The Amazing and Horrifying Story of Kurt Gerstein

The Amazing and Horrifying Story of Kurt Gerstein Anti-Nazi Kurt Gerstein (1905-1945) never intended to be a witness to the Nazi murder of the Jews. He joined the SS to try to find out what happened to his sister-in-law, who had mysteriously died in a mental institution. Gerstein was so successful in his infiltration of the SS that he was placed in a position to witness gassings at Belzec. Gerstein then told everyone he could think of about what he saw and yet no action was taken. Some wonder if Gerstein did enough. Kurt Gerstein Kurt Gerstein was born on August 11, 1905, in Mà ¼nster, Germany. Growing up as a young boy in Germany during the First World War and the following tumultuous years, Gerstein did not escape the pressures of his time. He was taught by his father to follow orders without question; he agreed with the growing patriotic fervor that espoused German nationalism, and he was not immune to the strengthening anti-Semitic feelings of the inter-war period. Thus he joined the Nazi Party on May 2, 1933. However, Gerstein found that much of the National Socialist (Nazi) dogma went against his strong Christian beliefs. Turning Anti-Nazi While attending college, Gerstein became very involved in Christian youth groups. Even after graduating in 1931 as a mining engineer, Gerstein remained very active in the youth groups, especially the Federation of German Bible Circles (until it was disbanded in 1934). On January 30, 1935, Gerstein attended an anti-Christian play, Wittekind at the Municipal Theater in Hagen. Though he sat amongst numerous Nazi members, at one point in the play he stood up and shouted, This is unheard of! We shall not allow our faith to be publicly mocked without protest!1 For this statement, he was given a black eye and had several teeth knocked out.2 On September 26, 1936, Gerstein was arrested and imprisoned for anti-Nazi activities. He had been arrested for attaching anti-Nazi letters to invitations sent out to invitees of the German Miners Association.3 When Gersteins house was searched, additional anti-Nazi letters, issued by the Confessional Church, were found ready to be mailed along with 7,000 addressed envelopes.4 After the arrest, Gerstein was officially excluded from the Nazi Party. Also, after six weeks of imprisonment, he was released only to find that he had lost his job in the mines. Arrested Again Not able to get a job, Gerstein went back to school. He began to study theology at Tà ¼bingen but soon transferred to the Protestant Missions Institute to study medicine. After a two-year engagement, Gerstein married Elfriede Bensch, a pastors daughter, on August 31, 1937. Even though Gerstein had already suffered exclusion from the Nazi Party as a warning against his anti-Nazi activities, he soon resumed his distribution of such documents. On July 14, 1938, Gerstein was again arrested. This time, he was transferred to the Welzheim concentration camp where he became extremely depressed. He wrote, Several times I came within an ace of hanging myself of putting an end to my life in some other way because I hadnt the faintest idea if, or when, I should ever be released from that concentration camp.5 On June 22, 1939, after Gersteins release from the camp, the Nazi Party took even more drastic action against him regarding his status in the Party - they officially dismissed him. Gerstein Joins the SS In the beginning of 1941, Gersteins sister-in-law, Bertha Ebeling, died mysteriously at the Hadamar mental institution. Gerstein was shocked by her death and became determined to infiltrate the Third Reich to find out the truth about the numerous deaths at Hadamar and similar institutions. On March 10, 1941, a year and a half into the Second World War, Gerstein joined the Waffen SS. He was soon placed in the medical services hygiene section where he succeeded in inventing water filters for German troops - to his superiors delight. Gerstein had been dismissed from the Nazi Party, thus should not have been able to hold any Party position, especially not become part of the Nazi elite. For a year and a half, the anti-Nazi Gersteins entry into the Waffen SS went unnoticed by those that had dismissed him. In November 1941, at a funeral for Gersteins brother, a member of the Nazi court that had dismissed Gerstein saw him in uniform. Although information about his past was passed on to Gersteins superiors, his technical and medical skills - proven by the working water filter - made him too valuable to dismiss, Gerstein was thus allowed to stay at his post. Zyklon B Three months later, in January 1942, Gerstein was appointed the head of the Technical Disinfection Department of the Waffen SS where he worked with various toxic gases, including Zyklon B. On June 8, 1942, while the head of the Technical Disinfection Department, Gerstein was visited by SS Sturmbannfà ¼hrer Rolf Gà ¼nther of the Reich Security Main Office. Gà ¼nther ordered Gerstein to deliver 220 pounds of Zyklon B to a location known only to the driver of the truck. Gersteins main task was to determine the feasibility of changing the Aktion Reinhard gas chambers from carbon monoxide to Zyklon B. In August 1942, after having collected the  Zyklon B  from a factory in Kolin (near Prague, Czech Republic), Gerstein was taken to  Majdanek, Belzec, and  Treblinka. Belzec Gerstein arrived at Belzec on August 19, 1942, where he witnessed the entire process of gassing a trainload of Jews. After the unloading of 45 train cars stuffed with 6,700 people, those that were still alive were marched, completely naked, and told that no harm would come to them.  After the gas chambers were filled: Unterscharfà ¼hrer Hackenholt was making great efforts to get the engine running. But it doesnt go. Captain Wirth comes up. I can see he is afraid because I am present at a disaster. Yes, I see it all and I wait. My stopwatch showed it all, 50 minutes, 70 minutes, and the diesel did not start. The people wait inside the gas chambers. In vain. They can be heard weeping, like in the synagogue, says Professor Pfannenstiel, his eyes glued to a window in the wooden door. Furious, Captain Wirth lashes the Ukrainian assisting Hackenholt twelve, thirteen times, in the face. After 2 hours and 49 minutes - the stopwatch recorded it all - the diesel started. Up to that moment, the people shut up in those four crowded chambers were still alive, four times 750 persons in four times 45 cubic meters. Another 25 minutes elapsed. Many were already dead, that could be seen through the small window because an electric lamp inside lit up the chamber for a few moments. After 28 minutes, only a few were still alive. Finally, after 32 minutes, all were dead. 6 Gerstein was then shown the processing of the dead: Dentists hammered out gold teeth, bridges and crowns. In the midst of them stood Captain Wirth. He was in his element, and showing me a large can full of teeth, he said: See for yourself the weight of that gold! Its only from yesterday and the day before. You cant imagine what we find every day - dollars, diamonds, gold. Youll see for yourself! 7 Telling the World Gerstein was shocked by what he had witnessed. Yet, he realized that as a witness, his position was unique. I was one of the handful of people who had seen every corner of the establishment, and certainly the only one to have visited it as an enemy of this gang of murderers. 8 He buried the Zyklon B canisters that he was supposed to deliver to the death camps. He was shaken by what he had seen. He wanted to expose what he knew to the world so that they could stop it. On the train back to Berlin, Gerstein met Baron Gà ¶ran von Otter, a Swedish diplomat. Gerstein told von Otter all he had seen. As von Otter relates the conversation: It was hard to get Gerstein to keep his voice down. We stood there together, all night, some six hours or maybe eight. And again and again, Gerstein kept on recalling what he had seen. He sobbed and hid his face in his hands. 9 Von Otter made a detailed report of his conversation with Gerstein and sent it to his superiors. Nothing happened. Gerstein continued to tell people what he had seen. He tried to contact the Legation of the Holy See but was denied access because he was a soldier.10 [T]aking my life in my hands every moment, I continued to inform hundreds of people of these horrible massacres. Among them were the Niemà ¶ller family; Dr. Hochstrasser, the press attachà © at the Swiss Legation in Berlin; Dr. Winter, the coadjutor of the Catholic Bishop of Berlin - so that he could transmit my information to the Bishop and to the Pope; Dr. Dibelius [bishop of the Confessing Church], and many others. In this way, thousands of people were informed by me.11 As months continued to pass and still the Allies had done nothing to stop the extermination, Gerstein became increasingly frantic. [H]e behaved in a strangely reckless manner, needlessly risking his life every time he spoke of the extermination camps to persons he scarcely knew, who were in no position to help, but might easily have been subjected to torture and interrogation. . .  12 Suicide or Murder On April 22, 1945, near the end of the war, Gerstein contacted the Allies. After telling his story and showing his documents, Gerstein was kept in honorable captivity in Rottweil - this meant he was lodged at Hotel Mohren and just had to report to the French gendarmerie once a day.13 It was here that Gerstein wrote down his experiences - both in French and German. At this time, Gerstein seemed optimistic and confident. In a letter, Gerstein wrote: After twelve years of unremitting struggle, and in particular after the last four years of my extremely dangerous and exhausting activity and the many horrors I have lived through, I should like to recuperate with my family in Tà ¼bingen. 14 On May 26, 1945, Gerstein was soon transferred to Constance, Germany and then to Paris, France in early June. In Paris, the French did not treat Gerstein differently than the other war prisoners. He was taken to the Cherche-Midi military prison on July 5, 1945. The conditions there were terrible. On the afternoon of July 25, 1945, Kurt Gerstein was found dead in his cell, hung with part of his blanket. Though it was apparently a suicide, there is still some question if it was perhaps murder, possibly committed by other German prisoners who did not want Gerstein to talk. Gerstein was buried in the Thiais cemetery under the name Gastein. But even that was temporary, for his grave was within a section of the cemetery that was razed in 1956. Tainted In 1950, a final blow was given to Gerstein - a denazification court posthumously condemned him. After his experiences in the Belzec camp, he might have been expected to resist, with all the strength at his command, being made the tool of an organized mass murder. The court is of the opinion that the accused did not exhaust all the possibilities open to him and that he could have found other ways and means of holding aloof from the operation. . . .Accordingly, taking into account the extenuating circumstances noted . . . the court has not included the accused among the main criminals but has placed him among the tainted.15 It was not until January 20, 1965, that Kurt Gerstein was cleared of all charges, by the Premier of Baden-Wà ¼rttemberg. End Notes Saul Friedlnder,  Kurt Gerstein: The Ambiguity of Good  (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1969) 37.Friedlnder,  Gerstein  37.Friedlnder,  Gerstein  43.Friedlnder,  Gerstein  44.Letter by Kurt Gerstein to relatives in the United States as quoted in Friedlnder,  Gerstein  61.Report by Kurt Gerstein as quoted in Yitzhak Arad,  Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka: The Operation Reinhard Death Camps  (Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1987)  102.Report by Kurt Gerstein as quoted in Arad,  Belzec  102.Friedlnder,  Gerstein  109.Friedlnder,  Gerstein  124.Report by Kurt Gerstein as quoted in Friedlnder,  Gerstein  128.Report by Kurt Gerstein as quoted in Friedlnder,  Gerstein  128-129.Martin Niemà ¶ller as quoted in Friedlnder,  Gerstein  179.Friedlnder,  Gerstein  211-212.Letter by Kurt Gerstein as quoted in Friedlnder,  Gerstein  215-216.Verdict of the Tà ¼bingen Denazification Court, August 17, 1950 as quoted in Friedlnder,  Gerstein  225-226. Bibliography Arad, Yitzhak.  Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka: The Operation Reinhard Death Camps. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1987.Friedlnder, Saul.  Kurt Gerstein: The Ambiguity of Good. New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1969.Kochan, Lionel. Kurt Gerstein.  Encyclopedia of the Holocaust. Ed. Israel Gutman. New York: Macmillan Library Reference USA, 1990.

Samuel Morse and the Invention of the Telegraph

Samuel Morse and the Invention of the Telegraph The word telegraph is derived from Greek and means to write far, which describes exactly what a telegraph does. At the height of its use,  telegraph technology involved a worldwide system of wires with stations and operators and messengers, that carried messages and news by electricity faster than any other invention before it. Pre-Electricity Telegraphy Systems The first crude telegraph system was made without electricity. It was a system of semaphores or tall poles with movable arms, and other signaling apparatus, set within physical sight of one another. There was such a telegraph line between Dover and London at during the Battle of Waterloo; that related the news of the battle, which had come to Dover by ship, to an anxious London, when a fog set in (obscuring the line of sight) and the Londoners had to wait until a courier on horseback arrived. Electrical Telegraph The electrical telegraph is one of Americas gifts to the world. The credit  for this invention belongs to Samuel Finley Breese Morse. Other inventors had discovered the principles of the telegraph, but Samuel Morse was the first to understand the practical significance of those facts and was the first to take steps to make a practical invention; which took him 12 long years of work. Early Life of  Samuel Morse Samuel Morse was born in 1791, in Charlestown, Massachusetts. His father was a Congregational minister and a scholar of high standing, who was able to send his three sons to Yale College. Samuel (or Finley, as he was called by his family) attended Yale at the age of fourteen and was taught by Benjamin Silliman, Professor of Chemistry, and Jeremiah Day, Professor of Natural Philosophy, later President of Yale College, whose teaching gave Samuel the education which in later years led to the invention of the telegraph. Mr. Days lectures are very interesting, the young student wrote home in 1809; they are upon electricity; he has given us some very fine experiments, the whole class taking hold of hands form the circuit of communication and we all receive the shock apparently at the same moment. Samuel Morse the Painter Samuel Morse was  a gifted  artist; in fact, he earned a part of his college expenses painting miniatures at five dollars apiece. He even decided at first to become an artist rather than an inventor. Fellow student Joseph M. Dulles of Philadelphia wrote the following about Samuel, Finley [Samuel Morse] bore the expression of gentleness entirely... with intelligence, high culture, and general information, and with a strong bent to the fine arts. Soon after graduating from Yale, Samuel Morse made the acquaintance of Washington Allston, an American artist. Allston was then living in Boston but was planning to return to England, he arranged for Morse to accompany him as his pupil. In 1811, Samuel Morse went to England with Allston and returned to America four years later an accredited portrait painter, having studied not only under Allston but under the famous master, Benjamin West. He opened a studio in Boston, taking commissions for portraits Marriage Samuel Morse married Lucretia Walker in 1818. His reputation as a painter increased steadily, and in 1825 he was in Washington painting a portrait of the Marquis La Fayette, for the city of New York, when he heard from his father the bitter news of his wifes death. Leaving the portrait of La Fayette unfinished, the heartbroken artist made his way home. Artist or Inventor? Two years after his wifes death, Samuel Morse was again obsessed with the marvels of electricity, as he had been in college, after attending a series of lectures on that subject given by James Freeman Dana at Columbia College. The two men became friends. Dana visited Morses studio often, where the two men would talk for hours. However, Samuel Morse was still devoted to his art, he had himself and three children to support, and painting was his only source of income. In 1829, he returned to Europe to study art for three years. Then came the turning point in the life of Samuel Morse. In the autumn of 1832, while traveling home by ship, Samuel Morse joined a conversation with a few scientists scientific men who were on board. One of the passengers asked this question: Is the velocity of electricity reduced by the length of its conducting wire? One of the men replied that electricity passes instantly over any known length of wire and referred to Franklins experiments with several miles of wire, in which no appreciable time elapsed between a touch at one end and a spark at the other. This was the seed of knowledge that led the mind of Samuel Morse to invent the telegraph. In November of 1832, Samuel Morse found himself on the horns of a dilemma. To give up his profession as an artist meant that he would have no income; on the other hand, how could he continue wholeheartedly painting pictures while consumed with the idea of the telegraph? He would have to go on painting and develop his telegraph in what time he could spare. His brothers, Richard and Sidney, were both living in New York and they did what they could for him, giving him a room in a building they had erected at Nassau and Beekman Streets. Samuel Morses Poverty How very poor Samuel Morse was at this time is indicated by a story told by General Strother of Virginia who hired Morse to teach him how to paint: I paid the money [tuition], and we dined together. It was a modest meal, but good, and after he [Morse] had finished, he said, This is my first meal for twenty-four hours. Strother, dont be an artist. It means beggary. Your life depends upon people who know nothing of your art and care nothing for you. A house dog lives better, and the very sensitiveness that stimulates an artist to work keeps him alive to suffering. In 1835, Samuel Morse received an appointment to the teaching staff of  New York University  and moved his workshop to a room in the University building in Washington Square. There, he lived through the year 1836, probably the darkest and longest year of his life, giving lessons to pupils in the art of painting while his mind was in the throes of the great invention. The Birth of the Recording Telegraph In that year [1836] Samuel Morse took into his confidence one of his colleagues in the University, Leonard Gale, who assisted Morse in improving the telegraph apparatus. Morse had formulated the rudiments of the telegraphic alphabet, or  Morse Code, as it is known today. He was ready to test his invention. Yes, that room of the University was the birthplace of the Recording Telegraph, said Samuel Morse years later. On September 2, 1837, a successful experiment was made with seventeen hundred feet of copper wire coiled around the room, in the presence of Alfred Vail, a student, whose family owned the Speedwell Iron Works, at Morristown, New Jersey, and who at once took an interest in the invention and persuaded his father, Judge Stephen Vail, to advance money for experiments. Samuel Morse filed a petition for a patent in October and formed a partnership with Leonard Gale, as well as Alfred Vail. Experiments continued at the Vail shops, with all the partners working day and night. The prototype was publicly demonstrated at the University, visitors were requested to write dispatches, and the words were sent around a three-mile coil of wire and read at the other end of the room. Samuel Morse Petitions Washington to Build Telegraph Line In February 1838, Samuel Morse set out for Washington with his apparatus, stopping at Philadelphia on the invitation of the Franklin Institute to give a demonstration. In Washington, he presented to Congress a petition, asking for a money appropriation to enable him to build an experimental telegraph line. Samuel Morse Applies for European Patents Samuel Morse then returned to New York to prepare to go abroad, as it was necessary for his rights that his invention was patented in European countries before publication in the United States. However, the British Attorney-General refused him a patent on the grounds that American newspapers had published his invention, making it public property. He did receive a French  patent. Introduction to the Art of Photography One interesting result of Samuel Morses 1838 trip to Europe was something not related to the telegraph at all. In Paris, Morse met  Daguerre, the celebrated Frenchman who had discovered a process of making pictures by sunlight, and Daguerre had given Samuel Morse the secret. This led to the first pictures taken by sunlight in the United States and to the first photographs of the human face taken anywhere. Daguerre had never attempted to photograph living objects and did not think it could be done, as a  rigidity of position was required for a long exposure. Samuel Morse, however, and his associate, John W. Draper, were very soon taking portraits successfully. Building of the First Telegraph Line In December 1842, Samuel Morse traveled to Washington for another appeal to  Congress. At last, on February 23, 1843, a bill appropriating thirty thousand dollars to lay the wires between Washington and Baltimore passed the House by a majority of six. Trembling with anxiety, Samuel Morse sat in the gallery of  the House  while the vote was taken and that night Samuel Morse wrote, The long agony is over. But the agony was not over. The bill had yet to pass  the Senate. The last day of the expiring session of Congress arrived on March 3, 1843, and the Senate had not yet passed the bill. In the gallery of the Senate, Samuel Morse had sat all the last day and evening of the session. At midnight the session would close. Assured by his friends that there was no possibility of the bill being reached, he left the Capitol and retired to his room at the hotel, broken-hearted. As he ate breakfast the next morning, a young lady with a smile, exclaimed, I have come to congratulate you! For what, my dear friend? asked Morse, of the young lady, who was Miss Annie G. Ellsworth, daughter of his friend the Commissioner of Patents. On the passage of your bill. Morse assured her it was not possible, as he remained in the Senate-Chamber until nearly midnight. She then informed him that her father was present until the close, and, in the last moments of the session, the bill was passed without debate or revision. Professor Samuel Morse was overcome by the intelligence, so joyful and unexpected, and gave at the moment to his young friend, the bearer of these good tidings, the promise that she should send the first message over the first line of the telegraph that was opened. Samuel Morse and his partners then proceeded to the construction of the forty-mile line of wire between Baltimore and Washington. Ezra Cornell, (founder of  Cornell University) had invented a machine to lay pipe underground to contain the wires and he was employed to carry out the work of construction. The work was commenced at Baltimore and was continued until the experiment proved that the underground method would not do, and it was decided to string the wires on poles. Much time had been lost, but once the system of poles was adopted the work progressed rapidly, and by May 1844, the line was completed. On the twenty-fourth of that month, Samuel Morse sat before his instrument in the room of the Supreme Court at Washington. His friend Miss Ellsworth handed him the message which she had chosen: WHAT HATH GOD WROUGHT! Morse flashed it to Vail forty miles away in Baltimore, and Vail instantly flashed back the same momentous words, WHAT HATH GOD WROUGHT! The profits from the invention were divided into sixteen shares (the partnership having been formed in 1838) of which: Samuel Morse held 9, Francis O. J. Smith 4, Alfred Vail 2, Leonard D. Gale 2. First Commercial Telegraph Line In 1844, the first commercial telegraph line was open for business. Two days later, the Democratic National Convention met in Baltimore to nominate a President and Vice-President. The leaders of the Convention wanted to nominate New York Senator Silas Wright, who was away in Washington, as running mate to  James Polk, but they needed to know if Wright would agree to run as Vice-President. A human messenger was sent to Washington, however, a telegraph was also sent to Wright. The telegraph messaged the offer to Wright, who telegraphed back to the Convention his refusal to run. The delegates did not believe the telegraph until the human messenger returned the next day and confirmed the telegraphs message. Improved Telegraph Mechanism and Code Ezra Cornell built more telegraph lines across the United States, connecting city with city, and Samuel Morse and Alfred Vail improved the hardware and perfected the code. Inventor, Samuel Morse lived to see his telegraph span the continent, and link communications between Europe and North America. Replacing the Pony Express By 1859, both the railroad and the telegraph had reached the town of St. Joseph, Missouri. Two thousand miles further east and still unconnected was California. The only transportation to California was by stage-coach, a sixty-day journey. To establish quicker communication with California, the Pony Express mail route was organized. Solo riders on horseback could cover the distance in ten or twelve days. Relay stations for the horses and men were set up at points along the way, and a mailman rode off from St. Joseph every twenty-four hours after the arrival of the train (and mail) from the East. For a time the Pony Express did its work and did it well. President Lincolns first inaugural speech was carried to California by the Pony Express. By 1869, the Pony Express was replaced by the telegraph, which now had lines all the way to San Francisco and seven years later the first  transcontinental railroad  was completed. Four years after that, Cyrus Field and  Peter Cooper  laid the  Atlantic Cable. The Morse telegraph machine could now send messages across the sea, as well as from New York to the Golden Gate.