ENGINEER

Kurt Gerstein

1905 - 1945

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Kurt Gerstein (11 August 1905, Münster, German Empire – 25 July 1945, Paris, France) was a German mining engineer, an anti-Nazi Christian activist, yet a member of the Nazi Party from 1933, of the SA in 1934, and later of the SS Hygiene Institute (Hygiene-Institut der Waffen-SS) from 1941 in Berlin. In August 1942, he witnessed a homicidal gassing at the Belzec extermination camp in Poland. He contacted a Swedish diplomat and religious figures in an attempt to alert political leaders and Pope Pius XII to the extermination of the Jews of Europe, but without success. In 1945, he provided an account that forms the core of his “report” to the Allies. Read more on Wikipedia

His biography is available in 24 different languages on Wikipedia (up from 23 in 2024). Kurt Gerstein is the 57th most popular engineer (up from 63rd in 2024), the 1,253rd most popular biography from Germany (down from 1,217th in 2019) and the 10th most popular German Engineer.

Kurt Gerstein was a Nazi officer who claimed to have witnessed the mass extermination of Jews in the gas chambers at the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. He was later convicted of war crimes and executed.

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Among ENGINEERS

Among engineers, Kurt Gerstein ranks 57 out of 389. Before him are Marcello Gandini, Ernst Heinkel, Godfrey Hounsfield, Frank Bunker Gilbreth Sr., William Armstrong, 1st Baron Armstrong, and John Ambrose Fleming. After him are Valentin Glushko, Su Song, Masaru Ibuka, Colin Chapman, Henry Gantt, and Hans Kammler.

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Contemporaries

Among people born in 1905, Kurt Gerstein ranks 55. Before him are Jean-Marie Villot, Piet Hein, Emílio Garrastazu Médici, Joseph Cotten, Ivan Serov, and Pedro Petrone. After him are Daniil Kharms, Emmanuel Mounier, Pat Brown, Sada Abe, Clara Bow, and Prince John of the United Kingdom. Among people deceased in 1945, Kurt Gerstein ranks 90. Before him are Plutarco Elías Calles, Hans Oster, Elisabeth Volkenrath, Mitsuru Ushijima, Rudolf von Sebottendorf, and John Ambrose Fleming. After him are Charles Fabry, Princess Maud, Countess of Southesk, Josef Čapek, Pierre Drieu La Rochelle, Fritz Klein, and Hans Kammler.

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In Germany

Among people born in Germany, Kurt Gerstein ranks 1,253 out of 7,253. Before him are Elizabeth Charlotte of the Palatinate, Electress of Brandenburg (1597), Reinhard Genzel (1952), Bruno the Great (925), Princess Elisabeth Marie of Bavaria (1874), Johann Hieronymus Schröter (1745), and Lothar de Maizière (1940). After him are Ernest I, Duke of Saxe-Gotha (1601), Otto Georg Thierack (1889), Margot Honecker (1927), Wolfgang von Trips (1928), Joachim Sauer (1949), and Adolphus Frederick II, Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (1658).

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Among ENGINEERS In Germany

Among engineers born in Germany, Kurt Gerstein ranks 10. Before him are August Horch (1868), Willy Messerschmitt (1898), Albert Göring (1895), Hugo Junkers (1859), Felix Wankel (1902), and Ernst Heinkel (1888). After him are Arthur Scherbius (1878), Walter Dornberger (1895), John A. Roebling (1806), Erich Topp (1914), Alexander Lippisch (1894), and Christian Otto Mohr (1835).

German born Engineers

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