chambers by diesel engines (as was the case with the special trucks). Improvements were urgently needed, and tbis is where we again encounter Kurt Gerstein, who shortly before had become head of the Disinfection Services of the W affen-S.S.

,r . . . In

January I 942, I was appointed head of the Technical Disinfection Services of the Waffen-S.S., which also dealt with matters concerning highly toxic gases. In 1942, a man in civilian clothes whom I did not know walked into my office: he was the S.S. officer Gunther of the Central Security office. He ordered me to obtain for him, for a top secret mission, 100 kilos [220 lbs.] of prussic acid and to take this to a place known only to the driver of the truck. A few weeks later, we set out to drive to the potash plant near Kolin (Prague). I was roughly aware of the nature of my mission, but agreed to go. To this day, I believe that it was a [ I O O]

Ch. Y · Belzec and Treblinka stroke of chance, with a strange air of Providence about it, that gave me the opportunity of seeing what I was trying to discover. Out of hundreds of other assignments that I might have been given, I was put in charge of the post that was closest to the area in which I was interested. The improbability of this seemed all the greater in view of the fact that in the past I had been intetned several times by the Gestapo for anti-Nazi activity. My superiors knew this beca1ise the Party had denounced me to them. The truth is, the intelligence service and the Central Reich Security Office were caught napping in this instance and chose the wrong

man. Nevertheless, as ordered, I IDaintained absolute secrecy regarding my mission, even in my own office. Had I said a word about it to anybody at all, I should certainly have been subjected to terrible torture and put to death and all my family would have been executed. Being considered an authority on prussic acid and toxic gases, I could easily have had a whole shipment of them destroyed, giving damage due to decomposition as the cause. I had not the slightest scruple, then, in accepting the mission that had been put to me. Any other person would have carried it out as required by the S.S. I myself was in a position to prevent the use of prussic acid for the murder of human beings. From that moment onward, I always carried poison and a loaded re[ I O I ]

KUllT GERSTEIN

volver on me so that I could co1,1mit suicide in the event that my true feelings were brought to light. On the journey to Kolin, we were accompanied by S.S. Obersturmbann/Uhrer Profeuor Pfannenstiel, Professor of Hygiene at the University of Marburg/I .ahu.• From the deliberately odd character of the technical questions I asked them, the people at the Kolin prussic acid plant were able to grasp the fact that the acid was going to be 11sed to kill human beings. I did this to get rumors spread among the population.1 When Kurt Gerstein was inter1ogated on July 10, 1945, by Major Mattei of the Second Military Court in Paris, he gave the following supplementary explanations of the order relating to his mipion: For what reasons were you personally chosen to transport the cyanide from one part of Polish territory to another when you were stationed in Berlin? Gerstein: I believe that this was entirely a matter of chance. My name was put forward by an

Mattei:

• On the subject of Professor Pfannenstiel, see p. 115. 1

Gerstein report. I am continuing to me the French version of the Gerstein report. I shall complete Gerstein 's own story with certain passages from the interrogation which he underwent in Paris on June 26 and July 10, 1945, as well as from a fragment found among his papers after his death. Certain of the notes are those added by Professor H. Rothfeta to the German text of the report when it was published in 1953 in the Yiertel jahrshe/te /ilr Zeitguchichte. Theae notes will be rnarked with an ( R). [ I O 2 ]

Ch. Y · Belue and Treblinka

M:

officer of the ChN■ tical Department to whom the authorities, that is, Gunther, had addressed themselves. Why did the authorities deem it neces.cary to send an officer from Berlin to Kolin ( Czechoslovakia) just to pick up the cyanide and transport it to Be]zec in Poland, when it would have been much simpler to instruct an officer already in Czechoslovakia or in Poland to do this?

G: M:

G:

I was considered a specialist in cyanide disinfectants. Did you receive a written or an oral order for your miAAion and what were its terms? I received an oral order which was confirmed to me forty-eight hours later by a written order. The terms of the written order were roughly as follows: I order you to procure 26o kilos [572 lbs.] of potas~ium cyanide and transport it to a place which will be indicated to you by the driver of vehicle No. • • • assigned to this miwon. I myself chose Kolin because I knew that cyanide was manufactured there by much the same method as it was at Dessau.1

At this point, we pick up Gerstein's story: 9

lntaroption of July 10, 1945, KOH. [ I O

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KURT GERSTEIN

1

We then set off with the truck for Lublin (Poland) where S.S. Group Leader Globocnik was awaiting us. He said: ''This is one of our highly secret matters, you might even say the most secret. Anyone who talks about it will be shot. Yesterday two more who couldn't keep their mouths shut were shot.'' He then explained to us: "At present ( this was August I 7, I 942), there are three establishments: ( 1) (2)

(3) ( 4)

Belzec, on the Lublin-Lvov road. Maximum per day 15,000 persons (seen)! Sobibor; I don't know the exact location; not seen; 20,000 persons per day. Treblinka, 120 km (75 miles) NNE of Warsaw; 25,000 per day; seen. Maidanek, near Lublin; seen in preparation.''

I made a thorough inspection of all these camps, accompained by Police Superintendent Wirth, the head of all these death factories. Earlier, Wirth had been put in charge by Hitler and Himroler of the murder of the mental cases at Hadamar, Grafeneck, and various other places. Globocnik said: ''You will have to disinfect large quantities of clothing, ten or twenty times the quantity resulting from the Spinnstoffsammlung ( collection of clothing and textile articles) which is only being done to obscure the source of clothing taken from Jews, [ I O

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Ch. Y • Belzec and Treblinka

Poles, Czechs, etc. Your other duty will be to improve the service in our gas chambers, which function on diesel engine exhaust. What is wanted is a more toxic gas that works faster, such as prussic acid. The Fuhrer and Hirnmler- tbey were here on August 15, that is, the day before yesterday instructed me to act as personal escort to those who have reason to view these establishments." Prof~or Pfannensteil then asked: "But what did the Fuhrer say?'' Globocnik replied: "'lbe Fuhrer has ordered all action to be speeded up. Dr. Herbctt Lindner, who was with us yesterday, asked me: 'But wouldn't it be wiser to cremate the corpses instead of burying them? Another generation may perhaps judge these things differently!' I replied: 'Gentlemen, if there should ever be, after us, a generation so cowardly and so soft that they could not understand our work, which is so good and so neceM&ry, then, gentlemen, the entire National Socialist movement would have been in vain . On the contrary, we ought to bury bronze tablets stating that it was we who had the courage to carry out this gigantic task!' The Fuhrer then said: 'Yes, my good Globocnik, you are right!' '' Nevertheless, Dr. Lindner's' opinion subsequently prevailed, and even the corp~ that bad already been buried were burned by means of gasoline or oil on gratings erected on rails. The office associated with these •'lbe reference is to Dr. Herbert Jjoden of the Ministry of the Interior, who was in charge of the eutbana,ria program from 1939 OD.

[ I O

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KUR.T GERSTEIN

factories was located in the Julius Schreck Barracks at Lublin. The following day, I was introduced to the men working there. Two days later, we left for Belzec. A small special station with two platforms was set up against a yellow sand hill, immediately to the north of the Lublin-Lvov railway. To the south, near the road, were some service buildings and a notice saying: ''Waffen-S.S., Belzec Office.'' Globocnik presented me to S.S.-Hauptsturmfuhrer Obermeyer of Pirmasens,' who showed great reserve when taking me over the installations. We saw no dead that day, but a pestilential odor blanketed the whole region. Alongside the station was a large hut marked ''Cloak Room'' with a wicket inside marked ''Valuables.'' Further on, a hall, designated ''Hairdresser,'' containing about a hundred chairs. Then came a passage about 150 yards long, open to the wind and flanked on both sides with barbed wire and notices saying: ''To the Baths and Inhalation Rooms.'' In front of us was a building of the bathhouse type; left and right, large pots of geraniums and other flowers. On the roof, a copper Star of David. The building was labeled: ''Heckenholt Foundation.'' That afternoon, I saw nothing else. Next morning, shortly after seven, I was told: ''The first train will be arriving in ten minntes. '' A few • Professor Rothfels had not succeeded in identifying this peraon. In 1962, it was discovered that the man concerned was not S.S. officer Obermeyer of Pirmasens, but S.S. officer Oberbauacr. He is still alive and at liberty. [ I O

6]

Ch. Y • Belr.ec and Treblinka minutes later a train did in fact arrive from Lemberg, with 45 wagons holding more than 6,000 people. Of these 1,450 were already dead on arrival. Behind the smsdl barbed-wire windows, children, young ones, frightened to death, women and men. As the train drew in, 200 Ukrainians detailed for the task tore open the doors and, laying about them with their leather whips, drove the Jews out of the cars. Instructions boomed from a loudspeaker, ordering them to remove all clothing, artificial limbs, and spectacles. Using small pieces of string handed out by a little Jewish boy, they were to tie their shoes together. All valuables and money were to be handed in at the valuables counter, but no voucher or receipt was given. Women and young girls were to have their hair cut off in the hairdresser's hut (an S.S.-Unterfuhrer on duty told me: "That's to make something special for U-boat crews'') .1 Then the march began. On either side of them, left and right, barbed wire; behind, two dozen Ukrainians, guns in hand. They drew nearer to where Wirth and I were standing in front of the death chambers. Men, women, young girls, children, babies, cripples, all stark naked, filed by. At the comer stood a burly S.S. man, with a loud priestlike voice. ''Nothing terrible is going to happen to you!'' he told the poor wretches. ''All you have to do is to breathe in deeply. That strengthens the • 0n this pomt, . see p.

115.

[ I O

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KURT GERSTEIN

lungs. Inhaling is a means of preventing infectious diseases. It's a good method of disinfection!'' They asked what was going to happen to them. He told them: ''The men will have to work building roads and houses. But the women won't be obliged to do so; they'll do housework or help in the kitchen.'' For some of these poor creatures, this was a last small ray of hope, enough to

carry them, unresisting, as far as the chambers of death. Most of them knew the truth. The odor told them what their fate was to be. They walked up a small flight of steps and into the death chambers, most of them without a word, thrust forward by those behind them. One Jewess of about forty, her eyes flaming like torches, cursed her murderers. Urged on by some whiplashes from Captain Wirth in person, she disappeared into the gas chamber. Many were praying, while others asked: ''Who will give us water to wash the dead?'' [Jewish ritual]. I prayed with them. I pressed myself into a comer and cried out to my God and theirs. How glad I should have been to go into the gas chambers with them! How gladly I should have died the same death as theirs! Then an S.S. officer in uniform would have been found in the gas chambers. People would have believed it was an accident and the story would have been buried and forgotten. But I could not do this yet. I felt I must not succumb to the temptation to die with these people. I now knew a great deal about these murders. Wirth had told me, ''There are not ten people alive who have seen, [ I O

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Ch. Y · Belzec and Treblinka or will see, as much as you.'' When the whole thing was over, all the foreign auxiliaries would be executed. I was one of the handful of people who bad seen every comer of the establishment, and certainly the only one to have visited it as an enemy of this gang of murderers. Inside the chambers, S.S. men were crushing the people together. ''Fill them up well," Wirth had ordered, ''700 to 800 of them to every 2 70 square feet.'' Now the doors were closed. Meanwhile, the rest of the people from the train stood waiting, naked. ''Naked even in winter!'' somebody said to me. ''But they may catch their death!'' ''That's what they're here for!'' was the reply. At that moment, I understood the reason for the inscription ''Heckenholt.'' Heckenholt was the driver of the diesel truck whose exhaust gases were to

be used to kill these unfortunates. S.S. sergeant Heckenholt was making great efforts to get the engine running, but it refused to start. Captain Wirth cam~ up. He was obviously frightened because I was watching a disaster. Yes, I saw it all and I waited. Fifty minutes, seventy minutes ticked away on my stop watch, but the diesel would not work! Inside the gas chambers the people waited, waited in vain. They could be heard weeping, ''as they do in the synagogue,'' said Professor Pfannenstiel, his eyes glued to a window in the wooden

door. 1 Furious at the delay, Captain Wirth lashed out • Professor Pfannenstiel was later to deny having spoken these words, at least in the sarcastic sense imputed to him by Gerstein. He likewise denied the truth of details concerning him which follow later in the report. See p. 112. [ I O

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ICUllT GBllSTBIN

with his whip at the Ukrainian as.dsting Heckenholt. It was two hours and forty-nine minutes-all recorded by stop watch-before the diesel started. Right up to that moment, the people had been shut up alive in those four crowded chambers, four times 750 persons in four times I 590 cubic feet of space! Another twenty-five minutes dragged by. Many of those inside were already dead. They could be seen through the small window when an electric lamp inside went on for a few moments and lit up the chamber. After twenty-eight minutes, few were left alive. Finally, at the end of thirtytwo minutes, all were dead. Some Jewish workers on the far side opened the wooden doors. In return for this terrible service, they had been promised their lives and a small percentage of the valuables and money collected. Inside, the people were still standing erect, like pillars of basalt, since there had not been an inch of space for them to fall in or even lean. Families could still be seen holding hands, even in death. It was a tough job to separate them as the chambers were emptied to make way for the next batch. The bodies were tossed out, blue, wet with sweat and urine, the legs soiled with faeces and menstrual blood. A couple of doun workers checked the mouths of the dead, which they tore open with iron hooks. ''Gold to the left, other objects to the right!'' Other workers inspected anus and genital organs in search of money, diamonds, gold, etc. Dentists moved around J,arornering [ I I O ]

Ch. Y • Belr.ec and Treblinka

out gold teeth, bridges and crowns. In the midst of thea11 stood Captain Wirth, in his element. Showing me a large can full of teeth, he said: "See for yourself. Just loot at the amount of gold there is! And we collected as much only yesterday and the day before. You can't imagine what we find every day-dollars, diamonds, gold! You'll see!'' He took me to a jeweler who was responsible for all these valuables. Then they pointed out to me a man who had been one of the heads of Kaufhaus des Westens, a large Berlin department store, and another little man. These two were in charge of the Jewish work squads. The little man was being made to play the violin. ''He was a captain in the Imperial Austrian Army,'' Wirth told me. ''He holds the Knight's Cross of the German Iron Cross!" Then the bodies were flung into large trenches, each about 100 yards by 20 by 12, which had been dug close to the gas chambers. After a few days the bodies would swell, raising the top of the mound as much as 6 to I o feet as a result of gas formed inside the corpses. A few days later, once the swelling had subsided, the bodies would sbak~ down again. Subsequently, I was told, the bodies were piled on train rails and burned to a cinder with diesel oil ... At Bel~ and Treblinka, they did not take the trouble to make anything like an accurate count of the number of people killed. The figures given on the radio by the British Broadcasting Co. are [ I I I ]

KUJlT GERSTEIN

not co1:ect; in actual fact, the total number of people involved was 25,000,000! Not Jews alone, but Poles as well and Cu-c~ who, so the Nazis said, were biologically valuelea. Most of them died nameless.. Commissions made up of pseudo doctors, ordiouy young S.S. enlisted men in white coats, drove around the villages and towns of Poland and Czechoslovakia in limousines, checking off the aged, the cons11rnptive, and the sick who were later to be executed in the gas chambers. These were ''third-class'' Poles and C7'eehs who were judged unworthy to go on living because they were no longer able to work. Police Captain Wirth asked me not to propose any modifications in the gas chamber method when I returned to Berlin, but to leave it as it was. I lied, saying that if the pruuic acid had deteriorated in transit and become very dangerous, I should be forced to bury it, which I at once did. The next day we drove in Captain Wirth's car to Treblinka, about 6 miles NNE of Warsaw. The equipment in that death camp was almost identical to the Belzec installations,

but on an even larger scale: eight gas cbamhers and veritable mountains of clothing and underwear, 115 to 130 feet high. Then, in ''honor'' of our visit, a banquet was held for all those employed at the establisb,,,ent. Obersturmbannfuhrer Profeuor Doctor Pfannenstiel, Professor of Hygiene at the University of Marburg/ Lahn, made a speech: ''The work you are doing is great work and a duty so useful and so necessary.'' To me, he [ I I 2 ]

Ch. V · Belzec and Treblinka spoke of the establishment as ''a blessing and a humanitarian arrangement." To all present, he said: ''When one sees the bodies of these Jews, one understands the greatness of the work you are doing!'' The dinner itself was simple; but on Himmler's orders, those employed in the service were given whatever they wanted in the way of butter, meat, alcohol, etc. As we were leaving, we were offered several pounds of butter and a large number of bottles of liqueur. Not without difficulty I lied my way out of this by saying that I was kept adequately supplied from our farm. That being the case, Pfannenstiel took my share as well as his own, and we drove to Warsaw. 7 Among Gerstein's papers discovered after his death, the following additional extract relating to the Belzec camp was found:

1 . . . At Belzec,

it was dreadful to see the competition that was whipped up among the men and boys whose job it was to carry away the clothing. I still remember that little Jewish boy of three or four years of age who was made to hand out the bits of string with which the victims had to tie their shoes together: a child like that, harnessed, all-unknowing, to the frightful murder machine created by Hitler and Wirth. Or I think of a little girl of ive:---,completely nude:.--who dropped a little

' Gentein reporL

KURT GERSTEIN

coral chain, which was picked up a few minutes later (a yard away from the gas chambers) by a little boy of three. He e,:amined it with delight-.and, a moment later, was thrown into the gas chamber. Oberm~yer told me: ''In a village near here, I found a Jew from Pirmasens, my home town. He was a sergeant in the '14'18 war and a very honorable man. We played together as kids. He even saved my life once ... I took this man and his wife with me and put them in my working squad!'' . . . When I asked him what would happen to these people afterward, he said with an air of utter amazement: ''What will happen to them? The same as happens to all the others. In things like this there's no other way-but maybe rn have them shot!''8 Today, the veracity of Gerstein's report is beyond doubt, except for some points that Gerstein could only surmise, such as the total Dumber of victims or the action of S.S. squads in occupied countries. But the scene at Belzec is confirmed by the Pfannenstiel report, more of which will be cited. Many details confirm ''the absolute accuracy of this Dantesque narrative. ''9 Thus, as Poliakov and Wulf point out, the phrase used by the S.S. officer when he told Gerstein that the women's hair was to be used ''to make something special for U-boat crews'' could hardly have been invented. Its accuracy is indicated by the Gerstein posthumous papers, KGH. 9 Leon Poliakov and Josef Wulf: Le Ill• Reich et /es Juifs (Paris: OaJlimard; 1959), pp. 113 ff.

8

[ I I

4]

Ch. Y · Belzec and Treblinka following document dated August 6, I 942, from the S.S. Central Office for Economic Affairs and Administra• tion:

1

The head of the S.S. Central Office for Economic Affairs and Administration, S.S. Group T.eader Pohl, has ordered that care is to be taken to make use of the human hair collected in all concentration camps. This human hair is threaded on bobbins and converted into industrial felt. After being combed and cut, the women's hair can be manufactured into slippers for U-boat crews and felt stockings for the Reichsbahn [the earlier 11ame of the German national railway system]. 1

Globocnik is supposed to have committed suicide at the end of the war, while Wirth was reportedly killed by partisans. Neither of them has ever been traced. Gerstein is dead. Apart from Oberhauser ( Gerstein's ''Obermeyer'') only one of the persons who, according to Gerstein, were present at the acts of extermination which took place at Belzec on that August day is still alive and at liberty: Professor Pfannenstiel. Here are two extracts from the depositions made by him about the events in which he is said to have been involved and about the remarks attributed to him by Gerstein. The first deposition was made

in June 1950:

1

Ibid., p. 67.

KUllT GBllSTBIN

1 ... I was trained in hygiene and as1igned to

work in this field during the war. I was occasionally called upon in connection with disinfection work, for whic~ as I already knew at the time, liquid prussic acid was used, I myself, however, never worked with this during the war. This liquid form of prussic acid was also called Zyklon B. During the summer of 1942, as a specialist in hygiene, I was ordered to proceed to Lublin to assist in an advisory capacity in urban sanitation work ( supply

of drinking water, sewage disposal). I accordingly went to Berlin to obtain a car because by that time the train journey was taking too long. I was unable to get the use of a car, but I was told that Dr. Gerstein was traveling to Lublin and I was instructed to get in touch with him, which I did. Dr. Gerstein told me that he would have to travel by way of Prague and I agreed to go along. An empty truck made the journey behind our car. As we drove, Dr. Gerstein explained to me that he had to go to pick up some prussic acid from a plant at Kolin near Prague. He did not tell me what it was to be 11sed for and I did not ask him. Knowing that Dr. Gerstein was in charge of disinfection work, I thought it quite natural that the acid should be intended for that purpose. But I soon learned at the factory-it was a small plant-that the chemical in question was gasenus prussic acid. Until then, I had been unaware of the existence of p111ssic acid in that form. But its disadvantages were pointed out to me at the ~aroe time, namely that, under consid[ I I

6]

Ch. Y • Belzec and Treblinka erable pressure, it decomposed. Dr. Gerstein and I then went on to Lublin. During the journey, as Dr. Gerstein later explained to me, one of the cylinders started to let in air and had to be buried. At Lublin, I carried out my assigned tasks. In this connection, I learned that there was a camp at Belzec where Jews were killed. I wanted to see it. The camp was under the direction of a man named Wirth and it had been equipped by S.S. Police Chief Globocnik, who was also a Brigade Commander (S.S.) and a Police General. I made the acq1.1aintance of the latter through Dr. Gerstein, who had often been to Lublin and Belzec. I, too, had business with him because he was my superior ... I asked if I might view the camp. Globocnik, who was very proud of his institution, granted permission and took Gerstein and myself into the camp. Next morning, a shipment of Jewssmen, women, and some children-arrived . . . They were ordered to strip completely and to hand over their possessions. They were informed that they were to be incorporated into a working process and must be deloused to prevent epidemics. They would also have to inhale something. After the women's hair had been cut off, the whole shipment of people was taken to a building containing six rooms. On that occasion, to my knowledge, only four [of these] were used. After these people had been shut up in the rooms, the exhaust gas from an engine was piped in. Gerstein stated that it took about eighteen

KUllT GERSTEIN

minutes before quiet was restored inside. While the Jews were being taken in, the rooms were lit up with electric light and everything passed off peacefully. But when the lights were turned off, loud cries burst out inside, which then gradually died away. As soon as everything was quiet again, the doors in the outside walls were opened, the corpses were brought out, and, after being searched for gold teeth, they were stacked in a trench. Here, too, the work was done by Jews. No doctor was present. I noticed nothing special about the corpses, except that some of them showed a bluish p11ffiness about the face. But this is not surprising since they had died of asphyxiation. H my memory serves me correctly, I returned to Lublin that same day with Dr. Gerstein. When Globocnik authori7.ed me to visit the camp, he made it clear to me that I must not talk about it to anyone, on pain of death. When I got back to Berlin, I informed Professor Grawitz, the senior physician of the S.S., of what I had seen and expressed to him the ho11or that I felt. He assured me that he would see to it that this business was stopped. I have no idea what happened then. The fact of my having asked to visit the camp may no doubt be attributed to a certain curiosity on my part. I wanted to know in particular if this process of exterminating human beings was accompanied by any acts of cruelty. I found it especially cruel that death did not set [ I I

8]

Ch. Y · Belz.ec and Treblinka

in until eighteen minuta had pa~d. I told Globocnit so. He replied that this would go betrer with prumc acid, but, so far as I know, this acid was never 11sed because Gerstein pointed out to him the dangers inherent in the 11se of gaseous prussic acid. H my information is correct, the cylinders of prussic acid were buried. I know that Dr. Gerstein gives an entirely different description of this gassing scene. That version is false, It is full of exaggerations. What is characteristic in this respect is Cerstein's as1ertion that, in his view, about 25,000,000 people had been subjected to this treatment. As he told me himself on that occasion, he had been to Belzec a number of times. It is punting to a sentence of death. Gerstein counted in vain on a reaction from the Allies. But what was the attitude of the neutral countries that he tried to alert to the extermination of the Jews? For fear of aggravating their relations with Germany, the Swedes did not transmit to London von Otter's aide-memoire concerning his conversation with Gerstein until the war ended. However, Sweden did not close its frontiers to Jews seeking refuge on its territory. The case of Swjtzerland was different. According to Consul Hochstrasser, Gerstein's story was transmitted to Berne in June 1944, cooti1,aaiog what the Swiss authorities had already known for a long time. In fact, a report on the extermination of the Jews had [ I

5 4]

Ch. VI · Appeal Without Echo

reached the Swiss capital from an absolutely reliable source as early as March 1942. During an inquiry made after the war, Dr. B., of Zurich, who was then a member of a Swiss medical mission in eastern Europe, gave details of this report to Professor Carl Ludwig:

1 At Smolensk ... the doctor in charge told me in January I 942 that things were going from bad to worse every year. Jews in ever growing numbers were being put to death in the most bestial manner. The methods used were not so much 111ass execution by shooting ( although 7,000 Jews in the Minsk ghetto were cut down by machinegun bullets) as extermination in gas chambers, after which the bodies were burned in immense crematoriums. He knew for a fact that installations of this nature, while not perhaps completed everywhere, had been tried out in Auschwitz. At Smolensk, on the outskirts of the town, I saw some ten Jewish women digging their own graves. I did not witness the execution, but the next day I saw the grave covered over with earth. In Warsaw, my eyes were caught by a train made up of third-class cars crammed with 1ewish deportees of every age. One of the S.S. men guarding the convoy told me that not one of these ''Jewish swine'' had the slightest idea that they would all be dead within twice the span of forty-eight hours •.. Dr. B. provided various supplementary details on [ I

55]

KUllT GBllSTEIN

what he had learned at that time regarding the 11se of gases, etc., then added

1 that he had spoken for the first time of these horroiS to the general meeting of the Swiss Medical Association in 1942 . . . He had imparted what he knew to Colonel Brigadier Eugster, the Army prosecutor, in the presence of Federal Councilor Kobelt, the head of the Military Department; this occu,xed at the Federal Palar-e in March 1942 ... . . . Dr. B. entrusted to the author of the present report the diary of Sergeant W., his companion, which was communicated to the Chief Prosecutor in 1943 ... This diary contains notes relating to mass execu•

a

tiODS • ••

On August 20, 1942, the president of the Swiss Federation of Jewish Communities conveyed to Mr. Heinrich Rothmund, Chief of Police, the information that had just reached the World Jewish Cong,ess at Geneva concerning the mass, general execution of Jews under the control of Get •r•any or its satellites.• Moreover, additional details reached Berne from the most varied sources, among them, doubtless, the Swiss intelligence service, one of the best informed in the world at the time. Therefore, it was in full • La politique pratiqule par la Sui#e d regard du rl/ll,U8 au cours des annles 1933 d 1945. Report addresaecl to the Federal Council on behalf of the Legislative Councils by Profe110r Carl Ludwig, Basel (Berne, 1958), pp. 21~20. 6 Ibid., p. 222. [ I

5 6]

Ch. YI · Appeal Without Echo knowledge of the facts that the government issued the most stringent orders that all Jews who attempted to find refuge in the territory of the Confederation were to be turned back. "Supply difficulties'' on the part of Switzerland do not seem to have been the real reason for this policy, since non-Jewish refugees were accepted. A circular of the Division of Police, dated August 13, 1942, decreed: (I) The following are not to be turned back: ( 1 ) deserters, escaped prisoners of war, and other military personnel • . . ( 2) political refugees . . • . . . Those who have fled only on account of their race, the Jews, for example, are not to be considered as political refugees ...1 The attitude of the Swiss federal government was underpinned by the reluctance of the cantons, with the exception of Basel City, to receive Jewish refugees in their territory. 8 The measures designed to tum back the refugees could therefore be applied with ever-increasing severity during the months that followed. According to an instruction from the Division of Police dated December 29, 1942: ''Care must be taken to ensure that refugees who have to be turned back are not able to make contact, direct or indirect ( notably by telephone), with third par0 8

Ibid., p. 191. Ibid., p. 199.

[ I

S7]

KUitT GERSTEIN

ties ( relatives, acquaintances, lawyers, legations, consulates, organizations aiding refugees, etc. ) ...''7 From October 1944 onward, the Swiss army intervened to reinforce the frontier control carried out by the police. 8 Until the summer of 1944, the frontiers of the Confederation remained solidly bolted and barred. The hopes that Gerstein had placed in an initiative by Switzerland proved to be without foundation. There reroained the Holy See. Gerstein directed his greatest efforts at alerting the Pope. Having been shown the door at the Legation of the Apostolic Nuncio, he informed Dr. Winter, coadjutor to Msgr. Konrad von Preysing, Archbishop of Berlin, in order that he might transmit the story to the Archbishop and to the Pope. The Holy See has never confirmed or denied that the information supplied by Gerstein did in fact reach it; but if that information was received in Rome, there too it did no more than confirm facts of which the Vatican was amply apprised. As early as February 1942 the Apostolic Nuncio in Slovakia had declared to Msgr. Vojtech Tuka, the Prime Minister, that ''it is incorrect to believe that the Jews are being sent to Poland to work; in reality, they are being exterminated there. ''9 In March 1942 representatives of the Jewish Agency and of the World Jewish Congress handed to the Apostolic delegate in Berne a long note describing the deportations Ibid., p. 216. 8 Ibid., p. 210. 9 Nuremberg Doc. NG-5291. T

[ I

58 ]

Ch. YI • Appeal Without Echo and D'lass&cres of Jews throughout the te11itory of Europe subject to Ga ,,,an control.1 On September 26 of the same year, Myron C. Taylor, President Roosevelt's personal representative to Pope Pius XIl, addreaed to the Cardinal Secretary of State a letter in which the following statements were made:

1 Liquidation of the Warsaw ghetto

is taking place.

Without any distinction all Jews, i.rxespective of age or sex, are being removed from the ghetto in groups and shot. Their corpses are utiliffil for making fats and their bones for the manufacture of fertilizer. Corpses are even being exhumed for these purposes. These mass executions take place, not in Warsaw, but in especially prepared camps for the purpose, one of which is stated to be in Belzec •••1

In his reply, the Cardinal Secretary of State confirmed that ''reports of severe measures taken against non-Aryans have also reached the Holy See from other sources • • •"' On November 8, 1942, Msgr. Jan Sapieha, Arch-

bishop of Cracow, complained to Governor General Hans Frank that Polish workers "are being used to take part in the extermination of Jews .••''' S•uJ Friediioder: Piu XII and the Third Reich (New York: Alfred A. Knopf; 1966), pp. 104 ff. 1 Foreign relations of the United State8 1942 (Waahiqton, D.C.: Government Printing Office; 1964), m, 775-6. 1

a Ibid., p. 777--a. 'Uon Poliakov: "The Vatican and the Jewish Question," Com• JMntary (November, 1950). [ I

5 9]

KURT GEUTEIN

Finally, in an address to the Sacred College on June 2, 1943, Pius xn himr,elf spoke, in so many words, of "those who, because of their nationality or their race, are being subjected to overwhelming trials and som~times, through no fault of their own, are doomed to extennina-

.

"'

tiOD .••

However, the Holy See refused to be associated with any explicit public protest. Many reasons have been advanced in interpretations of this silence. The Sovereign Pontiff himseH or bis Secretary of State have, at different times, given different explanations: it has been said that the Pope could not condemn specific atrocities; that he could not condemn the Germans without at the same time mentioning the Bolsheviks; that he did not wish to ca11se even greater evils by breaking silence; and, finally, that any conderon•tion would have been in vain. It would be possible, equally, to invoke political reasons or reasons dictated by the interests of the Church in its confrontation with Nazism. Such considerations do not seem to have entered Gerstein's mind. To him, the Pope was the "vicar of Christ.'' In 1945, Gerstein wrote:

,r What action against Nazi~m could one demand of an ordinary citizen when the representative of Jesus on earth himself refused even to hear me, although tens of thoum-ods of human beings were being murdered every day; and although to wait only a few hours seemed to 11

Saul FriNJJinder: Pius XII and th~ Third Reich, p. 143. [ I

6 0]

Ch. YI · Appeal Without Echo

me criminal. Even the Nuncio in Germany refused to be well-informed on this monstrous violation of the fundamental basis of the laws of Jesus: 'Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.''• Thus it was .that the Christian West remained a passive spectator to the extermination of the Jews. The detailed info,,a,ation supplied by Gerstein concerning the death camps did nothing to change its posture. Millions of Jews continued to perish, and Gerstein himself, an impotent witneu, was caught up in the wheels of the machine that he was trying to halt.

• Gentein report.

Chapter VII GERSTEIN IN BERLIN ,r ... It was on Sunday, September 5,

1943, when I was with my friend Henk de Vos, who had also been deported to Berlin, that I met Kurt Gerstein for the first time. As he was leaving the church on the Dennewitzplatz, he invited us to his home for a meal. At this very first meeting, Gerstein took us fully into his confidence and told us what a government of criminals the Nazis had brought into power in Germany. He explained how he, Gerstein, had pushed his resistance to the Nazis to the point where he had joined the S.S. to save his life. Under great stress of emotion, he emphasized that this godless gang must lose the war. To him, as a follower of, and witness to, Jesus Christ, this was such an article of faith that, on this first visit and every time we saw him afterward, he encouraged us with the assurance that Christ would overcome these devils. That is now twelve years ago, and although I do not recall every word, I still remember very well that he gave us a great deal of information that afternoon about the horrible murders that the Nazis were committing in the concen[ I

6

2 ]

Ch. Vil • Gerstein in BerUn tration camps. Later, he told us several times that he was relating these things so that there might later be witnesses to these atrocities~ Toward evening, we went with him to Berlin-Dahlem to deliver some foodstuffs to Frau Niemoller so that she could send them to her husband, who was in captivity. Before we went home that evening, Gerstein read with us from Chapters 23 and 24 of the Gospel according to St. Matthew. Then, deeply moved, he again bore witness to Jems and prayed with us .•• to his Dutch friends about his activities in the S.S. and of what he had seen in the ntmps. Nieuwenhuisen continues:

G

EllSTEIN TALKED

1 ... I recall an

air raid alert that happened while we were at his home. Some of the residents became very

worked up over a light that had been left burning on one of the other floors, and Gerstein spoke scornfully of these people. "Anyway,'' he said, ''the Allies have devices with which they can pinpoint their targets in the dark." . .. On another occasion, he told me that if Hitler should lose he would slam the door behind him with such force that the earth would shudder on its foundations. In this connection, Gerstein confided to me that Hitler was working on the development of frightful secret weapons which were said to have inconceivable destructive power.

I

KURT GERSTEIN

Whenever I visited Gerstein and other visitors were there at the same time, he always gave me to understand which side they were on. I particularly remember his warning me when he was once visited by his father, who was an out-and-out Nazi ...1 Henk de Vos details the circumstances of their first encounter with Gerstein. The two Dutchmen had just entered his home, where they found him in the company of a soldier:

1l . . . While Gerstein and the soldier were talking in the bedroom, we discovered a complete S.S. uniform. We were alarmed at this discovery and quickly agreed to proceed as cautiously as possible, feeling that we had been lured into a trap. Gerstein noticed our reserved behavior and thereupon told us his story, explaining why he was obliged to wear this detested uniform and also why he had invited us. We spent the rest of that Sunday there, starting with an excellent meal ... . . . We had never seen a man who so violently opposed to the regime as he was. Kurt Gerstein had probably carried on much of his activity without his wife's knowledge, so that his family might be shielded in the event he was discovered. He often used to say to us: ''That's something even my wife knows nothing about" At that very first meeting, he gave us the naro~ of Mr. 1

Testimony by Nieuwenhuisen, 1965, KOH.

Ch. VII • Gerstein in Berlin

Obbink of Doesburg as a contact man to be used if we ever got into trouble. Discrimination between Aryans and non-Aryans was repellent to him_ Gerstein regarded the Jews as God's people and pointed out that any nation that raised its hands against them had itself suffered grievously in consequence. '°!'bat will be the case with Germany," he said. In the evening he would read to us from the Bible. The prayer that followed was always a supplication for the release of the victims of the Nazi regime and a plea for mercy for the Getman nation, which was still committing such revolting and outrageous acts. Several times during prayers, Gerstein was overcome by depression. He was so downcast and upset that we had to calm him,. These evening devotions nearly always took place in the bedroom while Gerstein lay in bed. He frequently told us that, knowing the misery that Hitler had brought down on millions of people, we should have to bear witness to this before God, and that he himself had never approved of the extermination camps or collaborated on them . . • Gerstein regularly tuned the radio to the B.B.C. or to the program for the forces called "Soldatensender West.'' He constantly followed the movement of the front on a large map and reported to us on Allied advances. In his apartment, Frau Hintz, his housekeeper, would also be present to receive us. She had previously worked for a Jewish family and had later been trans[ I

65]

KURT GERSTEIN

ferred to a medical station to serve the officers. This woman was very grateful to Kurt Gerstein for getting her out of the barracks and taking her into his home. When she died in I 944, Gerstein used channels known to him to make sure that an obituary notice appeared in a Swiss magazine, so that Frau Hintz's former Jewish employers might be informed of her passing. Whenever we arrived at his home in the evening, Frau Hintz at once informed us who was visiting Gerstein at the time. When his father came to Berlin, we knew from Kurt of the old man's political activities. Kurt had told us to be particularly careful because Papa was a pronounced Nazi. Father, in tum, was greatly astonished to encounter us in his son's home. Gerstein told us on a number of occasions that he sometimes performed very dangerous missions. He told us of a flight to Finland by military aircraft and that the tasks involved, if anything went wrong, could cost him his head. On that occasion, he was very nervous and he spoke incoherently ...2 Eickhoff, a friend of Gerstein's in his youth, encountered him in Berlin in I 943:

1...

I remember that we went to the station with an S.S. general of the medical services or some member of the high brass like that and he took me along. Of

2

Testimony by Henk de Vos, 1965, KGH. [ I

6 6]

Ch. Yll · Gerstein in Berlin

course, I wasn't an S. S. man but a soldier in the army. Gerstein passed me off as an orderly. I was allowed to go through the barrier with them and I still recall that the other man's name was Pfannenstiel, Professor Dr. Pfannenstiel, and he asked Kurt Gerstein to travel to Poland with him. But Gerstein didn't want to and said: "If you can get me a sleeping car . . . 111 go,'' because he knew very well that the other fellow couldn't get one • ••

. .. We then drove back to his apartment. There we found Frau Hinz, an elderly, solidly built woman. I took her to be around 55 to 6o years of age. "Hinzchen,'' he always called her ..• Frau Hinz did everything for him, and I had a feeling that she too either knew something or had noticed that something was going on. The atmosphere in this community of conspirators was pretty rough! When he yelled ''Hin7.Chen,'' you got the idea that this was just the no1mal tone they used to address each other in the S.S... .8

All those who had seen this m6nage recalled what an

astonishing character old Frau Hinz had been. A Dr. Ehle1s writes:

,r . . . There was a housekeeper who had worked for many years for a Jewish family and then had been 1

Testimony by Eickhoff, 1964, KGH.

[ I 6

7]

KURT GERSTEN

forced into the S.S. to do menial cleaning jobs at the H.Q., after which she was finally hired . . . by Gerstein. This woman, who was getting on in years, detested National Socialism even more than Gerstein di~ and the tone which prevailed in that apartment was astonishingly frank. Gerstein as always, be it noted-was rash in the extreme. He constantly listened to the radio from England, which could be heard blaring out all over the apartment. One can only imagine that the residents of the building must have assumed he was a high-ranking S.S. man who listened to that station in the line of duty . . .' Leokadia Hinz died on December 26, 1944. On the twenty-eighth, Gerstein wrote to his wife:

1J Yesterday, we laid good old Hinz to rest for the last time. The funeral was at Bornichen near Nauen, in the loveliest little village cemetery you can imagine, where the graves can lie for centuries in the gleaming white sand. Superintendent General Dr. Dibelius perfo1111ed the ceremony ... The coffin was borne by six well-to-do farmers to a grave dressed with pine branches. She was buried like a princess surrounded by those who had loved her ... 5 In September I 944, Father P. Buchholz, a Catholic priest, had n1et Gerstein: 'Testimony by Ehlers, January 26, 1949, KGH. 5 Letter from Kurt Gerstein to his wife, December 28, 1944, KGH. [ I

68]

Ch. Yll · Gerstein in Berlin

1 . . . Through the good offices of a gentleman from Tegel, I was invited in September 1944 to spend an evening at Herr Gerstein's home, where I met a number of other gentlemen, all of whom had either been punished for political reasons or had been through Gestapo prisons as political detainees. My acquaintant:e assured me that they were all completely trustworthy and that all of them, particularly Herr Gerstein, wanted further details from me about something that most of them had heard of only in the form of rumors, that is, the mass executions at Plotzensee. I then made a full and frank repm t on this, holding nothing back. I told them particularly about that awful night in September 1943 when 186 political prisoners were executed by hanging. After that, Herr Gerstein told us how he had got into the S.S. ( if I'm not mistaken, he said that he had been held in a camp as a political prisoner and had then been pressed into the S.S.) and how unhappy he was in those surroundings, particularly as, being a convinced Christian, he did not share the National Socialist philosophy and wanted above all to dissociate himself, inwardly as well as outwardly, from the monstrous crimes that were taking place in the death camps and about the extent of which only very few people had an inkling. But he went on to report in detail, quite openly and with absolute frankness, the names and locations of the death camps; the ''daily output'' of the individual crematoriums and gas chambers; how Hitler, on per•

KURT GERSTEIN

sonal visits, had described the output as insufficient; the daily yield of gold teeth and fillings, etc; and he estimated the total number of victims at a figure far above ten million. Although none of us was altogether unaware of such things, we found these precise descriptions so ghastly that we could scarcely believe our ears ...8 Of all those who were witnesses of Gerstein's life in those last years of the war, Pastor Mochalsky was perhaps the one who best appreciated the intensity of Gerstein's anguish:

,I I became acquainted with Dr. Kurt Gerstein, the former S.S. officer at the R.S.H.A., when he visited me after services at the sacristy of St. Anne's Church in Dahlem. I bad preached a sermon on the Fifth Commandment: ''Thou shalt not kill.'' At the conclusion of the service, a gentleman in civilian clothes whom I didn't know appeared in my sacristy. He handed me a document with a red border marked: ''Secret Reich Matter," addressed to S.S. officer Gerstein. He told me that he was Gerstein and that he had an S.S. uniform in his suitcase. He had happened to pass by St. Anne's Church and had taken part in the service with my parishioners. For him, he said, to have listened to a sermon on the Fifth Commandment had been a dispensation of 6

Letter from P. Buchholz, July

10,

[ I

70

1946, KOH. ]

Ch. Yll •