Life, Career, Resistance
Gerstenmaier was born in Kirchheim unter Teck.
After training as a salesman, Gerstenmaier did his Abitur and then studied philosophy, German language and literature, and Evangelical theology in Tübingen, Rostock and Zurich. In 1934, he was detained for a short time for being a member of the Confessing Church. In 1935, he became Theodor Heckel's assistant in the German Evangelical Church's office for outside affairs. After the Munich Conference in 1938, Gerstenmaier joined the resistance group about the Kreisau Circle.
On 20 July 1944, the day of Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg's attempt on Adolf Hitler's life at the Wolf's Lair in East Prussia, Gerstenmaier was at his assigned place at the Bendlerblock in Berlin to support the attempted assassination and coup d'état against the Nazi régime. Along with many others, he was arrested after the plot failed, and on 11 January 1945, Gerstenmaier was sentenced by the Volksgerichtshof to seven years in labour prison (Zuchthaus). Of course, he spent only a few months there, and was freed by US troops at the end of the war. Along with Hermann Ehlers, a German politician, he was active in the Evangelical Aid organization (Evangelisches Hilfswerk). From 1945 to 1951, he was its leader.
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“The greatest, or rather the most prominent, part of this city was constructed with the design to offer the deadest resistance to leaden and iron missiles that might be cast against it. But it is a remarkable meteorological and psychological fact, that it is rarely known to rain lead with much violence, except on places so constructed.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)