Eichmann Trial -- Session 42 -- Cross-examination of Grueber by defense attorney Servatius

Heinrich Karl Ernst Grüber was a Protestant Dean of Berlin who risked his life to save Jews from Nazi persecution. Heinrich Grüber was born in Stolberg, in the Rhineland, on 24 June 1891. Of Huguenot stock, he studied theology in Bonn, Berlin and Utrecht before becoming an active social worker and the director of a home for developmentally disabled boys. Staunchly opposed to Hitler, he came into contact with Pastor Niemoller and the Confessional Church. Niemoller entrusted him with setting up an organization, the 'Büro Grüber', at his vicarage in Karlsdorf, near Berlin, to help save Christians of Jewish descent. The Büro dealt with emigration and employment abroad, care for the aged, welfare, and the education of Jewish children. Grüber constantly negotiated with the Nazi authorities, including Eichmann's Gestapo office, on behalf of Jewish organizations and sometimes found secret helpers in the Wehrmacht and different Reich ministries. After the outbreak of war he was frequently harassed by Gestapo threats, and in December 1940, he was arrested and sent to Sachsenhausen concentration camp, then transferred to Dachau. He suffered from a heart complaint, had his teeth knocked out and most of his helpers were murdered by the Nazis. Released in 1943, he resumed contact with Evangelical church clergymen in exile. In 1945, he became Dean of St Mary's Church in Berlin, and founded the Evangelische Hilfsstelle für Ehemals Rassisch Verfolgte (Evangelical Aid Society for former Victims of Racial Persecution). From 1949 to 1958 Gruber was the chief representative of the Evangelical Church in East Berlin, resigning his position in protest against anti-Christian smears in the DDR. He was also unpopular in West Germany for his advocacy of nuclear disarmament and his attacks on West German militarism, not to mention his insistence on the collective guilt of the German nation for Nazi crimes. Grüber argued that every German 'who glosses over his past failings is a potential criminal of tomorrow' and denounced the official whitewashing of the German people in the post-war period. He was the only German witness to come to Jerusalem in 1961 to testify at the Eichmann trail as to the existence of 'another Germany'. Dean Grüber continued to emphasize the moral obligation of the Germans to the Jewish people and to warn the authorities against minimizing periodic outbursts of neo-Nazi activity in the Federal Republic. His memoirs, "Erinnerungen aus Sieben Jahrzehnten," were published in 1968. He died of a heart attack seven years later at the age of eighty-four.

Courtesy of:
"Who's Who in Nazi Germany"
©1982, Wiederfield and Nicolsa
London

Emil Knebel was a cinematographer known for Andante (2010), Adam (1973), and Wild Is My Love (1963). He was one of the cameramen who recorded daily coverage of the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem (produced by Capital Cities Broadcasting Corp and later held academic positions in Israel and New York teaching filmmaking at universities. Refer to CV in file.