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Kersten's Lists: A Saviour in the Depths of Hell
Oskar Schindler is well known for having saved a thousand Jews from Nazi extermination during World War II. Yet Felix Kersten, Heinrich Himmler's personal physician, remains almost unknown to this day.
Only Kersten was able to relieve the Reichsführer of his crippling and chronic abdominal pains. Though despising the Nazis, he continued to work for Himmler throughout the war, using his position to pass intelligence to Finland, Sweden and the Netherlands, and demanding as payment from Himmler the liberation of victims sentenced to imprisonment or death.
Drawing on unseen archive material from Germany, Sweden, The Netherlands and Israel, François Kersaudy guides us in the footsteps of a man who exploited the politics of hatred and fear within the Third Reich to save the lives of over a hundred thousand people, including sixty thousand Jews.
Only Kersten was able to relieve the Reichsführer of his crippling and chronic abdominal pains. Though despising the Nazis, he continued to work for Himmler throughout the war, using his position to pass intelligence to Finland, Sweden and the Netherlands, and demanding as payment from Himmler the liberation of victims sentenced to imprisonment or death.
Drawing on unseen archive material from Germany, Sweden, The Netherlands and Israel, François Kersaudy guides us in the footsteps of a man who exploited the politics of hatred and fear within the Third Reich to save the lives of over a hundred thousand people, including sixty thousand Jews.
- GenresNonfictionHistory
445 pages, Kindle Edition
Published February 1, 2024
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43 people want to read
About the author
François Kersaudy
76Ìýbooks8ÌýfollowersLe professeur François Kersaudy, historien polyglotte et biographe de Churchill, Goering et Mountbatten, est aussi l'auteur du seul ouvrage au monde sur les relations entre de Gaulle et Churchill (Perrin). Dans la collection Maîtres de Guerre, il a également écrit Hitler, Staline et MacArthur.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
April 18, 2024
The best WWII book I've read in a long time. Highly recommended. Superbly written in a light, almost humorous style (it was translated from the French by the author himself). It's a shame it hasn't received more publicity. This is an important book and a terrific read.
It would be wrong to say that Felix Kersten, a Finnish doctor and masseur, is a forgotten figure of WWII. His name crops up in many histories, because for six years his most prominent patient was Heinrich Himmler, and he helped put Himmler in touch with the Western Allies in the final weeks of the war. (Incredibly, Himmler thought he had an indispensable role to play in postwar Europe).
What has been forgotten is that Kersten succeeded in saving tens of thousands of lives, many times more than Oskar Schindler, for example.
Kersten got to know Himmler well and became a close confidante. The SS leader was afflicted by painful recurring abdominal cramps, which only Kersten's deep tissue massage could alleviate.
He found Himmler to be a weak, indecisive man who didn't really know himself. Being perceived as tough, and pleasing Hitler, of whom he was terrified, were the only things that mattered to Himmler. As an up-close portrait of the man responsible for the worst crime in human history, this is extraordinary. Himmler would veer between blind fanaticism, to bouts of deep doubt and realism, then back again to denialism and fantasy. He was so fearful of going behind Hitler's back that he had astrologers working round the clock to supply him with predictions for the consequences of his actions. Most surprising to me was that by 1944, Himmler, very secretly, thought Hitler had to go. He knew about the July 20th assassination plot, and was disappointed when it failed.
Each time Kersten temporarily relieved Himmler of his pains, he would refuse payment (his fees were astronomically high). Instead, he'd present his grateful patient with a list of people to be released from arrest.
At the beginning, the lists were short; they were friends and patients of Kersten's, but gradually, as war ground on, the lists became enormous: lists of arrested Dutch resistance fighters; lists of Norwegian students in concentration camps; and finally, in the last weeks of the war, tens of thousands of Jewish prisoners, including every female prisoner in Ravensbrück.
By 1945, Himmler was desperate to dispel the international opprobrium that attached to his name throughout the world (too late for that), and agreed every one of these releases.
After the war, others, such as the Swedish diplomat Count Bernadotte, claimed the credit for what Kersten had achieved, and many of the freed prisoners had no idea who was behind their release. Kersten published his own memoirs after the war, describing what he had achieved, but because he did not keep a contemporaneous diary, some of his dates and accounts are muddled, which has caused some critics to claim that he made stuff up or exaggerated.
But this author has uncovered Nazi, Swedish, and Dutch documents that all back Kersten up. He did what he said he did and never really received the public acclaim that was his due.
Kersten himself is an oddity. A large, friendly man, over-fond of his food, he cuts a slightly comic-opera figure. The impression is of a fairly simple, humane, and very courageous fellow with a powerful and clear-cut sense of right and wrong, a morality that was not blurred by the war, as it was for so many others. He once told Himmler that he could not possibly offer treatment to Hitler, because Hitler was a madman and his problems were psychiatric. Imagine: he was saying this to the face of the Reichsführer-SS, who was also head of the Gestapo and implementer of the Final Solution.
It would be wrong to say that Felix Kersten, a Finnish doctor and masseur, is a forgotten figure of WWII. His name crops up in many histories, because for six years his most prominent patient was Heinrich Himmler, and he helped put Himmler in touch with the Western Allies in the final weeks of the war. (Incredibly, Himmler thought he had an indispensable role to play in postwar Europe).
What has been forgotten is that Kersten succeeded in saving tens of thousands of lives, many times more than Oskar Schindler, for example.
Kersten got to know Himmler well and became a close confidante. The SS leader was afflicted by painful recurring abdominal cramps, which only Kersten's deep tissue massage could alleviate.
He found Himmler to be a weak, indecisive man who didn't really know himself. Being perceived as tough, and pleasing Hitler, of whom he was terrified, were the only things that mattered to Himmler. As an up-close portrait of the man responsible for the worst crime in human history, this is extraordinary. Himmler would veer between blind fanaticism, to bouts of deep doubt and realism, then back again to denialism and fantasy. He was so fearful of going behind Hitler's back that he had astrologers working round the clock to supply him with predictions for the consequences of his actions. Most surprising to me was that by 1944, Himmler, very secretly, thought Hitler had to go. He knew about the July 20th assassination plot, and was disappointed when it failed.
Each time Kersten temporarily relieved Himmler of his pains, he would refuse payment (his fees were astronomically high). Instead, he'd present his grateful patient with a list of people to be released from arrest.
At the beginning, the lists were short; they were friends and patients of Kersten's, but gradually, as war ground on, the lists became enormous: lists of arrested Dutch resistance fighters; lists of Norwegian students in concentration camps; and finally, in the last weeks of the war, tens of thousands of Jewish prisoners, including every female prisoner in Ravensbrück.
By 1945, Himmler was desperate to dispel the international opprobrium that attached to his name throughout the world (too late for that), and agreed every one of these releases.
After the war, others, such as the Swedish diplomat Count Bernadotte, claimed the credit for what Kersten had achieved, and many of the freed prisoners had no idea who was behind their release. Kersten published his own memoirs after the war, describing what he had achieved, but because he did not keep a contemporaneous diary, some of his dates and accounts are muddled, which has caused some critics to claim that he made stuff up or exaggerated.
But this author has uncovered Nazi, Swedish, and Dutch documents that all back Kersten up. He did what he said he did and never really received the public acclaim that was his due.
Kersten himself is an oddity. A large, friendly man, over-fond of his food, he cuts a slightly comic-opera figure. The impression is of a fairly simple, humane, and very courageous fellow with a powerful and clear-cut sense of right and wrong, a morality that was not blurred by the war, as it was for so many others. He once told Himmler that he could not possibly offer treatment to Hitler, because Hitler was a madman and his problems were psychiatric. Imagine: he was saying this to the face of the Reichsführer-SS, who was also head of the Gestapo and implementer of the Final Solution.
March 1, 2025
This is a brilliant book about an extraordinary character, Felix Kersten, a man with considerable ability to alleviate a wide variety of pains through his understanding of the human body and his particular method of massage or physiotherapy. But he was far more than this.
Through him thousands upon thousands of people of all European nationalities, including huge numbers of people of Jewish descent, were rescued by this man by using his timely association with one of the most evil men in the Hitler leadership.
Heinrich Himmler was one of Kersten's chief patients, second only to Hitler before and during the Second World War. Through persuasion Kersten was able to convince this man, time and again, to release people on certain lists Kersten had been given, but also to do far more. Kersten managed to have rescued thousands of people who would have died in concentration camps under Himmler's orders.
From beginning to end the story of these two men sounds almost fanciful - has the author somehow made all this up? But there are well-attested sources on every hand to verify that Kersten was exactly what he's shown as here, and that somehow he had a way of persuading Himmler to do the right thing.
In spite of a welter of names, and unfamiliar places, the book never needs skimming. There are heaps of interesting footnotes and even more references to source material. Kersaudy has translated the book himself from the original French, and it reads wondrously and absorbingly.
A fitting tribute to an remarkable man.
Through him thousands upon thousands of people of all European nationalities, including huge numbers of people of Jewish descent, were rescued by this man by using his timely association with one of the most evil men in the Hitler leadership.
Heinrich Himmler was one of Kersten's chief patients, second only to Hitler before and during the Second World War. Through persuasion Kersten was able to convince this man, time and again, to release people on certain lists Kersten had been given, but also to do far more. Kersten managed to have rescued thousands of people who would have died in concentration camps under Himmler's orders.
From beginning to end the story of these two men sounds almost fanciful - has the author somehow made all this up? But there are well-attested sources on every hand to verify that Kersten was exactly what he's shown as here, and that somehow he had a way of persuading Himmler to do the right thing.
In spite of a welter of names, and unfamiliar places, the book never needs skimming. There are heaps of interesting footnotes and even more references to source material. Kersaudy has translated the book himself from the original French, and it reads wondrously and absorbingly.
A fitting tribute to an remarkable man.
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