Stella Ingrid Goldschlag, also known as Stella Kübler-Isaacksohn and Stella Kübler (10 July 1922 – 26 October 1994) was a
German Jewish
The history of the Jews in Germany goes back at least to the year 321, and continued through the Early Middle Ages (5th to 10th centuries CE) and High Middle Ages (''circa'' 1000–1299 CE) when Jewish immigrants founded the Ashkenazi Jewish ...
woman who
collaborated
Collaboration (from Latin ''com-'' "with" + ''laborare'' "to labor", "to work") is the process of two or more people, entities or organizations working together to complete a task or achieve a goal. Collaboration is similar to cooperation. Most ...
with the
Gestapo
The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe.
The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one organi ...
during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, operating around Berlin exposing and denouncing Berlin's underground
Jew
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""Th ...
s.
The number of people she betrayed or delivered to the Nazis is hard to calculate but is estimated to be anywhere from 600 to 3000.
Early life
She was born Stella Goldschlag and raised in
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...
as the only child in a middle-class,
assimilated Jewish
Jewish assimilation ( he, התבוללות, ''hitbolelut'') refers either to the gradual cultural assimilation and social integration of Jews in their surrounding culture or to an ideological program in the age of emancipation promoting conform ...
family.
After the 1933
seizure of power by the Nazis, she, like other Jewish children, was forbidden to go to a state school by
Nazi racial policies
The racial policy of Nazi Germany was a set of policies and laws implemented in Nazi Germany under the dictatorship of Adolf Hitler, based on a specific racist doctrine asserting the superiority of the Aryan race, which claimed scientific legi ...
, so she attended the
Goldschmidt School The Goldschmidt School was a school that existed in Berlin, Germany, in the late 1930s. It was founded by Leonore Goldschmidt, a German Jewish educator, after Jewish children were barred from attending public schools in 1938.
Notable alumni incl ...
, set up by the local Jewish community. At school, she was known for her beauty and vivacity.
The family fell on hard times when the 1933
Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service
The Law for the Restoration of the Professional Hitler Service (german: Gesetz zur Wiederherstellung des Berufsbeamtentums, shortened to ''Berufsbeamtengesetz''), also known as Civil Service Law, Civil Service Restoration Act, and Law to Re-es ...
was used to purge Jews from positions of influence and her father, , lost his job with the
newsreel company
Gaumont. Her parents attempted to leave Germany after ''
Kristallnacht'' in 1938 to escape the Nazi regime, but were unable to gain visas for other countries. Goldschlag completed her education in 1938, training as a fashion designer at the School of Applied Art in Nürnbergerstraße.
Going underground and collaboration
In 1941, Goldschlag married a Jewish musician, Manfred Kübler. They had met when both were working as Jewish forced-labourers in a war plant in Berlin.
In about 1942, when the large deportation programme of Berlin Jews into extermination camps began, she disappeared underground, using forged papers to
pass
Pass, PASS, The Pass or Passed may refer to:
Places
*Pass, County Meath, a townland in Ireland
* Pass, Poland, a village in Poland
*Pass, an alternate term for a number of straits: see List of straits
*Mountain pass, a lower place in a mountai ...
as a non-Jew — owing to her blonde-haired, blue-eyed '
Aryan
Aryan or Arya (, Indo-Iranian *''arya'') is a term originally used as an ethnocultural self-designation by Indo-Iranians in ancient times, in contrast to the nearby outsiders known as 'non-Aryan' (*''an-arya''). In Ancient India, the term ' ...
' appearance.
In the spring of 1943, Goldschlag and her parents were arrested by the Nazis and taken to Bessemerstrasse women's prison where she was interrogated and tortured; on July 10, 1943 (coincidentally her 21st birthday) she managed to escape briefly during a visit to the dentist but was quickly rearrested as she sought refuge in parents' home which was already being watched by the Gestapo and she was brutally tortured once more after being recaptured.
On August 24, 1943 the Bessemerstrasse prison was bombed during and air raid which damaged her cell and allowed her to escape yet again but this time she went to where her parents were being detained at the detention and assembly camp of Grosse Hamburger Strasse (the site of a Jewish cemetery that was desecrated and destroyed by the Nazis), intending on sharing their fate but she was taken back to Bessemerstrasse.
In order to avoid deportation of herself and her parents,
she agreed to become a "catcher" (german: Greiferin) for the Gestapo, hunting down Jews hiding as non-Jews (referred to as "submerged", german: Untergetauchter).
Goldschlag at first gave up names of Jewish fugitives only under torture, which happened for the first time after her failed escape attempt when she was captured with a list of names that included that of a Jewish man named Mikki Hellmann who had provided her with a forged passport and whom Goldschlag lured into a trap after which he was captured.
However, she would later start to collaborate with the Gestapo more willingly.
After collaborating with Hellmann's arrest, Gestapo investigators found out that Goldschlag had also been in contact with a prominent passport forger named
Samson Schönhaus who operated under the alias Günter Rogoff and who was involved with an extense
Jewish-Catholic Polish resistance network and had provided at least 40 Jewish prisoners in the camp Goldschlag was kept with forged food ration cards, passports and various other identity documents.
Thus, Gestapo officers were desperately looking for Schönhaus and, discovering Goldschlag's connection to him, and it was at this point that they offered her a more permanent arrangement collaborating with them and delivering Jewish fugitives to them:
Schönhaus was never caught and survived the war,
but Goldschlag's arrangement with the Nazis continued.
She was promised that she and her parents would not be deported plus a reward of 300
Reichsmark
The (; sign: ℛℳ; abbreviation: RM) was the currency of Germany from 1924 until 20 June 1948 in West Germany, where it was replaced with the , and until 23 June 1948 in East Germany, where it was replaced by the East German mark. The Reich ...
for each Jew that she betrayed while she operated mostly around Berlin.
Goldschlag proceeded to comb Berlin for such Jews and, as she was familiar with a large number of Jewish people from her years at
her segregated Jewish school, she was very successful at locating her former schoolmates and handing their information over to the Gestapo, while posing as a ''submerged'' herself. Some of Goldschlag's efforts to apprehend Jews in hiding included promising them food and accommodation, meanwhile turning them over to the Nazi authorities; she would also follow clues provided to her by the Gestapo. The data concerning the number of her victims varies, depending on different sources of information, from between 600 and 3,000 Jews. Goldschlag's charisma and striking good looks were a great advantage in her pursuit of underground Jews. The Nazis called her "blonde poison"
while Jews in hiding knew her as the "Blonde Lorelei".
The Nazis would break their promise of sparing the lives of Goldschlag's parents. They were deported to the
Theresienstadt
Theresienstadt Ghetto was established by the Schutzstaffel, SS during World War II in the fortress town of Terezín, in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (German occupation of Czechoslovakia, German-occupied Czechoslovakia). Theresienstad ...
concentration camp; from there they were later transported to Auschwitz and murdered. Goldschlag's husband, Manfred, was deported in 1943 to
Auschwitz
Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It con ...
, along with his family. Goldschlag still continued her work for the Gestapo until March 1945. During that time, she met and married her second husband, Rolf Isaaksohn, on 29 October 1944. Isaksohn was a fellow Jewish collaborator with the Nazis known also as a ''Greifer'' ("catcher").
The end of the war and after
At the end of World War II, Goldschlag went into hiding. She was found and arrested by the Soviets in October 1945 and sentenced to ten years of hard labor.
Following the completion of her sentence, she moved to
West Berlin
West Berlin (german: Berlin (West) or , ) was a political enclave which comprised the western part of Berlin during the years of the Cold War. Although West Berlin was de jure not part of West Germany, lacked any sovereignty, and was under mi ...
. There she was again tried and convicted, and sentenced to ten years' imprisonment. She did not have to serve the second sentence because of the time already served in the Soviet prison.
After the war, Goldschlag, according to author Irving Abrahamson, "convert
dto Christianity and bec
mean open
anti-Semite
Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism.
Antis ...
".
Goldschlag supposedly committed
suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Mental disorders (including depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, personality disorders, anxiety disorders), physical disorders (such as chronic fatigue syndrome), and s ...
in 1994 by drowning in Freiburg; although other sources mention that she accidentally drowned, or that she committed suicide by leaping out of a window.
Personal life
Goldschlag was married five times: following the deportation of her first husband, Manfred Kübler, she married fellow Jewish collaborator and ''Greifer'' Rolf Isaaksohn on 29 October 1944, who was shot dead attempting to escape to Denmark as the Soviets advanced. After the war, she was married to three non-Jews, starting with Friedheim Schellenberg, followed by a cab driver twenty years her junior and finally a Berlin orchestra director who died in 1984.
Goldschlag's only child, Yvonne Meissl, was taken from her and became a nurse in Israel.
In biographies and fiction
Peter Wyden
Peter H. Wyden (October 2, 1923 – June 27, 1998) was an American journalist and writer.
Early life
Wyden was born Peter Weidenreich, in Berlin to a Jewish family. His mother, Helen (née Silberstein), was a concert singer, and his father, Eric ...
, a Berlin schoolmate whose family had been able to obtain US visas in 1937 and who later learned about Goldschlag's role as a "catcher" while he was working for the US Army, tracked down and interviewed Goldschlag in 1988,
and wrote ''Stella'', a 1992 biography of her.
Goldschlag is mentioned in ''The Forger'',
Cioma Schonhaus's 2004 account of living as an underground Jew in Berlin,
and in ''Berlin at War'' by
Roger Moorhouse
Roger Moorhouse (born 1968) is a British historian and author.
Education
He was born in Stockport, Cheshire, England and attended Berkhamsted School and the School of Slavonic and East European Studies of the University of London, graduating wit ...
(2010).
Fiction
In 2019, the German journalist
Takis Würger
Takis Würger (born 1985) is a German investigative journalist, author, war correspondent and staff writer for the news magazine '' Der Spiegel'', reporting from warzone locales such as Afghanistan, Libya, Ukraine, and throughout the Middle East. ...
published a novel based on Goldschlag's life, ', which was published by
Carl Hanser Verlag. It received largely negative reviews. Critics described the work as "Holocaust kitsch", but it sold well.
Goldschlag is a minor character in the 2017 German docudrama,
''Die Unsichtbaren – Wir wollen leben'' (English title ''The Invisibles'').
Goldschlag appears in
Chris Petit's 2016 novel ''The Butchers of Berlin''. Here, her actions as a "catcher" are in the background of the main story.
In the 2001 novel ''
The Good German'', the character Renate Naumann (named Lena Brandt in the
2006 film adaptation) is loosely based on Goldschlag. The book was adapted
as the 2006 film titled The Good German directed by
Steven Soderbergh
Steven Andrew Soderbergh (; born January 14, 1963) is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, cinematographer and editor. A pioneer of modern independent cinema, Soderbergh is an acclaimed and prolific filmmaker.
Soderbergh's direc ...
and starring
George Clooney
George Timothy Clooney (born May 6, 1961) is an American actor and filmmaker. He is the recipient of List of awards and nominations received by George Clooney, numerous accolades, including a British Academy Film Awards, British Academy Film A ...
,
Cate Blanchett
Catherine Elise Blanchett (; born 14 May 1969) is an Australian actor. Regarded as one of the finest performers of her generation, she is known for her versatile work across independent films, blockbusters, and the stage. She has received nu ...
and
Tobey Maguire.
References
Footnotes
Bibliography
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Goldschlag, Stella
1922 births
1994 suicides
Converts to Christianity from Judaism
20th-century German Jews
German people of World War II
German prisoners and detainees
Gestapo agents
Holocaust perpetrators in Germany
Jewish collaborators with Nazi Germany
People from Berlin
Prisoners and detainees of the Soviet Union
Suicides by drowning in Germany
1994 deaths