Kurt Gerstein
Encyclopedia
Kurt Gerstein was a German
SS officer
and member of the Institute for Hygiene of the Waffen-SS
. He witnessed mass murders in the Nazi extermination camps Belzec
and Treblinka
. He gave information to the Swedish
diplomat Göran von Otter
, as well as to members of the Roman Catholic Church
with contacts to Pope Pius XII
, in an effort to inform the international public about the Holocaust
. In 1945, following his surrender, he wrote the Gerstein Report
covering his experience of the Holocaust. He died, an alleged suicide
, while in French custody.
in Westphalia
, Germany on 11 August 1905. Sixth of seven children, in a family whose ancestors were typical members of the Prussia
n middle class who were strongly chauvinistic
and "totally compliant to authority". His father, Ludwig, a former Prussian officer, was a judge and an authoritarian figure in what was a conventional, German middle class family of the time. In the family genealogical he proudly proclaimed that there was only Aryan blood in the family and exhorted future generations to "preserve the purity of the race!" As late as 1944 he was to write to his son Kurt: "You are a soldier and an official and you must obey the orders of your superiors. The person who bears the responsibility is the man who gives the orders, not the one who carries them out." Kurt Gerstein found such a parental approach difficult to digest and in the words of a childhood friend he "had always been the black sheep of the family.
and Berlin/Charlottenburg where he graduated in 1931 as a mining engineer. While he was in Marburg he joined, at his father's request, the Teutonia, "one of the most nationalistic student associations in Germany". While he was uncomfortable with the frivolity of the fraternity students, he didn't seem to mind their ultra-nationalism. On 4 September 1937, Gerstein started studying Medicine
at the University of Tübingen. However his medical studies were interrupted by the outbreak of war.
) and the Federation of German Bible Circles where he took a leading role until it was dissolved in 1934 after a takeover attempt by the Hitler Youth
movement. At first finding a religious home within the Protestant Evangelical Church he gravitated toward the Confessing Church
, which formed itself around Pastor Martin Niemöller
in 1934 as a form of protest against attempts of the Nazis to exercise increasing control over German Protestants. His religious faith caused conflict with the Nazis and he spent time in prison and concentration camps in the late 1930's.
and were attracted by the extreme nationalism of the Nazis. In July 1933, he enrolled in the SA
, the Storm Troopers of the Nazis party. Friedlander describes the contradictions in Gerstein's mind at the time: "Firm defense of religious concepts and of the honour of the Confessional youth movements, but weakness in the face of National Socialism, with acceptance of its terminology and shoddy rhetoric; acceptance, above all, of the existing political order, of its authoritarianism and its hysterical nationalism".
However, in early 1935 he stood up in a theater during a performance of the play Wittekind protesting against its anti-Christian message and was beaten up by Nazi party members in the audience. He also came into conflict with the Nazi government for distributing anti-Nazi material. He was arrested for the first time on 4 September 1936, held in protective custody for five weeks, and expelled from the Nazi party. The loss of Nazi party membership meant that he was unable to find employment as a mining engineer in the State sector and he applied for reinstatement to the party. He was arrested a second time in July 1938, but was released six weeks later because no charges could be found against him. He (and his father) continued to pursue reinstatement in the party.
. Explanations for this decision are varied and confusing. On the one hand, one document indicates it was the result of his outrage over the death of a sister-in-law who apparently was killed under the euthanasia
program directed at the mentally ill, Action T4
. Other documents seem to indicate that he had already made his decision before she died and that her death reinforced his plan to join the SS "to see things from the inside", to try to change the direction of policies, and to publicise the crimes being committed. Browning describes him as "a covert anti-Nazi who infiltrated the SS ..." And in a letter to his wife he explains: "I joined the SS ... acting as an agent of the Confessing Church
."
and Christian Wirth
on technical aspects of mass murder in the extermination camps. On August 17, 1942, Gerstein witnessed in Belzec
the gassing of some 3,000 Jews who had arrived by train from Lwow and the next day he went to Treblinka which had similar facilities where he observed huge mounds of clothing and underwear.
, who was based in Berlin. During a conversation which lasted several hours, he told the Swede what he had seen and urged him to spread the information internationally. In the meantime he attempted to make contact with representatives of the Vatican, the press attaché at the Swiss Legation in Berlin, and a number of people linked to the Confessing Church
. His statements to diplomats and religious officials over the period of 1942 through 1945 had disappointingly little effect.
After his surrender, in April 1945, Gerstein was to write a report about his experiences with respect to the extermination camps, at first in French, followed by two German versions in May 1945. Gerstein's report has been criticized, not the least by Holocaust deniers
. Distinguished French historian, Pierre Vidal-Naquet in "Assassins of Memory" discusses such criticism.
Historian Christopher Browning
has written: "Many aspects of Gerstein's testimony are unquestionably problematic. ...[In making] statements, such as the height of the piles of shoes and clothing at Belzec and Treblinka, Gerstein himself is clearly the source of exaggeration. Gerstein also added grossly exaggerated claims about matters to which he was not an eyewitness, such as that a total of 25 million Jews and others were gassed. But in the essential issue, namely that he was in Belzec and witnessed the gassing of a transport of Jews from Lwow, his testimony is fully corroborated .... It is also corroborated by other categories of witnesses from Belzec."
. He received a sympathetic reception and was transferred to a residence in a hotel in Rottweil
. It was there that he was able to write out his reports. However, he was later transferred to the Cherche-Midi
military prison where he was treated as a war criminal. On 25 July, 1945 he was found dead in his cell, an alleged suicide.
as Kurt Gerstein and directed by Costa-Gavras
. Amen. was largely adapted from Rolf Hochhuth
's play The Deputy
.
William T. Vollmann
's Europe Central
, the National Book Award
fiction winner for 2005, has a 55-page segment, entitled Clean Hands, which relates Gerstein's story.
Thomas Keneally
, author of Schindler's List
, wrote a dramatic play, Either Or, on the subject of Gerstein's life as an SS officer and how he dealt with the concentration camps. It premiered at the Theater J in Washington, D.C.
in May 2007.
In 2010, a group of film students from Emory University produced a short film entitled "The Gerstein Report" that chronicled the events leading up to Lt. Gerstein's death. The film went on to win Best Drama at the 2010 Campus MovieFest
International Grande Finale in Las Vegas, Nevada.
A more detailed article appears in the French edition of Wikipedia. It has been closely consulted for this article.
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
SS officer
Schutzstaffel
The Schutzstaffel |Sig runes]]) was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Built upon the Nazi ideology, the SS under Heinrich Himmler's command was responsible for many of the crimes against humanity during World War II...
and member of the Institute for Hygiene of the Waffen-SS
Waffen-SS
The Waffen-SS was a multi-ethnic and multi-national military force of the Third Reich. It constituted the armed wing of the Schutzstaffel or SS, an organ of the Nazi Party. The Waffen-SS saw action throughout World War II and grew from three regiments to over 38 divisions, and served alongside...
. He witnessed mass murders in the Nazi extermination camps Belzec
Belzec extermination camp
Belzec, Polish spelling Bełżec , was the first of the Nazi German extermination camps created for implementing Operation Reinhard during the Holocaust...
and Treblinka
Treblinka extermination camp
Treblinka was a Nazi extermination camp in occupied Poland during World War II near the village of Treblinka in the modern-day Masovian Voivodeship of Poland. The camp, which was constructed as part of Operation Reinhard, operated between and ,. During this time, approximately 850,000 men, women...
. He gave information to the Swedish
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
diplomat Göran von Otter
Göran von Otter
Göran von Otter was a Swedish diplomat and friherre, best known for his service in Berlin during World War II. Anne Sofie von Otter is von Otter's daughter; former Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik von Otter was his grandfather....
, as well as to members of the Roman Catholic Church
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
with contacts to Pope Pius XII
Pope Pius XII
The Venerable Pope Pius XII , born Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli , reigned as Pope, head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of Vatican City State, from 2 March 1939 until his death in 1958....
, in an effort to inform the international public about the Holocaust
The Holocaust
The Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...
. In 1945, following his surrender, he wrote the Gerstein Report
Gerstein Report
The Gerstein Report was written by Kurt Gerstein, an Obersturmführer of the Waffen-SS in 1945 who rose to become the Head of Technical Disinfection Services of the SS. In that capacity he witnessed in August 1942 the gassing of some 3,000 Jews in the extermination camp of Belzec...
covering his experience of the Holocaust. He died, an alleged suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
, while in French custody.
Family background
Kurt Gerstein was born in MünsterMünster
Münster is an independent city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located in the northern part of the state and is considered to be the cultural centre of the Westphalia region. It is also capital of the local government region Münsterland...
in Westphalia
Westphalia
Westphalia is a region in Germany, centred on the cities of Arnsberg, Bielefeld, Dortmund, Minden and Münster.Westphalia is roughly the region between the rivers Rhine and Weser, located north and south of the Ruhr River. No exact definition of borders can be given, because the name "Westphalia"...
, Germany on 11 August 1905. Sixth of seven children, in a family whose ancestors were typical members of the Prussia
Prussia
Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...
n middle class who were strongly chauvinistic
Chauvinism
Chauvinism, in its original and primary meaning, is an exaggerated, bellicose patriotism and a belief in national superiority and glory. It is an eponym of a possibly fictional French soldier Nicolas Chauvin who was credited with many superhuman feats in the Napoleonic wars.By extension it has come...
and "totally compliant to authority". His father, Ludwig, a former Prussian officer, was a judge and an authoritarian figure in what was a conventional, German middle class family of the time. In the family genealogical he proudly proclaimed that there was only Aryan blood in the family and exhorted future generations to "preserve the purity of the race!" As late as 1944 he was to write to his son Kurt: "You are a soldier and an official and you must obey the orders of your superiors. The person who bears the responsibility is the man who gives the orders, not the one who carries them out." Kurt Gerstein found such a parental approach difficult to digest and in the words of a childhood friend he "had always been the black sheep of the family.
Education
Kurt was no more tolerant of discipline in secondary school than within the family. However, in spite of earning many bad reports, he managed to graduate at the age of 20. Going directly on to study at the University of Marburg for three semesters, he then transferred to the technical universities in AachenAachen
Aachen has historically been a spa town in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Aachen was a favoured residence of Charlemagne, and the place of coronation of the Kings of Germany. Geographically, Aachen is the westernmost town of Germany, located along its borders with Belgium and the Netherlands, ...
and Berlin/Charlottenburg where he graduated in 1931 as a mining engineer. While he was in Marburg he joined, at his father's request, the Teutonia, "one of the most nationalistic student associations in Germany". While he was uncomfortable with the frivolity of the fraternity students, he didn't seem to mind their ultra-nationalism. On 4 September 1937, Gerstein started studying Medicine
Medicine
Medicine is the science and art of healing. It encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....
at the University of Tübingen. However his medical studies were interrupted by the outbreak of war.
Religious faith
Although his family was not a particularly religious one, Gerstein received Christian religious training in school. While at university, almost as an antidote to what he saw as frivolous activities of his classmates, he began to read the Bible. From 1925 onwards, he became active in Christian student and youth movements, joining the German Association of Christian Students (DCSV) in 1925 and in 1928 becoming an active member of both the Evangelical Youth Movement (CVJM-YMCAYMCA
The Young Men's Christian Association is a worldwide organization of more than 45 million members from 125 national federations affiliated through the World Alliance of YMCAs...
) and the Federation of German Bible Circles where he took a leading role until it was dissolved in 1934 after a takeover attempt by the Hitler Youth
Hitler Youth
The Hitler Youth was a paramilitary organization of the Nazi Party. It existed from 1922 to 1945. The HJ was the second oldest paramilitary Nazi group, founded one year after its adult counterpart, the Sturmabteilung...
movement. At first finding a religious home within the Protestant Evangelical Church he gravitated toward the Confessing Church
Confessing Church
The Confessing Church was a Protestant schismatic church in Nazi Germany that arose in opposition to government-sponsored efforts to nazify the German Protestant church.-Demographics:...
, which formed itself around Pastor Martin Niemöller
Martin Niemöller
Friedrich Gustav Emil Martin Niemöller was a German anti-Nazi theologian and Lutheran pastor. He is best known as the author of the poem "First they came…"....
in 1934 as a form of protest against attempts of the Nazis to exercise increasing control over German Protestants. His religious faith caused conflict with the Nazis and he spent time in prison and concentration camps in the late 1930's.
Relations with the Nazi Party and Government
Like many of his generation, Gerstein (and his family) were deeply affected by what they saw as the humiliation of the Treaty of VersaillesTreaty of Versailles
The Treaty of Versailles was one of the peace treaties at the end of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June 1919, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The other Central Powers on the German side of...
and were attracted by the extreme nationalism of the Nazis. In July 1933, he enrolled in the SA
Sturmabteilung
The Sturmabteilung functioned as a paramilitary organization of the National Socialist German Workers' Party . It played a key role in Adolf Hitler's rise to power in the 1920s and 1930s...
, the Storm Troopers of the Nazis party. Friedlander describes the contradictions in Gerstein's mind at the time: "Firm defense of religious concepts and of the honour of the Confessional youth movements, but weakness in the face of National Socialism, with acceptance of its terminology and shoddy rhetoric; acceptance, above all, of the existing political order, of its authoritarianism and its hysterical nationalism".
However, in early 1935 he stood up in a theater during a performance of the play Wittekind protesting against its anti-Christian message and was beaten up by Nazi party members in the audience. He also came into conflict with the Nazi government for distributing anti-Nazi material. He was arrested for the first time on 4 September 1936, held in protective custody for five weeks, and expelled from the Nazi party. The loss of Nazi party membership meant that he was unable to find employment as a mining engineer in the State sector and he applied for reinstatement to the party. He was arrested a second time in July 1938, but was released six weeks later because no charges could be found against him. He (and his father) continued to pursue reinstatement in the party.
Membership in the SS
In early 1941 he joined the SSSchutzstaffel
The Schutzstaffel |Sig runes]]) was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Built upon the Nazi ideology, the SS under Heinrich Himmler's command was responsible for many of the crimes against humanity during World War II...
. Explanations for this decision are varied and confusing. On the one hand, one document indicates it was the result of his outrage over the death of a sister-in-law who apparently was killed under the euthanasia
Euthanasia
Euthanasia refers to the practice of intentionally ending a life in order to relieve pain and suffering....
program directed at the mentally ill, Action T4
Action T4
Action T4 was the name used after World War II for Nazi Germany's eugenics-based "euthanasia" program during which physicians killed thousands of people who were "judged incurably sick, by critical medical examination"...
. Other documents seem to indicate that he had already made his decision before she died and that her death reinforced his plan to join the SS "to see things from the inside", to try to change the direction of policies, and to publicise the crimes being committed. Browning describes him as "a covert anti-Nazi who infiltrated the SS ..." And in a letter to his wife he explains: "I joined the SS ... acting as an agent of the Confessing Church
Confessing Church
The Confessing Church was a Protestant schismatic church in Nazi Germany that arose in opposition to government-sponsored efforts to nazify the German Protestant church.-Demographics:...
."
A witness
Because of his technical education, Gerstein rose quickly to become Head of Technical Disinfection Services, liaising with Odilo GlobocnikOdilo Globocnik
Odilo Lotario Globocnik was a prominent Austrian Nazi and later an SS leader. He was an acquaintance of Adolf Eichmann, who played a major role in the extermination of Jews and others during the Holocaust...
and Christian Wirth
Christian Wirth
Christian Wirth was a German police and SS officer who was one of the leading contributors to the program to exterminate the Jewish people of Poland, known as Operation Reinhard....
on technical aspects of mass murder in the extermination camps. On August 17, 1942, Gerstein witnessed in Belzec
Belzec extermination camp
Belzec, Polish spelling Bełżec , was the first of the Nazi German extermination camps created for implementing Operation Reinhard during the Holocaust...
the gassing of some 3,000 Jews who had arrived by train from Lwow and the next day he went to Treblinka which had similar facilities where he observed huge mounds of clothing and underwear.
Reporting
Several days later, he had a chance encounter on the Warsaw to Berlin train with Swedish diplomat, Göran von OtterGöran von Otter
Göran von Otter was a Swedish diplomat and friherre, best known for his service in Berlin during World War II. Anne Sofie von Otter is von Otter's daughter; former Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik von Otter was his grandfather....
, who was based in Berlin. During a conversation which lasted several hours, he told the Swede what he had seen and urged him to spread the information internationally. In the meantime he attempted to make contact with representatives of the Vatican, the press attaché at the Swiss Legation in Berlin, and a number of people linked to the Confessing Church
Confessing Church
The Confessing Church was a Protestant schismatic church in Nazi Germany that arose in opposition to government-sponsored efforts to nazify the German Protestant church.-Demographics:...
. His statements to diplomats and religious officials over the period of 1942 through 1945 had disappointingly little effect.
After his surrender, in April 1945, Gerstein was to write a report about his experiences with respect to the extermination camps, at first in French, followed by two German versions in May 1945. Gerstein's report has been criticized, not the least by Holocaust deniers
Holocaust denial
Holocaust denial is the act of denying the genocide of Jews in World War II, usually referred to as the Holocaust. The key claims of Holocaust denial are: the German Nazi government had no official policy or intention of exterminating Jews, Nazi authorities did not use extermination camps and gas...
. Distinguished French historian, Pierre Vidal-Naquet in "Assassins of Memory" discusses such criticism.
Historian Christopher Browning
Christopher Browning
Christopher Robert Browning is an American historian of the Holocaust.-Education:Browning received his bachelor's degree from Oberlin College in 1968 and his doctorate from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1975. He taught at Pacific Lutheran University from 1974 to 1999, eventually becoming...
has written: "Many aspects of Gerstein's testimony are unquestionably problematic. ...[In making] statements, such as the height of the piles of shoes and clothing at Belzec and Treblinka, Gerstein himself is clearly the source of exaggeration. Gerstein also added grossly exaggerated claims about matters to which he was not an eyewitness, such as that a total of 25 million Jews and others were gassed. But in the essential issue, namely that he was in Belzec and witnessed the gassing of a transport of Jews from Lwow, his testimony is fully corroborated .... It is also corroborated by other categories of witnesses from Belzec."
Arrest and death
On 22 April 1945, Gerstein surrendered to the French commandant of the occupied town of ReutlingenReutlingen
Reutlingen is a city in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is the capital of the eponymous district of Reutlingen. As of April 2008, it has a population of 109,828....
. He received a sympathetic reception and was transferred to a residence in a hotel in Rottweil
Rottweil
Rottweil is a town in the south west of Germany and is the oldest town in the federal state of Baden-Württemberg.Located between the Black Forest and the Swabian Alb hills, Rottweil has about 25,000 inhabitants...
. It was there that he was able to write out his reports. However, he was later transferred to the Cherche-Midi
Cherche-Midi prison
The Cherche-Midi prison was a French military prison located in Paris, France. It housed military prisoners from 1851 until 1947.Construction on the prison began in 1847, when the former convent of the Daughters of the Good Shepherd was demolished on Rue du Cherche-Midi in Paris...
military prison where he was treated as a war criminal. On 25 July, 1945 he was found dead in his cell, an alleged suicide.
Depictions
A semi-fictional movie about his emotional search for Christian values and ultimate decision to betray the SS by attempting to expose the Holocaust through informing the Catholic Church, Amen., was released in 2002, starring Ulrich TukurUlrich Tukur
Ulrich Tukur is a German actor and musician.-Biography:Tukur spent his youth near Hanover where he finished his final secondary-school examinations in 1977. He also achieved a high school degree in Boston during an exchange of students where he met his first wife, Amber Wood. With her, he had two...
as Kurt Gerstein and directed by Costa-Gavras
Costa-Gavras
Costa-Gavras, is a Greek filmmaker, who lives and works in France, best known for films with overt political themes, most famously the fast-paced thriller, Z...
. Amen. was largely adapted from Rolf Hochhuth
Rolf Hochhuth
Rolf Hochhuth is a German author and playwright. He is best known for his 1963 drama The Deputy and remains a controversial figure for his plays and other public comments, such as his insinuation of Pope Pius XII's sympathies for Hitler's extermination of the Jews in the 1963 play The Deputy and...
's play The Deputy
The Deputy
The Deputy, a Christian tragedy , also known as The Representative, is a controversial 1963 play by Rolf Hochhuth which indicts Pope Pius XII for his failure to take action or speak out against The Holocaust. It has been translated into more than twenty languages...
.
William T. Vollmann
William T. Vollmann
William Tanner Vollmann is an American novelist, journalist, short story writer, essayist and winner of the National Book Award...
's Europe Central
Europe Central
Europe Central is a 2005 National Book Award-winning novel by William T. Vollmann.The novel, which takes place in central Europe in the 20th century, examines a vast array of characters, ranging from generals to martyrs, officers to poets, traitors to artists and musicians...
, the National Book Award
National Book Award
The National Book Awards are a set of American literary awards. Started in 1950, the Awards are presented annually to American authors for literature published in the current year. In 1989 the National Book Foundation, a nonprofit organization which now oversees and manages the National Book...
fiction winner for 2005, has a 55-page segment, entitled Clean Hands, which relates Gerstein's story.
Thomas Keneally
Thomas Keneally
Thomas Michael Keneally, AO is an Australian novelist, playwright and author of non-fiction. He is best known for writing Schindler's Ark, the Booker Prize-winning novel of 1982 which was inspired by the efforts of Poldek Pfefferberg, a Holocaust survivor...
, author of Schindler's List
Schindler's List
Schindler's List is a 1993 American film about Oskar Schindler, a German businessman who saved the lives of more than a thousand mostly Polish-Jewish refugees during the Holocaust by employing them in his factories. The film was directed by Steven Spielberg, and based on the novel Schindler's Ark...
, wrote a dramatic play, Either Or, on the subject of Gerstein's life as an SS officer and how he dealt with the concentration camps. It premiered at the Theater J in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
in May 2007.
In 2010, a group of film students from Emory University produced a short film entitled "The Gerstein Report" that chronicled the events leading up to Lt. Gerstein's death. The film went on to win Best Drama at the 2010 Campus MovieFest
Campus MovieFest
Campus MovieFest is the world's largest student film festival. Created in 2000 by four Emory University students, and originally called iMovieFest, Campus MovieFest utilizes Apple Computer laptops, iMovie and Final Cut Pro to give college and university students with all levels of filmmaking...
International Grande Finale in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Sources
- Friedländer, SaulSaul FriedländerSaul Friedländer is an award-winning Israeli historian and currently a professor of history at UCLA.-Biography:...
, Kurt Gerstein: The Ambiguity of Good. New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1969. ASIN B000GQS4Z6. - Joffroy, PierrePierre JoffroyPierre Joffroy is a French author, dramaturge and journalist who writes for Paris Match, Libération and L'Express...
, L'espion de Dieu. La passion de Kurt Gerstein, Robert Laffont, 1969, dernière édition 2002, 453 pages ISBN 2-221-09764-5 - Hey, Bernd u.a.: Kurt Gerstein (1905 - 1945). Widerstand in SS-Uniform. Bielefeld, 2003. ISBN 3-89534-486-9.
A more detailed article appears in the French edition of Wikipedia. It has been closely consulted for this article.
External links
- Biography with pictures
- The story of Kurt Gerstein Biography and picture of Gerstein
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Og6poMfCjcY Winning short film about the Gerstein Report