The greatest fear of Jews hiding from Germany during World War II were people who, in exchange for money, tracked them down and put them to death. In Berlin, the most famous Greifer ("catcher") was not at all a fanatical Nazi or even a German, but ... a Jewish woman - Stella Kübler.
Stella Goldschlag - because that was her maiden name - was born on July 10, 1922 in a family of assimilated Berlin Jews. She was lucky that nature gave her an eminently "Aryan" appearance. She was tall, slender blonde with blue eyes, which by no means indicated her Semitic roots. However, in Nazi Germany, she too suffered from harassment related to the increasingly restrictive anti-Jewish law.
Like any other Jew?
At first, the story of Stella was no different from that of the thousands of German Jews forced to wear the shameful yellow Star of David and almost slave labor for the benefit of the "Millennial Reich." Stella found employment in one of Berlin's arms factories, and in 1940 she married musician Manfred Kübler.
Stella made a small fortune by condemning hundreds of her people to Auschwitz or to exile to other places of death. Her parents also ended up in the extermination camp…
The situation changed as a result of the so-called Fabrikaktion ("factory" operation) of February 27, 1943, which was the final round-up of Berlin Jews. As a result - as he writes in his book "Hitler's Capital. Life and Death in Berlin at War ”Roger Moorhouse - Gestapo and SS officers carried out raids on many industrial plants in the capital and arrested local Jewish workers .
It is true that Stella and her family managed to temporarily avoid capture, but they had to start living in hiding and constant fear. They became so-called "U-Boats", also known as "divers" ( Taucher).
Everything was fine at first. The "Aryan" appearance of Stella and the "papers" settled at the great forger Guenther Rogoff, allowed us to look into the future with optimism. However, these were only appearances, because Stella was targeted by one of the "catchers". This resulted in her being arrested on July 2, 1943. A few weeks later, her parents also fell into the hands of the Gestapo torturers (her husband was sent to Auschwitz in the spring, from where he never returned).
"Blonde poison"
During interrogations, she was subjected to brutal torture. First of all, it was hoped that it would be possible to extract information about Rogoff's whereabouts. In this case, however, the Gestapo miscalculated; Stella simply did not know where the forger of interest was. At the same time, severe beatings and two unsuccessful attempts to escape broke her and she agreed to become a "catcher". The promise that, thanks to the cooperation with the Gestapo, Stella would save the parents' lives was also significant.
After the Gestapo had broken Stella Kübler, she became a model catcher. In the photo with the members of his network that tracks down Jews in hiding in Berlin (RK colorization).
As Roger Moorhouse tells in his book: Stella quickly became an exemplary "catcher" . The officers were already impressed by her ingenuity […]. Once she started working for them, she absolutely did not disappoint - she had an excellent memory for names, dates and addresses, and her unforced coquetry was a real weapon of mass destruction.
Thanks to its outstanding "effectiveness", it quickly gained the nickname of "blonde poison" among Berlin "divers", becoming their real terror. It got to her photo circulated among the fugitives as a form of warning . Whenever she entered a restaurant or cafe, every Jew would run away.
Apparently, she was able to capture up to 60 Jews in one weekend . She got 200 marks for each. The exact number of her victims will probably never be known again, but it is estimated that she sentenced to certain death from several hundred to even several thousand people !
Despite her zeal, Stella did not manage to save her parents, who were sent to Auschwitz, where they died. The woman remained an active "catcher" until the end of the war. In 1945 she was arrested by the Soviets and sentenced to 10 years of hard labor.
After the Red Army conquered Berlin, Stela Kübler fell into the hands of the Soviets, who sentenced it to 10 years of hard labor. In the photo, Stella Kübler during the audition.
However, she was later released and never really answered for her crimes. In 1994, she committed suicide at the age of seventy-two. Was it the weight of the committed deeds that haunted her until the last days of her life? If so, why did she only kill herself after 50 years?