A former member of Hitler’s SS, who died in a French prison in 1945 after being convicted as a war criminal, was officially cleared here yesterday and declared an anti-Nazi. The man was Kurt Gerstein, commemorated in Rolf Hochhuth’s drama, “The Deputy,” as the SS officer who tried single-handedly to sabotage the Nazi program for the annihilation of Jewry.
The fact that Gerstein had attempted to sabotage the Nazi plans was first brought out in a German court in 1950. He had the assignment to procure the cyanide which was used for gassing Jews in the murder camps. The German court found, 14 years ago, that, while he did try to act humanely, he should have quit the SS when he found that he could not prevent the crimes committed by the Nazis.
Last year, his widow called for a re-examination of her late husband’s record. Yesterday, after a lengthy probe, Prime Minister Georg Kiesinger, of the State of Baden Wurttemberg, officially declared Gerstein “rehabilitated.” This is believed to be the first case of the formal rehabilitation of a German previously condemned as a war criminal.
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