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The Holocaust and the Neo-Nazi Mythomania
© 1978, The
Beate Klarsfeld Foundation
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The eighth of June, 1942, the SS-Sturmbannführer
Hans Gunther of the RSHA ordered him to procure a hundred kilograms of prussic
acid and to transport it to a place known only to the driver of the lorry. On
August 17, Gerstein, accompanied by Professor Pfannenstiel, arrived in Lublin
(Poland) where they were received by the SS-Gruppenführer Globocnik, Chief
of the SS and of the Police of the District of Lublin. They had a conversation
with him in presence of a certain Dr. Herbert Linden, director at the Ministry
of the Interior. Two days later, they left for Belzec where Gerstein, escorted
by the SS-Hauptsturmführer Obermeyer, of Pirmasens, was able to visit the
gas chambers. He returned there the next day and was present at the arrival of
a convoy. Its forty five railway cars contained 6,700 persons of whom 1,450
were already dead upon arrival. Remaining where he was, Gerstein followed
everything that went on afterwards under the command of a certain Captain
Wirth: brutal unloading of the cars of their live cargo, undressing of
everyone, the column conducted towards the gas chambers where men, women and
children were forced to crowd together and, finally, their atrocious and
interminable agony of three hours and twenty one minutes by the clock, for the
Diesel engine of which the exhaust fumes were intended to kill the unfortunate
people did not work; and two hours and forty nine minutes were necessary to
repair it, then thirty two minutes to finish the killing. Gerstein was present
at the opening of the gas chambers, at the evacuation of the bodies and their
quick burial "in big pits of about 100x20x12 meters, located near the death
chambers." Professor Pfannenstiel was present at all that with him.
The
next day Gerstein and Pfannenstiel went in Captain Wirth's car to Treblinka,
where they visited installations identical to those of Belzec, but bigger.
Leaving Poland, Gerstein in the train from Warsaw met the Secretary of
the Swedish Legation in Berlin, Baron Göran von Otter. For lack of
sleepers, the two men remained in the corridor where Gerstein, overwhelmed by
what he had seen at Belzec, recounted his terrible visit to the diplomat,
asking that the latter transmit his account to the Swedish Government and,
through its intermediary, to the Allies at war. Following this, he again met
the diplomat on two occasions and was told that the latter had sent a report to
his government. Moreover, Gerstein presented himself to the Papal Nuncio in
Berlin who, learning that Gerstein was an SS, refused to receive him. He was,
however, able to relate his journey to Poland to the Secretary of the
Episcopate of Berlin, Dr. Winter.
Here is a very succinct
résumé of his "report."
What is known is that in April
1945, in the midst of the Nazi defeat, Gerstein was in Bade-Wurtemberg. He
crossed without difficulty the front line near Reutlingen, occupied by French
troops, then proceeded to Rottweil, also occupied by the French. He was
arrested, freed the next morning, but assigned to house arrest in a room of the
Hotel Mohren, which had been requisitioned. It was in this room that he wrote
of his visits to the extermination camps in Poland in 1942. Two
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The Holocaust and the Neo-Nazi Mythomania
© 1978, The
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