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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Geoffrey Macnab

Himmler’s ‘anti-Nazi’ masseur: Claes Bang stars as SS chief’s ‘magic Buddha’

A shirtless Martin Müller as Heinrich Himmler sits while Claes Bang as Felix Kersten  in a white shirt examines his shoulder from behind
Martin Müller as Heinrich Himmler (left) and Claes Bang as Felix Kersten in I Is Another. Photograph: Anke Neugebauer/©Anke Neugebauer / Ostlicht Filmproduktion GmbH / Wega Film

Five years ago, German writer-director Felix Randau was approached by French producers who wanted him to make a miniseries about Felix Kersten, the former massage therapist to Nazi SS head Heinrich Himmler.

When the producers first pitched the project, there was one sentence which leapt out. “They said that if Steven Spielberg had known about Felix Kersten, he would have shot a film about him, not about Oskar Schindler.” Who was this intriguing, largely overlooked figure, who claimed to have saved countless Jews and other concentration camp prisoners from certain death?

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