Confessions of a German Soldier
Dietrich Karsten was a Protestant pastor who opposed the Nazi regime in the 1930s but died for Hitler as a soldier in the war. His granddaughter, Lena Karsten, enlisted the help of film-maker Tony Wilson and historian Gabriel Fawcett to find his grave and tell his story. The result is a powerful feature documentary Confessions of a German Soldier. Lena Karsten gives an insight into what she discovered.
Millions of Germans met their deaths in the war on the soil of countries they were invading, wearing swastikas on their chests. But my grandfather’s calling as a Christian minister and his strong anti-Nazi convictions made his story all the more incomprehensible to me – that he, of all people, should give his life for such a cause.
Remarkably, Dietrich Karsten left over 300 letters, written from 1932-42 – the decade that separated Dietrich the theology student from Leutnant Karsten who directed machine-gun fire on a frozen lake in Russia. These letters offer the possibility of gaining some deeper understanding of Dietrich. They also throw up questions. Is it so surprising that numerous Christian Germans saw Hitler’s seizure of power as heaven-sent?
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