Dear fellow Flynn fans,
here is what Vienna authorities and libraries have to offer on Dr. med. Hermann Friedrich Karl Theodor Erben aka. Dr.Gerrit H. Koets, Errol Flynn`s travel companion on his wicked, wicked ways.
Born on November 15th of 1897 in Vienna to Dr. jur. Hermann Erben Sr., General Manager of one of the largest steele factories in the K & K monarchy and Jeanine Reichel, daughter of a rich cotton manifacturer in Prag. His mother was of Jewish descent, she had her son circumcized, otherwise the whole family was baptized into the evangelical faith. His sister Grete(l), was 10 years his minor.
He served in WWI as lieutenant along the Italian frontline. Soon after the war was lost, his father was let go from his post in the once weapon producing factory. Erben Sr. died from tuberculosis in 1919 leaving his family national state bonds 400.000 Kronen, the equivalent of four loaves of bread.
Like his uncle Fritz he joined a duelling student fraternity- the Corps Symposion, “earning” himself a gash wound on his left cheek he would parade proudly for the rest of his life.
Erben was one of the first members in Austria of the DNSAP- the German worker`s Party and pre- NSDAP, the political wing of the Nationalsocialists. Back in 1922 the agenda was to reunite Austria with Germany for the better good of both countries.
In June of 1920 he married his first wife, Klara, who was from Leipzig in Germany. Four days later she gave birth to their son, Kurt.
He tricked himself into a passage to Brazil in 1921, securing a construction worker`s job in Rio de Janeiro (where the World Fair of the year thereafter was prepared) even though he knew nothing about any hand craft.
This trip triggered his travel bug, a neurosis as he later claimed himself. Since he couldn`t back up on his working claim, he was forced to return a stowaway. The stage was set for more impostering to come.
Upon his return, he learned that Klara had given birth to another son. He consulted his diary in which Brazilian city he had been on the day of his second son`s birth and announced that his name therefore should be “Santos”. The marriage ended in a divorce on grounds of “incompatibilty”. To spare alimony payments, he let Klara and the boys live on in his apartment while away on his trips. Whenever he was home he consumed their in court dissolved marriage, washing, cooking and else, as if nothing had happened.
He claimed to have been an extra (then again who had not, given the monumental mass scenes) like many other Viennese University students on the Michael Kertesz film “Sodom and Gomorrah”.
See: www.theerrolflynnblog.com…
In 1923 he worked at a medical facility, studying on diabetes, in the United States. His announcement, that he was off to “Jew York” got him the laughs of his Corps Bros. He instantly applied for American citizenship, but managed only to get a sailor`s ID, while befriending dock workers.
His promotion to medical doctor at the Vienna University was on the 23rd of July in 1926. The original certificate shows his name in latin: Arminium Erben.
Two years prior there were first hints of substance abuse. When questioned by police, then and later he will always claim that the amount of morphium in his possession was for medical purposes only and strictly within the official limits. This is like being stopped for exceeding city limit speed restrictions, but pleading innocence for having stayed within the tachometer.
He went back to the US almost immediately after his promotion, fibbing he had a job lined up for him, but managed only to get a 20 day visa. He was advised to respect this timelimit, otherwise he would be warranted and deported. He stayed for two years, taking the Medical Board exam in Tulane and Seattle and passing twice with impressing results (>90%). He was employed at various hospitals, for example the Medical Lake Hospital in Spokane, Washington. He was fired once for misbehavin´ with a nurse on duty, other times he just wandered on.
After illegally alienating everybody, he requested an application form for reentry to the United States. He stated to the Office of Immigration and Naturalization that he intended to go on a one year world trip. He produced the passport he had shown when coming to the US the first time and not his second one where the short term visa would have had him ousted immediately. Reentry after a longer absence was granted. A pattern had been established. Erben-Koets had beaten the system and was off to Hongkong, Shanghai, the Philippines and Australia. His scientific achievements as a missionary doc were featured also in American newspapers. This may have contributed to reaching his primary goal: to settle in the US of A.
When he reentered North America in San Francisco, he at last got his first American passport (No. 9486) on grounds that a local medical doctor, Dr. Emil Otto Jelinek, originally from Austria and a friend of his father vouched for him. Erben claimed to have left the United States only twice in the last five years, both times to visit his ill mother. He would lose the American Citizenship after being blacklisted for drug distribution and when his lies about his residental periods in the US backfired on him.
In the years to come, he would work as a ship doctor, encounter, infatuate and influence Errol Flynn. In Shanghai though the circle of exiled Germans regarded him as oddball and instigator. Pastor Prof. Dr. Fritz Maass will remember him coming uninvited to bible rounds and clearing the buffet. “Wherever he went he caused a commotion. With Communists he bashed Nazis, and with Nationalsocialists he blasted the Reds.” That way in official hearings later on he could always claim that back in the days he was regarded anti- this AND anti- that.
He provided himself with an additional income for documenting naval activites everywhere he went for the German Abwehr (the defence ministry). He may, just may have worked for Stalin too, keeping a photo lense on Trotzky, while in Mexico at the time of the assassination of the Comrade of the first hour.
He stood trial for treason after war was over, awaiting a sentence on death row, thrived on matching minds with the prosecution, got pardoned for naming Nazi names, reunited and rebonded with these names in a US detention camp in Ludwigsburg. Somehow this charismatic, highly intellectual and multicoloured turncoat managed to return to his hometown of Vienna and opened a doctor`s office.
He received the golden merit award by the Austrian Republic in 1974 for his 40 plus years of international scientific research. A year later he would stand accused for the death of a patient due to negligence on his behalf. Nothing could be proven and nothing came of it. Koets me if you can, gentlemen… He would practice medicine for ten more years.
On January 16th of 1985, Dr. Hermann F. Erben was found dead on the kitchen floor of his unheated apartment. No port, no partner, no prison had managed to hold this uninhibited free and fraudulent spirit for long. Cardiac arrest had finally put him to rest.
Enjoy,
— shangheinz
