Stella Kübler
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Stella Ingrid Goldschlag (10 July 1922 – 26 October 1994), also known by her married names Stella Kübler, Stella Kübler-Isaaksohn and Ingrid Gärtner, was a
German Jewish The history of the Jews in Germany goes back at least to the year 321 CE, and continued through the Early Middle Ages (5th to 10th centuries CE) and High Middle Ages (c. 1000–1299 CE) when Jewish immigrants founded the Ashkenazi Jewish commu ...
woman who collaborated with the
Gestapo The (, ), Syllabic abbreviation, 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 F ...
during
World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
, operating around Berlin exposing and denouncing Berlin's underground
Jew Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, religion, and community are highly inte ...
s, after being tortured in Gestapo custody and falsely being promised the safety of her family. After the war, Goldschlag "converted to Christianity and became an open anti-Semite". The number of people she betrayed or delivered to the Nazis has been estimated at anywhere from 600 to 3,000.


Early life

Goldschlag was born to and his wife (called Toni/Tony; née Lermer) and raised in Wilmersdorf, Berlin, as the only child in a middle-class, assimilated Jewish family. Her father worked as a conductor,
composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and def ...
and journalist, while her mother, before her marriage, had pursued a career as a singer. Goldschlag grew up doted on by her parents, but the family often had economic troubles and sometimes had to rely on
welfare Welfare may refer to: Philosophy *Well-being (happiness, prosperity, or flourishing) of a person or group * Utility in utilitarianism * Value in value theory Economics * Utility, a general term for individual well-being in economics and decision ...
as Goldschlag's father struggled to find stable work. Goldschlag went to elementary school and then attended the Hohenzollern lyceum. After the 1933 seizure of power by the Nazis, she, like other Jewish children, was forbidden to attend a state school by Nazi racial policies, so starting in 1935, she attended the Goldschmidt School in Dahlem, set up by the local Jewish community. At the school, she was known for her beauty and vivacity, but she also stood out because she studied on a scholarship and was not from an affluent family. Being poor was something Goldschlag resented being seen as and at times she would even reject her Jewish ancestry by claiming that her mother was a Christian. 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 Civil Service (, shortened to ''Berufsbeamtengesetz''), also known as Civil Service Law, Civil Service Restoration Act, and Law to Re-establish the Civil Service, was enacted by the Nazi Party, Na ...
was used to purge Jews from positions of influence and her father Gerhard lost his job with the
newsreel A newsreel is a form of short documentary film, containing news, news stories and items of topical interest, that was prevalent between the 1910s and the mid 1970s. Typically presented in a Movie theater, cinema, newsreels were a source of cu ...
company Gaumont. Her parents attempted to leave Germany after ''
Kristallnacht ( ) or the Night of Broken Glass, also called the November pogrom(s) (, ), was a pogrom against Jews carried out by the Nazi Party's (SA) and (SS) paramilitary forces along with some participation from the Hitler Youth and German civilia ...
'' 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 illustrator at the School of Applied Art in Nürnbergerstraße.


Going underground and collaboration

In 1941, Goldschlag married a Jewish musician, Manfred Kübler. They were former bandmates at Goldschmidt and met again when both were working as forced labourers in the Ehrich & Graetz factory 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 as a non-Jew – often avoiding ID checks altogether, owing to her blonde-haired, blue-eyed '
Aryan ''Aryan'' (), or ''Arya'' (borrowed from Sanskrit ''ārya''), Oxford English Dictionary Online 2024, s.v. ''Aryan'' (adj. & n.); ''Arya'' (n.)''.'' is a term originating from the ethno-cultural self-designation of the Indo-Iranians. It stood ...
' appearance. In early March 1943, Goldschlag and her parents, who had also been working as forced labourers by then, were arrested as part of the '' Fabrikaktion''. Goldschlag was taken to Bessemerstrasse women's prison where she was interrogated and tortured; on 10 July 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 her parents' home, which was already being watched by the Gestapo, and she was brutally tortured once more after being recaptured. On 24 August 1943, the Bessemerstrasse prison was bombed during an 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 the deportation of herself and her parents, she agreed to become a "catcher" () for the Gestapo, hunting down Jews hiding as non-Jews (referred to as "submerged", ). 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. Schönhaus was involved in an extensive Jewish-Catholic Polish resistance network and had provided at least 40 Jewish prisoners (in the camp in which 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, they offered her a more permanent arrangement collaborating with them and delivering Jewish fugitives to them: Schönhaus was able to escape to Switzerland after two of his compatriots were exposed, 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: ℛ︁ℳ︁; abbreviation: RM) was the currency of Germany from 1924 until the fall of Nazi Germany in 1945, and in the American, British and French occupied zones of Germany, until 20 June 1948. The Reichsmark was then replace ...
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 Jews she knew from her years at Goldschmidt School, she was very successful at locating her former schoolmates and handing their information over to the Gestapo, while keeping up the façade as a ''Untergetauchte'' 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. She would also monitor funerals of ethnic Germans who were known or suspected to have married Jewish spouses and expose them to Nazi authorities, as pre-war marriages to an "Aryan" allowed some Jews to avoid detection. The data concerning the number of her victims varies, depending on different sources of information, from 600 to 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 Lorelei ( ; or , or ; also found as ''Loreleï'', ''Lore Lay'', ''Lore-Ley'', ''Lurley'', ''Lurelei'' and ''Lurlei'' throughout history) is a , steep slate rock on the right bank of the River Rhine in the Rhine Gorge (or Middle Rhine) at ...
". She was also referred to as "the blonde ghost" 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 SS during World War II in the fortress town of Terezín, in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia ( German-occupied Czechoslovakia). Theresienstadt served as a waystation to the extermination c ...
concentration camp on 23 February 1944. Goldschlag pleaded with her superiors to spare her parents, but to no avail, but was promised to become a
honorary Aryan Honorary Aryan () was a semi-official category and expression used in Nazi Germany and its territories to justify certain individuals who, according to the Nuremberg Laws, were not recognized as belonging to the Aryan race, but who were nonethe ...
after the war. Her parents were later transported to
Auschwitz Auschwitz, or Oświęcim, 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 consisted of Auschw ...
and murdered. Goldschlag's husband, Manfred, was deported in 1943 to Auschwitz, along with his family. It was the belief of his family that Goldschlag had betrayed even her own husband and in-laws to the Nazis. While the claim is not unbelievable given the circumstances, the Kübler family was deported before Goldschlag's collaboration with the Nazis began. While Goldschlag continued to hunt down Jews, she and her fellow "catchers", numbering around 15 to 20 by this time in Berlin, were also the target of revenge from their potential victims. An organization called Society for Peace and Reconstruction ( Gemeinschaft für Frieden und Aufbau or GFA) was actively planning to kill Goldschlag (and her second husband, Rolf Isaaksohn). A plan to poison her coffee was abandoned, so also was a plan to have her dentist poison her during an appointment and another one where Goldschlag and Isaaksohn would be lured to an address by a rumor of Jews in hiding living there and then kill the pair. GFA instead sent Goldschlag a fake death sentence written on official court document paper and informed her that if she was seen on the streets fter the warby one of their agents she would be killed instantly. Even if the threat was only for intimidation, it was seen as a valid one, and Goldschlag's superior pulled her and the other members of the Search Service from the streets for two weeks and later issued them with pistols for protection. Goldschlag still continued her work for the Gestapo until March 1945. During that time, she met Isaaksohn and married him on 29 October 1944. Isaaksohn was a fellow Jewish collaborator with the Nazis known also as a ''Greifer'' ("catcher"). Goldschlag was not as active as a catcher during this time as she had been previously due to the fact that she was too well-known to be of effective use and there were not as many Jews left in Berlin due to the Nazi purges and the zealousness of Goldschlag and her compatriotsand those who remained in the city were too well hidden. In 1933, the Jewish population of Berlin was estimated at 160,000, but the end of the war, the Jewish population who had managed to escape by hiding only numbered somewhere between 1,400–1,700 people. Goldschlag still continued to scout out addresses where Jews were known to have lived. Her loyalty to the cause was also questioned by her superiors and members of her team after she told her superior Dobberke that she couldn't find anymore Jews and wanted to stop being a catcher. This was dangerous, as it put both her and the other catchers at risk of deportation and Isaaksohn vehemently denied Goldschlag's claims and told his superiors that they were operating very successfully in tracking down Jews. Around this time, Goldschlag would also become romantically involved with Heino Meissl, a publicist for a film company and fellow Nazi collaborator


Final months of World War II

In February 1945, Goldschlag found herself pregnant with the likeliest father being Meissl. While Goldschlag expected him to acknowledge his paternity and take care of her and their unborn child, Meissl instead vanished leaving Goldschlag to fend for herself. Goldschlag lost the support of any of her lovers and her Nazi superiors having other more pressing concerns with the advancement of the
Western Allies Western Allies was a political and geographic grouping among the Allied Powers of the Second World War. It primarily refers to the leading Anglo-American Allied powers, namely the United States and the United Kingdom, although the term has also be ...
, so in the early stages of the
Battle of Berlin The Battle of Berlin, designated as the Berlin Strategic Offensive Operation by the Soviet Union, and also known as the Fall of Berlin, was one of the last major offensives of the European theatre of World War II. After the Vistula–Od ...
in April, Goldschlag went into hiding. The same month, she gave birth to her daughter, Yvonne, in Liebenwalde.


Post-war life

She was found by the Soviets in October 1945 and arrested for collaboration. In custody, Goldschlag still claimed to have been victimized during the Holocaust, both as a cover and in order to claim (Opfer des Faschismus; OdF) status. In an attempt to officiate this, in early 1946, she was accompanied to a Jewish Community office in Berlin to be registered, which would have made her eligible for additional food rations from aid services. Instead, Jewish survivors there recognized her immediately and while an official protected her from being beaten up by an angry mob, the official did allow for her hair to be cut off. Brought to trial, Goldschlag was found guilty and sentenced to ten years of hard labor in June 1946. Her daughter had been taken from her as to not "having to suffer for her mother's sins" and was later placed with foster parents; when they emigrated to the United States, she was placed with another family in Berlin. In an ironic twist of fate, Goldschlag would serve out part of her sentence in Soviet
NKVD special camp Nr. 7 NKVD special camp Nr. 7 was a NKVD special camp that operated in until August 1945 and in Sachsenhausen (Oranienburg), Sachsenhausen from August 1945 until the spring of 1950. It was used by the Soviet occupation zone, Soviet occupying forces t ...
(established at the former
Sachsenhausen concentration camp Sachsenhausen () or Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg was a German Nazi concentration camp in Oranienburg, Germany, used from 1936 until April 1945, shortly before the defeat of Nazi Germany in May later that year. It mainly held political prisoners t ...
) before being transferred to
Torgau Torgau () is a town on the banks of the Elbe in northwestern Saxony, Germany. It is the capital of the district Nordsachsen. Outside Germany, the town is best known as where on 25 April 1945, the United States and Soviet Armies first met near ...
and Hoheneck fortress. The last part of her sentence was spent at Waldheim Hospital, where Goldschlag was treated for
tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB), also known colloquially as the "white death", or historically as consumption, is a contagious disease usually caused by ''Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can al ...
. Following the completion of her sentence, she moved to
West Berlin West Berlin ( or , ) was a political enclave which comprised the western part of Berlin from 1948 until 1990, during the Cold War. Although West Berlin lacked any sovereignty and was under military occupation until German reunification in 1 ...
to find her daughter, who had been living there with a Jewish family, to no success. There she was again tried, convicted, and sentenced to ten years' imprisonment in 1957 for being an accessory in several counts of murder. During this second trial, Goldschlag denied all charges and claimed she was the victim of a Jewish conspiracy against her. Despite being convicted, she did not have to serve the second sentence because of the time already served in the Soviet prison. During the second trial, a psychiatrist diagnosed Goldschlag as a "schizophrenic psychopath". After the war, Goldschlag, according to author Irving Abrahamson, "converted to Christianity and became an open
anti-Semite Antisemitism or Jew-hatred is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who harbours it is called an antisemite. Whether antisemitism is considered a form of racism depends on the school of thought. Antisemi ...
". Goldschlag also tried to make contact with and gain custody of her daughter. When her first foster parents broached the idea of adopting Yvonne, Goldschlag so vehemently contested it that the adoption was called off. As she became older, her mental and physical faculties deteriorated. By 1984, Goldschlag lived in Berlin-Spandau with her fourth husband. He died that year. Afterwards, she attempted suicide and was briefly hospitalised in a mental ward at University Medical Center Freiburg. She then moved to
Freiburg Freiburg im Breisgau or simply Freiburg is the List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, fourth-largest city of the German state of Baden-Württemberg after Stuttgart, Mannheim and Karlsruhe. Its built-up area has a population of abou ...
.


Death

In 1994, Goldschlag was found dead by drowning in the Moosweiher. The death was judged a suicide.


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 Denmark is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe. It is the metropole and most populous constituent of the Kingdom of Denmark,, . also known as the Danish Realm, a constitutionally unitary state that includes the Autonomous a ...
as the Soviets advanced. After the war, she was married to three non-Jews, starting with Friedhelm Schellenberg in 1957, then a cab driver twenty years her junior, and around 1972, she married Karl Gärtner, a Berlin
train conductor A conductor (North American English) or guard (Commonwealth English) is a train crew member responsible for operational and safety duties that do not involve actual operation of the train/locomotive. The role is common worldwide under various j ...
, who died in 1984. Goldschlag's only child, Yvonne Meissl, did not want to associate with her birth mother after hearing about her activities during the war. She became a trained nurse and emigrated to
Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...
in 1967.


In biographies and fiction

Peter Wyden (formerly Peter Weidenreich), a Berlin schoolmate at Goldschmidt School 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 1990, to write ''Stella'', a 1992 biography of her. Wyden said that in regards to the book, Goldschlag requested, mostly likely in jest, that he "not write badly about er. Goldschlag is mentioned in ''The Forger'',
Cioma Schönhaus Samson "Cioma" Schönhaus (28 September 1922 in Berlin – 22 September 2015 in Biel-Benken) was a German graphic artist and writer who lived illegally as a Jew in hiding in Berlin during World War II. He forged hundreds of identity documents t ...
'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 ...
(2010).


Fiction

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 film, independent cinema, Soderbergh later drew acclaim for formally inventiv ...
and starring
George Clooney George Timothy Clooney (born May 6, 1961) is an American actor, filmmaker, and philanthropist. Known for his leading man roles on screen in both blockbuster and independent films, Clooney has received numerous accolades, including two Ac ...
,
Cate Blanchett Catherine Élise Blanchett ( ; born 14 May 1969) is an Australian actor and producer. Regarded as one of the best performers of her generation, she is recognised for Cate Blanchett on screen and stage, her versatile work across stage and scre ...
and
Tobey Maguire Tobias Vincent Maguire (born 27 June 1975) is an American actor and film producer. He is best known for starring as Peter Parker (2002 film series character), Spider-Man in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man in film#Sam Raimi's trilogy, ''Spider-Man'' tr ...
. Goldschlag appears in
Chris Petit Chris Petit (born 17 June 1949) is an English novelist and filmmaker. During the 1970s he was Film Editor for ''Time Out (company), Time Out'' and wrote in ''Melody Maker''. His first film was the cult British road movie ''Radio On'', while his ...
's 2016 novel ''The Butchers of Berlin''. Here, her actions as a "catcher" are in the background of the main story. Goldschlag is a minor character in the 2017 German docudrama, ''Die Unsichtbaren – Wir wollen leben'' (English title ''The Invisibles''). In 2019, the German journalist Takis Würger published a novel based on Goldschlag's life, ', which was published by
Carl Hanser Verlag The Carl Hanser Verlag was founded in 1928 by Carl Hanser in Munich and is one of the few medium-sized publishing companies in the German-speaking area still owned by the founding family. History From the very beginning, the publishing house h ...
. It received largely negative reviews. Critics described the work as "Holocaust kitsch", but it sold well. In 2023, a biopic about Goldschlag, '' Stella. A Life.'', was released, in which she is portrayed by Paula Beer.


See also

*
Jewish collaboration with Nazi Germany The Jewish collaboration with Nazis were the activities before and during World War II of Jews working, voluntarily or involuntarily, with the antisemitic, racist, homophobic regime of Nazi Germany, with different motivations. The term and histor ...
*
Betje Wery Elizabeth Wery (26 August 1920 – 16 October 2006) was a Dutch Nazi collaborator who is best known in the Netherlands for collaborating with the Nazi (SD) to locate as many Dutch Jews as possible and have them delivered to Nazi concentration ...


References


Footnotes


Bibliography

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Goldschlag, Stella 1922 births 1994 suicides 1994 deaths Converts to Christianity from Judaism 20th-century German Jews Gestapo informants German people of World War II German people convicted of war crimes Holocaust perpetrators in Germany Jewish collaborators with Nazi Germany Nazis who died by suicide in Germany German people imprisoned in the Soviet Union People from Wilmersdorf Suicides by drowning in Germany Women in Nazi Germany