Kurt Gerstein
Kurt Gerstein was a German mining engineer, an anti-Nazi Christian activist, yet a member of the Nazi Party from 1933, of the SA in 1934, and later of the SS Hygiene Institute from 1941 in Berlin.
In August 1942, he witnessed a homicidal gassing at the Belzec extermination camp in Poland. He contacted a Swedish diplomat and religious figures in an attempt to alert political leaders and Pope Pius XII to the extermination of the Jews of Europe, but without success. In 1945, he provided an account that forms the core of his “report” to the Allies. During his imprisonment in France later that year, he was found hanged in his cell under circumstances that were never fully clarified.
Gerstein’s legacy endures primarily through his writings, which notably inspired the 1963 play The Deputy by Rolf Hochhuth and the 2002 film Amen. by Costa-Gavras.
Biography
Childhood and youth
Kurt Gerstein was born into a family originally from Lower Saxony and grew up in Hagen, North Rhine-Westphalia. His father, Louis Gerstein, was a judge, while his mother was responsible for raising their seven children, of whom Kurt was the sixth. Family relationships were often strained, as the household, described as conventional, had difficulty accommodating Gerstein’s nonconformist personality. His father, an authoritarian figure who remained attached to the Germany of Wilhelm II and resentful of the perceived humiliation of the Treaty of Versailles, sought to instill strict obedience and conformity in his son. In a letter dated 5 October 1944, he wrote to Kurt: “You must obey the orders of your superiors. It is the one who gives the orders who bears the responsibility. There can be no disobedience.” A childhood friend later described him as “the black sheep of the family.”Within the Gerstein household, considerable importance was attached to demonstrating Aryan ancestry, and the family shared antisemitic attitudes that were widespread at the time. Nevertheless, Judge Louis Gerstein warned Jewish lawyers in Hagen of the first anti-Jewish measures introduced by the Nazi regime in 1933 and expressed his regret over these policies. At school, repeated disciplinary measures failed to significantly alter Kurt Gerstein’s behavior. Although an average student academically, he was regarded as intelligent and unconventional. Contemporary accounts describe incidents such as damaging school property, publicly protesting what he considered excessive Latin assignments, and, on one occasion, complying literally with an order from his Greek teacher to return to school after classes by hiring a horse-drawn cab, overtaking the teacher who was walking back. Gerstein ultimately obtained his Abitur at the age of 20.
Early relationship with Christianity
In 1925, Kurt Gerstein enrolled at the University of Marburg, where, at his father’s request, he joined the student fraternity “Teutonia”. He expressed reservations about what he regarded as the fraternity members’ lack of seriousness and moral rigor. Owing to health problems caused by severe diabetes, he was unable to participate in all of the ritual duels required for full membership and therefore remained a “half-member”. The strong nationalism that characterized “Teutonia” does not appear to have conflicted with his views; Gerstein would continue to identify as a German nationalist for many years.After approximately eighteen months in Marburg, Gerstein continued his studies in Aachen and later in Berlin-Charlottenburg. In 1931, he graduated with a degree in mining engineering.
Alongside his polytechnic studies, Gerstein was deeply involved in religious activities. A self-published pamphlet, Um Ehre und Reinheit, illustrates the importance he attached to religious commitment. In his writings, he emphasized submission to God and personal accountability, themes that also appear in a letter to his father dated 5 March 1944, written from a military hospital in Helsinki. The concept of purity was a recurring theme in his reflections, which he associated with an ideal to be attained; he later described his adolescence as marked by a “sense of guilt and a longing for purity”.
Seeking an alternative to the social environment of his fraternity, Gerstein began reading the Bible and became active within the Protestant Church, where he found a sense of purpose and stability. He soon assumed responsibilities, particularly in youth Bible study groups. At the time, the German Protestant Church generally promoted nationalism and obedience to authority, attitudes that were sometimes accompanied by antisemitism. Organised into twenty-eight regional churches, some Lutheran and others Calvinist, German Protestantism, despite encompassing approximately forty million adherents, proved largely unable to resist the advance of Nazism. Most Protestants aligned themselves with the prevailing ideology, notably within the “German Christians” movement, which supported racist doctrines.
In response to the perceived risk of National Socialist domination of Protestantism, a minority opposed the regime, forming the Confessing Church. Its leading figure was the pastor Martin Niemöller, with whom Gerstein maintained a long-standing relationship. Initially, however, Adolf Hitler was viewed favorably by several prominent members of the Confessing Church, reflecting attitudes common among Protestants more broadly. For example, 1 May 1933, designated as the “Day of the National Community”, was described by Niemöller as “a day full of joy, a day that awakens hopes”, while the superintendent Otto Dibelius welcomed the Nazi electoral victory as a historic turning point.
Within the Protestant Church and later the Confessing Church, Gerstein worked primarily with young people. His activities included leading prayer meetings and camps, as well as participating in sports and hiking. He joined the Bible circles in 1928 and became one of their leading figures until their dissolution in 1934. He was known by the nickname Vati, reflecting the respect and affection he inspired among participants. Protestant youth movements of this period tended to reject materialism and emphasized the moral and spiritual renewal of the people.
Over time, elements within German Protestantism increasingly drew parallels between religious authority and political leadership. As Saul Friedländer notes, “it is likely that the combined influences of authoritarian upbringing, nationalist tradition, and the atmosphere within German Protestantism contributed to Kurt Gerstein’s decision to join the National Socialist Party on 2 May 1933”. At that time, Gerstein was 27 years old.
Nazi Party and the Sturmabteilung
In an apparently contradictory move given his Protestant activism, Kurt Gerstein joined Adolf Hitler’s party approximately four months after Hitler’s accession to power. His pastor in Hagen discussed this decision with him and warned him of the violent nature of National Socialism, but was unable to dissuade Gerstein from participating in national political life. Gerstein’s commitment went beyond party membership; in October 1933, he also joined the SA.Gerstein’s entry into the Nazi movement, despite his strong Christian convictions, reflected an enduring ambiguity that would later become more apparent during the war. From the outset, however, his conduct created difficulties for his superiors.
File:Baldur von Schirach.jpg|left|thumb|Baldur von Schirach during the Nuremberg trials.
Although a member of the Nazi Party, Gerstein continued to oppose efforts to bring Protestant youth organizations under state control. A particularly intense conflict developed over youth policy between the Church’s Bible Circles, founded in 1930 and led nationally by Gerstein, and the Hitler Youth, headed by Baldur von Schirach. This struggle ended with the dissolution of the Bible Circles in February 1934 and the compulsory incorporation of their members into the Hitler Youth. On 19 December 1933, the Reich Bishop announced that the 800,000 Protestant youths were joining the Hitler Youth “spontaneously”. Two days later, Gerstein sent protest telegrams to Baldur von Schirach and to Reich Bishop Ludwig Müller. He accused the Hitler Youth leadership of contributing to the “annihilation of German Protestantism” and warned of the consequences for the German people and state. In a message to Bishop Müller, he denounced what he described as the abandonment of Protestant youth work and lamented what he saw as the Church’s capitulation.
At the meeting marking the effective dissolution of the Bible Circles in Hagen, Gerstein addressed their members and supporters. He drew an analogy with the German fleet that had been scuttled rather than surrendered to the British after the Treaty of Versailles, describing this act as “admirable and unique”. He emphasized the symbolic purity of the cause the Bible Circles claimed to uphold, namely service to Jesus Christ and to Germany. In doing so, he reiterated his conviction that Christianity was indispensable to the nation. While acknowledging defeat in organizational terms, he asserted that Christian youth had not been morally overcome by the Hitler Youth, even if the contest had become unequal once the authority of the Führer had been invoked. He concluded by declaring submission to state authority, whose orders were to be accepted without reservation.
After losing this struggle over Protestant youth organizations, Gerstein focused his efforts on supporting the Confessing Church. He expressed indignation at what he viewed as the regime’s failure to honor its commitments and wrote to a friend on 18 March 1934 that public testimony had become for him an inescapable duty, despite unfavorable conditions.
Gerstein devoted significant personal resources to printing and distributing pamphlets outlining his views on the Church, society, and morality. His activism also took more direct forms. On 30 January 1935, he attended a performance in Hagen of the anti-Christian play Wittekind, inspired by the figure of Widukind of Saxony and written by Edmund Kiss. The production, organized by the Hitler Youth, became the scene of disturbances during its subsequent performances. At one such performance, a spectator wearing a Nazi Party badge and accompanied by two SA men publicly protested a blasphemous line and was physically assaulted, sustaining serious injuries. That protester was Gerstein himself.
The tension between Gerstein’s Christian convictions and National Socialist ideology led to repeated confrontations with Nazi organizations. As noted by contemporaries, “incidents with the Hitler Youth and with the Gestapo itself are constantly on the agenda”. Following a Gestapo raid on a youth holiday camp he was directing, Gerstein wrote to the Dortmund Gestapo office, invoking the Führer’s publicly proclaimed guarantee of religious freedom and criticizing measures that, in his view, fostered resentment rather than unity. He concluded the letter with the customary Nazi salutation.
Observers within his circle noted during this period that Gerstein appeared increasingly overextended, dividing his efforts among numerous activities and showing signs of exhaustion. His frequent use of irony and provocation ultimately led to his first arrest on 26 September 1936, followed by his expulsion from the Nazi Party on 15 October 1936 for “activities against the party and the state”. The immediate cause was another act of provocation. While organizing in Saarbrücken the first congress of German mining workers following the return of the Saar to Germany, Gerstein enclosed with the invitations two slips of paper bearing the inscriptions “Compartment for travelers accompanied by rabid dogs” and “Compartment for travelers suffering from contagious disease”. A subsequent police search of his home uncovered more than a thousand letters addressed to senior government and judicial officials, each containing banned pamphlets produced by the Confessing Church. These bore titles such as Dechristianization of Youth, A Word on the Situation of the Church, and Commentary on the gendarmerie report on the refusal to decorate churches on 1 May 1936. The police also found approximately 7,000 pre-addressed empty envelopes intended for further distribution. During interrogation, Gerstein explained that, through conversations with judicial officials visiting his family home, he had concluded that the judiciary was insufficiently informed about the scope of the struggle against the Church.
The dissemination of such pamphlets contravened National Socialist legislation enacted on 20 December 1934 concerning the “defense of the uniform and the party”. Despite interventions on his behalf by senior figures of the Confessing Church and by his father, Gerstein was sentenced to six weeks’ detention in Saarbrücken and formally expelled from the NSDAP by the Gau court of Saar-Palatinate on 15 October 1936. The court nevertheless noted as a mitigating circumstance that Gerstein “had acted out of religious conviction, which appears plausible”.