Felix Kersten

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Felix Kersten (30 September 1898 Dorpat, Russia - 16 April 1960, Stockholm, Sweden) was before and during the World War II 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 always verifiable from other sources.

Kersten was born in a Baltic German family in Estonia when the country was still a part of Imperial Russia. During the World War I he fought in the German Army, and arrived to Finland in April 1918 with the German forces that intervened in the Finnish Civil War. Kersten served for a while in Suojeluskunta, was granted Finnish citizenship in 1920 and commissioned 2nd Lieutenant (vänrikki) in Finnish Army in September 1921.

Kersten began his studies in Helsinki where he studied with the specialist Dr. Colander. After 2 years study he was awarded his degree in scientific massage. He then left for Berlin where he continued his studies and eventaully became Dr. Ko's pupil after an encounter at a dinner party. In 1925 Dr. Ko told Kersten "You have learned all I can teach you," he then turned his patients over to Kersten and retired.

Kersten had a number of very influential customers, among them prince Hendrik of the Netherlands (since 1928) and Mussolini’s son-in-law and Foreign Minister Galeazzo Ciano. Kersten felt he had to fulfill Heinrich Himmler's request to become Himmler's personal masseur. He wrote that he feared for his safety in case he refused. Kersten was able to alleviate Himmler’s severe stomach pains with his skills, and retained Himmler's trust until the end of the World War II in 1945.

In his postwar memoirs Kersten takes credit for saving, among others, the whole Dutch people from forced deportation to East. Even if some of his claims are unverifiable, they are not entirely baseless. Although the details of Kersten’s activities are hard to discern, at least the Dutch government thought highly enough of Kersten to bestow a high decoration to him after the war. The Swedish archives testify that Kersten was intermediary between Himmler and Count Folke Bernadotte in the negotiations which 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. Kersten’s claims of being instrumental in saving Finland’s Jews from German hands might be exaggerated, but Finnish government did use his services in hope of influencing Himmler.

After the war Kersten lived in West Germany and Sweden, taking Swedish citizenship in 1953. Kersten's war memoirs were published in English translation the first time in 1947, and in a second edition in 1956 (The Kersten memoirs, 1940-1945, London 1956) with an introduction by H. R. Trevor-Roper.

[edit] In popular culture

Felix Kersten is heavily parodied in the Woody Allen book Getting Even, in the chapter entitled "The Schmeed Memoirs," in which a fictional barber in wartime Germany describes his time as a hair stylist for Hitler and other high-ranking Nazi officers.

[edit] Bibliography

Felix Kersten, The Kersten Memoirs, 1940-1945, Time Life Education (1992) (English translation of original German text), ISBN 0-8094-8737-3.
Jong, de L. Dr. Het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden in de Tweede Wereldoorlog Volume 10b Het laatste jaar, part II/The Kingdom of the Netherlands during WWII Volume 10b The last year, part II (1982) published by the Rijksinstituut voor Oorlogsdocumentatie (Dutch language) pages 1149 and following
Kersten's entry in Finnish National Biography (Kansallisbiografia)
Joseph Kessel, published under the various titles The Magic Touch, The Man With the Miraculous Hands (Librairie Gallimard, 1960), and The Man With the Miraculous Hands: The Fantastic Story of Felix Kersten, Himmler's Private Doctor (Burford Books 2004 paperback reprint), ISBN 1-58080-122-6.
John H. Waller, The Devil's Doctor: Felix Kersten and the Secret Plot to Turn Himmler Against Hitler, Wiley (2002), ISBN 0-471-39672-9.