The Kersten Memoirs 1940-1945
Felix Kersten was born on 30 September 1898 in a Baltic German family in Estonia when the country was still a part of Imperial Russia. During World War II he was the personal masseur of Heinrich Himmler. Kersten used his position to aid people persecuted by Nazi Germany, although whether his actions were as decisive as Kersten claimed in his memoirs is not readily verifiable from other sources.  During World War I he fought in the German Army and arrived in Finland in April 1918 with the German forces that intervened in the Finnish Civil War.   Kersten began his studies in Helsinki where he studied with the specialist Dr Colander. After two years' study he was awarded his degree in scientific massage.   Kersten had a number of very influential customers, among them Prince Hendrik of the Netherlands (after 1928) and Benito Mussolini’s son-in-law and Foreign Minister Galeazzo Ciano. Kersten accepted Heinrich Himmler's request to become his personal masseur, writing later that he feared for his safety if he refused.  He was able to alleviate Himmler’s severe stomach pains with his skills and gained his trust. Kersten used this trust to obtain pardons and releases of several prisoners.  During the War, Kersten also provided information to the OSS (predecessor of the CIA).  Towards the end of the War, Kersten arranged a meeting with Himmler and Norbert Masur, a member of the Swedish branch of the World Jewish Congress, in Harztwalde, a few miles from Ravensbruck concentration camp. As a result Himmler agreed to spare the lives of the remaining 60,000 Jews left in Nazi concentration camps days before their liberation by the Allies.  In December 1945, the World Jewish Congress presented Kersten with a letter thanking him for helping to save Jewish concentration-camp victims.  In his post-war memoirs, Kersten takes credit for saving, among others, the whole Dutch people from forced deportation to the Nazi-occupied East. In 1953 the Dutch government nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize on this account.  The Swedish archives testify that Kersten was intermediary between Himmler and Count Folke Bernadotte in the negotiations that led to the rescue operation 'The White Buses', saving hundreds of Norwegians and Danes from certain death in the last days of the Third Reich.  After the War, Kersten lived in West Germany and Sweden, taking Swedish citizenship in 1953. He died on 16 April 1960 in Stockholm, Sweden.