Gerstein Report

The Gerstein Report was written by Kurt Gerstein, an Obersturmführer of the Waffen-SS in 1945. The report concerns the Holocaust, specifically Gerstein's first-hand experience as an expert on extermination. Gerstein witnessed several tests of the Nazi gas chambers.

Gerstein's History
Gerstein was active in the anti-Nazi movement in the 1930s. He was arrested several times, and he was even imprisoned in the Welzeim Concentration Camp in 1938. Eventually, through the influence of his father, he was admitted to the Waffen-SS in 1941 as an expert in hygiene. Part of his competence involved the use of various pesticides, including hydrocyanic acid. Hydrocyanic acid was the active ingredient in the Zyklon B used in Holocaust gas chambers. He witnessed an early extermination run using carbon monoxide from a diesel generator at the Belzec death camp in 1942. Gerstein became involved deeply in the process, and his name appeared on many receipts for the gas delivered to the extermination camps. At the same time, he attempted to warn both neutral and Allied powers about the Holocaust. Most found his reports incredible.

Surrender and Report
In 1945, Gerstein surrendered to French forces. He was kept at the Hotel Mohren in Tübingen. Here, he wrote down details of his experiences in French and German. This report became one of the key pieces of evidence of the Holocaust. He produced two type-written versions of his report in German and one hand-written version in French. Along with the testimony of Rudolf Höß, the Gerstein Report is the most detailed account of the workings of the Nazi extermination camps.

The Report and Nazi War Crimes Tribunals
Gerstein's report has been used as evidence in a number of high-profile cases. It was used at the Nuremberg Trials against major Nazi war criminals such as Hermann Göring and Hans Frank. It was also later used in the prosecution of Adolf Eichmann by an Israeli court.

Criticism of the Gerstein Report
Some criticism has been leveled at the Gerstein Report for inconsistency. Henri Roques obtained a doctoral degree—later revoked—from the University of Nantes in 1986 for a thesis on the Gerstein Report, which was later published as a book by the Institute for Historical Review under the title The confessions of Kurt Gerstein. He researches the claims made by Gerstein and concludes that the many incoherencies, improbabilities, and inconsistencies make the material unreliable and the claims unbelievable. Furthermore, he demonstrates how Gerstein's "confessions" have often been manipulated by historians and journalists.

In 1985 Italian Carlo Mattogno published his book The Gerstein report: anatomy of a fraud. This analysis of the material in the Gerstein report concludes that it contains many absurdities, contradictions and errors, and as such should be considered untrustworthy as a factual account.

Nevertheless, the essentials of Gerstein's testimony about the extermination process have been corroborated by independent witnesses, whose accounts can be found in Gitta Sereny's Into That Darkness, a biography of one-time Treblinka commandant Franz Stangl.

Notes and References

 * Friedländer, Saul: Kurt Gerstein: The Ambiguity of Good. New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1969.
 * Sereny, Gitta: Into That Darkness. McGraw-Hill, 1974. Also available as Into That Darkness: An Examination of Conscience, Vintage, 1983. ISBN 0394710355 or ISBN 978-0394710358.

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