Christopher Sykes on Kurt Gerstein
This disturbing biographical record, first published in Paris in 1969, is about Kurt Gerstein, whose name is likely to stir a memory in anyone who has researched into the history of the Third Reich and the Second World War. His case is unique and his bona fides, for that reason, has been much doubted. M. Pierre Joffroy establishes the facts of the case and puts the bona fides beyond question. He takes his title from a phrase of Kirkegaard applied to him by one who knew his secret.
Kurt Gerstein, the son of a judge, came of a respected and prosperous Rhineland family. He belonged to the resentful German generation that reached manhood soon after 1918. He seems to have been unattractive when young but with great power of leadership nevertheless. He was an en- thusiast for youth movements, which have played a part in German life of immense im- portance not comparable with that of such movements anywhere else. He was the kind of man who was easily seduced into Nazism. He never was, and for a simple reason: he was deeply religious and, contrary to still fashionable notions for which Hitler should have been most grateful, he believed in the reality of evil. In Nazism he recognised the Prince of Darkness instantly, even earlier than did his friend and mentor, Martin Niemoller.
The painful and supreme question for him, as for all decent-minded Germans, was what to do about it after the Nazis obtained power in 1933. There were three possible answers. To remember family responsi., bilities etc and only do what little was safe; to declare oneself boldly and risk the horrors of martyrdom, as Bonhoeffer and Niemoller did; or to join Nazism and break it from within. Most of Hitler's opponents took the first course. Few have survived of the minute and heroic band who took the se- cond course. Wis hard to say how large or small was the minority which chose the third course, because false claims are so easily concocted with reference to action that had to be secret; and such claims are still being concocted en masse. In Germany today one very rarely meets people over forty-five who • own to the remotest contact with Hitler's regime. As a confessed ex-Nazi once said to me with refreshing and memorable sarcasm: 'You know, someone had to join the Party , The conspirators of July 1944 and their predecessors took the third course, anti- Nazism from within. This was Kurt Gers-
tein's course, though he was not of their number. His case is unique because of its ex- tremity. He did not only pose as a Nazi; under false colours he entered the darkest inner core of Hitler's diabolical movement; he became an active associate of the murder squads. The only comparable case is that of Arthur Nebe, but, unless documentation as strong as that which M. Joffroy produces for Gerstein can show otherwise, Nebe seems only to have been a nasty mixture of op- portunist and split personality. Gerstein went into the ss with unclouded insight and in, vincible idealism.
Why did Gerstein have to go to these lengths to serve his cause? That is the main question, and M. Joffroy proposes the following answer. Most people in Germany before and during the 'Final Solution' knew roughly what was going on, but only roughly, The same was true of most people who took an interest in foreign affairs, pro- fessionally or otherwise, outside Germany. It was difficult to prove precisely what the genocide policies amounted to. It was equally difficult to become a member of the murder machinery, and if you did, and were • shocked or indiscreet, you could be secretly 'liquidated'. This seems to have happened often.
Gerstein, as an ss officer, advised on gas- sing technique and supply, witnessed holocausts as an official observer, and his efficiency was praised by his superiors. He obtained all the information he needed to arouse the conscience of the world, hoping, unlike the July conspirators, to make a German and therefore Nazi defeat certain.
He was naive and thought that with his provable information he would be welcome outside Germany. In 1942 he conveyed what he knew to the Vatican by telling Monsignor Orsenigo, the Axis-minded Nuncio in Berlin. Orsenigo was outraged and ordered Gerstein
. to leave his house. Gerstein informed the Swedish government through Consul, General. Baron von Otter, who passed on but evidently did not press the information. He told trembling Swiss officials who preferred not to know. Finally, after surrendering to
the French in April 1945, he told them, but they had the knowledge they needed about Nazi crimes by that time anyway. Yet, im- pressed by his evidence, the French treated him as an honoured prisOner at first, then had second thoughts, and finally reduced him to harsh and ultimately solitary in- carceration. He was selected for prosecution before the Nuremberg tribunal. Before he could answer accusations in court he com- mitted suicide on the 25 July 1945.
Such in brief outline is his story. What is one to think of it? After reading this book have no doubt about Gerstein's sincerity in a noble cause. But doubt remains, not about him but about the whole daunting question of ends and means. I believe that if he had faced trial Gerstein would either have been hanged or condemned to life-long im- prisonment. But—wrong as either verdict would have been—how was one or other avoidable, given the means he took to achieve his end? Can one blame the admit- tedly feeble Orsenigo for refusing to accept the word of a genocide? Or Otter or the Swiss for not treating Gerstein's evidence more seriously? On the other hand I feel certain that .without inside evidence, such as Gerstein's, evidence that emerged later from the Nuremberg tribunal, the facts of the Hitler disaster might not have got home. Not only Germans, not only Fascists every-. where, needed to be shaken out of blindness. There were plenty of the wilfully deluded in this country alone.
M. Joffroy is a journalist and he writes in unashamed journalese. His flash-back plus leap-forward technique reminds me of a familiar friend, the old-fashioned radio feature. While regretting some of his purple passages, and some propaganda-based generalisations, I believe he has chosen the right technique in the startle-style in which the book is written. It deals with a story that
can only be got across by shock treatment. Here it is. Believe, it or not, it is a true story.
Christopher Sykes is a BAC scriptwriter and producer, and author recently of a biography of Adam von Trott.
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