Gerstein was most certainly a paradoxical character. The only biography that I have come across on him was called, 'A Spy for God'. I can't remember the authors name at this time. Well worth the read, and very well documented as I recall.
Gerstein was a member of the Confessional Church, which contributed a fair number of the members of the anti-nazi and anti-Hitler movement inside Germany. In the early thirties Gerstein was a youth group leader for the church, he became very wary of the nazis when they began to assimilate such groups into the Hitler Youth movement. He became an avowed anti-nazi after his cousin was murdered in the first of the nazis extermination campaigns, when mentally ill and people with disabilities were put down during the leadup to the 1936 olympic games.
Gerstein decided that the best thing he could do was to infitrate the nazi establishment to 'bear witness' to such things. He subsequently joined the SS and also became a diarist. He largely insinuated himself into a position of maintaining clean water supplies and fumigation.
After the nazi 'final solution' began, he saw for himself and was very disturbed by the nazi technocrats and their technologies of mass murder. He placed himself at great personal risk in hs attempts to ensure that this secret was made known to the world, including informing diplomats, church ministers and anyone else that he could. Otter was unsure whether to believe the almost incoherent story of grief , crime and madness that Gerstein unfolded to him.
Gerstein had a tanker containing prussic acid (Zyklon
condemned and buried by claiming it was leaking. Somehow he alone could smell this odorless and colourless gas. He was given quite a bit of credit for this amongst SS circles, after all one could not have people other than the intended victims hurt by such things. This gave Gerstein the impetus to have further shipments similarly condemned.
Living a double life had it's toll on Gerstein, he suffered from quite extreme hypoglycemia, and appeared to live largely on sugary foods. His descriptions of the extermination camps were Dantesque and even his closest friends did not always believe him, he felt compelled to take even greater risks to ensure that (what became known as) the holocaust was not hidden from the world. He tried to personally see, tho not take part in, the very worst of what was perpetrated.
At wars end, Gerstein was imprisoned by the French and indicted by the War Crimes Tribunal. Gerstein made a written confession of all that he had seen, at great length and detail to his inquisitors. He was not at first believed. Gersyein suicided in his cell during a depression caused by his hypoglycemia. Only after his death was due recognition given to Gerstein. His admissions were used extensively during the war crimes trials.
I'm quite sure that for many, even to this day, Gerstein actions as a 'witness' are as reprehensible as those of the participants. I've always felt that had Gerstein survived he would have spent his life in prison, with the likes of Albert Speer. I doubt he would have been executed as were many of the worst war criminals, with whom he was acquainted. Gerstein was a man who had lost his innocence by virtue of seeing the worst of what humans can do to other humans.
The last time I looked the only wwwebsites on Gerstein were limited to displaying information only in the French language.
Regards
