The massages of Himmler's doctor that saved hundreds of thousands of lives

Carmen Naranjo Madrid, 24 Mar The bloodthirsty Heinrich Himmler, the head of the SS, suffered terrible stomach cramps and only the massages of his doctor Felix Kersten relieved him, a therapist who managed to save the lives of tens of thousands of prisoners sentenced to certain death in the Nazi concentration camps during those sessions. The historian François Kersaudy (1948) figures in 350,000 people the lives saved by this Finnish passport doctor, one of the most prestigious physiotherapists of the time who received in 1939 the request to attend to Himmler and, after overcoming his initial doubts, became his personal doctor or, in the words of Reichsfuhrer, his “Buddha” magical”. And instead of receiving honoraria, he asked to be remunerated by releasing the Jews and fighters. The World Jewish Congress numbers 60,000 Jews the lives that were not exterminated thanks to the mediation of Felix Kersten, but Kersaudy argues that there are many more in his book “Himmler's Doctor”, published in Spanish by Taurus. Thus, the historian explained to a group of journalists on Wednesday, that in February 1945 the Nazis decided that they would blow up the concentration camps with all their prisoners and guards inside as the allies approached a distance of 8 kilometers, information that reached the ears of the Jewish Congress in Stockholm, which asked for help from Kersten to try to stop it through Himmler. The doctor took eight days, but during his sessions he managed to convince the head of the SS to desist from blowing up the camps where 350,000 people were overcrowded, said the author, a specialist in the Second World War. But before, he had saved more lives, between 3,000 or 4,000, says Kersaudy, who believes that his book could have been titled “Kersten's Lists”, since his lists of people to be saved from death numbered more than a hundred, and yet this doctor is practically unknown to figures like Oskar Schindler's. The doctor took advantage of the fact that Himmler had become “dependent” on him and his treatments, which explains “his immense influence” on the Nazi leader, “sometimes more than Hitler,” says the historian, who has studied the diaries, notes and statements of the main protagonists of the story. Thus, Kersten explained in his diaries: “I could help people especially when Himmler was very ill. In these circumstances, he was very helpless [...] and was very influential. That's why when a crisis started I had to come up with my lists. At that time, he signed almost everything in front of him. But once he was restored, it was almost impossible to get him to sign a release.” “Kersten knew the weaknesses of Himmler, a man who had immense power but at the same time was very weak,” says the author, who highlights the narcissism of the Nazi hierarch and how the existence of the doctor and his influence on the SS chief was unknown to Hitler, because if he knew it he would have eliminated him. The therapist's work was not recognized until much later because a Swedish count, who had participated in Kersten's rescue of 20,000 women from concentration camps, claimed that the entire operation was his work and threatened to expel him to Finland, already under Soviet influence, if he denied him. The World Jewish Congress established in 1947 that it had saved 100,000 people of various nationalities, including 60,000 Jews, in Germany at the risk of their own lives. Other awards came later: from Holland in 1950 and from Sweden in 1956. And Charles de Gaulle awarded him the legion of honor in 1960 for saving thousands of French people, but during the trip to Paris to receive the decoration, Kersten suffered a heart attack and died. His story will be recovered in a documentary for French television, says the writer, who points out that, “unfortunately”, Vladimir Putin does not have a doctor like Kersten. “Putin has gone mad”, considers this historian, who stresses that the Russian president has in common with Hitler that he lacks advisors and his environment is afraid of him: “Hitler was isolated and Putin was too”. CHIEF cn/lml