The Man With The Miraculous Hands

Joseph Kessel

• Publisher: Lucknow Books
• Year: 2015
• eBook ISBN: 9781786256973
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: European History
• Index: History

Felix Kersten, physician to the high-demon of the Third Reich, Heinrich Himmler could alleviate Himmler's severe stomach pains with his hands using massage and manipulation. In return, Kersten bargained with Himmler to order the release of innocent prisoners condemned to die.It is an amazing story of the good-natured little fat man who looked like a "cross between a Flemish burgomaster and a Buddha of the West, " studied the higher curative powers of massage under a lama-doctor Ko, and applied them to Himmler whose excruciating stomach aches were only relieved by Kersten's therapy. During the five years to come, Kersten attended Himmler but was an alien by birth and sympathies among his entourage, with the one exception of Himmler's private secretary who collaborated with him in drawing up the lists of doomed men—Jehovah's Witnesses, Jews, concentration camp victims of all nationalities. At the close, Kersten was jockeying with Himmler (and when persuasion failed, withholding treatment) to try and secure mass scale liberation of victims first through Sweden, then Switzerland.... Kersten is fascinating to follow-through his circumspect, ambivalent career—even though there may be points in question at its close.—KIRKUS Review

THE GREAT PLAN

1

During the beginning of September, 1943, the government of Finland asked Kersten to come to Helsinki and make a general report. Kivimoki, the Finnish ambassador to Germany, made the request. Since Kersten was both Medizinalrat and a Finnish officer, Himmler could not easily oppose the trip; he even pretended to approve of it.

“Maybe you can find out why your government hasn’t handed over its Jews to us,” he said.

As Kersten was getting ready to leave, he received another, more important invitation. Richart, the Swedish ambassador, let the doctor know that if he stopped in Stockholm on his way to Helsinki he would be welcome. He should plan to stay for a while because the Swedish ministers wanted to have several confidential interviews with him.

The offer affected Kersten as liquor does someone not used to it: his head swam. He could not even imagine what it would be like to spend a few weeks free, in a free capital. How could he force Himmler to let him go?

At first he thought it would be impossible, but with his friend Kivimoki, he found a good excuse. In his childhood he had often heard the Russian proverb, “Misery breeds guile.” He thought about the excuse so much that he began to convince himself it was actually true.

“I have received serious news from the embassy. I am going to be drafted in Finland and will not be able to return here.”

It was not true, but since Kersten had often spoken of it, Himmler believed him and was panic-stricken.

“For nothing in the world! I do not want to lose you. I cannot.”

“Since it is official, I do not see how I can refuse,” Kersten said.

“It must be avoided,” Himmler cried.

“There is a way. I figured it out with the ambassador,” Kersten said thoughtfully.

“How?”

“There are five or six thousand wounded Finns in Sweden. They are crippled or incurable and permanently out of the fighting. Finland lacks the personnel and medical supplies to take care of them properly.” (This was true.)

“Then what?” Himmler asked feverishly.

“I could be deferred for a long time, if you gave me two months to treat the wounded Finns in Sweden,” Kersten lied.

“Two months. That’s a long time,” Himmler said.

“Do you prefer to have me drafted until the end of the war?” Kersten asked.

Himmler did not answer. As the silence continued, Kersten recalled a very difficult moment.

He asked quietly, “Do you remember, Reichsführer, that in May of 1940, when you were getting ready to invade Holland, you forbade me to leave Hartzwalde? I spoke then of getting in touch with my government. You laughed at the idea and answered, ‘Finland will not declare war on us on account of you.’ “

“I might have said that,” Himmler answered, without looking at Kersten.

The doctor continued, even more gently, “Today, it is my turn to say to you, ‘If you want to save me from the orders of my government, declare war on Finland.’ “

Like most of their crucial conversations, this one took place during a treatment. Kersten saw Himmler’s puny shoulders drop.

“War on Finland?” Himmler murmured. “Not now. Our situation has become too difficult.”

Himmler was silent. Didn’t they have enough to handle? Rommel’s African army was finished, Von Paulus was defeated on the frozen steppes of Stalingrad, the Soviet Army was beginning to advance like a ground swell, hundreds of Allied planes bombed the German cities daily. In short, in three years Hitler’s plans had been completely overturned. Himmler’s few words told the whole story.

Kersten put on his good-natured tone.

“Since it is not appropriate to use force against Finland, let us use diplomacy. Believe me, it is better. Agree to let me go to Sweden for two months to treat my countrymen.”

“All right. Go.” Himmler sighed.

Suddenly he seized Kersten’s hand. “You will come back for sure? There is no question of your return? If not...” he said in a changed voice; it was hard and hoarse.

The doctor pulled his hand away carefully but firmly.

“Why do you speak to me like that?” he asked. “Have I done anything to deserve such suspicion?”

Once again there was genuine regret on Himmler’s face.

“I beg you, from the bottom of my heart, dear Kersten, to forgive me. You know my life has made me suspicious by second nature. But not toward you. You are the only man in the world in whose sincerity and good will I believe.”

Intuition served Kersten as much as reason in his dealings with Himmler. He was quick to take advantage of his momentary humility.

“I intend to bring my wife and my youngest son—who is still being nursed—and the nurse, to Sweden. My son is only three months old,” Kersten said casually.

Himmler scratched the leather of the sofa he was stretched out on. He looked at Kersten out of the corner of his eye, with his usual sharp and fearful look. But his voice remained the same.

Then he asked, “Are the other two hoys going also?”

Kersten almost said yes, but when he opened his mouth to speak, he heard himself answer, “No, of course not. They do not have to be with their mother all the time. They will stay at Hartzwalde with Elizabeth Lube, my sister. You know her.”

The intuition which led him to change his answer at the last moment was correct. Himmler’s face lit up immediately. He was full of good will and trust.

He said, with the smile of a family man, “You are right. The country is so much better for children than the city, even if the city is Stockholm.”

Kersten answered with a similar smile.

“That’s just what I think. The milk is excellent on my property.”

2

To understand Kersten’s feverish happiness, one must remember or try to imagine what it was like in Hitler’s Germany. There was a shortage of food, clothing, and heat. There were interminable lines for the most essential supplies. Many cities were without light at night. This was the normal life of millions and millions of men. Everybody was afraid. They feared for those on the front and for those in the camps. They trembled during the terrible night raids, and those who survived feared the dawn sound of policemen’s fists banging on their doors.

Kersten suffered much less from the shortages than most people. But he risked the death penalty for secretly raising and slaughtering livestock. The little war against the inspectors, the tricks of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, all this now seems like an amusing anecdote, but then it wore them out with worry. Above all, Kersten had for a long time been unable to ignore the suffering that surrounded him everywhere. The shortages, the cold, the anguish families went through for their relatives, the fear of being reported, the fear of saying one word too many, all increasingly weighed him down. As for the police terror, he lived in the middle of it. From where he was it spread its tentacles throughout practically all of Europe.

One simple detail shows the almost childlike joy Kersten felt at being able to spend two months in a free country. He chose the thirtieth of September, his birthday, to fly to Stockholm. This was his way of saying that there was no greater gift he could receive from life and from himself.

Kersten, who was traveling as a diplomatic courier, had nothing to fear from the customs or police inspectors. In his luggage there was one suitcase, stuffed with compromising papers, including his journal. He had kept it for three years and filled it with accounts of his conversations with Himmler. Even the conversations on the most dangerous subjects, such as Hitler’s syphilis, were recorded there. In this suitcase were also numerous copies of secret documents which, thanks to Brandt, Kersten had been able to take from the Reichsführer’s Chancellery.

Irmgard Kersten, who still knew nothing about this side of Kersten’s life, was surprised by the unfamiliar suitcase.

“I guess,” the doctor told her laughingly, “that I have overestimated the cold Swedish weather. I have taken enough warm clothes for a regiment.”

Kersten’s big car brought him to Tempelhof. The airplane took off. But it was only when the pale green moving sea spread out under it that Kersten thrilled with freedom. Delwig, an old Baltic friend, one of whose ancestors had been Pushkin’s tutor, met him at the airport. He accompanied Kersten to a comfortable and modest pension, just what Kersten had asked the Swedes to find for him. As soon as the luggage was brought there, Kersten asked his friend if he knew a place where he could safely leave a very valuable suitcase. Delwig advised him to rent a safe at a bank and suggested doing it right away. But in spite of his impatience to have his documents safely tucked away, Kersten had an even more pressing desire.

“Let’s wait until tomorrow,” he said to Delwig. “Now let’s get to the pastries. There’s nothing like them in Germany.”

The next day Kersten brought his documents to a bank. He did not have to rent a safe. They told him that sealing the suitcase would make it completely secure. So the suitcase was tied up and sealed with lead, imprinted with the doctor’s ring which carried the coat of arms that Charles V had given to his ancestor, Andreas Kersten. Then his journal and secret documents were put in a corner of the cellar.{10}

Two days after the doctor’s arrival, an underling from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs came to tell Kersten that Gunther, the minister of foreign affairs, wanted to see him, but in his own house, informally, practically in secret.

By a strange coincidence, Gunther’s apartment was just around the corner from the pension which the Swedish authorities had rented for Kersten. It was there that the two men met and held a conversation crucial to the fate of thousands of men.

The minister began by thanking Kersten for the commutation of sentences which he had secured for the Swedes who had been arrested by the Gestapo in Poland.

“I expect to be able to get them released one day,” the doctor said.

“That’s more than we can hope for,” Gunther said. “I am sure you know that that is not the reason for our invitation to you. I want to talk to you about a matter of much greater importance. Every day the Allies put more pressure on us to enter the war against Germany, which is contrary to ...

Table of contents

• Title page
• TABLE OF CONTENTS
• INTRODUCTION
• CHRONOLOGY
• PROLOGUE
• DR. KO’S PUPIL
• A HAPPY MAN
• THE BEAST IN HIS DEN
• THE BATTLE BEGINS
• GESTAPO
• A NATION TO SAVE
• GENOCIDE
• THE JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES
• HITLER’S DISEASE
• THE GREAT PLAN
• THE AMBUSH
• IN THE NAME OF HUMANITY
• MAZUR, THE JEW
• APPENDIX