From Pastor to Mass Murderer: The Story of Ernst Biberstein
Faith Under Fire: Clergy in WWII [collection]
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He was once a man of faith — a Protestant pastor who preached the word of God.
But when the Nazis came to power, Ernst Biberstein traded his Bible for the black uniform of the SS.
Appointed to lead Einsatzkommando 6, one of the Nazi mobile death squads, he personally oversaw the execution of thousands of Jews, Roma, and Soviet civilians across Eastern Europe.
At the postwar Einsatzgruppen Trial, he showed no remorse, coldly describing gas-truck killings and mass shootings he had ordered — then claiming he acted “with a clean conscience before God and men.”
This is the story of how a man who once stood at the pulpit became one of Hitler’s most chilling executioners.
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