Hitler's Jewish Soldiers: The Untold Story of Nazi Racial La

"Science," the Greek word for knowledge, when appended to the word "political," creates what seems like an oxymoron. For who could claim to know politics? More complicated than any game, most people who play it become addicts and die without understanding what they were addicted to. The rest of us suffer under their malpractice as our "leaders." A truer case of the blind leading the blind could not be found. Plumb the depths of confusion here.

Re: Hitler's Jewish Soldiers: The Untold Story of Nazi Racia

Postby admin » Wed Apr 25, 2018 8:39 am

Part 2 of 3

Unlike the Gottbergs, siblings or cousins of one who received clemency would not automatically receive their own exemptions. In fact, it could prove difficult to get clemency for all of one's children. For example, Elisabeth Rohr, mother of Heinz and Joachim Rohr, wrote Brauchitsch on 14 January 1940 that now that her sons had received Hitler's Deutschblutigkeitserklarung, maybe Brauchitsch could help her daughter get the Arisierung. She thanked Brauchitsch for his help in taking her sons' cases to Hitler and reported that they were "once again free and happy people because of you." She now felt they were no longer labeled as inferior human beings. Her concerns had now turned toward her daughter, Margot. [116] Not Brauchitsch but someone in OKH answered Frau Rohr on 29 January 1940 to inform her that Brauchitsch deeply regretted that he could not help her. The army was not responsible for this particular kind of Gnadengesuch. She would have to send her request through the Party. [117] However, Engel did step in and assisted her through the difficult process. Eventually, Engel informed Elisabeth Rohr on 26 November 1940 that Margot had received the Deutschblutigkeitserklarung. [118] By the length of time it took to Aryanize her daughter, Hitler showed that he did not believe siblings were created equal and, consequently, each had to be analyzed separately.

The issue about siblings not being racially equal was discussed by the government and Wehrmacht in 1942. Engel wrote Blankenburg on 28 April 1942 that after discussing the issue of siblings with Commander Frey and Schmundt, he had decided that siblings could differ racially, and the proven performance of one did not give his sibling any rights. Consequently, Hitler had to examine every case. [119] Perhaps the sibling dilemma was discussed again because of the Haller family's situation, although similar cases must have been known to the authorities at this time. [120] The three quarter-Jewish Haller sons were being considered for the Deutschblutigkeitserklarung. On 13 May 1942, Schmundt answered a letter from Martha Haller, the mother of the boys. She had tried for years to get the Aryan declaration to free her sons from the feeling of inferiority. [121] Schmundt was surprisingly kind and showed great understanding for the family's situation. He wrote that her children's applications awaited Hitler's decision. Schmundt expressed his regrets that one of her sons was missing in action and probably had died a "hero's death." [122] On 25 May, Frey wrote Schmundt that they had to clarify how one of the brothers had become an officer without Hitler's permission, but Frey added, since he had earned both Iron Crosses, he apparently had proved himself worthy of being an officer. Since the Haller boys had distinguished themselves in battle and the governor of Hamburg had given the family his approval, he believed they would receive exemptions.  [123] Hitler eventually gave them Genehmigungen. Schmundt informed Frau Haller that Hitler intended to declare the boys deutschblutig after the war -- if they continued to prove themselves. The one who later turned out to have died was probably declared deutschblutig posthumously because of his soldier's death. Hitler examined each brother separately before he gave them Genehmigungen. The Haller family was lucky. Sometimes within one family, one brother received an exemption, whereas another, because of unpleasant physical characteristics or poor military performance, did not. This policy led to confusion and strife in many families.

Applications sent to OKW and the Reichskanzlei by half-Jews increased dramatically throughout 1940. After the war in France, the government and Wehrmacht realized that the Mischling regulations laid down in April 1940 were not being followed. To limit the number of applications, the government announced on 28 July 1940 that applicants should be soldiers with a distinguished military record. [124] The announcement specified that the Iron Cross alone did not justify an application. [125] This medal was awarded quite frequently, so many received it. Out of the 967 half-Jews in this study, 127 (13.1 percent) received the EKII, and 40 (4.1 percent) also received the EKI. [126] By extrapolation, out of the 60,000 half-Jewish soldiers estimated in this study, at least 7,880 probably received the EKII, and 2,460 should have also received the EKI. All these half-Jews could have applied for exemptions under the original requirements. It seems that if a half-J w was promoted, this also could demonstrate that he had proven himself in battle. [127]

However, even Mischlinge who did not have sufficient proof that they had distinguished themselves in battle applied for exemptions. For example, although he had no military awards, Schiitze Heinrich Levin wrote OKW on 9 November 1940 to protest his discharge. "During my time as a soldier," Levin wrote, "I conducted myself in a correct, soldierly manner and had a perfect record. I volunteered for service in March of 1940. This didn't benefit me at all economically." Levin explained that he had had a good business, but left it to serve as a volunteer when he was thirty-three years old. By law, he did not have to serve. "I'm a half-Jew, but I have a pure German appearance .... Because of all these reasons, I plead with you to let me serve my Fatherland." [128] OKW rejected his application. Although Levin should never have applied, he, like most Mischlinge, felt that his case was special. For example, Kanonier [129] Viktor Mendel, a Jew (officially classified a half-Jew), wrote on 23 February 1941 that it was his wish "once again to be a soldier ... and serve the Fatherland." He sent in his resume, a copy of his military service book, photographs of himself, military reports written by his commander, and a description of his Jewish ancestors. With such a large file, it took several days to cross-check Mendel's information before the rejection was processed. He did not meet the requirements. [130]

Based on the supplementary decrees issued after 8 April 1940 concerning Mischlinge, one can conclude that the Nazis had no idea how many Mischling soldiers existed. Although Hitler had specified that previously discharged quarter-Jewish officers and officers married to quarter-Jews could apply to reenter the Wehrmacht, OKH added on 12 September 1940 that only men who had also performed an outstanding act in World War I or who had served the Party admirably as a member could apply for reinstatement.  [131] Criteria probably were made more restrictive to reduce the number of Mischling applications. Once again, only Hitler could give the final word.

Since Hitler sometimes took years to decide on someone's application, a Mischling could feel quite distressed about his uncertain fate and status. For example, General Karl Zukertort, who had been on active army duty since 1909, applied for the Deutschblutigkeitserklarung in 1939. He was allowed to remain at his post at the Army Weapons Development Office until Hitler decided his case. In 1941, he still had not heard anything about his application. His performance reviews markedly changed from 1939 to 1941. On 21 April 1939, General Erich Stud wrote that Zukertort was an excellent officer and "performs his job as department head very well." [132] On 10July 1939, Colonel Adolf von Schell in Goring's Office of the Four-Year Plan wrote that Zukertort had performed" excellent work" and that he was an exceptionally qualified officer for the Army Weapons Department. [133] Nonetheless, on 3 July 1940, it was noted in his review that Hitler would not decide on his case until after the war. [134] In February 194 I, his superior, General Emil Leeb, wrote that although Zukertort ran his headquarters in Paris with skill and caution, he was shy and lacked a common bond with his fellow officers. Most likely, because of the uncertainty and the lack of recognition because he was a half-Jew, Zukertort had probably become apathetic or even angry. He resigned, probably because he was upset that he had not received the Deuschblutigkeitserklarung. [135] General Zukertort is the only high-ranking officer documented in this study who most likely resigned because of the racial nightmare in which he found himself. Field Marshal von Brauchitsch accepted his resignation, and Zukertort was scheduled to leave on 31 July 1941. [136] Eventually, Hitler declared Zukertort and his sons deutschblutig in April 1942, but he did not return to the army. [137] Both his sons, Sold at Kurt Dagobert and Gefreiter Karl Adolf, served in the army at the end of the war. Karl Adolf would die in battle fighting in Poland in 1944. Retired general Karl Zukertort spent the last three and one-half years of the war, according to his son Dagobert, selling jams and jellies in his hometown. [138] Ironically, his brother, General Johannes Zukertort, remained on active duty. Hitler also declared him deutschblutig, and by 1944, he was the highest ranking artillery officer in the commanding area of Commander in Chief "West." [139]

Some half-Jews tried several times for an exemption. A few who had previously been rejected were later granted exemptions. For instance, OKW informed Walter Hamburger on 17 April 1941 that Hitler had allowed him to reenter the army even though he had been discharged on 2 December 1940. His special approval was under the title of Gnadengesuch. Hamburger felt that the only way to protect his father, who almost died in Dachau during his imprisonment there from 1938 to 1939, was to serve. As a result, he sent in an application in December 1940, which had the standard items: profile head shots, his resume, recommendations from his officers, and a report about his father's military career. During that very month, the Reichskanzlei informed Hamburger that his application was sent on to OKW for further review. Although he had not performed any exceptional military acts, OKW sent his petition on to Hitler, which he approved. In May, OKH informed Hamburger that he was to return to his old army unit. The document stipulated that Hitler would consider declaring Hamburger deutschblutig after the war if he proved himself in battle. [140] Perhaps a high-ranking personality who knew Hamburger helped push his case. General Gustav Freiherr von Perfall wrote Hamburger's sister on 31 May 1941 and extended his congratulations on her brother's success. The general believed that Hamburger's reactivation was rare. [141] Why he may have helped the family remains unknown, but since he wrote a young half-Jewish woman about the case, he must have cared about her and her brother.

The army discussed the policy of giving half-Jews exemptions on 4June 1941 at Zossen. [142] Here, General Bodewin Keitel, head of the Army Personnel Office [143] and brother of Wilhelm Keitel, informed field commanders that presently the Arisierung cases for those who had proven themselves in battle were being treated" in a liberal manner." [144] It was reported that Mischling officers who had proven themselves in the face of the "enemy" would be "100 percent approved" for an Arisierung. [145] The notes taken from the minutes of this meeting show that B. Keitel was referring to the possibility of declaring Mischlinge in the army deutschblutig. [146] It is difficult to ascertain what effect this meeting had on overall policy concerning exemptions, but the fact that field commanders were discussing the Mischling exemption issue showed that this subject matter was widely known and debated, and that the army was in favor of allowing worthy Mischlinge to be declared deutschblutig.

On 16 July 1941, Hitler repeated his April 1940 directives through OKH again with a few changes. The directive defined the distinctions between a Jew, half-Jew, and quarter-Jew. It reiterated that soldiers needed to sign "ancestry declarations," and emphasized that half-Jews and those married to half-Jews were to be immediately discharged. However, half-Jews who had exhibited "meritorious war service" and who had medals [147] to prove it could apply. Now it seemed that an EKII was indeed enough to warrant a Mischling sending in an application that contradicted the decree of July 1940. This new decree gave the same guidelines as those set in 1940 for quarter-Jews and stated that only under special circumstances could a soldier marry a quarter-Jew. Although the Nuremberg Laws allowed quarter- Jews to marry Germans, this new directive held soldiers to a higher standard. Again, Hitler stated that only he could approve applications for exemptions. [148]

The criteria by which Hitler judged applications for exemptions had significantly changed since the OKH decree of 20 April 1940. Whereas previously a soldier had to prove meritorious war service, now he was required to have medals. He also had to obtain a recommendation from his commander rather than just a statement from any other officer that the soldier in question had performed valorous acts. Now a half-Jew had to send in a copy of his military service book or an official list of battles in which he had taken part. Hitler also required OKH to ask each Mischling applicant to provide proof of Party affiliations or honors. Previously, Hitler had not required such proof. Finally, OKH wanted to know whether the Mischling's Jewish relatives were still alive and what type of relationship he had with them. Previously, they had simply requested the address of the Jewish parent or grandparent. Hitler probably made the requirements more difficult to reduce the number of applications submitted for his review.

As the war worsened, Hitler became less generous with his exemptions. He told General JodI during an afternoon tea session on 10 May 1942 that he regretted giving exemptions to so many half-Jewish soldiers. "For experience showed," Hitler said, "that from these Jewish offspring four, five or six generations of pure Jews keep Mendeling out." [149] Only when a Mischling was exceptional would Hitler consider him worthy for an exemption. On 1 July 1942, as part of a discussion of the danger of intermarriage, Hitler referred to Herr von Liebig, considered a commendable Nazi, to prove that Jewish "blood" was very dangerous. Hitler was stunned when he met Liebig because he looked Jewish. [150] Many assured Hitler that "there wasn't a drop of non-Aryan blood" in him. However, after some research, racial experts discovered that one of Liebig's ancestors had married a Jewish woman in 1616. Hitler claimed that Liebig's Jewish appearance proved his point. Even if there was a tiny drop of Jewish blood in someone, over several generations, a racially full Jew could still "Mendel out." Hitler believed Jewish blood was simply stronger. [151] This contradicted what he had said in December 1941, when he claimed that after several generations, German blood would eventually weed out the unwanted Jewish portion. Six months later Hitler felt that Jewish blood was tougher and would dominate well into future generations, regardless of whether the progeny married Aryans.

Hitler wanted the Party and KdF to playa larger role in deciding who was worthy to serve. A shift toward emphasizing Party service also reduced the pool of applicants. Beginning in 1942, the Party played a more active role in deciding which applications reached Hitler's office. Oberbereichsleiter Blankenburg wrote Engel on 23 May 1942 that the "hard cases" should go through his boss, Reichsleiter Bouhler, chief of the KdF, with comments from OKW. Normally, Bouhler gave applications to Engel to be reviewed by Hitler, but now with these hard cases, Engel would examine them first and then send them to KdF. If approved, Bouhler would then present these applicants to Hitler personally. These hard cases included illegitimate children, those who never knew their Jewish parent, and those who grew up with Aryan stepparents and step-siblings and were totally oblivious of their Jewish past. [152] These cases had better than average chances of approval because the Party felt that Judaism had not affected them.

Engel wrote in his diary on 28 and 30 May 1942 that the armed forces had received new criteria for processing applications. [153] That probably meant that the Wehrmacht would have to work more closely with the Party to approve an individual before his dossier reached Hitler. The Party's role did not please Engel. Throughout Engel's diary, he complained about Bormann's intrusions and observed how he was always around Hitler, making Engel's own efforts to help Mischlinge more difficult. [154] Engel often argued with Bormann, whom he clearly 10athed. [155] He feared that his ability to help Mischlinge would now decrease. He claimed that he had been able to help "hundreds of 25 percent, 50 percent, and in some cases 75 percent Jews" to remain in the Wehrmacht. [156] However, Party officials in the Gauleitungen  [157] and Kreisleitungen [158] had been finding out that some of these Mischlinge Engel had been helping had received exemptions under false pretenses. In other words, Engel probably deleted harmful information about an applicant before Hitler reviewed his case to ensure that the Mischling would receive an exemption (for example, Engel helping one falsify his documents to make it look like he was a Mischling rather than a Jew). [159] When different Party functionaries asked about these cases, Engel and Frey claimed that they were approved because of an oversight or mistake (Versehen). Possibly some people, such as Bormann, knew about Engel's and Frey's generosity (mistakes) toward Mischlinge and thus encouraged Party involvement to make it harder for Mischlinge to get exemptions, [160] which in fact happened. Engel wrote on 30 May 1942 that he now had to get applications approved by the Parteikanzlei. [161] Neither Schmundt nor Engel nor Frey welcomed Party interference. [162] It would now be harder to get Mischling cases reviewed by Hitler because Party members, like Bormann, prevented them from reaching him. [163] The "sinister guttersnipe" (Guderian's words) Bormann was chomping at the bit to get rid of officers surrounding Hitler and "replace them with his creatures." [164] Bormann also knew of Hitler's growing irritation with the Wehrmacht and probably capitalized on this to make Engel's position more precarious.

On 30 May 1942, Engel felt Hitler was in a sour mood about the Mischlinge. Hitler told Engel that he suspected several people of going behind his back (Mogeleiversuchen) [165] in matters regarding Mischlinge. Just as he had told JodI a few days earlier, he believed that the Wehrmacht (i.e., Engel and Frey) were treating the Mischlinge too leniently. He told Engel that he had discussed this matter with Bormann and Keitel. Engel felt helpless. He wrote that he thought about approaching Goring, who had been "generous" to Mischlinge, [166] but knew that Goring could do only so much, now that the Party was involved. With Bormann around, Engel would be restricted in what he could do for Mischlinge. Hitler seemed to welcome such conflicts. Problems with implementing Nazi ideology "intensified personal rivalries and enmities immeasurably," which Hitler encouraged. [167] Bormann was winning such a struggle against Engel. By 1942, Bormann had more contact with and responsibilities from Hitler than Engel, who was slowly being pushed aside regarding the Mischlinge. By July 1942, according to Bouhler's deputy, Viktor Brack, Engel had expressed that he had lost the desire to present half-Jews to Hitler, [168] probably because of the problems he had encountered with Hitler's changed mood about and Bormann's increased involvement with them.

Bormann took over Rudolf Hesss responsibilities and became head of the Parteikanzlei in May 1941 when the dim-witted HeB made his quixotic flight to Scotland in his insane hope to secure peace and to form a German- English alliance against Russia. Then on 12 April 1943, Bormann became Hitler's personal secretary. [169] The pot-bellied, disagreeable, colorless Bormann was called Hitler's "evil genius" and was described at the Nuremberg trials in 1946 as "an evil archangel at the side of the devil Hitler." [170] Hitler valued Bormann tremendously. He once remarked to an aide, "1need him to win the war." [171] By 1942-1943, Bormann held almost complete control of the Party machinery. Bormann was responsible for laying down the guidelines for those who deserved promotions and government positions. Kershaw wrote of Bormann, "His talent lay not in demagoguery and agitation but in organization, where he combined ideological fanaticism with bureaucratic skill, Machiavellian deviousness, indefatigable energy and a remarkable capacity for hard work." [172] By late 1942, deutschblutig declarations that allowed recipients to remain on or return to active duty now had to go through Bormann before reaching Hitler. By 1942, Lammers's access to and influence on Hitler had declined sharply, and he was required to submit the points about which he wished to talk to Hitler through Bormann, who was now the Fuhrer's gatekeeper. [173] During the war, Bormann" controlled in good measure not only which persons were admitted to Hitler's presence, but also what information reached the Fuhrer." [174] As Bormann said, cynically altering Jesus' words, "No one can come to the Fuhrer but through me!" [175] Almost all high-ranking Party, government, and military personalities feared or hated Bormann. When Goring was asked at Nuremberg in 1946 whether Bormann was still alive, Goring replied, "If I had my say in it, I hope he is frying in Hell, but I don't know." [176]

Bormann was a rabid anti-Semite and detested Mischlinge. The Mischlinge lost their most loyal ally when Losener significantly curtailed his activities as RMI's desk officer for racial matters in December 1941. They gained their worst enemy in Bormann, who took more control over policy affecting them in 1942. This danger became more acute when Hitler made Bormann his personal secretary in 1943, permitting him to assert his power in every department. When he was with Hitler almost every day from 1942 to 1945, [177] racial policies affecting Mischlinge became more restrictive.

On I June 1942, Hitler said the Volk would be endangered by the Mischlinge still serving. He felt that it would be bad "if Mischlinge are allowed to serve in the Wehrmacht, because it opens a door for them to be declared deutschblutig." [178] Ironically, Hitler was the one who had allowed them both to serve and to apply for exemptions. On 2 June 1942, Hitler expressed his irritation to Bormann about the lenient handling by KdF of Mischlinge. Hitler felt an exemption was justified only for those who never knew about their ancestry and who had served the Party during the Kampfzeit. [179] One can be sure that Bormann, always armed with his pad and pencil, took copious notes of what the Fuhrer had discussed with him. Bormann then funneled what Hitler had said into "directives for action." [180] Although many bureaucrats followed these new criteria from Hitler, several Mischlinge who did not meet these guidelines were still reviewed.

On 1 July 1942, Hitler decided it would be a shame if the government allowed Mischlinge to serve and thereby allowed them "the possibility of equal treatment with those of German blood." Hitler believed that the number of exemptions should be reduced. [181] To this end, on 1 July 1942, the Parteikanzlei issued another decree signed by Bormann stating that henceforth, before Hitler would consider their applications, all Mischlinge required a recommendation from the Gauleiter where they lived, stating the special reasons why they should receive an exemption. Hitler still favored Mischlinge who had not known about their ancestry and who had served the Party during the Kampfzeit. Bormann wrote that Hitler no longer wanted to consider those who had just fulfilled their duty to the state, were members of some minor Nazi organization, read Nazi literature, were army volunteers, or were sons of World War I veterans. The bar had been raised. [182]

The next day, Bormann wrote Bouhler complaining that Bouhler had continued to send applications to Hitler that did not meet the criteria. Bormann explained that Hitler had expressed his indignation at the handling of Mischling cases. He explained that only men who had performed special service to the Party during the Kampfzeit should be considered. Party membership alone was not enough. Hitler warned that if they were not careful, the Mischlinge would create a new Jewish race. One needed to exercise caution, Hitler had told Bormann, because it had been proven that Mischlinge always "Mendeled" out Jews. Hitler pointed to Cripps [183] and Roosevelt [184] to support his claim. Bormann reminded Bouhler that Hitler had asked the bureaucrats to be careful, because keeping a Mischling in the Wehrmacht with only a Genehmigung was basically the same as declaring him deutschblutig. [185]

On 3 July 1942, Bormann again complained that regional Party offices (Gauleitungen) [186] were being too lenient with Mischlinge, and he warned officials not to take Mischlinge's statements at face value. Many claimed that they had fought for the Party before 1933. Bormann also complained that Mischlinge often lied about the identity of their fathers, claiming their real fathers were not their mothers' Jewish husbands, but rather "gold blond Aryans." Only those who had not known about their Jewish ancestry or suffered injury or imprisonment because they were a Party member would now be considered. Bormann informed everyone through the Reichsverfugungsblatt [187] that from now on, the Fuhrer "will personally and thoroughly look over" every case. [188] It seemed that Bormann was implying that if the civil servants (e.g., Bouhler) wanted to keep their jobs, they should enforce the decrees.

Although Bormann disliked Bouhler and wanted his responsibilities, he also truly believed that Bouhler was not being tough enough with the Mischlinge. Bouhler felt that he had obeyed the laws and that Bormann was unfairly representing his actions to Hitler. On 10 July 1942, he wrote Bormann and complained that approving Mischlinge for the Deutschblutigkeitserklarung who had proven themselves on the battlefield did not result from his support alone, but had been done according to Hitler's instructions.  [189] Bouhler complained to Bormann that his office had incessant workloads created by the Nuremberg Laws, the Mischling classifications, and pertinent decrees. Moreover, the infighting between offices and the necessity to keep track of the Mischling decrees made his job difficult. For seven years, an unbelievable number of Mischlinge had come to Bouhler daily in the quest for Hitler's signature. "Nobody else except Lammers knows what I've endured." The number of applications Bouhler (with Blankenburg) had rejected was "legion." He denied the majority without forwarding them to Hitler. [190] Bouhler vigorously defended himself to Bormann to prove that he was not guilty of lenience toward Mischlinge. Bouhler told Bormann in this cantankerous letter that his office (Blankenburg's letter of March 1940) had originally encouraged and ultimately persuaded Hitler to issue the 8 April 1940 decree, since apparently "your office didn't or couldn't (which can be construed from a conversation that took place with Dr. Blome [191] at the end of 1939) do anything about [the Mischling problem]." [192] Because Bouhler felt that Mischlinge would do everything in their power to enter the armed forces so that they could be declared deutschblutig, he supported the discharge of half-Jews from the Wehrmacht. As a result, he had his department write Hitler in March 1940 about this problem. Bouhler argued that the fact that Hitler had given some form of exemption to "quite a number" of half-Jews should not be blamed on him, since most serving in the Wehrmacht in 1940 were not discharged before the campaign against France started. Consequently, they had the opportunity to prove themselves in battle. [193] Even so, Bouhler said that when Blome had visited his office, he was stunned that the number of exemptions was much smaller than he had expected. [194] Bouhler felt that this fact should have been known before Bormann talked with Hitler about his actions. Bouhler reminded Bormann again that he had started the process of discharging the Mischlinge from the Wehrmacht. [195] Until now, it had been his understanding that he only had to verify that a soldier was politically sound and not that he had performed exceptional service for the Party. Bouhler welcomed the Party's new responsibility to approve cases before they reached Hitler. Bouhler ended his letter saying "that any support for Mischlinge is the farthest thing from my mind." If this was the case, Bouhler wrote, then he would not have given Himmler so much support for exterminating the Jews (Losung der Judenfrage [196]). Most likely, Bouhler meant that he had given Himmler the information he had collected while conducting the euthanasia program from 1939 to 1941. [197]

Apparently after not getting a reply, on 13 July Bouhler wrote Bormann's brother, Albert, chief of Hitler's private chancellery (a subdivision of KdF), [198] requesting that he set up a meeting for him with Hitler. Bouhler had sent a copy of the letter he had sent Martin Bormann on 10 July. Bouhler expressed that Hitler needed to hear his side of the story, knowing as he did that Martin Bormann had already briefed Hitler on what he thought Bouhler had been doing. Bouhler felt that if he met with Hitler, Hitler could then tell him personally how he should deal with Mischlinge. And of course, such a meeting with Hitler, Bouhler felt, would clear his name of any wrongdoing. [199] However, such a meeting probably did not take place.

By 10 July 1942, Hitler was becoming tired of Mischlinge. Hitler emphasized again that Party service was more important than military service when granting exemptions. Consequently, although they were at odds with each other, Bouhler and Bormann took over more responsibility from Engel. [200] At the beginning of July, Engel felt that Hitler had become stricter in handling Mischlinge. For example, Engel had brought to Hitler's attention twenty applicants who had already been approved by the KdF but were not yet approved by OKW. After Hitler reviewed the twenty applications, he told Engel that if OKW approved the nine he had selected, then he would grant the men clemency. When Engel returned on 2 July 1942 to get Hitler's decision on the men, Hitler did not approve any of them. Instead, he told Engel that he would have to discuss them with Bormann. [201] The armed forces were being increasingly pushed aside in their handling of Mischlinge. On 16 July 1942, Blankenburg instructed Frey to stop inquiring directly with the Gauleitungen concerning support for Mischling applications. Such inquiries were to be funneled through him. [202]

At this time, Hitler seemed eager to include Bormann more in the discussion of the "Mischling Question." [203] Bormann claimed on 21 August 1942 in a letter to Heydrich that Hitler "was fundamentally in agreement with classifying half-Jews as Jews," [204] which would have immediately terminated pending applications from half-Jews and theoretically revoked those already approved. When Losener heard about the possibility that half- Jews were going to be declared Jews or sterilized, he protested to Himmler on 10 September 1942 using the same arguments he had before and "consoled" Himmler, writing that" one cannot rectify errors and sins committed during the last two hundred years in one day." [205] Losener urged that the matter be submitted to Hitler for a final decision. On 24 October 1942, Bormann passed on an OKW regulation from 25 September 1942 to the Party which stated that Hitler now prohibited half-Jews from applying to stay in the Wehrmacht. If they had been discharged, they could not return to active duty. Applications in process had to be returned, and it was repeated that if the Wehrmacht found a half-Jew illegally in the ranks, he was to be discharged. [206] Several applicants were informed in 1942 that according to the new decrees, they could no longer be considered for exemptions. For example, Frey wrote the father of several half-Jews in September 1942 that he should stop trying to obtain exemptions for his sons because, according to the new laws, they did not have the necessary credentials. Frey firmly asked him to stop sending in more information. [207]

In late March 1943, the Mischlinge lost one of their last lobbyists. Engel left his position as Hitler's army adjutant and went to the battlefield. Hitler had ordered Engel to leave. Engel found this dismissal difficult and was "completely surprised" by it. [208] Now the Party dominated Mischling policy, although it still needed Wehrmacht cooperation. On 13 March 1943, Albert Bormann answered Blankenburg's letter of 17 February 1943 about several Mischlinge who were being considered for clemency. Albert Bormann said out of ten cases under review, he felt positive about five describing their Party service. Three had shown service "above and beyond the call of duty for the movement." The other two had been Party and SA members. Albert Bormann viewed the remaining cases as going either way - "borderline cases" in which Hitler would have to decide personally. Some had shown Party service, but nothing exceptional. Others had not served the Party, but were good soldiers. [209] Although the soldiers were to be used for the armed forces, according to Albert Bormann, Party service was the determining factor as to whether they would receive Hitler's clemency. Blankenburg wanted to receive Albert Bormann's opinion before he submitted these Mischlinge to the Wehrmacht. Interestingly, Blankenburg felt positive about nine of them. [210] Blankenburg's letter to Albert Bormann shows that Blankenburg (probably with Bouhler's approval) did not take Martin Bormann's decree of I July 1942 about how to judge Mischlinge seriously. [211] Blankenburg was not following Bormann's strict criteria when he recommended at least two of the nine on the list. Although Bormann had decreed in October 1942 that Hitler no longer wanted to review half-Jews, Blankenburg and Albert Bormann's discussion of these Mischlinge (most of whom were half-Jews) showed that Bormann's Rundschreiben, [212] which originated from OKW, was not being followed. [213]

It was clear from some Nazi officials' comments that they were confused about how to implement Hitler's measures affecting Mischlinge. On 3 June 1943, Dr. Kurt Blome, deputy to the chief Reich physician in the Parteikanzlei, Dr. Leonardo Conti, [214] answered the KdF (probably Bouhler) that he believed half-Jew Wachtmeister [215] Ernst Liebscher should have been declared deutschblutig back in 1940 because of his bravery. However, Blome said that since Hitler had changed the criteria by which to handle Mischlinge in 1941, Liebscher was rejected from getting a Deutschblutigkeitserklarung, although the Gauleitung and his military superiors had supported his case. Nonetheless, Blome said that Liebscher belonged to the group that Hitler would declare deutschblutig after the war, and as a result, he gave his approval for Liebscher to marry. Because of Hitler's new regulations, Blome also believed that Liebscher could remain in the Wehrmacht. [216]  

OKW and KdF also showed in their dealings with each other that they were confused about how to handle exemptions. In August 1943, OKW asked Blankenburg for clearer statements of approval or rejection from Bouhler in order to know how to deal with the Mischlinge being reviewed. This was especially the case, since the Party now played a role in who would be reviewed for clemency. [217]

But the confusion between OKW, KdF, and the Parteikanzlei in how to handle the Mischlinge up for clemency only mirrored the confusion many Mischlinge and their commanding officers felt in how to submit applications for exemptions. For example, Goring issued a Luftwaffe decree in November 1943 that OKW had explained in October 1943 that Deutschblutigkeitserklarung applications had often been sent to the RMI. OKW explained that such applications should come to them and not the RMI. [218] In November, OKH also sent out a decree that RMI had been receiving applications from Mischlinge in the army. OKH instructed its personnel offices that such applications were supposed to come to OKH and not the RMI. [219] Obviously, many Mischlinge and their superiors still did not know where to submit clemency applications.

Even in late 1943, while working in his windowless, air-conditioned bunkers with reinforced concrete walls, Hitler continued to review Mischling cases despite his desire to stop. Bormann wrote Bouhler on 27 September 1943 that on the previous day, Hitler had given him the files of ten Mischlinge. It was reiterated that applications would be accepted only when accompanied by a Party's statement of approval. Bormann requested that Bouhler also send him any other related files with approved applications. [220] On this date, Bouhler's department lost the right to submit applications to Hitler, although in practice it continued to do so. Bormann informed his rival, Bouhler, that Hitler had decided that only Bormann could present Mischling cases to him with a recommendation from the Parteikanzlei. [221] According to Jeremy Noakes, with this action Bormann "usurped the right of submission from his brother, Albert." Bormann was now able to "enforce the hard line towards Mischlinge" that he had long desired. [222]

Party service was the primary criterion in 1943 and 1944 for granting exemptions. As General Guderian wrote about Party interference in Wehrmacht affairs, "[T]he Party was less interested in the military qualifications than in the political fanaticism of the men it appointed to fill the responsible posts." [223] However, some Mischlinge being reviewed were simply too young to have served the Party before they entered the Wehrmacht. On 12 October 1943, Dr. Vogtherr at OKW asked Dietz if they could use alternate criteria to judge Mischlinge who, because of their age, had not served the Party. [224] On 19 October 1943, Dietz drew up a memorandum for Blankenburg which explained that Hitler had decided that in the future, the Parteikanzlei and not KdF should consider the applications because present political considerations were now more important when considering acts of clemency. [225] That was probably the answer to Vogtherr's question.

Schmundt had helped several men between 1938 and 1942, but in 1943, his attitude toward Mischlinge had become more intolerant. On 3 November 1943, his friend Irmgard Bohrne wrote Schmundt again about helping Mischlinge, this time on behalf of the Roper family. Schmundt advised that Dr. Roper should contact him directly and explain his situation. "However," Schmundt finished his letter, "[i]t's a pity that you continue to ask for help in this area. This contradicts my personal view during this time when the pack of Jews (Meute der Juden) is attacking us from everywhere. It is hard for individuals but matters of State take precedence .... Because I care for you so much, I will look into this case." [226] Schmundt's letter demonstrated the growing impatience the government had with Mischlinge. However, during this time, Hitler still reviewed cases of Mischlinge widows and orphans of fallen soldiers once they passed through KdF. [227] If Hitler's goal was to ultimately remove half-Jews from the Yolk, this was a counterproductive move. [228]

In 1944, Germany might be collapsing, but "purity of the blood" was still hotly debated. On 2 January 1944 Hitler ordered Schmundt to put together a list of active army Mischling officers or officers married to Jews or Mischlinge who had received Hitler's Deutschblutigkeitserklarung. Hitler had the list made, according to Schmundt's order, to locate and discharge these officers. Schmundt wrote that the Personnel Office [229] needed to prepare their discharge orders now, especially for the older ones. [230] Personnel PI (General Linnarz) [231] and P2 (Lieutenant Colonel Seegers) [232] Group Offices (Amtsgruppen) put together the list. [233] On its completion on 11 January 1944, Colonel Georg Erdmann, head of Group IV [234] in P2, sent the list to P5 (Colonel Hessemann). [235] Erdmann complained that tabulating the list had been difficult, because in previous years neither OKH, OKW, nor apparently the Reichskanzlei had put together a catalog of such officers. Consequently, Erdmann wrote, this "list cannot be accepted as complete." He was absolutely correct. On this list, Erdmann identified seventy-seven officers. Erdmann documented twelve Mischling generals and twelve generals married to Mischlinge or Jews. He documented thirty-seven other Mischling officers and sixteen officers married to Mischlinge. Most had received the Deutschblutigkeitserklarung by early 1940. [236] Some were put on the list although they had died in battle or had been taken prisoner. Several officers should have been on the list, but were either purposely excluded or simply not found. For example, Captain Klaus von Schmeling- Diringshofen and his brother, Lieutenant Joachim von Schmeling-Diringshofen, [237] along with Major Ernst Prager, were just a few who were not listed. Moreover, Erdmann had difficulties determining the officer's blood percentage, since Hitler's Deutschblutigkeitserklarungen had not stated their degree. [238]

Before Erdmann sent this list to other offices, he showed it to his nephew, Captain Otto Wolters, who worked in his department. When Wolters saw the names of over twenty generals, he told his uncle, "If we discharge these men, it'll cause so many problems in the army. We need every man in the war, especially if they're generals!" His uncle agreed, shook his head, and walked away. [239] Erdmann had to send in the list. However, for months thereafter, nothing happened to these officers. Most remained at their posts, and the army even promoted a few.

Other lists of Mischlinge and Mischehen (mixed marriages) were compiled during 1944. Bormann made a list of high-ranking civil servants under Hitler's direct orders on 7 November 1944. There were eighty-three men on this list: ten half-Jews and twenty-one men married to half-Jews, fifteen quarter-Jews and twenty married to quarter-Jews, and seventeen married to full Jews. [240] However, Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine lists have not been found. It is doubtful that such lists were ever drawn up, since the Aryanized officers documented in this study from these military branches remained at their posts until the war's end. Ironically, during this time, Hitler continued to evaluate applications for exemptions. In this study, three cases have been documented that received Hitler's clemency in 1944.

On 18 February 1944, OKW wrote KdF and complained that the Gauleiter political reports necessary to process Mischlinge were taking forever. The Wehrmacht complained that even in regions not being bombed, it took over three months to get the necessary political references. The armed forces would write KdF after four months, and even then they did not receive an answer. The Wehrmacht told KdF that the longer the Party made them wait to complete a Mischling's file, the longer he had to distinguish himself since, by law, he was allowed to remain with his unit until his case was decided. [241] Blankenburg explained to 0KW on I I March 1944 that their office had been bombed, thus delaying the reports. Blankenburg wrote that OKW would soon receive the Gauleiter reports they needed. [242]

On 20 February 1944, Hitler issued a decree that henceforth only he and Bormann would consider Mischling applications. [243] Hitler believed that only Bormann could solve the Mischling problem. [244] According to Goring, toward the end of the Third Reich, only Bormann was admitted to Hitler's tea sessions where important matters were decided. [245] By 1944, Lammers was hardly consulted about the Mischlinge. His influence had apparently peaked by 1941, probably about the time Bormann took over the Parteikanzlei, which gave Bormann unlimited access to Hitler. He now had to receive Hitler's orders through Bormann. [246] Despite Bormann's increased responsibility in dealing with Mischlinge, other offices besides his Parteikanzlei, such as OKW and KdF, surprisingly continued to process cases. However, the chaos continued. On 3 March 1944, OKW wrote KdF returning twenty-five Mischling memoirs from KdF and their request for updates on various applications. OKW expressed its irritation at KdF for implying that OKW had not worked hard enough on the applications. OKW explained that they just could not ask the Fuhrer and his men to work as fast as KdF would like and besides, the memoirs they sent OKW served no purpose. OKW asked KdF to stop sending letters asking for updates because such work wasted time and paper and created more work for OKW. [247]

In June 1944, under pressure from the Parteikanzlei, the Wehrmacht was ordered to discharge all quarter-Jews. [248] Although the Wehrmacht decreed this discharge, only one quarter-Jew, possibly dismissed because of this decree, has been documented. [249]

After the 20 July 1944 bomb plot failed to kill Hitler, he and many of his cronies declared Mischlinge, among many others, the scapegoats. [250] In general, Hitler now no longer deemed Mischlinge worthy of his time or of living in the Reich. They were to be earmarked for extermination. Ironically, Field Marshal Milch sent Hitler a telegram immediately after the bomb blast: "[I cannot express my] heartfelt joy that a merciful Providence has protected you from this cowardly murder attempt and preserved you for the German Volk and its Wehrmacht." [251] Perhaps Milch really believed what he said, or perhaps he was protecting himself, knowing as he did that Hitler knew about his Jewish father and that the events on 20 July made a Mischling's situation, like his, more precarious.

On 26 July 1944, Himmler's office issued a lengthy decree about Mischlinge.  [252] This document suggested that the Party use not only the categories Mischlinge first and second degrees, but also those of third, fourth, fifth, and higher. [253] During 1944, Himmler focused on purging the Wehrmacht of Mischlinge. Himmler's staff argued that those Jewish Mischlinge who had distinguished themselves in battle should not expect automatically to receive the Deutschblutigkeitserklarung. [254] Exemptions should be made only for unique cases. [255] Himmler's staff argued that declaring a Jewish Mischling deutschblutig or giving him the Genehmigung enabled him to disappear and camouflage himself. Although such a person may have been proclaimed deutschblutig, he still was Jewish in a biological sense. Consequently, the Party should "be very reluctant to recommend someone for aryanization." [256] Himmler's staff warned that Mischlinge tended to want more privileges. After they received an exemption, they wanted to study, to become officers, to marry, and to enter the Party. [257] They warned that every chance a Mischling had to prove himself in battle gave him a better bargaining position to improve his lot after the war. [258] The document echoed Hitler's earlier decree claiming that Mischlinge who died in action could be declared deutschblutig, but reiterated that clemency would be granted only when they did not have any children. [259] Himmler's staff mentioned that OKW was basically the only organization still processing applications for Ausnahmebehandlungen. [260] The document strongly implied that this should cease. They forbade any marriages between Aryans and Mischlinge except when a half-Jewish veteran was so disabled (Stufe IV) [261] that he could not live without a wife's care. [262]

On 29 July 1944, Himmler ordered the army to replace General Karl Sachs, a quarter-Jew, German-Cross in Gold bearer, and accomplished divisional commander, with General Hoernlein. [263] Sachs's Aryanization would no longer be honored, [264] although he was highly decorated and had fought bravely "protecting Germany," as he phrased it, from the "terror of the Bolsheviks." [265] Sachs was one of the seventy-seven soldiers on the list drawn up by Erdmann. It was just a matter of time before the others would also be discharged, especially since the SS and Party had the list. [266] On 9 September 1944, General Wilhelm Burgdorf dismissed Sachs on Hitler's orders. [267] Burgdorf had replaced Schmundt, who would die in October from wounds he sustained in the explosion on 20 July 1944 in Hitler's headquarters. Sachs was one of the most distinguished officers on the list, and since Hitler decided that he should go, one can assume that Hitler also ordered most of the others on the list to be discharged.

During this purge, Bormann wrote Lammers on 2 November 1944 that the" event of 20 July has shown the necessity to remove all people in positions of authority, who, owing to their ancestry, could be seen as a liability to the National Socialist ideology and its Weltanschauung." Bormann said that these individuals could become a dangerous liability in times of stress, and explained that because of Mischlinge's convictions, they could never be trusted. Although these Mischlinge had been declared deutschblutig, Bormann believed they should not enjoy the rights of Aryans. [268] Hitler ordered the armed forces on 26 October to discharge officers who were half-Jews or married to half-Jews and who had received some form of clemency by 31 December 1944. [269] During the war's final days, Hitler discharged almost two dozen battle-tested generals who had proven their loyalty and been awarded clemency.

Discharging such accomplished officers showed Hitler's detachment from reality. The more Hitler realized that he could not change the war's outcome, the more irrational he became, which had a catastrophic effect on the conduct of government. [270] The release of two dozen generals was counterproductive at a time when Hitler needed every experienced general available. Hitler discharged only active officers who were on Erdmann's list. Mischling officers who had reserve commissions were not on the list. Most of them and Mischling soldiers remained at their posts. [271]

The hopes that Hitler's clemency had given many were now dashed. Half-Jew Werner Maltzahn had been promoted to general one month before Hitler discharged him. His dismissal depressed him. [272] Many discharged Mischlinge felt demoralized and dishonored. Half-Jew Major Friedrich Gebhard wrote Hanover's General Command on 21 October 1944 complaining about his upcoming discharge:

[M]y discharge is especially hard, because the reasons stated are nothing I was responsible for. Considering my service to Germany in two world wars, and that I have to leave the army despite good evaluations as the result of unusual circumstances, I ask you to grant me the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. ... This higher rank will open more doors to me in civilian life, which I'm now forced to enter sooner than anticipated. [273]


Mischlinge like Gebhard still could not understand why their ancestry prevented them from serving. A mixture of anger, bewilderment, and depression possessed them, and they did not know where to turn for help.

The SS also did their part to hunt down Mischlinge on the list. Himmler had already removed Sachs, and he wanted others. On 15 September 1944, SS-Obersturmbannfuhrer [274] Suchanek of Himmler's office wrote General Burgdorf, informing him that Himmler requested the dismissal of the half- Jew Colonel Ernst Bloch and asked that he be sent to a forced labor battalion.  [275] On 26 September 1944, Burgdorf responded to Himmler's office, confirming that Bloch had been dismissed, but added that in 1943 Bloch had asked to be "sent to the front despite his several World War I wounds." [276] Burgdorf's halfhearted protest did not succeed in easing Bloch's plight. It also did not seem to matter that Bloch was described as a "positive National Socialist." [277] Bloch left his post on 27 October 1944. On 15 February 1945, Hitler signed the official order discharging him because of his Jewish past. Burgdorf officially informed Bloch of his discharge: "The Fuhrer has decided as of 31 January 1945 to discharge you from active duty. It is an honor to thank you on behalf of the Fuhrer for your service rendered during war and peace for our people and fatherland. I wish you all the best for the future. Heil Hitler." [278] Most discharged Mischlinge received the same dismissal letter. Bloch was flabbergasted because he knew Hitler had personally declared him deutschblutig. [279] However, Bloch probably did not know the particularities behind his discharge. He was simply ordered to leave, and he obeyed without questioning. Walther Brockhoff, a close friend of Bloch's, wrote to Bloch's wife, Sabine, on 31 October 1945 to ask why his friend had been discharged. Brockhoff wrote, "One doesn't dismiss a brave and battle-tested officer away from the front during the hour of the greatest danger. There have been and will be few officers of his caliber." [280]

Most Mischling officers dismissed did not know about each other and believed that they were one of a handful of men who had to leave the Wehrmacht. Probably most were not told that they were discharged because of their Jewish heritage, although they probably suspected that that was the reason.

Most returned home and looked for employment. Some were sent to OT camps or to the makeshift Volkssturm units. Burgdorf saw the idiocy of discharging these proven officers. Since he knew he could not prevent their discharge, he informed the authorities that these men should stay at their posts during the three-month period after they were informed of their discharge. It was crucial that Germany use all its resources during the Totaler Krieg (Total War). [281] Burgdorf was able to hold on to a few officers until late 1944 or early 1945, but others were immediately sent home.

With the discharge of high-ranking Mischling officers, and those married to Mischlinge, the process of granting exemptions ended. Although this study has documented one person who supposedly received the Deutschblutigkeitserklarung in 1945 [282] after the July 1944 bomb attack on Hitler, almost no more exemptions were granted. The discharge of these high-ranking officers foretold what would ultimately happen to all Mischlinge had Germany won or continued the war. They were not wanted.
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Re: Hitler's Jewish Soldiers: The Untold Story of Nazi Racia

Postby admin » Wed Apr 25, 2018 8:40 am

Part 3 of 3

Case Studies of the Exemption Process

To help readers gain a better understanding of what a person had to undergo to receive an exemption, a few cases are described in detail.  

CASE STUDY 1: HANS-GUNTHER VON GERSDORFF

The army discharged Lieutenant Hans-Gunther von Gersdorff on 30 September 1935 in accordance with the Arierparagraph. [283] Yet Gersdorff and his mother did everything they could to get him back into the Wehrmacht by proving his Aryanhood. This proved difficult since, according to Nazi law, his grandmother was a Jew. On May 1935, a civil servant from the Office for Racial Affairs instructed the army that Aryan ancestry "isn't the religion, but the ancestry, the race, the blood." [284] Consequently, the fact that Gersdorff's grandmother, Henriette Seligmann, [285] was not of the Jewish faith and that her parents had converted "doesn't satisfy the criteria to pronounce Gersdorff Aryan." [286]

Although Gersdorff may have resigned himself to his fate, his impulsive mother refused to let this shame fall on their family. She could not believe that the army discharged Hans-Gunther because of his ancestry, but felt that someone wanted to harm him. Her husband had died and she had remarried, but she still had several well-known relatives in the army.

On 30 August 1935, General Viktor von Schwedler, head of the Army Personnel Department, answered her letter of 25 August 1935: ''I'm very sorry .... The laws explicitly state that your son cannot remain in the army. Despite his ancestors' meritorious service for the Fatherland, an Ausnahmebehandlung is not possible. I regret, my dear Lady ... not being able to give you a better answer." [287] The fact that Schwedler wrote such a sympathetic reply showed how much influence the family had. Schwedler had to enforce the law, but could not afford to dismiss this woman's protests lightly.

Frau von Gersdorff apparently had a nervous breakdown, but refused to give up. On 2 September 1935, she wrote to Schwedler again:

It's not fair that the same blood-mixes (Blutmischungen) are handled so differently .... My son is considered non-Aryan while the sons of the daughters of my sisters-in-law, who have the same blood mix are Aryan. The only difference is that my son has a non-aristocratic mother. ... I found out that my nephews' papers had been checked again and everything was fine with them .... Only hateful people could have brought my son's case to your attention. [288]


Since Schwedler still did not give her what she wanted, she took her case directly to the minister of war, General von Blomberg, on 5 September 1935. She wrote that if Blomberg reviewed the papers, he would see that the Jewish grandmother was christened at birth, and that her parents had already converted before she was born, thus making Hans-Gunther an Aryan. She went on to list the officers of the family. Frau von Gersdorff closed her letter saying, "I cannot believe ... that my son, who's with his whole soul and being a soldier deserves to have his life and mine destroyed because of denunciations." [289]

Blomberg replied on 18 September 1935 that he regretted having to discharge her son, but that he could not make an exception despite the family's distinguished military service: "I regret that 1 cannot spare you this difficult destiny." [290] Again, it was quite remarkable that she got a reply from Blomberg, even a courteous one.

Frau von Gersdorff wrote to Blomberg again on 2 October 1935 with her second argument, following the same strategy she had tried unsuccessfully with Schwedler. "The fact that my nephews [Horst and Wilhelm von Gottberg] can stay in the army shows that the grandmother is no problem for them .... I'm an Aryan .... This is definitely not the will of our Fuhrer." She pleaded with Blomberg to help her in this matter of "life or death." [291] Blomberg did not yield. Neither her suicide attempt nor more passionate letters to both Schwedler and Hitler did anything to help Hans-Gunther. All Frau von Gersdorff achieved was the discharge of her two nephews in January 1936. [292]

Yet three years later, Frau von Gersdorff's dream was realized for her son, but not because of her efforts. Hitler declared the two Gottberg brothers and Hans-Gunther deutschblutig, and the army recalled them to active duty. [293] Walther von Brauchitsch, army commander in chief, wrote to a friend of the Gottberg family, Hindenburg's daughter, Irmgard von Brockhusen, on 29 February 1940 about the case: "It's a special pleasure to be able to inform you that the Fuhrer ... has approved the re-call to active duty of ... Wilhelm von Gottberg .... [He] will be declared deutschblutig." [294] Brockhusen also received a friendly letter from Dr. Otto Meissner, head of the presidential chancellery: ''I'm delighted to be able to give you this news about this special exemption (Ausnahmebewilligung) [made for Wilhelm von Gottberg]," [295] Hans-Gunther must have received similar treatment as his cousin had.

Gersdorff fought with Artillery Regiment 156 during the western campaign in 1940 and received the EKI in May 1940. However, in 1942, First Lieutenant von Gersdorff, now married, spent three months and one week in military prison for taking his Russian lover, Shura, and her sister along with his unit and showing them the equipment under his control. The court ruled that he set a bad example and endangered his men by having women of the enemy in close quarters. [296] When Gersdorff was released, he returned to the fighting troops. He continued to have troubles, bombing his own troops with artillery in 1944. However, throughout 1943-1945, he was described as a "National Socialist" and continued serving until the war's end. [297]

CASE STUDY 2: ERNST PRAGER

The army discharged half-Jew Ernst Prager in 1934, but it was not until 1941 that Hitler awarded him the Deutschblutigkeitserklarung. The fiery, clearheaded, and deliberate Prager had started his application process in 1934, and three years later was still sending photos of himself and lengthy historical reports about his family, seven generations back, to the Wehrmacht and to Berlin's police headquarters. [298]

Prager's Jewish uncle, Stephan (retired World War I army major with both the EKII and EKI), helped him with his application. The family believed that if Ernst could get Hitler's Deutschblutigkeitserklarung, they could be protected. On 19 July 1937, Prager wrote his uncle that his case had been sent to the RMI, [299] but by the end of August, he still had heard nothing. [300] Although this news was disheartening, Prager's family still worked on his case by writing governmental officers, gathering new documents, and seeking advice where they could (i.e., from lawyers and officers). Luckily for Prager, as with many Mischling applicants Hitler considered, he had a high-profile personality supporting him. Wilhelm Haehnelt, [301] a well-known retired Luftwaffe general and a friend of Lammers, repeatedly wrote Lammers and the Wehrmacht to help Prager. [302] On 22 December 1937, Prager told his uncle Stephan that Haehnelt had heard that the bureaucrats had started to review his case. [303] He informed Stephan on 14 February 1938 that his application, like most others, had been filed away because the government was not in a hurry to deal with such cases. [304] Possibly one reason why Prager had to wait so long was because the authorities were being bombarded with applications. Prager continued trying throughout 1938-1941 for an exemption, but without success.

When the war in the Balkans broke out in the spring of 1941, Prager tried again to be reinstated. He wrote OKW on 24 May 1941 and emphasized his family's Christian values and military tradition and asked to be sent immediately to war: "1 chose the career of a soldier due to my deepest conviction and with a firm desire to be the best that I could be." [305] Prager also wanted to marry his fiancee, Hella, which he could do only if proclaimed deutschblutig.  [306] Without Hitler's approval, Prager could not legally get married to an Aryan or have children with one. Prager wrote his uncle that he had talked the matter over with his friend, Jiirgen Roth, one of Goring's adjutants. Roth claimed that it all depended on whether Hella could continue to fight with Prager. [307] He had already lost one fiancee (Ruth) because of his racial status, and he did not want to lose another. [308] Roth suggested that if he did not get clemency, then he and Hella could learn to "live for one another" instead of having children. Prager explained that such a position "contradicts the natural inclination of a woman. Hella loves children." [309] A few months later, Prager met with Amtsrat Hitze working in Losener's office to discuss his options. As he entered his office, Hitze said, "[Y]ou came here, First Lieutenant, because of marriage? You're making things difficult for yourself." [310] Hitze explained that only when he had done something noteworthy as a soldier could he expect to get an exemption. Ironically, since Prager could not serve, he could not receive it. The meeting ended. "I then went to the district court," Prager wrote, "totally consumed by my worries, nervous, and held together only by my will and ability to pull myself together in the hope of finding out whether I could again serve." [311] In the court, the civil servant told Prager, "Hopeless. We all had to fight, and the service of your ancestors will be considered, but I don't think it's enough for a Genehmigung." [312] Despairing, Prager believed he would not be able to pursue a career he so desired, would never marry the woman he so dearly loved, and would not be able to protect his cherished family. However, on 26 June 1941, he informed his uncle Stephan that his application had reached Hider's adjutant, Engel. Prager had heard that his and another half- Jew's applications had been sent on, and if approved, they would be the first half-Jews to reenter the army. [313]

Four months after the invasion of Russia, Hitler granted Prager the Deutschblutigkeitserklarung. When Haehnelt heard about Prager's award, he said, "Finally some good news during these shitty times (in dieser beschissenen Zeit)." [314] Prager wrote that Haehnelt cried because he was so happy for him. [315] In his diary, Prager wrote, "I finally belong to the army again." [316] Prager legally could serve, get married, and have children. He wrote Stephan after his wedding and said, "[T]hank you for your good wishes .... I know that you rejoice with me, and that a large stone has been removed from your heart." [317] Prager's uncle could not travel to the wedding because of the ban on Jews traveling inside Germany. [318] Prager wrote his uncle that the people at his wedding were truly happy about his Aryanization.  [319] Prager believed his Deutschblutigkeitserklarung was unique. [320] This was a customary response of most who received Hitler's award - most thought their case was special: "We can once again hold up our heads with pride .... This decision shows, especially during this particular time, the special handling of this case .... This exemption would've been impossible without grandfather's, your and father's attitudes and convictions. This fact should always maintain you and father when you have problems." [321] On 26 November, he learned that at least two other Mischlinge had also received the Deutschblutigkeitserklarung: "[A]nother lieutenant with the same situation has been approved. A third one, whose percentage I don't know, was in China as an instructor ... then he was in Spain and now he's a captain who received the Ritterkreuz (Borchard[t]!). [322] So, a well-deserved equalization (Gleichstellung) [of a Jewish person with an Aryan]!" [323] Prager continued to talk to his uncle about his Aryanization:

Hella seems now to dream the most. That poor child has suffered so much. She could really only believe what had happened when Hitler's letter came in the mail. Along with the documents came the news that the Office for Racial Research [324] will send me a certificate concerning my equality with Aryans. The letter further stated that I'm allowed to say I'm deutschblutig in questionnaires, as can my children. [325]


It was ironic that Prager's Jewish uncle had to continue to wear the Jewish star while Hitler's clemency gave his nephew permission to declare himself non-Jewish and to wear the army uniform with the swastika. Stephan, a convert to Christianity and strong German patriot, probably felt relieved that his nephew could enter his rightful place in society. Prager felt proud to once again serve in the Wehrmacht, but he was exhausted. By December 1941, he claimed that he was a nervous wreck. [326] The process to get the exemption had taken its toll.

It was unclear exactly why Hitler gave Prager the exemption. Possibly Bitler allowed him to reenter the army because of the heavy officer casualties Germany had experienced or because Lammers had recommended this case for his friend Haehnelt. However, Hitler really had no intention of protecting Prager's Jewish relatives, contrary to Prager's hopes. Prager's father would have to perform forced labor from 1941 until the end of the war, and his uncle Stephan would be sent to Theresienstadt in June 1942. Had Germany won the war or prolonged it, the Nazis would have deported Prager's father, although Prager's service did indeed prevent his deportation for years. Prager's father rightly said to his daughter-in-law after Ernst had been shot seven times in one day in March 1942 in Russia that "if he dies, I'm finished." [327] One bullet had grazed his head, another went through his neck, and two others had hit his shoulder. Remarkably, Prager crawled back through hundreds of yards of enemy territory to his own lines. During this amazing feat, Prager thought about his Jewish family. He knew if he died, they would die also. He had to survive.

But alas, his Deutschblutigkeitserklarung and his devout service since 1941 did not prevent his family from being persecuted. Haehnelt again wrote Lammers to help Prager, since several of his relatives had been deported in June 1942 and his father required to perform forced labor since 1941. On 2 April 1943, Haehnelt wrote Lammers that Prager, an "outstanding soldier," who had been wounded several times and had proven his bravery, had experienced several problems. Haehnelt asked that Prager's father, Heinrich, remain protected, though his Aryan wife had died: "The son shouldn't have to continually worry about his father." [328] Lammers answered Haehnelt on 8 April 1943 and told him that he had long been aware of Prager's case. Lammers assured him that he would help within the realm of possibilities. [329] Prager's case should have seemed hopeless when officers were being discharged because they were seen in public with a Jew or wrote a Jewish friend a birthday card. [330] Fortunately, his father was not deported for a second time and was only required to continue to perform forced labor in his hometown of Kulmbach. Prager, with the help from his friend Major Eberhard von Hanstein in OKW, was able to get support from the Wehrmacht to protect his father in 1943. Prager's position as a distinguished army officer who had received Hitler's Deutschblutigkeitserklarung also allowed him to prevent the deportation of his uncle Stephan from Theresienstadt to a death camp in 1942. Unfortunately, several other relatives did not benefit from Prager's unique status as an officer with the Fuhrer's clemency. [331] Prager ended the war as an army commander of a replacement battalion in Bayreuth. [332]

CASE STUDY 3: RAINER GARTNER

The third case is that of the unassuming, youthful playboy Rainer Gartner. It all started on 5 January 1942 when a man claimed at a Luftwaffe Unteroffizier meeting that one of them was Jewish. He demanded that the person reveal himself. After minutes of silence, Gartner's first sergeant (Spiess) nodded to Gartner to talk. Most were dumbfounded because Rainer was blond, blue-eyed, and looked like a "true Germanic man." Rainer lied and told them that he "was only 25 percent," thinking this would not shock them as much as being" 50 percent Jewish." He later feared what would happen when his commanders found out the truth. A depressing mood fell upon Gartner's comrades. Then his Spiess took Gartner aside and told him they would apply for Hitler's clemency. [333] "It has to work, because if it doesn't, I'm finished; I don't know what else to do," Gartner wrote his parents on 5 January 1942. [334]

As with most Mischlinge, his family rallied to his cause. During 1942, Rainer's father, Dr. Robert Gartner, met with officers in the Reichskanzlei and wrote letters to OKW. In February 1942, Dr. Gartner finally found a "nice and humane" and "competent man," Commander Frey in OKH, who told them what they needed to do to receive clemency. Frey told Dr. Gartner that to prevent Rainer's discharge, they should apply for Hitler's Genehmigung immediately. Frey added that Rainer's regiment needed to submit his application and send it through Goring to Hitler, who then would personally decide the case. Frey instructed Dr. Gartner that until it reached Hitler, he (Frey) would process the application. He added that Rainer might face difficulties if he did not have combat medals. Only those cases, Frey claimed, got approved without difficulties. Since Rainer worked in a general staff office, his father reported that he "hasn't had contact with the enemy and thus hasn't ... received any military honors. However, Frey told me that we shouldn't lose hope .... He said that the decision made for or against the applicant depended also on Rainer's and his parents' personalities." [335] The family felt that Rainer's application would not be delayed forever, and delay might even prove useful (giving him an opportunity to receive combat honors). [336] Rainer needed the exemption to find work and marry. Dr. Gartner felt that his son's Jewish mother's early conversion and World War I service as a nurse would help him. He also felt that Rainer's participation in the youth Stahlhelm and in the SA would show Rainer's Aryan convictions. And last of all, Dr. Gartner believed his own service, for which he had also volunteered, and which eventually resulted in his becoming a decorated World War I officer, would aid Rainer. [337] Yet, Rainer experienced troubles from the start. His superiors should never have promoted him to Unteroffizier, and thus, his unit started to experience difficulties from the higher-ups. Consequently, Rainer experienced complications getting the recommendation from his superior, who felt perturbed that he had promoted a non-Aryan illegally. Rainer worried about what his officer would write to OKL. But Rainer and his father did not let this setback discourage them, and they continued working on Rainer's application.

A few weeks later, Rainer's friend and teacher, Dr. Hans-Harder Biermann-Ratjen, wrote Rainer a recommendation. He had observed Rainer's development for years, never noticing anything particularly Jewish: "[H]e looks like a typical Aryan, and Rainer was raised German." He described how Rainer loved his fatherland and that he should not be discharged because "he's the typical soldier type ... [and] can be totally relied upon politically due to his ancestry and education." [338] Frau Marianne Gartner also asked friends for recommendations. In February 1942, she wrote Professor Risshon: "Today, I come to you for your help. We're worried sick for our boy. For 3.5 years he has been a soldier and for the last 1.5 years he has been an NCO, and now, suddenly his ancestry has become problematic." She explained that Rainer had never lied, but that suddenly in the last year, half-Jews were no longer allowed to serve without special permission. With such a statement, she either was consciously lying or was repeating what Rainer had told the family. She pleaded for help. The professor granted them assistance and wrote a letter similar to Biermann-Ratjen's.

Rainer worried about his mother and had written his father to watch after her. He knew that she would feel unsettled: "[P]lease explain to mother diplomatically that she shouldn't talk about this with certain people." [339] On 5 January 1942, Rainer wrote his parents for certificates of his mother's and father's World War I medals, [340] and on 7 March 1942, Rainer wrote an urgent letter to his father and requested photos of himself and his family. [341] The father sent them and continued to pursue other people for recommendations. Dr. Gartner wrote Rainer on 15 March 1942 that they would get a recommendation from Uncle Emil, who was a World War I officer and Rainer's boss during civilian life. Frey had informed him that "recommendations from officers are especially important and mean much more than recommendations from civilians." [342] Two days later, Dr. Gartner expressed his surprise that not only did Rainer have to send front and profile photos of himself, but photos of his parents as well. [343] Frey also informed Dr. Gartner that Rainer needed to report for frontline duty. Frau Gartner strongly disagreed, but the father insisted that Rainer "must show that he has no fear." [344]

The family worked on their genealogy for weeks and gathered the appropriate pictures. Rainer even wrote a twenty-page resume. [345] Frey emphasized the need for good photos, so on 27 March 1942, Dr. Gartner wrote his son: "I've sent you all the photos, a small shot from when you were a recruit, the Norway photo, which I don't particularly like, but your mother thought it was important to include, and the picture from Italy which I think is the best. It's also half-profile and that's what counts -- the nose." Then Dr. Gartner informed Rainer to stress that his Jewish family were honorable citizens. [346] A few days later, Rainer's old SA officer, Schwenn Lindemann, wrote a recommendation in which he described Rainer as "neither Jewish in his looks nor behavior. ... [H]e's positive about Nationalistic matters ... and I know how much he suffers from this ancestry business." [347] In August 1942, depressed, Rainer confided his situation to Hannerle, one of his girlfriends. Later, she described the event: "Your situation is now my situation .... You had no one you could trust .... You came to me in my room and laid your head on my shoulder and said, 'They want to destroy me.' ... then that evening you told me everything." [348]

The family continued to gather data for the next year and a half. Then the situation turned tragic. A report about Rainer's death reached Dr. Gartner in 1944. Rainer's commander, Captain Giese, sent him the official notification on 14 January 1945:

[Rainer] did his duty and received the praise and respect of his commanders. During the terrible weather these last few months, he proved that he had a tough and soldierly spirit .... He never took his frustrations out on anybody. I knew all about his problems .... His death is a sacrifice for his Fatherland .... You should be proud of your only son, Rainer, who knew why we must all do our duty to the very end. [349]


On 10 February 1945, Dr. Gartner thanked Giese and explained how disappointed he felt because a few weeks before Rainer's death, a KW had rejected Rainer's application. Hitler no longer reviewed such cases. Dr. Gartner thought that God may have spared Rainer from being discharged and sent to an OT forced labor camp, which would have destroyed him. [350] Rainer's case was probably not abnormal. Thousands of families probably experienced the same process as Rainer's did, and most were disappointed.

CASE STUDY 4: THE METTENHEIM FAMILY

The last case involves the ordeal of the Mettenheim family. The family experienced several problems throughout the Nazi regime. By summer 1941, they had sons in the army. In July 1941, one son would die in battle in Russia. The strong-willed Clara von Mettenheim asked her husband to write OKW on 9 September 1941 on behalf of their boys. After discussing one son's difficulties, he wrote:

[W]ill the Mischlinge recalled to active duty be treated the same as other soldiers? Does this mean they have all their civil rights back (like permission to marry)? Or will they be told to wait until after the war? Will a department be created for them like it was for the old Foreign Legion? My sons don't need to "prove themselves" (bewahren), as one secret decree said they would have to. They have been decorated for their duty in battle. One with the EKII, the other got his a week after he was discharged. My third son, whose unworthiness to be a soldier due to his Jewish ancestry was not known by the authorities, was promoted and awarded the Iron Cross and died in battle in Russia. His commander wrote, "[H]e was an exemplary front line soldier with regard to his willingness and readiness for action. His ambition, especially during difficult times, will never be forgotten." [351]


Professor Heinrich von Mettenheim lobbied for equal rights for his sons on the basis of their meritorious service. Obviously irritated with the authorities, he could not understand the double standard the Wehrmacht followed. He found it incomprehensible that Germany could treat loyal soldiers with such disrespect. On 13 September 1941, Frey answered that since their sons had proven themselves, exemptions were possible. To move their applications on to Hitler, Frey needed their names, ranks, and units. Moreover, he requested photos of them showing front and side shots. "If the Fuhrer decides to approve the applications of your sons to reenter the Wehrmacht, they'll be handled just like every other soldier. ... If your children continue to prove themselves, the Fiihrer reserves the right to decide after the war whether or not half-Jews will be declared deutschblutig." [352] On 21 October 1941, Frey informed the family that one of the sons, Dieter, had received Hitler's Genehmigung to reenter the army. [353] Hitler had rejected the other son.

On 22 March 1943, Professor von Mettenheim wrote OKW and requested exemptions from the Gestapo measures against Jews that prevented his wife from using Aryan doctors or leaving her house when she wanted. He pleaded with OKW to free from the debilitating laws a mother of a fallen soldier and of a son who had received Hitler's Genehmigung and been wounded. [354] No reply was forthcoming. During this time, relatives continued to disappear. They were being deported to concentration camps throughout Europe. [355] These events had taken their toll on the family. Frau von Mettenheim felt responsible for Eberhardt's death, her eldest son, especially after she heard how he died. He had seen a wounded comrade on the battlefield and decided to rescue him. While helping the man, he was killed. Frau von Mettenheim wrote that "he didn't have to stay out there ... he only did it because he wanted to compensate with a medal for his blemish (me!), or possibly he wanted to die to escape everything." [356] After not hearing anything for months, Professor von Mettenheim wrote OKW on 4 November 1943 that he realized they were not willing to protect the mother of a fallen soldier. He wanted his letters returned. OKW finally responded that it could do nothing. This only added to the family's trauma. [357] On 29 January 1944, Professor von Mettenheim died during a British air raid on Frankfurt. Consequently, Frau von Mettenheim lost the protection of her privileged mixed marriage. With the help of one of her sons, she went into hiding on 10 February 1944 and survived the Holocaust. Three of her four sons survived the war.

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Power structures under Hitler, late 1941.

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Execution of Jews in Lemberg, Russia, in a photograph taken by half-Jew Funker Friedemann Lichtwitz when he was a soldier. He was later deported to Dachau.

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Half-Jews and brothers Werner (left) and Rudolf (right) Sachs (last rank for both Obergefreiter).

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Bryan Mark Rigg and Chancellor Helmut Schmidt in 1995.

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Quarter-Jew Helmut Schmidt (last rank first lieutenant).

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Half-Jew Hans Gunzel in Russia (last rank Unteroffizier). (Military awards: EKI, EKII, Assault Badge, and Eastern Campaign Medal 1941-1942.)

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Quarter-Jew Horst von Oppenfeld (last rank captain); he was Stauffenberg's adjutant in Africa. (Military awards: EKI, EKII, Panzer Assault Badge in Silver, and Wound Badge.)

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Half-Jew Rolf Schenk (last rank Oberschutze), who was later deported to Buchenwald.

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Jewish professor and medical doctor Alexander Czempin (29 October 1861- 1 March 1943), the grandfather of half-Jew and Unteroffizier Robert Czempin. He committed suicide before his deportation.

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Half-Jew Robert Czempin (last rank Unteroffizier). (Military awards: EKII, Wound Badge in Gold, Assault Badge, and German-Italian Campaign Medal.) He lost a leg in battle.
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Re: Hitler's Jewish Soldiers: The Untold Story of Nazi Racia

Postby admin » Wed Apr 25, 2018 10:10 pm

Chapter 9: What Did Mischlinge Know about the Holocaust?

Most soldiers in war have enough trauma "with physical hardships, the psychological burden, and the often crushing anxieties of death and killing that constitute the everyday life" [1] of combat without worrying about their families' and their own persecution at the hands of their countrymen. Jewish and Mischling soldiers not only served in armed forces controlled by a government hostile to them as racially inferior beings, but many also witnessed the disappearance and occasionally the death of their relatives. This chapter discusses how Mischling and Jewish soldiers experienced the persecution of the Jews. The question that will be looked at most closely is, Did these men know about the Holocaust (i.e., the systematic murder of Jews by the Nazis)?

Mischlinge became accustomed to seeing not only themselves but also their family members persecuted. For example, on 7 August 1935, several Nazi hooligans broke into the home of the half-Jew Hans Krackow. His son Jurgen remembered his mother, Ursula, asking the crowd what they had done. One man answered her, "You should've thought about that before you went to bed with a Judenlummel." [2] Another yelled, "Does the Jew fuck better?" They all laughed and tore up the whole house. Hans locked his family in a room and called a World War I comrade who now commanded troops in the area. Eventually, the troops arrived and dispersed the hooligans. The Krackows tried to leave Germany, but could not find overseas support, so they stayed. [3] Throughout 1944, Hans anxiously expected the Nazis to deport him to a concentration camp. The Krackows' dilemma mirrored the plight of many Mischling families.

Mischlinge often remained in Germany because they did not feel as threatened as their Jewish relatives, still had to finish their military service, or could not find overseas support. Quarter-Jew Ludwig Reinhard could have left for New York but did not do so because he did not feel at risk. [4] Peter Scholz tried to leave, but his Jewish mother, Olga (Olli) Gertrud Scholz nee Samuel, reminded him, "You cannot leave, you have to serve." This in fact was true. [5] Most who wanted to emigrate, especially to the United States, experienced difficulties because of red tape, basic immigration restrictions, and lack of financial support. Many faced obstacles because the immigration authorities dealt with Mischlinge as with other German nationals. [6] Half-Jew Hans Pollak, living in the United Kingdom in 1937, tried to enter the English army to remain in England, but was rejected and returned to Germany, where the Wehrmacht drafted him. He served the entire war as an Obergefreiter and was decorated with the EKII and the Golden Wound Badge. [7] Tragically, a few half-Jews would later face emigrated Jewish relatives in combat who had entered Allied armies. [8] In the late 1930s, Gefreiter Hans-Geert Falkenberg's Jewish father, Richard Albert, immigrated to England and changed his name to Mountfalcon. After the war, Falkenberg learned that his father's British unit had fought against his Wehrmacht unit during the French campaign in 1940. [9]

Many started to awaken to the danger of their situation after Reichskristallnacht on 9-10 November 1938 when the Nazis carted off some of their Jewish parents to concentration camps. For example, the Nazis deported the Jewish father of Heinz-Georg Heymann to Buchenwald. A few months later, after his release, Heymann's father, Georg-Jakob, left for England. Gefreiter Heymann had to endure this while he served in the Luftwaffe. [10] Dietrich Moll had to swear the oath of loyalty to Hitler while his father, Leonard, was in Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Moll later became an Obergefreiter. He said that "the situation drove you crazy" but that he still did not consider leaving Germany. [11] After the Nazis arrested his Jewish father, Walter Hamburger went to the Gestapo jail to see him, only to find out that his father had been sent to the Dachau concentration camp. During this time of turmoil, Hamburger decided to volunteer for the army. He thought his service might help his family. [12]

The Nazis mistreated not only many Mischlinge's parents during Reichskristallnacht, but many Mischlinge also suffered humiliation and persecution. For example, a group of SA men noticed half-Jew Dieter Bergmann watching the Jewish buildings in Leipzig go up in flames and accused him of being Jewish. Bergmann "stammered, 'I'm not Jewish.''' "I felt like Judas," Bergmann later recalled. The SA men, unsatisfied with this halfhearted answer, said, "All right, shithead, if you aren't Jewish, you must have a cute little bit of skin down there. Let's see it." They forced Bergmann to remove his pants. On seeing his uncircumcised penis, one of the SA men said he was "lucky" tonight and then kicked him on the "behind so that I slid into the street." Bergmann quickly dressed himself and disappeared into the night. [13]

After 1939, the situation worsened for Mischlinge and their families, but most still failed to foresee the coming danger. For example, Hans-Geert Falkenberg corresponded with and sent money to his Jewish grandmother Ida Klein nee Lowe, who had been deported to the Glusk ghetto, south of Lublin, on 12 February 1940. She remained there until 1943, when she was murdered. [14] She wrote Falkenberg on 8 July 1940:

The hopelessness makes me so unbelievably sad .... It's cruel one has to die soon .... If there's a God, a Higher-Being, how can He allow such horrible things to happen? ... Most of the people now have no conscience or else all this horribleness wouldn't happen .... [I write this] letter to say goodbye to you with a bleeding heart because the world is so beautiful. The distant view of the fields, the forest ... the magnificent colors of the sky, the beautiful sunset fills me with wonder. At the same time it's sad to think I have to leave all this without seeing my loved ones again. I will die a cruel death, sacrificed to someone's mania. [15]


Falkenberg thought his grandmother had exaggerated her situation. [16] In response to one of his letters, she wrote him on 5 April 1942 that "no one has a clue what beastly things are going on here." [17] On 10 May 1942, she described how a man in the ghetto was shot because he did not wear his Jewish star. [18] Soon thereafter, her letters stopped. Not hearing from her, Falkenberg decided to leave for Glusk in September 1943 to visit her. After he arrived in this village, he found out that all the Jews there had been deported to an unknown destination. After the war, Falkenberg realized that the Nazis had murdered his grandmother and that her letters were not written by a "delusional old woman." But by then he had read about the Nuremberg trials, and the facts were clear about what had happened to Jews under Hitler. Geltungsjudin Rita Kuhn echoed Falkenberg when she said, "It was not until 1945, after I had seen the liberation of the concentration camp at Buchenwald on a movie screen and learned of other death camps that I knew that many members of my family and all those friends who had disappeared after 1942 would never return." [19]

Another person who failed to see the Holocaust was General Werner Maltzahn, who commanded Celle's mortar rocket school and had led regiments in Russia. He lost his Jewish mother, half-sister, and two nieces in the Endlosung. [20] According to the files, he did nothing to prevent his family's deportation and ultimate death. His lover, who wishes to remain anonymous, said Maltzahn did not know until after the war what had happened to his family.

Many officers, like Maltzahn, were simply passionate soldiers and confined their thoughts and actions to the military realm. For example, half-Jew General Richard Metz wrote in June 1946 that he would like "to remember the German soldier once again with respect and thankfulness" for his "heroic deeds throughout the war." Metz commented that they remained true to their oath and bravely fought for "Volk and Fatherland." Metz ended his report with: "To have been the leader of such soldiers will always be the thankful and proud memory of every German officer." [21] There was no mention of the devastation European Jewry suffered under Hitler. The omission is striking, since he was a half-Jew and the Nuremberg trials had just happened. Although the evidence is not conclusive, he probably lost several relatives in the Holocaust.

Like most other Germans, many Mischlinge knew about deportations, but did not equate them with systematic murder. Wolfgang Lennert, a quarter-Jew, had a Jewish girlfriend, Marie Handler. While in the army, he wrote his mother on 17 January 1941 that he would continue to aid Marie. [22] While Lennert fought in Russia, Marie was deported on 13 June 1942. [23] Lennert wrote his mother on 28 July 1942 that the knowledge of Marie's uncertain destiny depressed him. [24] On 12 October 1942, Wolfgang again wrote his mother and wondered how Marie was. He trusted that "God would give her strength." [25] Marie was murdered shortly after her arrival at Majdanek in June 1942, [26] but Lennert never learned of her fate. He died in battle in 1943.


The cause of the denial or ignorance (or both) of Falkenberg, Maltzahn, Metz, and Lennert of the atrocities committed against their loved ones could have stemmed from their disbelief or lack of understanding of the mechanism of death operating under Hitler. Whatever they thought, their actions demonstrate that they did not comprehend what was happening to their loved ones. Most claim that they learned what had befallen their relatives only after the war.

Some might think that had Falkenberg, Maltzahn, Metz, and Lennert witnessed their loved ones' deportation, they might have behaved differently. This study's evidence suggests the opposite. For example, Feldwebel [27] Georg-Friedrich Muller, who had received Hitler's Genehmigung, visited some of his family on the night of their deportation. He claims he did not know until after the war what fate awaited them. While on leave from the front and in full uniform, he went to his Jewish cousin's house in Berlin. After he knocked on the door, a relative hesitantly opened it. The entire house was empty except for about ten people. Muller alleged that he could feel the fear. Three generations waited in the room, from a toddler who played among the baggage to an old, gray-haired grandmother who nervously twisted her handkerchief. All wore the Jewish star. Muller never saw them again after he left their home that night. [28] At the time, he did not think they would be killed. Only after the war did he learn that they had all been murdered.

In 1943, Dieter Bergmann secretly visited his Jewish grandmother, Elly Landsberg nee Mockrauer. He knew it was dangerous to visit her but decided to see her although he had been ignoring her because she was a Jew. [29] As Bergmann talked with his grandmother, the SS came. His grandmother introduced her grandson, the army Unteroffizier. Bewildered, the SS left. Unfortunately, the next day, the SS took his grandmother away. The Nazis deported her first to Theresienstadt and then later to Auschwitz. "That was the last time I saw her," Bergmann said sadly. It did not enter Bergmann's mind that she was being sent to her death. [30]

Even if a Mischling was in a ghetto, he did not necessarily know what awaited those in it. Half-Jew Gefreiter Alfred Posselt fell in love with a Jew, Helene (Halina) Goldner, in the ghetto at Rzeszow, Galicia. [31] He worked at a nearby airport with his unit. Posselt claimed that he would sneak into the ghetto and bring her family food. While there, he witnessed Jews being executed and heard about deportations to the Belzec death camp. One day when he went to see Helene, she was gone and the ghetto had been liquidated. Posselt continued to serve for several more years while his own family disappeared. [32] The significance of what he witnessed did not escape him, but he felt that he could do nothing but continue serving. He believed the evil he had witnessed was an exception and not the rule. [33]


Not only did men like Muller, Bergmann, and Posselt witness deportations, but many knew about the suicides of relatives who did not want to be deported. Ex-Obergefreiter Heinz Gunther Angress' two great-aunts took the barbiturate Veronal before they would have been deported in February 1942. [34] In 1942 Obergefreiter Hans Pollak lost his father, who committed suicide before he could be deported to the Stutthof concentration camp near Danzig. [35] Another man who wishes to remain anonymous remembered coming home and finding no one to greet him at the front door. As he walked into the house, he called for his Jewish grandmother. There was no reply. As he entered the kitchen, he saw her legs dangling. She had hanged herself, and the corpse had started to decay. The young man pulled her down and held her in his arms. Tears welled up in his eyes as he sat there saying softly, "No. No. No." Later, he found her suicide note. She apologized for leaving this world and regretted having caused her dear grandson so many worries. She was tired of living with fear. [36]

Hermann Schucht's Jewish mother, Luise nee Friedenthal, committed suicide on 15 October 1942 before she would have been deported to Theresienstadt. She wrote, "My dear Son! Don't be upset with me that I left this life without telling you goodbye. I believe this decision is best for both of us. You have enough problems of your own to deal with, and your dear wife will stand by you when hard times come .... Times now are horrific and there's no way out for me .... An eternal kiss I send you. Love, your Mommy." [37]
Frau Schucht had abandoned her illusions of living unharmed under Nazi rule, painfully concluding that she would soon have to die. Instead of giving the Nazis the gratification of murdering her, she decided to take her own life.

Robert Czempin's Jewish grandfather, Alex Czempin, also committed suicide. Robert was an Unteroffizier who lost a leg in battle and was decorated with the EKII and Silver Wound Badge. He recalled his grandfather standing over his bed one evening in 1943, saying the holy Jewish Kaddish prayer for the dead. Robert Czempin alleged "that it was his goodbye, a goodbye forever." He pretended to sleep. He admired his grandfather's courage. His grandfather did not want to be taken to a concentration camp. That night the grandfather took poison. He left a note to his grandson:

[quote]If I'd not killed myself, your worries would've only increased, and you may have faced unimaginable tortures. Believe me, this is best for all of us. I'm old and this way I can die in my own bed. That's much better than to be driven to some horrible death by inhumane persons. This way maybe a rabbi (if there still is a rabbi alive in Berlin) will say Kaddish at my grave. I've tried all my life to be an honorable person.... Although it sounds very strange, I was more Prussian than Jew... However, I did do my best to live by God's laws .... The Nazis have almost taken everything I have .... Think of your grandfather occasionally, who loved you dearly. God protect you! Alex. [38][/quote]

Czempin's grandfather knew what awaited him after deportation. Consequently, just as Frau Schucht had done, Czempin's grandfather chose to die on his own terms. "And once again Hitler had a small victory -- one less Jew!" Czempin later wrote. He knew that deportation was horrible, but states today that he did not know Hitler had decided to systematically murder the Jews. [39]

Most did not believe deportation would turn out to be murderous. For example, Joachim Gaehde said that after his eighty-four-year-old grandfather, Carl Pick, and his great-aunt, Else Pick, committed suicide in March 1942, he was "angry and grief-stricken, but I don't remember drawing any conclusions as to the impending danger." [40] Most felt that their relatives who committed suicide were most often quite old and did not want to suffer further humiliation and persecution. Death camps were unimaginable.

Most had heard rumors that Jews were being sent to Madagascar (which the Nazis actually had planned to do before the war) [41] or to a colony in the East. Some had heard about shootings and gassings, but most had no evidence for such accusations. Hans Schmechel, who lost both grandparents, Emma and Wilhelm Gotha, at Theresienstadt, manned a flak gun in 1944 while the Nazis deported his brothers, Horst and Heinz, to an OT forced labor camp. They found it quite ironic that two of them had to perform forced labor in an OT camp while the other served in the Luftwaffe. Schmechel's family had only heard about the atrocities when his Aryan uncle, Walter Schmechel, a guard at Auschwitz, came home in 1943 and reported what he had seen. The family believed the uncle but still did not know that systematic extermination of millions was under way. [42]

An even more bizarre case was that of Horst Reinhard's [43] family. While Reinhard served with false papers to make the authorities think he was a quarter-Jew, his father was forced to serve as an army staff sergeant in the SS guard unit at the concentration camp Flossenburg. Reinhard's Jewish mother, Marie, even lived with her husband in the camp's staff housing and thus survived. Reinhard said that although he wrote letters to his parents at this camp, he did not know about the Holocaust until the 1950s. He knew about deportations but, like most other Germans, never thought the Jews were systematically murdered. [44] The Schmechel and Reinhard families had more information than most families, but they still failed to either understand or believe the signs they received.

Most profess that they did not see anything that revealed the genocide. Only a few witnessed atrocities. The actions of men who witnessed atrocities differ little from those who did not. Most did not defy the Nazis because they knew it was useless and suicidal.

Fritz Steinwasser witnessed the SS murder a group of Jews in Latvia. "I looked into the eyes of my people. There in the last minutes of their life. I was shocked. My heart bled." [45] During their invasion of Latvia, near the city of Diinaburg (Dugavpils) while stopped on a bridge two hundred meters away, Steinwasser observed the Latvian SS drive a group of naked Jews into a trench. "There were even babies still sucking on their mothers' breasts," Fritz said. The SS shot them all. Steinwasser, with a sick stomach and tears in his eyes, did think of his family. "That could have been my grandfather!" [46] However, he believed that what he had witnessed was uncommon. Yet, Steinwasser's grandfather would later be deported to Theresienstadt and his uncle would die in Buchenwald. [47]

In their unique status as both soldiers and partial Jews, some Mischlinge witnessed Jewish persecution at crucial sites of the Holocaust. But shocked as they were, they were unable to prevent it. The highly distinguished Ritterkreuz recipient Colonel Walter Hollaender, a half-Jew, when asked by his wife, Hertha-Barbara, in the 1970s whether he wanted to see Dachau, replied, "Ah, I saw enough of that when I had to go through the Warsaw ghetto in 1943." [48] According to Frau Hollaender, he did not see the larger picture of what was happening to Jews in general and continued to serve with distinction. Robert Braun, a half-Jew and ex-Unterarzt who worked in a pharmaceutical plant in Hamburg, visited the Neuengamme concentration camp with an SS officer whom Braun had helped conduct research for his doctorate in medicine. [49] Although Braun helped the SS officer study how certain medicines could help "the poor creatures in the concentration camp" who had dysentery, Braun did not draw any conclusions about the Holocaust from his time there. [50] Throughout 1943, Dieter Bergmann worked in a rubber factory in Litzmannstadt, today Lodz. He had to travel through the Jewish ghetto on his way from his home to the factory. Bergmann "saw so much suffering." However, he eventually "decided to bury my face in a newspaper like everybody else on the streetcar, and so participated in the world-wide conspiracy not to see the inhumanity." [51] Bergmann admits that he lived a "normal" life in Lodz. He acknowledges that he did not try to help any Jews, something for which he feels guilty today. However, he claimed in 1996 that his experience there would never have led him to conclude that a systematic extermination of the Jews was under way elsewhere. [52]

A few have claimed they knew quite a lot about the Holocaust. For example, the ex-Obergefreiter Klaus Florey, a half-Jew, had heard rumors from returning soldiers about the death camps in Poland. He claimed that he knew by 1942 about the systematic murder of the Jews because of how many relatives and friends had disappeared, and because by 1944, strong rumors about the gas chambers had become commonplace. [53] When asked why he did not investigate these rumors, he simply said, "I knew that some of the deported Jews were killed. The gas chambers were rumors, hard to believe. How could I investigate? Go up to an SS officer and ask him? That probably would have been the end of me!" [54] Gefreiter Heinz Bleicher, who trained troops in the region of Belci in Rumania, claimed that during the summer of 1941, he observed what the Einsatzgruppen did to Jews. He witnessed the "bestial" manner in which the SS shot hundreds of Jews in cold blood. Later, the brother and sister of his Jewish mother, Helen Bleicher nee Wolff, were sent to Buchenwald and Riga, respectively. Both were murdered in these camps. [55] Half-Jew Hanns Rehfeld knew the Nazis murdered most people they deported and heard about Auschwitz and all its horror during the Christmas of 1942 from friends of his in a mixed marriage. In "hidden terms," some of his acquaintances knew about it, but then added "perhaps not in every detail." Former classmates of Rehfeld's showed him photos from their brothers on the front, where naked Jews had been shot in ditches. [56] During the last days of the war, Rehfeld was in Breslau and heard from the soldiers defending the city that they feared that the Russians would do to them what Germany had done to the Jews. At the very end, when Rehfeld was in the protective care of nuns in a monastery, the nuns told him of the stories that dying soldiers in their care had told them about the murder of Jews. [57] Florey, Bleicher, and Rehfeld's accounts are the exception rather than the rule among Mischling interviewees. Their knowledge of the systematic murder was rare. The Waffen-SS soldier Gunter Lowy lost his entire family at Minsk, with the exception of his mother, who escaped to Switzerland. Lowy knew about the concentration camps at Draney and Auschwitz and that people were being gassed. He claimed he continued to serve to survive. [58] However, while in the Waffen-SS, he does not remember any of his comrades talking about the Holocaust. [59] Lowy firmly believed that his Waffen-SS comrades did not know about the Holocaust. However, he added, had his comrades known he was a Jew, they would have "hung me up on the first tree." [60] That even Waffen-SS soldiers remained unaware of the Holocaust, in the opinion of a Jew who did know about it, shows how difficult it was to grasp the deadly fate of the Jews. Florey claimed that the general population had enough to worry about (their husbands and sons in the war and air raids at home) to be concerned about the Jews. [61]

Some were asked to participate in the killings, but none documented in this study admitted to taking part. Half-Jew Alfred Catharin's superior ordered him to take part in the execution of Jews. Catharin knew that disobedience would be punished with imprisonment. Fortunately for him, he found another comrade who was willing to take his place. Later, his comrade told him how they had taken the Jews to a field and shot them. [62] Scared as Catharin was, he felt that as long as he wore his uniform, he and his family would remain protected. Like many others, Catharin did not draw any sweeping conclusions from what he had heard from his comrade as to what was happening to Jews in general.

In this study, some of the nine Mischling veterans deported to concentration camps failed to fully comprehend what was going on. [63] Most testified that until they were sent to the camps, they had no idea about the extreme persecution there and, even then, had no knowledge of the systematic extermination of Jews going on in the death camps. Ex-Funker Friedemann Lichtwitz was sent to Dachau, where he was prisoner number 144724, because he tried to escape from his OT forced labor camp. He contends that although he lived in Dachau and saw all its horror, he still did not know about the systematic extermination of Jews until after the war. [64] Ex-Oberschutze Rolf Schenk was sent to Buchenwald, where he was prisoner number 134658, because he was a half-Jew and a political enemy of the regime. Although he experienced one of Hitler's camps, he said he did not know about the true extent of the Holocaust until after the war. [65] One must realize that reports on the systematic extermination of Jews were Geheime Reichssachen (top secret operations), and indiscretions about it were severely punished, making it difficult to obtain concrete evidence about the industrialized mass murder. Moreover, the experiences of Lichtwitz and Schenk, although horrible, did not take place in extermination camps like Auschwitz or Treblinka.

Contrary to expectations, this study has documented that some people of Jewish descent participated directly in the Holocaust as perpetrators, primarily because of their rank and responsibilities. Like most high-ranking Nazi officials at the Nuremberg trials, Field Marshal Erhard Milch, a half-Jew, lied when he swore that he did not know about the Holocaust. [66] He had read reports from Dr. Sigmund Rascher, the notorious doctor at Dachau who conducted brutal experiments. [67] Milch wrote the head of Himmler's personal staff, SS General Karl Wolff, on 20 March 1942 about the "interesting" experiments at Dachau. [68] On 31 August 1942, Milch also wrote Himmler to express his interest in Rascher's tests. [69] Besides knowing about and approving of these horrific experiments, Milch also served as co-chairman with Speer on the Pursuit Plans Staff, which needed about a quarter-million slave workers. Milch knew of about one hundred thousand Hungarian Jews expected in Auschwitz who could be utilized for his project. [70] With respect to slave labor, Milch (probably in 1942) told General Carl-August von Gablenz that he wanted him "to get in touch with [General Hermann] Reinecke concerning the French POW's. I demand that if the people refuse to work they immediately be placed against the wall and shot." [71] As historian Georg Meyer asserted, Milch can be considered a "German Jewish war criminal." [72] Unfortunately, Milch was not alone.

Ministerialrat [73] in the Reichskanzlei Dr. Leo Killy, a quarter-Jew who had a half-Jewish wife and who received Hitler's clemency in 1936 [74] was a paradox. He should have been grateful that Hitler had saved his immediate family and should have refrained from harming others in the same situation. Instead, as Raul Hilberg writes, he "performed significant functions" in the destruction of the Jews. [75]

Even more detestable was the notorious doctor at Dachau, Dr. Hans Eppinger, a quarter-Jew, possibly a half-Jew, who performed horrible experiments on inmates. Like Milch, he not only knew about but also participated in evil medical studies. [76] Some people claim that he may have been 75 percent Jewish and was able to obtain false papers. [77] He killed himself awaiting his trial in 1946. [78]

Stella Goldschlag, a Jew, helped the Gestapo hunt down hidden Jews in Berlin to deport to the East. [79] She was a beautiful woman, with blue eyes and blond hair. The Gestapo told her that they intended to declare her Aryan. [80] Called the "blond poison," she was responsible for several, if not hundreds, of people's deaths. [81] She claims that her only crime was survival. [82] Stella was not alone. The Jew Gunther Abrahamsohn, another "catcher (Greifer)," as they were called, also helped the Gestapo locate Jews in hiding. He claimed after the war that he did so to survive. [83] Stella and Abrahamsohn were two of around fifteen to twenty "catchers" working in Berlin. [84]


Some ran concentration camps. SS-Obersturmfuhrer [85] Fritz Scherwitz (real name Eleke Sirewiz), a Jew and Nazi Party member, controlled the concentration camp at Lenta [86] outside of Riga and was responsible for sending Jews to their deaths. [87] Witnesses claimed that he personally took part in the killing of two hundred Jews in Riga on 31 October 1942 and raped several women. [88] After the war, he worked in a Munich organization that helped Jews recover their property until someone recognized him and reported him to the authorities. Scherwitz was brought to trial as a war criminal.

Yet the cases of Milch, Killy, Eppinger, Goldschlag, Abrahamsohn, and Scherwitz were rare. Few people of Jewish descent attained the rank, positions, and responsibility that these people did. Perhaps they behaved as they did to show the Nazis that they truly believed in Hitler's Weltanschauung. Possibly they felt that the more brutal they acted, the more Aryan they appeared. However, unlike the others, the Nazis did not know about Scherwitz's Jewishness. Perhaps he was "a pathological killer," [89] as one rabbi claimed. Why Scherwitz acted as he did is puzzling, but what he did was no less pathological than the actions of Milch, Killy, and Eppinger, as well as some others, although one would think their Jewish ancestry should have prevented them from acting as they did.

Many Mischlinge heard wild rumors but did not want to investigate for fear of jeopardizing their own lives. When asked why he continued to serve despite all he knew, half-Jew Hans Pollak replied, "I had to put my teeth together and bite down. Somehow, life must continue, I thought." [90] In other words, Pollak saw little else he could do realistically. Many living as civilians did not want to draw undue attention to themselves. Most just wanted to survive. Half-Jew Peter Gaupp said he knew about concentration camps, but not about the Holocaust. He claimed it was easy to ignore what was happening to the Jews. Such a reaction, according to Gaupp, was only natural, only "human" under the circumstances. [91]

Many who heard about the atrocities did not believe the reports. Half-Jew Peter Schliesser said that "it was hard if not impossible to imagine that the Jews were deported to be killed." Even when his father told him about this in 1944, he did not believe it. [92] Others did not concern themselves with the atrocities, although they knew about them. Captain Horst von Oppenfeld, a quarter-Jew and adjutant of Stauffenberg, received news in 1942 that Jews were being shot and that the executioners were removing the gold teeth from the corpses around Jelnya, Russia. [93] "I even heard the shooting myself," Oppenfeld claimed, but "I lived for the day and did not pay much attention to all of it." [94] Some men like Oppenfeld quickly adapted to the surrounding situations and did what was expected of them.

Many who are unfamiliar with the realities of Nazi Germany feel puzzled by the fact that these men did not oppose the regime when they knew about Nazi persecution. Most who knew about or suspected Nazi atrocities declare that they would have been killed if they had acted against the Nazis. Obergefreiter Rudolf Sachs, a half-Jew, said, "What should I have done? Gone to the Gestapo and say, 'Please don't deport my relatives?' Impossible ... that would've just hastened my death." [95] Half-Jew Fritz Kassowitz echoed Sachs, saying, "What was I supposed to do? In protest tell the authorities that I disapproved of the murder of Jews because I was a half-Jew? That would've accomplished nothing, especially at the war's end." Kassowitz finished the war as an Unteroffizier and was decorated with the EKII and Wound Badge. [96] Both Sachs and Kassowitz's dilemmas illustrate what most have claimed about their situations during the ruthless dictatorship of the Third Reich. The feeling of helplessness is almost universal among Mischlinge.

A few Mischling officers were able to help their relatives in danger, either through the weight of their military rank or through connections to influential people. First Lieutenant Ernst Prager, who had received Hitler's Deutschblutigkeitserklarung and was decorated with both Iron Crosses and the Golden Wound Badge, met with Eichmann two and a half months after being injured and was sent home. Although his doctors warned that traveling might kill him because of his wounds, he decided to leave Nuremberg for Berlin anyway. Prager's wife, Hella, accompanied him to several SS departments because of his serious war wounds. When SS personnel learned that he had received Hitler's Arisierung and that he was a decorated frontline officer, they treated him with the utmost respect and greeted him properly for his rank and status. Eventually, he was told to visit Eichmann's office. Surprisingly, Eichmann admitted him. Wrapped in bandages, Prager marched into Eichmann's office with only a subtle hint of lameness. After they exchanged formalities, Prager explained the situations of his father, who was performing forced labor, and of his uncle Stephan Prager and aunt Mathilde Blanck, who had both been deported to Theresienstadt. According to Prager and his wife, Eichmann responded by describing Theresienstadt very positively as a new home for Jews, where they were well treated and could decide their own fates. Prager became so irritated with Eichmann that he jumped up and said sarcastically, "[N]ext you'll tell me you regret not being Jewish so you could spend a holiday in Theresienstadt." Eichmann then became serious and admitted that he could do nothing for Prager's father, but assured him that his uncle would be moved to the "Prominent Jews" barracks, where he would receive better food and would not be deported to a death camp. [97] Eichmann claimed he could not do anything for Prager's father, since he had not been deported yet and thus fell outside Eichmann's jurisdiction. Eichmann's promise to help Prager's uncle was carried out. [98] Nothing was said about the aunt, whom the Nazis later murdered. [99]

Captain Georg Langheld, destroyer commander and German-Cross in Gold winner, wrote that Admiral Walter Gladisch helped him protect two of his female relatives for a while. Eventually the SS murdered both, one eighty-six and the other sixty years old. [100] Admiral Raeder's intervention for Langheld's Jewish mother (Frau Langheld nee Gerson), who was threatened with deportation, successfully protected her. [101]

Only a few Mischlinge who were not officers tried to help Jewish relatives. Klemperer described a case in which the soldier Horst Siegfried Weigmann went to Dresden's Gestapo headquarters to free his Jewish mother. After some negotiations and claiming he was an SS officer, he freed his mother. However, as they were leaving, an SS man recognized them and prevented their escape. The Gestapo deported the mother to Theresienstadt and threw him in jail. Soon thereafter, the son hung himself in his cell. [102] After the Nazis deported Camilla Kruger to Theresienstadt, her sons and Wehrmacht veterans Helmut and Answald Kruger went to an SS office in Berlin to inquire about their mother. On their way in, they met Eichmann's deputy, SS-Sturmbannfuhrer [103] Rolf Gunther, at the entrance. He asked them both what they wanted. They explained their situation and said they wanted to see if they could get their mother back. They then told him they were both ex-Gefreite decorated with the EKII. Surprised, Gunther looked at them and hatefully said, "Every criminal is courageous (Mut hat jeder Verbrecher)," [104] and then left. Helmut and Answald also tried to reenter the Wehrmacht to help their mother, but were rejected. [105] Camilla would remain in Theresienstadt until the war's end.

Sometimes the knowledge of what the Nazis were doing to one's relatives was too painful to live with. Captain Erich Rose, [106] a liaison officer between the Spanish Blue Division and the Wehrmacht, told his comrade, Albert Schnez (the later Bundeswehr general), in 1942, shaking his head and depressed, that his Jewish father [107] and half-Jewish mother had been deported to Theresienstadt. He also knew of several Jewish relatives who had been deported and feared that they had all been murdered. He expressed his desire to die. ''I'm torn apart. I've nothing to live for. My family has all been murdered," he told Schnez. Schnez, who worked in OKH General Staff at the time, told Rose that he would try to get the Arisierung for him. A comrade of theirs, Major Eberhard von Hanstein in OKW, had contact with Schmundt and explained Rose's situation to him. Soon thereafter, Schmundt brought Rose's case to Hitler. Rose did not agree with Schnez's desire to get this exemption for him and told him, ''I'm a Schwein. [108] The Nazis murder my family (which I have to assume), and at the same time, I fight for them." [109] Hanstein's and Schmundt's efforts to get Rose clemency failed. Rose saw that the sands of his life had begun to run out. Experiencing several problems with his unit because of his criticism of Hitler and Nazism and because of his Jewish ancestry, Rose became depressed. Soon thereafter, he exposed himself in battle and died. [110]

An important question is if half-Jews knew about the Holocaust, why did they report to their OT deportation stations? The answers to this question are complex. Since most reported to their OT deportation stations when ordered, it seems obvious that most did not know about the Holocaust. If everyone knew about the Holocaust, most would have tried to hide, escape, or possibly commit suicide, rather than report at the OT gathering point. However, few foolproof hideouts existed. The Swiss border was heavily patrolled on both sides. Sweden was difficult to reach, being separated from Germany by the Baltic Sea. Nonetheless, although the odds were stacked against those who attempted to hide or escape, if half-Jews had known what eventually awaited them, they likely would have tried their luck no matter what the cost. Most had the time to make a quick getaway. A few were actually arrested and sent to OT, [111] but most received their deportation notices from either the Gestapo or local government employment offices, which gave them several days, if not weeks, to report. Usually most reported as ordered because they did not fear for their lives. Karl-Arnd Techel claimed he knew about Nazi atrocities, but still reported to his OT deportation station. He did not know where he was going and why half-Jews were being "really" drafted. He heard about Auschwitz only after the war and did not fear for his life at the time. He does not know why he was not scared, "but that's the truth of the matter -- I simply did not think it was dangerous." [112] When Dieter Bergmann was deported to an OT camp, he recalled another train parked near his own where people cried and groaned, "a true sound from Hell." [113] However, he still did not think his own life was in danger. [114] If they had known that their deported relatives had probably been murdered, their survival instinct would have taken over and most of them would have tried to flee Germany or go underground. Today, most respond to such propositions that they had nowhere to flee or to hide. Nonetheless, the majority were unaware of what lay beyond the OT camps. Peter Schliesser said that "very few knew or even assumed [that their Jewish relatives had been murdered] at that time." [115] Many did not see that OT was the first step on the path to systematic murder. Thus, the majority reported when called to OT.

Only a few, with the knowledge they had, risked hiding or escaping to Switzerland. The few men who did "know" received privileged information or were told by those in higher positions not to report for OT. When half-Jew Franz Calvelli-Adorno heard about the true reality of OT, a friendly physician committed him to an insane asylum, where he would survive the war. [116] The three Bier brothers (Georg, Gerhard, and Martin) decided to act because many in high positions encouraged them to try and flee. A World War I comrade of their father, Gustav, who served on the General Staff, informed them in 1943 that half-Jews were going to be sent to "special units." This friend encouraged them to escape. Also, U-boat Captain Heinz Sternberg (U-473), after hearing about the Biers' problems, encouraged Gerhard Bier and his brothers to leave Germany for Switzerland. [117] Gerhard Bier felt that if they stayed around and were deported to OT, they would have to clear minefields and perform other dangerous work that would eventually kill them. They did not think they would be systematically exterminated and did not know about the extermination of the Jews. Although Martin Bier had heard about Jewish executions by firing squads in Russia, he could not comprehend that such a thing had really taken place. He especially did not think that a systematic annihilation of the Jews was under way. [118] Eventually, the three Bier brothers successfully jumped out of a moving train traveling inside the border of Switzerland. They were able to remain in that neutral country. [119]

Historians have hotly debated the question for the past fifty years whether Germans knew about the Holocaust. Perhaps a better way to phrase this question is, Did Germans understand what was happening to Jews during the war? This study has shown that the answer is no. Maybe many Mischlinge did not want to know and denied what they could not or would not believe, but this is something difficult to prove. From the hundreds of cases documented, it is evident that most did not know nor understand what was going on in the extermination camps.

Most Mischlinge did know that relatives disappeared, but what actually happened to them was beyond their imaginations. The knowledge that the Nazis deported a Jewish relative differed dramatically from understanding that this often meant annihilation. As half-Jew Hans Meissinger said, "Neither Hannah [nee Gerber, his wife, who is also half-Jewish] nor I knew anything about the Holocaust during wartime (nor did any of our friends), but [we] had fears for the Jewish relatives who were deported. We didn't even hear of Auschwitz! No one could imagine the monstrous genocide that was underway .... Poor ignorant sheep that we were." [120] Meissinger simply could not imagine that "Germany could do a thing like that." [121] He lost four relatives, and his wife, Hannah, lost two relatives in the Holocaust (Bergen-Belsen and Auschwitz). [122]

And even if Mischlinge did imagine the worst, most did not believe what their consciences told them. The average person lacked the imagination to process the signs that warned a Mischling that not only his Jewish relatives but he himself was in mortal danger. Each of the men in this study lost an average of eight relatives in the Holocaust. Unteroffizier Hans Gunzel, a half-Jew, lost fifty-seven relatives. He and his brother, Unteroffizier Peter Gunzel, were decorated soldiers who served the entire war and did not believe until after 1945 that their relatives had been systematically murdered.  [123] Hans Herder said he did not know about the systematic extermination of the Jews, although he lost two uncles in concentration camps and lived near Mauthausen. [124] Heinz Dieckmann, a 75 percent Jew, said that during training, they often marched by Bergen-Belsen. "We all thought that the people in there were a-socials and should be removed from society," Dieckmann commented, "but we didn't know that in places like that murder was going on .... We actually didn't want to know what the truth was. That was the problem .... Ideology had made us inhuman." Dieckmann explained that witnessing the Nazis discriminate against Jews became commonplace and that they did not give the persecution much thought because it did not seem out of the norm. However, at the time, Dieckmann never thought the Jews were being systematically murdered. [125] Rolf von Sydow, who lost his grandfather in a Gestapo prison in 1943 and fourteen other relatives in the camps, said he did not believe until after the war that Germany had killed millions of Jews. [126] Even the Jew Max Mannheimer, who was sent to a concentration camp, professed that he had no idea about the Holocaust before he was deported. "I didn't think it was possible. Too many rumors," he said. [127] As the former German chancellor and quarter-Jew Helmut Schmidt wrote, "I never knew about the horrible crimes [of the Nazis]. ... I learned of the concentration camps, but I imagined they were used very differently .... I thought they were a kind of prison where people under investigation were held." [128] Only after the war did Schmidt learn about Auschwitz, the final Solution, gas chambers, and the systematic killings. Only then did Schmidt realize that he had served as an officer for a government that was responsible for the criminal murder of millions. [129] Even Hugo Fuchs, who lost his father in Sachsenhausen, claimed that he only knew after 1945 about the systematic destruction of the Jews by the Nazis. [130]

From the evidence, one would think that most Germans should have been aware of what today is called the Holocaust. This assertion applies even more to the Mischlinge who had opportunities to find out about the Holocaust. But most refused to believe or failed to assess the incriminating evidence they heard about or witnessed. Although many doubted the accuracy of the death certificates of relatives that stated they had died of "natural causes in the camps," they did not believe their relatives had been systematically murdered. Many could not understand why the people they had grown up with would want to kill them or their families. Deported Jews often led their Mischling relatives to believe that their deportation was not serious. When Harald Etheimer's aunt left for her deportation, she told him not to worry because she would soon return. [131]

Since the victims themselves, according to the Holocaust historian Lucy Dawidowicz, alleged that it was beyond their imagination they would be gassed and killed, [132] one should not expect ordinary Germans to know much more. Steinberg wrote, "Holocaust records show that Jews themselves often refused to believe what was happening in spite of the evidence of their own eyes." [133] Another Holocaust historian, Leni Yahil, claimed that systematic murder was beyond anyone's imagination. [134] Marion Kaplan wrote, "But a far more effective barrier to their comprehension was the sheer inconceivability of the genocide. Even those who received information frequently reacted with disbelief or repressed it." [135] If Jews did not believe what was happening to them, it follows that most Mischlinge also could not believe the Holocaust was happening, because they had less direct exposure to persecution. Almost all the interviews conducted for this book support this conclusion. The average German, who had even less contact with those who were persecuted, was highly unlikely to suspect the extent of the Holocaust. As Kershaw wrote:

During the war years interest in the "Jewish Question" declined still further. The deportation passed off apparently little heeded by the population. Most people seem to have asked little and cared less about the fate of the Jews. The war, its worries and deprivations, dominated opinion. The Jews were out of sight and out of mind. Knowledge of shootings and atrocities in occupied territories was widespread, and rumors about extermination circulated. Details in particular about the systematic gassing programme in the camps, appear, however, to have been largely unknown. [136]


Initially, this study expected to find that Mischlinge knew and understood what was going on in the camps. While Mischling and Jewish soldiers did know more than the average German, in the end their actions and testimonies prove that most soldiers of Jewish descent failed to grasp what was happening to the Jews. Similarly, most half-Jews did not realize what would have happened to them beyond the OT camps. As Sigmund Freud said, "At bottom, nobody believes in his own death." [137]
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Re: Hitler's Jewish Soldiers: The Untold Story of Nazi Racia

Postby admin » Thu Apr 26, 2018 2:25 am

CONCLUSION

Many historians and writers have mentioned Mischlinge or described some of the policies that affected their lives during the Third Reich. This book builds on the foundation laid by Jeremy Noakes in his essay about Mischlinge published in the 1989 Leo Baeck Yearbook, which explored their history in the Wehrmacht for the first time.

The predicament of people fighting for a regime that did not recognize their basic human rights is not new. Throughout the American Civil War, thousands of free blacks and slaves, as well as some mulattoes ("half-" and "quarter-blacks") fought for the Confederate States of America. [1] A few mulattoes even served as Confederate officers. [2] Some of these African-Americans were slave owners "willing to fight for the protection of their slave property." [3] Historians estimate that some forty thousand African-Americans served in the Confederate armed forces. [4] These men fought to preserve a social order that sought to keep the majority of southern African-Americans as slaves. African-Americans also fought in the armed forces during World War I and II, long before the civil rights movement gained popular support in the United States. [5] Japan conscripted Koreans for the Japanese army during World War II. [6] A few hundred Japanese-Americans (Nisei) served in the American armed forces in World War II, although the U.S. government interned some of their families. [7] Many returned home in 1945 to find their property sold and anti-Japanese sentiment rampant. [8] In these cases too, soldiers fought on behalf of their oppressors.

Despite the obvious similarities, the story of Jews and Mischlinge who served in the Wehrmacht is fundamentally different. Unlike African-Americans in the United States and Koreans in the Japanese army, German Jews and Mischlinge had enjoyed many years of equal rights in Germany before Hitler came to power. In 1933, the majority of them did not feel Jewish; consequently, they did not feel threatened by Hitler's anti-Semitic diatribes. It was not until the 1935 racial laws that some of them started to associate themselves with the Jews. Even so, the Mischling segment of society remained loyal and served Germany obediently. Hitler excluded most Mischlinge from positions in society and the armed forces where they could have better served his military goals. Mischlinge fought for a government that had not only taken away their human rights, but also murdered many of their relatives.

This book offers several historical insights. It reminds many that the Third Reich cannot be understood in extremes of black and white. Not everyone who wore a uniform with a swastika was a Nazi as we use that word today. Not everyone who had Jewish ancestry was a victim of the death camps. Not every German officer was a pure Aryan, and not every Aryan officer was a rabid anti-Semite. It proves that at least 150,000 Mischlinge could have served in the Wehrmacht. It also proves that several Mischlinge were high-ranking officers, some of whom reached general and admiral rank. The Mischling experience clearly demonstrates the complexity of life in the Third Reich. Nazi policy toward them was a maze of confusion and contradictions, which reflected the regime's uncertainty about how to deal with Germans of partial Jewish descent.

Mischling policy was difficult to enforce for many reasons. One reason, as Nathan Stoltzfus argues in his book Resistance of the Heart, was that the Nazi ideology of "race" came into conflict with the goal of maintaining power. [9] If Hitler had treated the Mischlinge too harshly in the 1930s and early 1940s, he might have lost support from thousands of Aryans in key positions in the economy, armed forces, and government who had Mischling relatives. Another reason for the difficulty of enforcing Mischling policy was that since they did not exist as a category of people before 1935, bureaucrats had to rely on church and city or county registry records, denunciations, and honest confessions to identify Mischlinge. In the Wehrmacht, enforcement, particularly of discharge orders, was often hindered by officers who valued trained soldiers more than the racial laws. The fact that Hitler reserved the right to grant exemptions from these laws reinforces the perception that even he recognized how impractical these laws and how contradictory his goals were. However, as Henry Turner wrote, Hitler was driven by "the unshakeable conviction that reality would eventually conform to his will." [10] Hitler had complete faith in his abilities to change reality to suit his irrational philosophy. Diplomatic and military triumphs from 1933 to 1940 reinforced his belief in his own infallibility as a leader, prophet, and racial hygienist. Hitler perverted Germany's legal system and forced it to implement his racial ideas as laws.

It is important to note that when racial discrimination affected Mischling Wehrmacht personnel, some Aryan officers were willing to help them. Many did so while avidly supporting Hitler and his ideas. Field Marshal von Reichenau was sympathetic and helpful to several Mischlinge. He even protested the killing of Jews in Poland in 1939. [11] Perhaps because of this action, Hitler claimed in 1939 that Reichenau was not reliable. [12] But in general, Reichenau supported the regime and its racial policies. Hitler recognized this by giving him command of the Sixth Army in 1939 and then Army Group South in 1941. One must also not forget that Reichenau on 10 October 1941 issued one of the most murderous orders of any field commander, directing his men to annihilate "Jewish-Bolshevism," emphasizing that "the soldier must have complete understanding for the necessity of the harsh, but just atonement of Jewish subhumanity." [13] Hitler described Reichenau's initiative as "excellent." [14] Likewise, Field Marshal von Manstein, who helped some Mischlinge and wrote a protest against the Arierparagraph in 1934, also issued an order on 20 November 1941, as commander of the Eleventh Army, calling for the destruction of the "Jewish-Bolshevik system" and explaining that "the soldiers must show understanding for the harsh atonement of Judaism, the spiritual carrier of the Bolshevik terror." [15] Like many in Germany, these generals did not equate Mischlinge with Jews. For them, getting rid of "Jews," as former army commander in chief General von Fritsch said in December 1938, was a goal to be achieved. [16] These generals could make exceptions for Mischlinge they viewed as Germans and comrades-in-arms. Nonetheless, after Manstein received no response to his protest in 1934, and after Reichenau's last efforts in 1938 to help a Mischling, according to this study, neither man took further action to prevent the persecution of Mischlinge. On the contrary, their dastardly orders of 1941 probably helped sanction the deaths of thousands of innocent Jews, [17] and diminished the redeeming value of the acts of "benevolence" they had performed for a few Mischlinge in the 1930s. Although they felt certain Mischlinge were worth saving, they agreed that Jews should be exterminated, especially the "Asiatic" and Communist Ostjuden. One must not forget that even Hitler helped many Mischlinge at the same time he ordered Jews to be exterminated.

General Erich von Manstein, one of the most successful field commanders of the German army, on November 20, 1941, declared that:

Since 22 June the German Volk is in the midst of a battle for life and death against the Bolshevik system. This battle is conducted against the Soviet army not only in a conventional manner according to the rules of European warfare ... Jewry constitutes the mediator between the enemy in the rear and the still fighting remnants of the Red Army and the Red leadership. It has a stronger hold than in Europe on all key positions of the political leadership and administration, it occupies commerce and trade and further forms cells for all the disturbance and possible rebellions.

The Jewish-Bolshevik system must be eradicated once and for all. Never again may it interfere in our European living space. The German soldier is therefore not only charged with the task of destroying the power instrument of this system. He marches forth also as a carrier of a racial conception and as an avenger of all the atrocities which have been committed against him and the German people.

The soldier must show understanding for the harsh atonement of Judaism, the spiritual carrier of the Bolshevik terror. [56]


A companion statement from Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel stated that "the fight against bolshevism [sic] demands in the first place also reckless and energetic action against the Jews, the main carrier of bolshevism [sic]." [57]

-- The Killing Trap: Genocide in the Twentieth Century, by Manus I. Midlarsky


[The war against Russia] is the old fight of the Germans against Slavs, the defense of European culture against the Moscovite-Asiatic flood, the repulsion of Jewish Bolshevism. . . . Every combat action, in its conception and conduct, must be governed by the iron will to pitiless and complete annihilation of the enemy. In particular there is no mercy for the carriers of the current Russian-Bolshevik system.

-- Gen. Erich Hoepner, from Ethics, Warfare and Atrocity, NAU Ethics, Atrocity & War Presentation


In light of how aggressively Hitler pursued the extermination of the Jews, it is surprising how much time he spent reviewing applications for exemptions from the racial laws submitted by Mischlinge. One can understand his careful analysis of the pros and cons of removing a Mischling general from his post, but many to whom Hitler granted these coveted exemptions were common soldiers with the ranks of private or NCO. Hitler's exemptions and the actions of thousands of Aryan officers, including men close to Hitler, such as Army Adjutant Engel and Commander Frey, in helping Mischlinge, and even occasionally Jews, contradicted the Nazis' Weltanschauung.

Though it is hard to believe, documents prove that Engel and Frey went beyond the scope of their job responsibilities to help Mischlinge. Perhaps these men did so, and this is purely speculation, because this was a way they could rationalize not doing anything for the Jews. Both Frey and Engel, because of their positions and activities, knew more than the average officer about the Holocaust. This rationalization and the desire to help comrades and brave soldiers may have motivated Frey and Engel to do so much for Mischlinge. What is particularly difficult to believe is that the arch-anti- Semite Hitler himself granted even one exemption from the racial laws. But he personally issued many. As Kershaw wrote, "[N]othing was as it seemed in the Third Reich." [18]

Some of his actions suggest that Hitler believed Jewish "blood," even in minute amounts, could ruin a person. Other actions suggest that Hitler believed Mendel's theory of genetics by which a Mischling could be 100 percent Aryan if he inherited all his blood from the Aryan parent. But Hitler consistently wavered on facts about race. Some of his own decisions did not reflect the pure categories of race so central to Nazi rhetoric and philosophy.

Mischling policy also demonstrated the triumph of ideology over reason. OKW discharged tens of thousands of half-Jews on Hitler's orders throughout his regime. If winning the war had been his top priority, Hitler could have easily recalled all these soldiers to active duty on the Russian front. But even in the winter of 1942, when Germany needed every able-bodied German to fight as the intensity of the war increased, Hitler still ignored the thousands of Mischlinge previously discharged from the Wehrmacht. [19] Instead, Hitler focused on whether a few hundred Mischlinge deserved exemptions.

Hitler gave thousands of Genehmigungen and Deutschblutigkeitserklarungen during his rule, [20] even as his regime crumbled before his eyes. If the war were more important than the destruction of the Jews, then Hitler could have allowed thousands of Mischlinge and Jews to serve in the Wehrmacht. The vast majority would have fought bravely for their homeland, and even the worst soldier would have been useful as cannon fodder. Hitler apparently valued a pure Aryan society more than victory. The subtleties of Mischling policy and exemptions absorbed Hitler as late as 1944. Hitler took this exemption process seriously and believed he had the power to discern a person's true racial makeup. For Hitler, carrying out racial policy was more important than winning the war. Hitler once said, "The Jewish question takes priority over all other matters." [21]

Even if Hitler did not consider racial purity more important than winning the war, he may have realized the inevitability of defeat and preferred to deal with matters he could still control. In 1939, he had promised that if war came, he would destroy the European Jews. By 1944 and early 1945, the deportation of Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz and hardened measures against Mischlinge showed that this was one of the only promises he could still keep.

After the attempt on his life in July 1944, Hitler revoked many of the exemptions he had granted earlier. He needed to blame someone for this attack, and Mischlinge and their Aryan spouses presented an easy target. To order the discharge of so many high-ranking officers late in 1944 -- even generals who had received the Ritterkreuz -- simply because they were partially Jewish or had partially Jewish wives, did not make strategic sense.

Initially, the Wehrmacht seemed not to have been bothered by Mischling soldiers. But as the Holocaust gained momentum and the Party pressured the Wehrmacht to comply with racial policies, the Wehrmacht as a whole forsook its non-Aryan comrades. It failed to protest against the deportation and gassing of Jewish WorId War I veterans. In 1944, when Hitler started pushing the half-Jews down the road of the Holocaust, the Wehrmacht again watched passively. As Karl Dietrich Bracher wrote, "[T]he Army closed its eyes to the reality and the consequences of the war rule, limited itself to the efficient conduct of its trade, and avoided all strategic and political disputes." [22] In individual cases, many officers did all they could unofficially to help Mischlinge, but stopped short of disobeying direct orders.

It seems that the only person who officially tried to help Mischlinge through the proper chain of command was Dr. Bernhard Losener in the RMI. He consistently lent his support and" expertise" to protect Mischlinge in a climate where such behavior was not politically advantageous for him. For his activities, according to Losener, several people in the Party called him a "Friend of the Jews (Judenfreund)," [23] a highly derogatory term then. [24] Unfortunately, Losener's influence diminished dramatically after December 1941 when Mischlinge needed him the most. It is doubtful that Losener would have been able to change significantly the worsening situation of Mischlinge had he continued actively to protect them from further persecution. This was especially the case, since Bormann's influence dramatically increased when he became head of the Parteikanzlei in May 1941.

As the war worsened, Hitler's persecution not only of Jews but also of Mischlinge dramatically escalated. The number of exemptions granted to Mischling soldiers between 1941 and 1943 sharply decreased from what it had been between 1938 and 1940. By 1944, Hitler regretted having treated Mischling soldiers leniently. He expressed his change of heart by discharging many who had exemptions and deporting them and other half-Jewish veterans to OT forced labor camps.

Mischlinge often found themselves the losers in a game where the rules changed at the whim of their opponent. These men, who had served loyally and had been awarded some of Germany's highest honors, would eventually have been subjected to the same fate as World War I German-Jewish veterans. Had the war continued, or had Germany won, most half-Jews would have been exterminated. Quarter-Jews would have suffered further discrimination and probably selective extermination.

Hitler's extensive personal participation in Mischling matters supports the theory that nothing could happen on the Jewish question without his knowledge. He had quickly established dictatorial control over the sophisticated government apparatus that administered the Holocaust. Hitler's retention of personal control over the Mischling problem indicates that he would not have relinquished any of his power to decide the fate of European Jewry.  [25] For instance, during a meeting in 1937, discussing measures against the Jews with district Party leaders, Hitler vehemently said, "Who can give the order? Only I!" [26] He thrived on wielding all of his instruments of domination even until the last minutes of his life. By design, the different departments and organizations of the regime were unified under Hitler's leadership. Hitler's power "derived from his position as the fulcrum, linchpin and mediating element of the differing interests." [27] Since Hitler spent so much time on the Mischlinge, one wonders how much more time he must have spent planning the destruction of the Jews. Hitler ordered the Holocaust and oversaw its implementation, though no written directive ordering the extermination of the Jews bearing his signature has been found to date. [28] Just as Hitler gave verbal orders to Engel, Schmundt, Lammers, and Bormann about how to handle Mischlinge, he likewise gave orders to Himmler (whom Hitler often met in private), Heydrich, and others on how to annihilate the Jews. [29] He knew what was going on because he ordered it. As Hitler said in 1942, "No matter how long the fight lasts, the Jew will be exterminated." [30]  
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Re: Hitler's Jewish Soldiers: The Untold Story of Nazi Racia

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NOTES

NOTE ON SOURCES


Although oral testimonies are subject to fallible human memories, they have nonetheless proven invaluable in explaining several documents collected for this study. Documents never before seen by historians, found in people's closets, basements, and desk drawers, created a much fuller and complex history, especially when their owners supplied the background and history of the documents as well. These sources helped re-create the unique and tragic history of the Mischlinge, which is still so little understood over half a century later. The thousands of pages of documents and oral testimonies (on 8 mm video and VHS video) in this study are now part of the permanent collection at the Bundesarchiv-Militararchiv in Freiburg, Germany, as the Bryan Mark Rigg Collection. Although interviews need to be treated with some skepticism, they have repeatedly shown that oral history often enriches rather than contradicts historical documents. All too often, history is written without the human element, that is, without knowing what these people thought, felt, and believed. Oral history helps reconstruct many of these people's thoughts, feelings, and beliefs through their diaries, letters, interviews, and photographs. In this way, a healthy combination of hard documents or primary sources and secondary sources and testimonies expands our sense of this history. Often one reads about men and women but feels no human connection with them. The interviews were done to try to bridge this gap and to provide readers with the means to enter these men's and women's thoughts and feelings to understand them better and to deepen readers' knowledge of this history.

INTRODUCTION

1. Some loose translations of Mischlinge are "half-breeds, " "hybrids (Zwischenrasse), " or "partial Jews."

2. Wehrmacht was the German word for the German armed forces from 1935 to 1945.

3. See chapter 3 on German-Jewish assimilation.

4. Since Austria was united with Germany under Hitler's rule, discussion of German-Jewish assimilation here often includes Austrian-Jewish assimilation.

5. See chapter 9, "What Did Mischlinge Know about the Holocaust?" The term "Holocaust" only came into general use in the 1960s as the full scope and impact of Nazi Jewish policy became clear. "Holocaust" is used throughout this section to mean the Nazi genocidal policy.

6. To read about the sources used in this book, see "Note on Sources."

CHAPTER 1: WHO IS A JEW?

1. Asher Maoz, "Who Is a Convert?" International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists, 15 (December 1997): 11.

2. B.C.E. (before the common era) is used where B.C. was used in the past. C.E. (common era) is used for A.D. Karen Armstrong, A History of God: A Four-thousand-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (New York, 1993), p.12.

3. The Ivrim, or Hebrews, were members of any group of Semitic peoples who lived in ancient Palestine and claimed descent from the biblical patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The literal meaning of the word Hebrew is the people "who crossed over" or the people "from the other side of the river." Max 1. Dimont, Jews, God, and History (New York, 1994), pp. 30-31; Uri Kaploun, ed., Likkutei Dibburim: An Anthology of Talks by Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn of Lubavitch, vol. 3 (New York, 1990), pp. 46-47.

4. Leo Trepp, The Complete Book of Jewish Observance (New York, 1980), p. 2.

5. Dimont, p. 33; Armstrong, p. 72. Interestingly, Ivri, or Hebrew, from the root avar, meaning "cross over, " also connotes one who crosses over the bounds of propriety accepted by common culture. Abraham lived in a polytheistic world. By affirming his faith in one God, he crossed over the line. He became an iconoclast, an idol smasher. However, some believe that Abraham simply returned to the pure faith. Maimonides holds that monotheism was only reinitiated by Abraham, not discovered. See Baruch Frydman-Kohl, "Covenant, Conversion, and Chosenness: Maimonides and Halvei On 'Who Is a Jew'?" Judaism 41, no. [ (winter [992): 69.

6. Dimont, pp. 43-47; Matthew Black and H. H. Rowley, eds., Peake's Commentary on the Bible (New York, 1963), p. 74. Torah (rendered "law") literally means "direction" or "teaching." The Torah is the five books of Moses, or Pentateuch.

7. Dimont, p. 39; BA-MA, BMRS, File Dovid Gottlieb, Gottlieb to Rigg, 05.07.2001; Lecture given by Rabbi Cordoza at the Yeshiva Ohr Somayach, 27 December 1993; information given to the author by Henry Soussan (former president of Heidelberg's Jewish community) in December 1997 and by Rabbi Avraham Laber, rabbi of Congregation Beth Tephilah, Orthodox Synagogue of Troy, New York, January 2001; Herman Wouk, This Is My God: The Jewish Way of Life (New York, 1959), p. 35. In academic circles, there is no historical validation of the revelation at Sinai.

8. Trepp, p. 1.

9. From the tribe of Dan, one of the twelve tribes of Israel.

10. Leviticus 24:10-12 New International Version (NIV); Yisrael Isser Zvi Herczeg, ed., The Torah: With Rashi's Commentary (Brooklyn, 1994), pp. 309-II; Black and Rowley, Peake's Commentary, pp. 251-52. Another interpretation says that this Danite was rejected not because he had an Egyptian father but because he had rejected God. Still another interpretation says that he only wanted to belong to a certain tribe to inherit land. Thus, the tribes rejected him because of his motivation for trying to join them.

11. Genesis 41:45 NIV; Nosson Scherman and Meir Zlotowitz, eds., The Artscroll Series Torah with Rashi's Commentary: Genesis (Brooklyn, 1997), pp. 459- 60; Enger's Dictionary, p. 606; Jack Miles, God: A Biography (New York, 1995), p. 83. On was an ancient city in northern Egypt. The city was also known as Heliopolis.

12. Numbers I2:I NIY; The Artscroll Series with Rashi's Commentary, pp. 135- 36; Black and Rowley, Peake's Commentary, p. 259; Dimont, pp. 38, 42; Miles, p. 101. Interestingly, Moses' brother Aaron and sister Miriam disapproved of Moses' marriage to this Ethiopian. Numbers I2:I-2 NIY; Miles, p. 101; Trepp, p.260.

13. BA-MA, BMRS, File Rabbi Dovid Gottlieb, Gottlieb to Rigg, 05.07.2001.

14. The Tanach according to Christians is the Old Testament.

15. The Talmud is the rabbinic codification of the oral tradition. It was codified around 500 C.E.

16. Halakah is the body of Jewish scriptural law. Jacob Immanuel Schochet, Who Is a Jew? Thirty Questions and Answers about This Controversial and Divisive Issue (Brooklyn, 1987), p. 32. Often, the term Din Torah is interpreted as being tantamount to Halakah. See Maoz, "Who Is a Convert?" p. 12.

17. Hayim Halevy Donin, To BeaJew (New York, 1991), p. 8; Howard M. Sachar, A History of Israel, vol. 2, From the Aftermath of the Yom Kippur War (Oxford, 1987), p. 139; Lawrence H. Schiffman, Who Was a Jew? Rabbinic and Halakhic Perspectives on the Jewish-Christian Schism (New Jersey, 1985), pp. 9-11; Trepp, pp. 247-54, 299; Dimont, p. 272; Schochet, Who Is a Jew? pp. 18, 28; Norman Lamm, "Who Is a Jew? The Supreme Court and The Supreme Judge, " in Who Is a Jew? pp. 83-84; Nissim Rejwan, "Who's a Jew? Two Famous Non-Questions Answered, " in Who Is a Jew? p. 95; Asher Cohen and Bernard Susser, Israel and the Politics of Jewish Identity: The Secular- Religious Impasse (London, 2000), p. 33; Federal Research Division, ed., Israel: A Country Study (Washington, D.C., 1990), p. 107.

18. Schochet, p. 18.

19. BA-MA, BMRS, File Rabbi Dovid Gottlieb, Gottlieb to Rigg, 05.07.2001.

20. Alfred Kolatch, The Jewish Book of Why (New York, 1981), pp. 13-14.

21. Israel: A Country Study, p. 107; Rejwan, "Who's a Jew?" in Who Is a Jew? p. 97; Donin, p. 9.

22. Nissim Rejwan, "Who's a Jew?" in Who Is a Jew? p. 97.

23. Lecture given by Rabbi Gottlieb at the Yeshiva Ohr Somayach on 24 December 1993.

24. See Wouk, p. 35.

25. BA-MA, Bryan Mark Rigg Sammlung (BMRS), interview Shlomo Perel, 10.09.1994, T-16; Sally Perel, Ich war Hitlerjunge Salomon (Berlin, 1992), p. 82. 26. Saul Friedlander, Nazi Germany and the Jews, vol. I, The Years of Persecution, 1933-1939 (New York, 1997), p. 172.

27. Nicholas De Lange, Judaism (New York, 1986), p. 4.

28. Rabbis N. Scherman and M. Zlotowitz, eds., The Complete Artscroll Siddur (Brooklyn, 1984), pp. 90-91. The Shema is the Jewish profession of faith. Armstrong, p. 52.

29. De Lange, p. 20.

30. H. G. Adler, The Jews in Germany (London, 1969), p. 100.

31. There is really no race besides the human race. There are different ethnicities, but race is almost impossible to define scientifically. See Schochet, p. 15.

32. This is a derogatory term by which Ethiopian Jews do not like to be called. A literal meaning of Falashas is "outsiders, " depicting how the Ethiopians treated their Jewish minority. Sachar, p. 108.

33. Sachar, p. 108; David Kessler, The Falashas: A Short History of the Ethiopian Jews (London, 1996), p. 154.

34. The Hebrew term giyur is used for conversion to Judaism. The Hebrew word lechumra means that if there are two views, one stringent and one lenient, then the stringent one must be followed. Rejwan, "Who's aJew?" in Who Is aJew? p.93.

35. Maoz, "Who Is a Convert?" p. 12.

36. Sachar, p. 108. See also Kessler, pp. 154-57.

37. Sachar, pp. 109-10, 139.

38. Cohen and Susser, 34-36; Schochet, p. 32; Sachar, pp. 137-39. Many religious Jews want this secular definition changed to read "has converted to Judaism Halakically, " meaning they have gone through an Orthodox conversion. Philip S. Alexander, Textual Sources for the Study of Judaism (Manchester, 1984), pp. 166-67; David Bleich, "The Proposal for a 'Neutral' Beis Din, " in Who Is a Jew? p. lOI; Israel: A Country Study, pp. 109, 389.

39. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Major Yoav Delarea, 05.07.1998. See also Sachar, pp. 109, 139.

40. Within all these movements, there are different denominations. For example, within the Orthodox movement, there are the Modern, Mizrachi, Sefards, Shas, Traditional, and Hasidic Orthodox.

41. Sometimes this definition can be difficult to enforce. For example, when Oswald Rufeisen (also known as Brother Daniel), a Holocaust survivor and convert to Christianity, applied to the Israeli government to be defined as a Jew in his papers, he was denied. Although he was born of a Jewish mother, the Israeli court did not recognize him as a Jew because he had changed his religion. Israel recognizes a Jew only as a Jew if he or she is not a member of another religion. Maoz, "Who Is a Convert?" p. 13; Alexander, pp. 168-71; Israel: A Country Study, p. 108.

42. Israel: A Country Study, p. 110.

43. See Maoz, "Who Is a Convert?" pp. 11-19; Schochet, pp. 3 I, 73-75; Lamm, "Who is a Jew? The Supreme Court and the Supreme Judge, " in Who Is a Jew? p. 87; Israel Religious Action Center, "Assaults against Reform Continue" (www.irac.org) 10 September 1997.

44. Sachar, pp. 139-40.

45. BA-MA, BMRS, File Rabbi Dovid Gottlieb, Gottlieb to Rigg, 05.07.2001. See also Frydman-Kohl, p. 64.

46. Maoz, "Who Is a Convert?" p. 17.

47. Schochet, p. 14.

48. Ibid.

49. As Raul Hilberg notes, the term "Aryan" "is not even a race designation. At best, it is a term for a linguistic-ethnic group." Raul Hilberg, Destruction of the European Jews (New York, 1961), p. 45, n. 6. The Nazis used the term to describe a people they believed were Germanic, blond, and blue-eyed.

50. A local Party leader of the Nazi Party.

51. Die Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP) was the name of the Nazi Party.

52. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Helmut Kruger, 27, 31.08.1994, T-13; Helmut Kruger, Der Halbe Stern. Leben als deutsch-judischer Mischlinge im Dritten Reich (Berlin, 1992), p. 88.

53. Jeckes is a derogatory Yiddish term meaning "jackets" and was used to describe German Jews who usually wore nice-fitting suits-hence, the term "jackets." This term was most commonly used for German Jews who lived in Palestine, but now has come into popular use among many Israeli and American Jews.

54. Steven E. Aschheim, Brothers and Strangers: The East European Jew in German and German Jewish Consciousness, 1800-1923 (Wisconsin, 1982), p. 3; BA-MA, BMRS, File Peter Noa, Bl. 9.

55. Aschheim, pp. 3-5, 13-14.

56. Ibid., p. 152.

57. Wouk, p. 240.

58. Erwin A. Schmidl, Juden in der K.(u.) K. Armee, 1788-1918, Studia Judaica Austriaca, Band XI (Eisenstadt, 1989), p. 145.
59. Friedlander, pp. 27, 39; Yehuda Bauer, A History of the Holocaust (New York, 1982), p. 101; Hilberg, p. 19.

60. Ian Kershaw, Hitler, 1936-1945." Nemesis (New York, 2000), p. 136; Wolfgang Benz, The Holocaust: A German Historian Examines the Genocide (New York, 1999), p. 28; Ian Kershaw, The Nazi Dictatorship (New York, 1985), p. 93; Marion A. Kaplan, Between Dignity and Despair: Jewish Life in Nazi Germany (New York, 1998), p. 121; Norbert Frei, "Die Juden im NS-Staat, " in Das Dritte Reich im Uberblick, ed. Martin Broszat and Norbert Frei (Munich, 1989), p. 125. See also Nathan Stoltzfus, Resistance of the Heart: Intermarriage and the Rosenstrasse Protest in Nazi Germany (New York, 1996), p. 62; BA-MA, interview Werner Goldberg, 17.10.1994, T-42.

61. Wolf Zuelzer, "Keine Zukunft als 'Nicht-Arier' im Dritten Reich, " in Der Judenpogrom 1938: Von der >Reichskristallnacht< zum Volkermord, Walter H. Pehle (Frankfurt am Main, 1988), pp. 147-48.

62. Ruth Gay, The Jews of Germany (New Haven, 1992), p. 234.

63. Aschheim, pp. 31, 221-24.

64. Leni Yahil, The Holocaust (Tel Aviv, 1987), p. 79.

65. Weltanschauung means "worldview." Naumann's group was dissolved by the Gestapo in 1935. He died in 1939 of cancer.

66. David Vital, A People Apart: The Jews in Europe, 1789-1939 (Oxford, 1999), p. 814; Karl A. Schleunes, The Twisted Road to Auschwitz: Nazi Policy toward German-Jews, 1933-1939 (Illinois, 1970), pp. 188-89.

67. Vital, p. 8 15. Schoeps would leave Germany for Scandinavia. He would survive the war.

68. Adler, Jews in Germany, pp. 107-8.

69. Schleunes, p. 101.

70. See Sarah Gordon, Hitler, Germans, and the "Jewish Question" (Princeton, 1984), p. 8; Aschheim, p. 231; Peter Wyden, Stella: One Woman's True Tale of Evil, Betrayal, and Survival in Hitler's Germany (New York, 1993), p. 22; Yahil, p. 23.

71. Aschheim, p. 15.

72. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Robert Braun, 10-14.08.1994, T-10; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Robert Braun, 07.01.1996, T-190.

73. Manfred Messerschmidt, "Juden im preussisch-deurschen Heer, " in Deutsche Judische Soldaten, 1914-1945, ed. Militargeschichtliches Forschungsamt (Bonn, 1984), p. 127; Messerschmidt, p. 42.

74. Aryan Paragraph.

75. For more information on the Aryan Paragraph, see chapters 4-6. Readers must keep in mind always that for the Nazis, the Aryans were a race.

76. The phrase Blut und Boden (blood and soil) should nor be confused with the way the Nazis used it to depict agrarian romanticism (after Walter Darre, "the Blut und Boden guru" [Kershaw, Hitler, 1936-1945, p. 374]). Benary used this phrase before it had Nazi connotations attached to it, to show how German he thought he and his family had become.

77. BA-MA, RW 6/ v.73, Oberstlt. a.D. Benary an Reichsleitung der NSDAP, 25.09.1933.

78. The Maccabees was the name of a priestly Jewish family who ruled Judea during the first and second centuries B.C.E. The books Maccabees 1 and Maccabees 2, describing the history of the Maccabees, are part of the Apocrypha. It is also the name of the Jews "who engaged in a seemingly hopeless yet successful struggle against Greek rule in 168 B.C." (Kaplan, p. 56).

79. BA-MA, RW 6/ v.73, Oberstlt. a.D. Benary an Reichsleitung der NSDAP, 16.10.1933.

80. The Reichswehr was the name of the German armed forces until March 1935. Afterward, with the introduction of the draft with the new law, Gesetz fur den Aufbau der Wehrmacht, from 16 March 1935, the name of Reichswehr was replaced by Wehrmacht to denote German armed forces. The Reichswehr was a small armed forces made up of 100, 000 soldiers, 4, 000 army officers, 15, 000 sailors and navy officers, and 3, 040 civil servants with office rank. James S. Corum, The Luftwaffe: Creating the Operational Air War, 19/8-1940 (Kansas, 1997), p. 85.

81. BA-MA, RW 6/ v.73, Schreiben v. 20.11.1933.

82. Sebastian Haffner, The Meaning of Hitler (Cambridge, 1997), p. 9. Ironically, the man who coined the word "anti-Semitism, " Wilhelm Marr, and who established the League of Anti-Semites in 1879, had a Jewish father, the famous artist Heinrich Marr of Hamburg. Yahil, p. 36; Marvin Lowenthal, The Jews of Germany: A History of Sixteen Centuries (Philadelphia, (936), pp. 295-96; Dimont, p. 321.

83. Werner Maser, Adolf Hitler. Legende Mythos Wirklichkeit (Munchen, 1971), pp. 95, 268; Fritz Redlich, Hitler: Diagnosis of a Destructive Prophet (Oxford, 1998), p. 259; George Victor, Hitler: The Pathology of Evil (Dulles, 1998), pp. 124-25.

84. Brigitte Hamann, Hitlers Wien. Lehrjahre eines Diktators (Munchen, 1997).

85. Victor, pp. 124-25, 187. See also Henry Picker, Hitlers Tischgesprache im Fuhrerhauptquartier, 1941-J942, ed. Percy Ernst Schramm (Stuttgart, 1976), p. 340; The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, vol. I, pp. 733-35; John Keegan, The Mask of Command (New York, (987), p. 255.

86. Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf (Boston, 1971), p. 556.

87. Ian Kershaw, Hitler, 1889-1936: Hubris (New York, 1999), pp. 109, 112-13; Gordon A. Craig, The Politics of the Prussian Army, 1640-1945 (New York, 1955), p. 344.

88. Enzo Traverso, The Jews and Germany (Nebraska, 1995), p. 30.

89. Richard M. Watt, The Kinds Depart. The Tragedy of Germany: Versailles and the German Revolution (New York, 1968), pp. 32 5-28. It seems that Arco- Valley's motivation for killing Eisner was to prove to a local racist group called the Thule Society, who had rejected his application for membership because of his Jewish mother, that he was "braver than they were." Watt, pp. 292-93; Bernt Engelmann, Deutschland ohne Juden (Koln, 1988), p. 352.

90. Hitler, Mein Kampf, p. 207.

91. An official Parteikanzlei document from 1944 stated that "5/8-Jews" would be considered only half-Jewish because they only had two full Jewish grandparents. See Akten-NSDAP, 107-00389, Reichsfuhrer-SS/Personlicher Stab an SSWirtschafts- Verwaltungshauptamt, Hauptsturmfuhrer Dr. Volk, 26.07.1944. This study has indeed found some "five-eighths Jews" who were handled like half-Jews; however, many were classified as full Jews. It seems that the Nazi civil servants were very confused about what to do with this small group of partial Jews.

92. Hitler, Mein Kampf, p. 300. This translation of Mein Kampf used for this book follows the first version that came out in 1925.

93. Jonathan Steinberg, "Croatians, Serbs, and Jews, 1941-5, " in The Final Solution: Origins and Implementation, ed. David Cesarani (New York, 1994), p. 190. See also Lucy S. Dawidowicz, The War against the Jews, 1933-1945 (New York, 1988), p. 21.

94. Hamann, Hitlers Wien, p. 239.

95. Hamann, p. 95; Redlich, pp. 27, 259; Kershaw, Hitler, J889-1936, pp. 23, 616 n. 110; Maser, p. 268; Werner Jochmann, ed., Adolf Hitler Monologe im Fuhrerhauptquartier, 1941-1944 (Hamburg, 1980), p. 294. Mahler converted to Catholicism in the same year in which he became director of the Wiener Hofoper. He never could have obtained this post without conversion.

96. Robert Payne, The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler (New York, 1973), p. 71.

97. Dawidowicz, p. 21. For an in-depth look at Hitler's anti-Semitic development, see Kershaw, Hitler, 1889-1936.

98. Hitler, Mein Kampf, p. 325. Hitler was probably influenced by Theodor Fritsch in his beliefs about Jews abusing Aryan women. See Kershaw, Hitler 1889- 1936, p. 151.

99. Yahil, p. 43. See also Redlich, p. 324.

100. Dawidowicz, War against Jews, p. 18; Hitler, Mein Kampf, p. 232.

101. Jeremy Noakes, "The Development of Nazi Policy towards the German-Jewish 'Mischlinge, ' 1933-1945, " Leo Baeck Yearbook 34 (1989): 298.

102. G. Warburg, Six Years of Hitler: The Jews under the Nazi Regime (London, 1939), p. 41.

103. BA-B, R 40, Bl. 280, SS-Standartenfuhrer Prof. Dr. B. K. Schultz, Chef des Rassenamtes /Rasse-u.Siedlungs-Hauptamt-SS, Gutachten zur Frage weit zuruckreichenden fremden (judischen) Rasseneinschlags, 12.11.1943.

104. BA-B, R 15.06/ 64-65, Bl. 8-9, Oberstes Parteigericht der NSDAP an Reichsstelle fur Sippenforschung, 24.11.1936.

105. SA stands for Sturmabteilung (storm detachment), a Nazi Party paramilitary formation. By 1933-1934, the SA membership numbered 1.5 million, which was fifteen times larger than the German army. Craig, Prussian Army, 1640- 1945, p. 474.

106. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Rudolf Sachs, 20.11.1995, T-168.

107. The Gestapo dealt "with all political opponents and 'enemies'" of the Third Reich. Benz, p. 53.

108. Friedlander, Nazi Germany, p. 138. See also Kaplan, p. 34.

109. Deutsche Juristen-Zeitung, Heft 1, Jahrgang 39, 01.01. 1934, Dr. Wilhelm Frick, "Die Rassenfrage in der deutschen Gesetzgebung, " p. 3.

110. After 1871, Germans had to register themselves (birth, weddings, and deaths) throughout Germany with the city or county register's office (Standesamt). During this registration, the religion was noted. The hundreds of documents collected for this study indicated that a person was registered as Jewish if mosaisch, hebrdisch, or israelitisch was written next to the religion line.

111. Hitler claimed that Jewry was not a religion but a race. Maser, p. 176; Adolf Hitler, Hitler's Secret Book, introduction by Telford Taylor (New York, 1961), p. 212. However, almost all racial policies relied on religious documents to prove a person's "race."

112. Hilberg, p. 19; George L. Mosse, The Crisis of German Ideology: Intellectual Origins of the Third Reich (New York, 1964), p. 308.

113. Hilberg, p. 52; Stoltzfus, p. 273. This study documents a few cases of individuals who converted to Judaism, but who were not treated as full Jews. Half-Jew Peter Schliesser remembered that there were two Aryans who had converted to Judaism who were handled like half-Jews in his forced labor camp. BA-MA, BMRS, File Peter Schliesser.

114. A Geltungsjude was the Nazi term for a Mischling who had been raised Jewish or had converted to Judaism or a half-Jew who was married to a Jew. See Akten-NSDAP, 107-00393; Stoltzfus, p. 102; Kaplan, p. 75.

115. The Nazis used the word Volk to mean "folk and folkdom." In the Nazi philosophy, it embodied the "totality of the German people and the German race." Peter Adam, Art of the Third Reich (New York, 1992), p. 9.

116. Akten der Parteikanzlei der NSDAP: Rekonstruktion eines verlorengegangenen Bestandes, Bundesarchiv (Akten-NSDAP), Microfiches, hrsg. v. Institut fur Zeitgeschichte (Munich, 1983), 101-28808, Der Reichsminister der Justiz, Fuhrerinformation 1942 NR. 59. See also Friedlander, p. 152. However, sometimes the Nazis would turn a blind eye to those who adhered to Judaism but could claim non-Semitic ancestors. General Ernst Kostring and Field Marshal Ewald von Kleist were able to prevent the Jewish Mountaineers in the Caucasus, called the Tats, from being exterminated because they convinced the authorities that the Tats were only of the Jewish religion but free of Jewish "blood." The SD was "forced to desist" and spared the Tats. The SS spared the Crimean Karaimes, who practiced Judaism but were not "racially" Jewish. These two groups were the only exemptions found for this study where the Nazis made allowances for those who practiced Judaism but were not of Jewish descent. See Alexander DaHin, German Rule in Russia, 1941-1945 (New York, 1957), p. 247; BA-MA, BMRS, File Jackobschwilli, Bl. 10. See also Hans von Herwarth, Zwischen Hitler und Stalin. Erlebte Zeitgeschichte, 1931-1945 (Frankfurt, 1982); BA-MA, BMRS, interview Hans von Herwarth, 12.09.1994, T-I7; Karl Dietrich Bracher, The German Dictatorship (New York, 1970), p. 424.

117. Reichsleiter was the highest rank in the Nazi Party under Hitler, the Parteichef (chief of the Party).

118. BA-B, NS 6/342, Bl. 64, Rundschreiben Nr. 124/43 von Bormann v. 02.09.1943. For more information about Hitler's relationship to Islam, see Albert Speer's Inside the Third Reich (New York, 1970), pp. 114-15. Also, Hitler seemed not to mind organizing military units with Muslims in them. See Germany and the Second World War, vol. 4, The Attack on the Soviet Union, ed. Militargeschichtliches Forschungsamt (Oxford, 1998); Jurgen Forster, "Securing 'Living-space, ''' p. 1, 223; Dallin, pp. 244-46, 267-70, 600-601; Joachim Hoffmann, Kaukasien 1942/43- Das deutsche Heer und die Orientvolker der Sowjetunion (=Einzelschriften zur Militargeschichte, 35; hersg. V. Militargeschichtlichen Forschungsamt) (Freiburg, 1991); George Lepre, Himmler's Bosnian Division: The Waffen-SS Handschar Division, 1943-1945 (New York, 2000).

119. Geoffrey Hartman, ed., Holocaust Remembrance: The Shapes of Memory (New York, 1994); David Tracy, "Christian Witness and the Shoah, " in Holocaust Remembrance, p. 83; Martin Gilbert, The Second World War (New York, 1989), p. 351; Engelmann, p. 197; Aleksandar-SaSa Vuletic, Christen Judischer Herkunft im Dritten Reich. Verfolgung und Organisierte Selbsthilfe, 1933-1939 (Mainz, 1999), p. 6. In 1934, Edith Stein entered the Carmelite convent at Kaln and took the religious name Teresa Benedicta of the Cross. On 9 August 1942, she and her sister died in Auschwitz. On I May 1987, Pope John Paul II beatified her.

120. Gilbert, Second World War, p. 351.

121. A convenient sample collected from this study found that out of 459 half-Jews documented, 267 had Jewish mothers and 192 had Jewish fathers. Out of 160 quarter-Jews documented, only 51 were Halakically Jewish.
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Re: Hitler's Jewish Soldiers: The Untold Story of Nazi Racia

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CHAPTER 2: WHO IS A MISCHLlNG?

1. Special thanks to Christa Brunner for information on this event recorded on 29 February 1998.

2. HarperCollins German Dictionary (New York, 1990), p. 201; Pocket Oxford German Dictionary (Oxford, 1975), p. 229.

3. Joachim C. Fest, The Face of the Third Reich (Vermont, 1970), p. 98.

4. Walter Laqueur, ed., The Holocaust Encyclopedia (New Haven, 2001), p. 420; Wolfgang Eckart, "Biopolitical Seizure of Power and Medical Science in Germany, 1933-1945. Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring of July 14, 1933" (University of Heidelberg, 2000). The "Rehoboth Bastards" were originally called "colored" or "bastards." They got their name from the hot-water spring at Rehoboth, Namibia, in Africa where many of them lived.

5. According to one study from 1927, France had three hundred thousand "colored soldiers under arms" in the Rhineland. Hermann Stegemann, The Struggle for the Rhine (London, 1927), p. 425.

6. Hitler, Mein Kampf, p. 624; Maser, p. 226. See also Hitler, Hitler's Secret Book, p. 163.

7. Victor, pp. 134, 140, 175; Reiner Pommerin, Sterilisierung der Rheinlandbastarde. Das Schicksal einer farbigen deutschen Minderheit, 1918-1937 (Dusseldorf, 1979); Friedlander, pp. 207-8; Robert Gellately, The Gestapo and German Society: Enforcing Racial Policy (Oxford, 1990), p. 215.

8. BA-MA, BMRS, File Helmut Wilberg, Heft II, Tagebuch, 26.09.1933.

9. BA-MA, BMRS, File Hermann Lange, "Judische Mischlinge: Als die Nationalsozialisten eine neue Rasse erfanden, " Bl. 2.

10. Bruno Blau writes that 80 percent of half-Jews and 90 percent of quarter- Jews in his study were Christians. Bruno Blau, "Die Christen judischer und gemischter Abkunft in Deutschland und Osterreich im Jahr 1939, " judaica, Yearbook 5 (1949), p. 276.

11. Hans Globke and Wilhelm Stuckart, Kommentare zur Deutschen Rassengesetzgebung (Munchen, 1936), p. 18.

12. For example, see Akten-NSDAP, 107-00398, 107-00407-408; Stoltzfus, p. 54; Vuletic, p. 21.

13. Hilberg, p. 49; Stoltzfus, p. 54; Vuletic, p. 21; BA-MA, BMRS, H. Lange. For example, three men had to leave the SS because they were 11256 Jewish. See BA-B, NS 19/453; BA-B, NS 19/3857; BA-B, NS 19/1194.

14. BA-MA, BMRS, File Hans-Geert Falkenberg, Veranstaltung zum 08.05, 1945 im Bergischen Kolleg, Wuppertal, 10.05. 1995, Bl. 55. See also Friedlander, p. 167.

15. Hitler, Mein Kampf, pp. 248-49.

16. Ibid., pp. 400-402.

17. Hilberg claims that these records were often quite difficult to get. See Hilberg, p. 49. Stoltzfus maintains the opposite, saying that churches made "their records freely available." See Stoltzfus, p. 10.

18. Hitler, Mein Kampf, p. 120.

19. Joseph Walk, ed., Sonderrecht fur denjuden im NS-Staat. Eine Sammlung der gesetzlichen Mafinahmen und Richtlinien. Inhalt und Bedeutung (Heidelberg, 1981), Gesetz v. 04.10.1936.

20. SS lieutenant colonel.


21. Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem (New York, 1984), p. 159; Robert Wistrich, Who's Who in Nazi Germany (New York, 1982), p. 62.

22. Interestingly, Goring's ancestry had Jews in it a few centuries back. See Wolfgang Paul, Wer war Hermann Goring (Esslingen, 1983), p. 33; W. R. Staehelin, ed., Wappenbuch der Stadt Basel. I Teil. I Folge (Basel, 1934), Familie Eberler gennant Grunenzweig.

23. Karl-Heinz Janssen, 30 Januar. Der Tag der die Welt veranderte (Hamburg, 1983), p. 24; Karl Demeter, The German Officer Corps, 1650-1945 (New York, 1965), p. 228; Der Judenpogrom 1938, Beitrag von Zuelzer, p. 147; Bracher, p. 254; Hamann, pp. 416-17. This phrase originally came from Dr. Karl Lueger, mayor of Vienna from 1897 to 1910. He would say, "Wer a Jud ist, bestimm i!" See also Willi Frischauer, The Rise and Fall of Hermann Goering (Boston, 1951), p. 151.

24. BA-MA, BMRS, from database of documented Wehrmacht soldiers of Jewish descent, "50 percent Jew" Field Marshal Erhard Milch, "50 percent Jew" General Gunther Sachs, and" 50 percent Jew" General Helmut Wilberg.

25. Jobst Frhr. von Cornberg, and John M. Steiner, "Willkur in der Willkur. Hitler und die Befreiungen von den antisemitischen Nurnberger Gesetzen, " Vierteljahreshefte fur Zeitgeschichte, Heft 2 (1998), p. 161.

26. Das Reichsburgergesetz vom 15.09.1935, RGBl. 1935, Teil I, Nr. 100, p. 1146; Gesetz zum Schutz des deutschen Blutes und der deutschen Ehre vom 15.09.1935, RGBl. 1935, Teil I, Nr. 100, p. 1146; Erste Verordnung zum Reichsburgergesetz 14.11.1935, RGBl., Teil I, 1935, Nr. 125, pp. 1, 333-34. See also Akten-NSDAP, 107-00387-388.

27. After the Nuremberg Laws of 1935, Rassenschande was declared a crime. Gellately, Gestapo and German Society, p. 160.

28. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Eduard Hesse, 30.10.1998, T-430; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Susi Byk, 23.11.1995, T-176.

29. Martin Gilbert, The Holocaust: A History of the Jews of Europe During the Second World War (New York, 1985), p. 50.

30. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Dieter Bergmann, 19.09.1996, T-218.

31. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Margot Braun, 07.01.1996, T-191; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Braun, 07.01.1996, T-190; Bracher, p. 253. For example, after the authorities found out that an SS man had fallen in love and had relations with a Jewish woman, both were immediately executed. Gilbert, Holocaust, p. 681. A more extreme handling of a Rassenschande case happened to Lehmann Katzenberger, president of the Jewish community in Nuremberg, who was sentenced to death for kissing the Aryan Irene Seile. Hilberg, p. 111. See also BA-MA, BMRS, File Dieter Fischer, Bl. 72.

32. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Rudolf and Traute Sachs, 20.11.1995, T-168. See also BA-MA, BMRS, interview Otto Luderitz, 28.03.1997, T-334.

33. Noncommissioned officers.

34. Unteroffizier is a corporal. Often Obergefreiter and Unteroffizier are translated as corporal; however, Unteroffizier was a higher rank and was given more responsibility than Obergefreiter (acting corporal).

35. BA-MA, BMRS, File Gerhard Fecht, Fecht an Professor Dr. Lev Kopelev, 31.01.1986 Bl. 3.

36. "Gesetz-und Verordnungsblatt der Evangelischen Landeskirche, 1942, " p. 4 Zit[iert]. nach Amelis von Mettenheim, Die zwolf langen Jahre, 1933-1945; BA-MA, BMRS, File Dieter Fischer, B1. 29. See also Kaplan, pp. 160, 225.

37. Institut fur Zeitgeschichte (HZ), Munchen, N 71-73, Vermerk an Herrn Minister, Anwendung der Arierbestimmung auf Abkommlinge aus Mischehen, 30.10.1933; Bernhard Losener, "Als Rassereferent im Reichsministerium des Innern" (in: Das Reichsministerium des Innern und die Judengesetzgebung, Vierteljahreshefte fur Zeitgeschichte, Heft 6 [1961]), p. 269; Noakes, "Development of Nazi Policy, " pp. 304-5.

38. BA-MA, RW 6/v. 73, "Dennoch treudeutsch"-Ansprache des Vorsitzenden der Bezirksgruppe Stuttgart im Reichsverband der Christlicher Nichtarier [Erwin Goldmann] am 19.11.1934 (p. 6).

39. IfZ, N 71-73, Reichs- und Preussisches Ministerium des Innern, Abt. I Referent: Ministerialrat Dr. Losener, 11. 10.1935; Losener, Vierteljahrshefte, p. 280.

40. IfZ, N 71-73, 11.10.1935.

41. IfZ, N 71-73, 11.10.1935; Losener, p. 280.

42. Half-Jew Hans Leipelt was part of the White Rose resistance group. Quarter- Jews Hans von Dohnanyi, Helmut von Gottberg, and General Fritz Lindemann were members of the 20 July 1944 plot to kill Hitler.

43. BA-MA, BMRS, File Erik Blumenfeld. Blumenfeld would later be sent to Buchenwald; remarkably, he survived the war. After the war, he played an active role in the German political party CDU and was president of the German- Israeli Society (Deutsch-Israelische Gesellschaft).

44. IfZ, N 71-73, 11.10.1935; BA-B, R 18/5514, Bl. 30-31.

45. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Hans Pollak, 07.12.1994, T-72.

46. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Hofrat Hans Herder, 05.01.1996, T-186. Mensch is German or Yiddish for "human being."

47. Unterarzt (equivalent of a Sanitatsoffizier-Anwarter or medical officer-cadet).

48. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Braun, 10-14.08.1994. This phenomenon has happened among other groups with children of mixed marriages. For example, during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in Haiti, mulattoes quickly came to bitterly despise "Negroes." As the historian of this period, C. L. R. James commented, "[I]t all reads like a cross between a nightmare and a bad joke." C. L. R. James, The Black Jacobins (New York, 1989), pp. 38-43.

49. BA-MA, BMRS, File Joachim Gaehde, Bl. 18.

50. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Bergmann; Dieter Bergmann, Between Two Benches (California, 1995), p. 99.

51. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Felix Bruck, 18.04.1998, T-422.

52. Marine-Oberbaurat was the engineer rank equivalent to a commander (Fregattenkapitan) in the Kriegsmarine.

53. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Barz-Mendelssohn, 17.03.1995, T-120.

54. Rolf von Sydow, Angst zu atmen (Berlin, 1986), p. 63.

55. Hauptgefreiter was an administrative corporal.

56. The literal translation of Genehmigung is "approval" or "authorization." The Genehmigung was a form of clemency that allowed one to continue serving in the Wehrmacht. Most Genehmigung award letters stated that Hitler would decide after the war whether the Genehmigung's recipient had proved himself sufficiently in battle to be declared deutschblutig.

57. Kriegsmarine was the official name of the German navy during the Third Reich.

58. The Kanzlei des Fuhrers (Fuhrer's chancellery) was set up in 1934 to handle written correspondence from Party members to Hitler. It was designed to keep Hitler in touch with "the concerns of his people." These letters dealt with complaints, grievances, and personal squabbles. By the late 1930s, around a quarter of a million letters for Hitler poured into the KdF. Kershaw, Hitler 1936-1945, p. 257. Bouhler's Fuhrer's chancellery was also in charge of clemency petitions and from 1939 to 1941 was in charge of the euthanasia program.

59. BA-MA, BMRS, File Herbert Lefevre, Bl. 15, 61, 80.

60. Rust was thought an idiot by many in the Nazi government. According to Lochner, Rust had been an inmate in an insane asylum as a young man. The Goebbels Diaries, 1942-1943, ed. and trans. by Louis p. Lochner (New York, 1948), p. 378 (Goebbels's diaries must be looked at critically, since he wrote them in the hope of publishing them as an "official Nazi document" in the future). Dr. Georg Meyer of the Militargeschichtliches Forschungsamt (Military Research Center) Potsdam/Freiburg claims that Rust's wife was Jewish.

61. BA-B, R 21/10875, Heinz Gerlach an Rust, 11.05.1941, Bl. 45-46.

62. On 24 September 1940, this anti-Semitic film appeared in theaters around Germany and in occupied Europe. Goebbels had been very involved in its production. The film depicted the Jews as being extremely dangerous. Gilbert, Second World War, p. 128.

63. Sydow, Angst zu atmen, p. 74.

64. BA-MA, BMRS, File Hans Muhlbacher, Teil V, Tagebuch, 30.07.40, Bl. 50.

65. Viktor Klemperer, Ich will Zeugnis ablegen bis zum letzten, 1933-1945 (Aufbau Verlag, 1996), Buch I, 10.01.1939, p. 457.

66. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Bergmann.

67. BA-MA, BMRS, interview H.A., 18.11.1997.

68. BA-MA, BMRS, File Dr. Dieter Bergmann, Tagebuch, 14.08.1940, Heft II, Bl. 25.

69. Ibid., 31.05.1941, Heft II.

70. Klemperer, Buch II, 30.05.1942, p. 105.

71. Moses Mendelssohn, Jerusalem: Or on Religious Power and Judaism (London, 1983), p. 44.

72. An interesting side note here is that this study has documented one Jew, eleven half-Jews, six 37.5 percent Jews, fifteen quarter-Jews, and six 12.5 percent Jews who served in the Wehrmacht who were all descendents of Moses Mendelssohn.

73. Sachverstandiger fur Rassenforschung im Reichsinnenministerium. After 5 March 1935, this office was called Reichsstelle fur Sippenforschung. Rudolf Absolon, Die Wehrmacht im Dritten Reich. Band III, 3. August 1934 bis 4. Februar 1938, "(=Schriften des Bundesarchivs 16/III) (Boppard, 1975), p. 104, n.452.

74. BA-B, R 15.09/52, Bl. 45, p. 5, "Die Losung der Judenfrage" (Grundsiitzliches zur Mischlingsfrage) von Dr. Achim Gercke. See also BA-B, R 15.09/58, Bl. 27-28; Alison Owings, Frauen: German Women Recall the Third Reich (New Brunswick, 1995), pp. 111-12.

75. SS captain.

76. Akten-NSDAP, 107-00404. See also Hilberg, pp. 49-50; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Herbert Frank, 27.06.1995, T-I52; BA-MA, BMRS, File Heinrich Bamberger, Bl. 25; Stoltzfus, p. 122. See also BA-MA, BMRS, File August Oestreicher, Bl. 2.

77. Alfred, Richard, and Oskar were names of Anton Milch's cousins. Anton Milch was Erhard Milch's Jewish father. These names came from the Wehlau family, sons of Sigmund and Fanny Wehlau nee Milch (sister of Anton Milch).

78. BA-MA, BMRS, File Erhard Milch, Heft III, Heinz Fahrenberg (ex-major in the Generalstab der Luftwaffe) an Bryan Rigg, 18.04.1997 and 22.06. I 997, and Walter Frank to Rigg, 18.04.1997, and proof of Walter Frank's duties on Generalfeldmarschall Milch's stationery, 24.07.1945, and Dr. Ludwig Spangenthal (distant relative of Milch) an Rigg, 04.07.1997; BA-MA, File Erhard Milch, Heft II, Prof. Klaus Herrmann to Rigg, 14. 10.1994, and 30.03.1995; BAMA, N 179, Bl. 46, Milch's Tagebuch, 01.11.1933. See also John Wheeler-Bennett, The Nemesis of Power (New York, 1980), p. 342; Manfred Messerschmidt, Die Wehrmacht im NS-Staat (Hamburg, 1969), p. 46; Klemperer, Buch 1, 18.10.1936, p. 317; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Bergmann; BA-MA, Pers 6/11, Bl. 4, "Milchs Vater Anton Milch, Marine-Oberstabsapotheker"; BA-MA, Pers 8-385; Ronald Smelser and Enrico Syring, eds., Die Militarelite des Dritten Reiches (Berlin, 1995), Horst Boog, "Erhard Milch"; Gerhard L. Weinberg, Germany, Hitler, and World War I I (New York, 1996), p. 66; Hitlers Tischgesprache im Fuhrerhauptquartier, Notiz von Picker, p. 277; Friedlander, p. 153.

79. Leiter der Reichsstelle fur Sippenforschung.

80. BA-B, R 15'09190, Bl. 2, Goring an Meyer, 07.08.1935.

81. Conversation with the Honorable John E. Dolibois on 22 July 2001. BA-MA, BMRS, File John E. Dolibois, Dolibois to Rigg, 23.07.2001. Dolibois was part of the Ashcan program (Ashcan was the military code word for CCPWE32). CCPWEp32 was the Central Continental Prisoners of War Enclosure 32, where Goring and many other Nazi officials were incarcerated from May to August 1945. Dolibois was working for the Nazi War Crimes Commission, headed by Justice Robert H. Jackson.

82. Konrad Heiden, Der Fuehrer: Hitler's Rise to Power (London, 1967), p. 500.

83. Wistrich, p. 210. In a letter to the author, Professor Wistrich mentioned that he did his research on Milch twenty years ago in the Wiener Library in London. Wistrich to Rigg, 18.06.2001. In author's private collection. Louis L. Snyder also claims that Milch's mother was Jewish, but he, like Milch, does not provide evidence to prove this. Louis L. Snyder, Encyclopedia of the Third Reich (New York, 1989), pp. 229, 378.

84. BA-MA, BMRS, File Erhard Milch, Dr. James Corum an Michael Briggs, March 2001.

85. Matthew Cooper, The German Air-Force, 1933-1945 (New York, 1981), p. 13.

86. BA-MA, BMRS, File Erhard Milch, Prof. Klaus Herrmann an David Irving, 26.10.1997; BA-MA, ZA 3/648, Personal-Nachweis uber Erhard Alfred Richard Oskar Milch; BA-MA, RL 3/3271, Personal-Nachweis uber Erhard Milch; Gilbert, Second World War, pp. 11-12, 20, 32, 70, 105; Michael Burleigh, The Third Reich: A New History (New York, 2000), p. 383.

87. BA-MA, BMRS, File Klaus Menge, Bl. 3-7, Martin Bier, "Klaus Hugo Menge. Zum Gedenken an unseren Klassen-Kameraden, " 26.09.1995, and Bl. 8, Vortisch an Rigg, 09.04.1997, and Bl. 10-12. Vortisch an Ursula, 04.12.1995, and Bl. 13-14; DDS, Bescheinigung uber Klaus Menge, 07.08.1996, and Bl. 15-16, Vortisch an Jorge Volberg, 10.10.1996.

88. Rassenbiologisches Institut der Hansischen Universitat Hamburg. BA-MA, BMRS, File Wolfgang Spier.

89. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Wolfgang Spier, 06.12.1994, T-70.

90. For examples, see BA-MA, BMRS, File Wilhelm Hollaender, Bl. 8, 19; BAMA, BMRS, File Alfred Marian, Bl. 4-5; BA-MA, BMRS, File Horst Geiger, Bl. 4; BA-MA, BMRS, interview J. L., 09.11.1994; Hilberg, p. 50; Jobst Frhr von Cornberg and John M. Steiner, "Willkiir in der Willkiir, " pp. 163-66.

91. Not his real name-the interviewee requests that he remain anonymous.

92. Waffen-SS sergeant.

93. BA-MA, BMRS, interview J. L.

94. Beate Meyer, Judische Mischlinge. Rassenpolitik und Verfolgungserfahrung, 1933-1945 (Hamburg, 1999), pp. 114-15.

95. Meyer, p. 114. See also BA-MA, BMRS, File Anton Paul Rengers, Bl. 2-3.

96. Meyer, pp. 113-17. See also BA-MA, BMRS, File Spier; BA-MA, BMRS File Helmuth Jacobsen, Bl. 3-5.

97. Not his real name-the interviewee requests that he remain anonymous.

98. BA-MA, BMRS, interview J. G., 05.01.1995. Grun would later be deported to an OT forced labor camp. He would survive the war.

99. AWA (1)= Allgemeines Wehrmachtsamt (Inland).

100. BA-B, DZA (Potsdam) 62 Ka. I 83, Bl. 96.

101. Ibid., Bl. 96-96b.

102. BA-MA, BMRS, File Bernhard Rogge, Heft III, Bl. 123, "Die Antwort der Geschichte."

103. Hitler started declaring Mischlinge deutschblutig (of German blood), giving them an official Deutschblutigkeitserklarung sometime after the Nuremberg Laws in 1935. This form of clemency was given to those whom Hitler judged to look and act like persons of "German blood." Such a declaration freed a Mischling from most racial laws and allowed him to call himself deutschblutig in identification papers.

104. Perhaps they did so not because of religious reasons but because parents of these sons did not want them to be different from their fathers. See BA-MA, 4 BMRS, interview Rolf Gottschalk, 01.12.1994, T-67; See also Stoltzfus, p. 104.

105. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Wolfgang Behrendt, 21.11.1994, T-58.

106. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Reiner Wiehl, 17.05.1996, T-205; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Gunther Voelsen, 20.02.1997, T-308; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Peter Droscher, 27.10.1997, T-405; BA-MA, BMRS, File Ernst Prager; BAMA, BMRS, File Heinz Puppe; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Spier; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Karl-Arnd Techel, 29.05.1997, T-355; Bergmann, pp. 225- 26; BA-MA, BMRS, File Gerhart von Gierke; Bergmann, pp. 225-26; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Bergmann; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Goldberg; Stoltzfus, p. 62; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Braun; Kaplan, p. 83.

107. BA-MA, BMRS, File Wilhelm Droscher, Tagebuch, 7.05-1938.

108. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Droscher.

109. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Hamburger; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Hellmut Arndt, 25.05.1997, T-3 51; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Walter Bruck, 12.07. 1997, T-371; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Arno Spitz, 17.06.1996, T-211.

110. Privilegierte Mischehe gave the Jews in the marriage special rights not allowed to Jews who were not married to Aryans. These couples were protected if they had not raised their children as Jews and if their marriage had happened before the Nuremberg Laws. For example, they did not have to wear the star and were not deported. One must remember, though, that if an Aryan married a Jew after 1935, he or she usually did so outside of Germany, since the Nuremberg Laws prohibited mixed marriages. Meyer, pp. 20-2 1, 92; Gellately, Gestapo and German Society, pp. 190-91; H. G. Adler, Der Verwaltete Mensch. Studien zur Deportation der Juden aus Deutschland (Tubingen, 1974), pp. 280- 81; Vuletic, p. 8; Kaplan, pp. 148-49.

111. See Stoltzfus, pp. xxvi, 85, 92-93.

112. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Braun, 10-14.08.1994, T-Io. See also Stoltzfus, pp. 106-7; Kaplan, pp. 190, 231.

113. Ursula Buttner, "The Persecution of Christian-Jewish Families in the Third Reich, " Leo Baeck Yearbook 34 (1989): 279; Stoltzfus, p. 12.

114. Kaplan, pp. 90-91, 182.

115. For example, Julius Scholz took his ex-wife to court and explained to the authorities that he did not have to pay alimony to a Jew. The court ruled that Julius did have to continue the alimony, but they reduced it from 1, 500 Reichsmarks to 110 Reichsmarks per month.

116. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Peter Scholz, 07.01.1995, T-85.

117. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Karl Heinz Scheffler, 09.03.1995, T-113; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Karl Heinz Scheffler, 19.05.1996, T-208; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Gunther Scheffler, 10.03. 1995, T-115; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Gunther Scheffler, 14.12.1996, T-273; BA-MA, BMRS, File Karl Heinz Scheffler; BA-MA, BMRS, File Gunther Scheffler.

118. Iron Cross Second and First Classes are like Bronze and Silver Stars in the U.S. armed forces.

119. BA-MA, BMRS, interview G. Scheffler, 10.03.1995; BA-MA, BMRS, interview G. Scheffler, 14.12.1996; BA-MA, BMRS, File G. Scheffler. Interestingly, after the war, Max Scheffler saw the advantage of having a Jewish wife. Helena took him back and they were remarried after the war. Their son, Karl Heinz Scheffler, said, "[W]hat a load of crap (Solch ein Scheifl)." BA-MA, BMRS, interview K. H. Scheffler, 09.03.1995; BA-MA, BMRS, interview K. H. Scheffler, 19.05.1996.

120. Kaplan, p. 87.

121. Goy is Yiddish for "gentile."

122. A Bris is a Jewish ritual circumcision. It is a sign of the covenant all Jews have with God. This mark displays that a Jew is linked to every other Jew and stands with them in primordial relation to God. Trepp, p. 2.

123. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Helmut Kopp, 27.09.1994, T-20.

124. Forschungsstelle fur die Geschichte des Nationalsozialismus in Hamburg, Auszug aus 040 G, Alfred Butow. Special thanks to Beate Meyer for her help in obtaining these files for the Bryan Mark Rigg Sammlung (collection) (BMRS). See also BA-MA, BMRS, File Hans Hiefner, Bl. 16; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Doppes.

125. Friedlander, p. 167; Primo Levi, Moments of Reprieve: A Memoir of Auschwitz (New York, 1986), p. 91; BA-MA, BMRS, general impressions gained from Interviewees.

126. Shiksa (sometimes spelled schikse or shikse) is a derogative Yiddish word to denote a non-Jewish young woman.

127. BA-MA, BMRS, File Hanns Rehfeld, Rehfeld an Rigg, 07.12.1996, Bl. 2-3.

128. Today, Breslau is Wroclaw, Poland.

129. In Breslau, the Gestapo offices adjoined the Breslau prison.

130. BA-MA, BMRS, File Hanns Rehfeld, Rehfeld an Rigg, 07.12.1996, Bl. 2. See also Hans J. Auman, Mein Leben als Mischmosch (Munchen, 1977), p. 23.

131. IfZ, N 71-73, 11.10.1935. See also Kaplan, pp. 112-113.

132. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Hanns Rehfeld, 16.11.1996, T-239.

133. IfZ, N 71-73, 11.10.1935.

134. BA-MA, BMRS, File Hans Muhlbacher, "1941-1945. Im Zeitalter der Gestapo, " Erinnerungen von Olga Muhlbacher, Teil II, Bl. 16.

135. See Kerstin Meiring, Die Christlich-Judische Mischehe in Deutschland, 1840- 1933 (Hamburg, 1998), pp. 120-25, for a discussion on this subject; BA-MA, BMRS, general impression gained from this study.

136. Reichskristallnacht was the name given to the Nazi pogrom of 9-10 November 1938. Its literal meaning is "Reich Crystal Night, " or as it was later termed in English, the "Night of Broken Glass." Benz, p. 31. Around one hundred Jews were murdered, hundreds of synagogues were burned, and some thirty thousand male Jews were deported to concentration camps. Ian Kershaw, Profiles in Power: Hitler (London, 1991), p. 149.

137. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Hannah Leopold, 11.11.1996, T-2p. Eugen Klewansky had been a Stabsarzt during World War 1. For another example of extreme abuse of power, see Kaplan, p. 20.

138. Bergmann, pp. 179-80.

139. BA-MA, BMRS, File Hans-Geert Falkenberg, Bl. 59.

140. Beate Meyer, Mischlinge, p. 18.

14 I. BA-MA, BMRS, File Achim von Bredow, Heft III, Bl. 37.

142. Dr. Hans Globke was a Ministerialrat in the RMI who headed its international law section. He, along with state secretary Dr. Wilhelm Stuckart, wrote a commentary on the racial laws in 1936. After the war, he worked in the Bundeskanzleramt under Adenauer.

143. BA-MA, BMRS, Heinz Puppe to Rigg, Bl. 1.

144. Ursula Buttner also talks about this dilemma in her essay in the 1988 Leo Baeck Yearbook. See BLittner, "Persecution, " pp. 274-75.

145. BA-MA, BMRS, File Hans-Geert Falkenberg, Veranstaltung zum 08.05.1945 im Bergischen Kolleg, Wuppertal, 10.05.1995, Heft I, Bl. 55. Falkenberg puts the sentence, "I've not lost this drive to be the best even until now" at the beginning of this quote. The author thinks it reads better at the end of this section. Falkenberg has been shown this change.

146. Sydow, p. 66.

147. Ibid., pp. 77-78; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Rolf von Sydow, 17.12.1994, T-82.

148. Helmut Kruger, Der Halbe Stern. Leben als deutsch-judischer Mischlinge im Dritten Reich (Berlin, 1992), p. 67.

149. Jurgen Krackow, Die Cenehmigung (Munchen, 1991), p. 213.

150. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Jurgen Krackow, 14.11.1994, T-50; BA-MA, BMRS, interview J. Krackow 18.11.1994, T-56; Krackow, p. 145.

151. BA-MA, BMRS, FileJurgen Krackow, Bl. 1, Photo I, and Genehmigung Hiders an Jurgen Krackow, 28.01. 1943, and II./Panzer-Regiment 23; Beurteilung uber Lt. Jurgen Krackow, 20.02. 1945. The Gold Wound Badge was issued to a soldier who was wounded at least five times. In Krackow's case, he was wounded nine times, so his Wound Badge would be the equivalent of earning nine Purple Hearts in the U.S. armed forces. He still has a metal splinter in his head and has been classified as 100 percent disabled. His Iron Crosses were for such actions as destroying sixteen enemy tanks and disabling several others. BAMA, BMRS, interview J. Krackow.

152. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Reinhard Krackow.

153. BA-MA, BMRS, File Wilhelm Droscher, Tagebuch, 16.11.1940. One could compare the German-Cross in Gold with the Navy Cross in the U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps.

154. BA-MA, BMRS, information gathered from the database of the collection. By early 1944, over half a million Iron Crosses First Class, and three million Iron Crosses Second Class had been awarded. BA-K, R 22/4003.

155. Nine hundred men were awarded this medal during the war. "50 percent Jew"; Gen.-Arzt Dr. Helmuth Richter.

156. Apparently, 16, 876 men were awarded this medal during the Third Reich. Horst Scheibert, ed., Die Trager des Deutschen Kreuzes in Cold (Friedberg/ H.), 1981, p. 15. "Jew"; (I) Lt. Heinz Dieckmann; "50 percent Jew"; (1) Lt. Harder, (2) Oberst Robert Colli, (3) Oberst Walter Hollaender, (4) Generallt. Wilhelm Behrens, (5) Gen. Maj. Gunther Sachs, (6) Major Robert Borchardt, (7) Kapt. Georg Langheld; "25 percent Jew"; (1) ObIt. Wilhelm Droscher, (2) Korv.Kapt. Walter Jacobson, (3) Hptm. Heinz Rohr, (4) Hptm. Joachim Rohr, (5) Oberstlt. Alfred von Rosenberg-Lipinsky, (6) Waffen-SS-Obersturmbannfuhrer (SS Lt. Colonel) Peter Sommer, (7) Oberst Hans Viebig, (8) Kapt.z. See Edward Wegener, (9) Gen. d. Pi. Karl Sachs, (10) Hptm. Wilhelm von Gottberg.

157. About 7, 300 men were awarded the Knight's Cross during the war; Angolia, For Fuhrer and Fatherland: Military Awards of the Third Reich (New York, 1976), pp. 35 I-57. One could compare this medal with the Medal of Honor in the U.S. armed forces. "25 percent Jew"; (1) Uffz. Arthur Becker, (2) Major Wilhelm Goriany, (3) Oberstlt. Walter Lehwess-Litzmann, (4) Vizeadmiral Bernhard Rogge, (5) Gen. Hans-Heinrich Sixt von Armin, (6) Oberst Hans Viebig; "50 percent Jew": (I\1) Obit. Gerhard Simon, (2) Major Robert Borchardt, (3) Oberst Robert Colli, (4) Oberst Gustav Hertz, (5) Oberst Walter Hollaender, (6) Oberstlt. Hans von Schlebrugge, (7) Gen. Lt. Wilhelm Behrens, (8) Gen. Maj. Gunther Sachs, (9) Generalfeldmarschall Erhard Milch.

158. Interviews conducted by Colin Heaton with General Johannes Steinhoff from 26-28 January 1984.

159. Walter Hollaender was a nephew of Frederick Hollaender, the famous composer of Falling in Love Again, a song immortalized by Marlene Dietrich in the 1930 movie The Blue Angel (Der Blaue Engel).

160. BA-A, Pers 63210 Walter Hollaender, Fernschreiben von Model, 14.07.1943; BA-A, Pel's 63210 Walter Hollaender, Beurteilung zum 01.03.1944.

161. Six hundred received this award during the war. Angolia, pp. 351-57. "25 percent Jew": (1) Vizeadmiral Bernhard Rogge.

162. Ulrich Mohr and A. V. Sellwood, Ship 16: The Story of the Secret German Raider Atlantis (New York, 1956), pp. 152-58; Wolfgang Frank and Bernhard Rogge, The German Raider Atlantis (New York, 1956), p. 117.

163. Karl August Muggenthaler, German Raiders of World War II (London, 1977), p. 55; BA-MA, BMRS, File Bernhard Rogge; Mohr and Sellwood, p. 158.

164. BA-B, R 21/10875, Gerlach an Rust, 11.05.1941, Bl. 47.

165. BA-MA, BMRS, information gathered from the database of the BMR Collection. Party members: "25 percent Jew": (1) Herr Bergbohn, (2) Marine- Oberbaurat Franz Mendelssohn, (3) Hptm. Hans Joachim Nischelsky, (4) Lt. Hans Sander, (5) Obit. Karl Weigel, (6) Eberhard Rogge, (7) Dr. Leo Killy; "50 percent Jew"; (1) Lt. Kurt Erdmann, (2) Matr. Herbert Lefevre, (3) Hptm. Iva Lissner, (4) GFM Erhard Milch, (5) Dr. Heinz Neumann, (6) Obgfr. Werner Pollak, (7) Gefr. Karl Reinschmidt, (8) von Ribbentrop's Adjutant, (9) Obgfr. Herbert Schlagl, (10) Gefr. Gunther Treptow, (11) Martin Wronsky, (12) Frau Reichshandwerkmeister Schmidt, (13) Rittmeister a.D. Wickel. This study was unable to identify the names of the last two. "Jew": (I) Matr. Werner Kohn, (2) SS-Obersturmfuhrer (SS First Lt.) Fritz Scherwitz, (3) SS-Obersturmbannfuhrer Vivian Stranders, (4) Grandfather Fappel. See also Beate Meyer, Mischlinge, pp. 252-59.

166. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Alfred Catharin, 04.01.1996, T-I85; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Horst. G. (Reinhard).

167. BA-MA, BMRS, lecture given at Yale by Shlomo Perel, 22.04.1994, T-2.

168. Bergmann, pp. xvi-xvii; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Bergmann.

169. Dieckmann did not know about his ancestry until after the war.

170. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Heinz-Dieckmann, 19.09.1994, T-24.

171. BA-MA, BMRS, File Peter Schliesser.

172. OT camps were forced labor camps. Organization Todt (OT) was named after Dr.-Ing. Fritz Todt (1891-1942), Hitler's minister of armaments and munitions. OT was the German public construction agency.

173. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Peter Schliesser, 28.04.1996, T-200. Tragically, after the war when Peter Schliesser returned to Czechoslovakia, he narrowly escaped being sent to a Czech forced labor camp. Unfortunately, his father was caught and put in a Czech concentration camp. Their" crime" was that they were German. BA-MA, BMRS, File Schliesser. Schliesser's situation was not unique. Half-Jew and ex-soldier Franz Margold's mother experienced problems from the Czech authorities after the war because she had had two sons in the Wehrmacht. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Franz Margold, 18'05.1996, T-206.

174. BA-MA, BMRS, File Hans Muhlbacher, Muhlbacher to Rigg, 03.03.2001.

175. BA-MA, BMRS, File Hans Muhlbacher, Teil V, Tagebuch, 30.07.40, Bl. 50; BA-MA, BMRS, File Hans Muhlbacher, Muhlbacher to Rigg, 03.03.2001.

176. BA-MA, BMRS, File Hans Meissinger, Meissinger an Rigg, 08.11.1996, Bl. 10.

177. BA-MA, BMRS, File Ernst Ludwig, Ludwig an Rigg, 05.02.1997, Bl. 22.

178. BA-MA, BRS, interview Luderitz.

179. Ibid.

180. Bergmann, p. 113.

181. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Hugo Freund., 30.11.1994, T-66. See also BA-MA, BMRS, interview Kruger; Kruger p. 72.

182. BA-MA, BMRS, File Heinz-Gunther Lowy, Bl. 7.

183. BA-MA, BMRS, File Fritz Binder, Bl. 80, Binder an Rigg, 01.10.1994; BAMA, BMRS, interview Fritz Binder, 02.10.1994, T-34.

184. BA-MA, BMRS, File Hans-Joachim Korner, Brief Frau Ilse Korner-Volker, 29.03.1997, Bl. I.

185. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Richard Riess, 15-10.1994, T-39- Riess's father, Ernst, had to perform three years of forced labor in Vienna.

186. See BA-MA, BMRS, interview Luderitz; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Bergmann; BA-MA, BMRS, interview J. Krackow.

187. BA-MA, BMRS, File Meissinger, Meissinger an Rigg, 08.11.1996, Bl. 10.

188. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Kruger.

189. Kindheit und Jugend unter Hitler. Mit Beitragen von Helmut Schmidt u.a., Berlin, 1992, hier: Helmut Schmidt, Politis her Ruckblick auf eine unpolitische Jugend, p. 188 ff; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Helmut Schmidt, 22.11.1995, T-174; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Helmut Schmidt, 15.10.1996, T-225.

190. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Hans Koref, 06.01.1996, T-189.

191. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Reinhard; BA-MA, BMRS, interview J. Krackow; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Kruger.

192. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Heinz-Karl Scheffler, 09.03.1995, T-113; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Heinz-Karl Scheffler, 19.05.1996, T-208; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Sachs.

193. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Dieckmann. Interestingly, Dieckmann's stepfather, who was a Party member and had adopted Dieckmann, protected him throughout the entire Third Reich.

194. POWs are prisoners of war.

195. BA-MA, BMRS, File Gaehde, Bl. 13.

196. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Egon Bossart, 05.12.1994, T-69.

197. Forschungsstelle fur die Geschichte des Nationalsozialismus in Hamburg, Auszug aus 040 G, Alfred Butow. Special thanks to Beate Meyer for her help in attaining these Files for the Bryan Mark Rigg Collection; BA-MA, BMRS, File Butow, Bl. 4.

198. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Hermann Lange, 01.10.1994, T-33.

199. BA-MA, BMRS, File Du Bois Reymond, Bl. 5.

200. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Gunther Kallauch, 06.08.1994, T -9; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Gunther Kallauch, T - 35.

201. A Selbstfahrlafette was a self-propelled artillery piece mounted on a tracked chassis. It was a modified version of the Sturmgeschutz (assault gun). Kopp and his comrades destroyed over twenty Soviet tanks with their Selbstfahrlafette.

202. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Kopp.

203. Such views were expressed in the Wehrmachtausstellung that toured Germany a few years ago. The Wehrmachtausstellung's information is documented in Hannes Heer and J. p. Reemtsma, eds., Vernichtungskrieg: Verbrechen der Wehrmacht (Hamburg, (995)' See also Ben Hecht, Perfidy (New York, (961), p. 94.

204. BA-MA, BMRS, File Butow, Bl. 5.

205. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Techel.

206. Bayerisches Landesamt fur Wiedergutmachung.

207. They would receive certificates that they were either racially, religiously, or political persecuted (Amtlicher Ausweis fur rassisch, religios und politisch Verfolgte).

208. See BA-MA, BMRS, File Dietmar Brucher; BA-MA, BMRS, File Eugen Frank; BA-MA, BMRS, File Alfred Catharin; BA-MA, BMRS, File Heinz Eder; BAMA, BMRS, File Dieter Effenberg.

209. BA-MA, BMRS, Heinz Puppe to Rigg, Bl. I.

210. A menorah is a nine-branched candelabrum used during the Jewish festival of Hanukkah.

211. For examples, see BA-MA, BMRS, interview Emil Lux, 30.05-1997, T-356; BAMA, BMRS, interview Gerhard Fecht, 18.11.1997, T-410; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Hansotto Goebel, 07.12.1996, T-254.

2 I 2. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Bruck; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Binder; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Karl Partsch, 14.12.1994, T-8I; BA-MA, BMRS; interview Walter Schonewald, 06.01.1996, T-J 88; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Bergmann.

213. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Scholz.

214. Landgericht Munchen I, Akten Werner Eisner, Heft IV, Report given by Dr. Jose Maria Alvarado, 3 June 1965, La Paz, Bolivia, Bl. 455.

215. Ibid., Protokoll aufgenommen in offentlicher Sitzung des Einzelrichters des 17. Zivilsenats des Oberlandesgerichts Munchen, Bericht von Zeuge Walter Julius Eisner, 3 July 1968, Heft IV, BJ. 649, and Zeuge Frau Emma Hummel, Heft IV, 11 November 1968, BJ. 684.

216. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Richard Ohm, 11.02.1995, T-91; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Bruck; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Ettheimer.

217. BA-MA, BMRS, data list: Schlomo Perel, Karl-Heinz Maier, Bob Winter, Siegfried Behrendt, Ephraim Glaser, Nachemia Wurman, and Gunter Kallauch.

218. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Helmut Kopp, 3-4.09.1994, T-15, and 29.09.1994, T- 31; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Helmut Kopp, 06.02. 1997, T-299. For a similar case, see BA-MA, BMRS, interview Sachs.

219. Sturmmann is a Waffen-SS private. Lowy was stationed with the Sixth SS Mountain Division in Salzburg.

220. Through Lowy's experiences in World War II, he became religious. When he dies, he plans on being buried in a Jewish cemetery and having Kaddish said for him.

221. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Karl-Heinz Lowy, 12.01.1996, T-195.

222. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Partsch.

223. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Michael Hauck, 24.11.1994, T-61.

224. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Adolf Blum, 22.04.1995, T-147; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Lenni Blum, 22.04.1995, T-148.

225. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Schonewald. See V. D. Segre, Israel: A Society in Transition (New York, 1971), p. 196; De Lange, p. 144.

226. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Binder.

227. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Bergmann. This saying comes from the traditional liturgy: "Blessed are You Hashem, our God, King of the universe, for not having made me a gentile." The Complete Artscroll Siddur, p. 19. The blessing is one of three that reflect that a Jewish male has more commandments from God (a privileged status) than a female Jew, a gentile, or a slave.

228. Christoph fischer and Renate Schein, eds., O ewich is so lanck. Die Historischen Friedhofe in Berlin-Kreuzberg. Ein Werkstattbericht (Berlin, 1987).

229. Colonel Count Claus von Stauffenberg was one of the leading members of the conspiracy to kill Hitler that culminated in the 20 July 1944 bomb plot.

230. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Horst von Oppenfeld, 05.01.1995, T-84.

231. Webfehler literally means "weaving flaw." It means that someone has abnormal ancestry.

232. Falscher Makelliterally means that one is stained or polluted. During the Third Reich, these words were used to describe the "racial problem" of Mischlinge.

233. Mampe was the name of a well-known brand of brandy (Krauterlikor), which was half sweet and half bitter.

234. BA-MA, BMRS, File Hans Gunzel, Bl. 3.

235. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Reinhard Krackow, 20.05-1996, T-209.

236. BA-MA, BMRS, R. ZeIter; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Joachim Zeiter, 27.10.1997, T-166. Joachim Zeiter's great-great-grandfather was Karl-Frederick Zeiter, who was a distinguished man of letters and a friend of Goethe.

237. Not his real name.

238. Many Mischlinge documented in this study still meet with their comrades or have contact with old comrades. For a few examples, see BA-MA, BMRS, File Peter Gaupp; BA-MA, BMRS, interview A. Spitz; BA-MA, File Werner Maltzahn; BA-MA, BMRS, File Helmut Schmoeckel. Even the Jew Shlomo Perel went to a large meeting of veterans from his division in 1987. See Perel, p. 63.
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Re: Hitler's Jewish Soldiers: The Untold Story of Nazi Racia

Postby admin » Fri Apr 27, 2018 11:30 pm

CHAPTER 3: ASSIMILATION AND THE JEWISH EXPERIENCE IN THE GERMAN ARMED FORCES

To make sure this chapter would be statistically and mathematically sound, it was reviewed by Dr. Stan Stephenson, professor of business statistics in the Department of CIS and QMST at Southwest Texas State University; Dr. Monnie McGee, assistant professor of statistics at Hunter College in New York City; Sybille Clayton, instructor of mathematics at Louisiana State University (LSU); and (USMC) Lt. Edmund Clayton, Ph.D. in physics from LSU.

1. Because Austria was united with Germany under Hitler, this study includes data on Austrian assimilation.

2. Gay, Jews of Germany, pp. 165, 182-84; Haffner, Meaning of Hitler, pp. 92, 103. See also Kershaw, Hitler, 1889-1936, pp. 32, 78.

3. Gellately, Gestapo and German Society, p. 108.

4. Arthur Ruppin, The Jews in the Modern World (London, 1934), p. 329; Gay, p. 139; Michael A. Meyer, ed., Deutsch-Judische Geschichte in der Neuzeit. 1871-1918: Band III (Munchen, 1997), p. 20.

5. Gay, p. 165.

6. Adler, Jews in Germany, p. 98.

7. Haffner, p. 93.

8. Ibid., p. 9.

9. Meyer, Deutsch-Judische Geschichte: Band III, pp. 20-21; Ruppin, Modern World, p. 330; Stephan Behr, Der Bevolkerungsruckgang der deutschen Juden (Frankfurt, 1932), p. 105; Gay, p. 202.

10. Arthur Ruppin, also called the "father of Jewish sociology, " was the most noted Jewish statistician and demographer of his time. He was a Zionist and the "first professor of Jewish sociology at the newly established Hebrew University of Jerusalem in the twenties." Alex Bein, "Arthur Ruppin: The Man and His Work, " Leo Baeck Yearbook 17 (1972): 117.

11. Ruppin, Modern World, p. 332.

12. Avraham Barkai, "Population Decline and Economic Stagnation, " in German- Jewish History in Modern Times, vol. 4, ed. Michael A. Meyer (New York, 1998), pp. 32-33; Meyer, Deutsch-Judische Geschichte: Band III, pp. 21-22; Behr, Der Bevolkerungsruckgang, pp. 100-107; Marsha L. Rozenblit, "Jewish Assimilation in Habsburg Vienna, " in Assimilation and Community: The Jews in Nineteenth-Century Europe, ed. Jonathan Frankel and Steven J. Zipperstein, (Cambridge, 1992), p. 237.

13. Gay, p. 198; Meyer, Deutsch-Judische Geschichte: Band III, p. 20; Felix A. Theilhaber, Der Untergang der deutschen Juden (Munchen, 191 I), pp. 95-96; BA-MA, BMRS, File Peter Noah, Bl. 12; Stoltzfus, Resistance, pp. 30-3 1, 57- 58, 71; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Goldberg.

14. The word dissidents is used in this study to describe those Jews who separated themselves from the Jewish community without conversion. They simply became konfessionslos (without confession).

15. Meyer, Deutsch-J udische Geschichte: Band III, p. 21.

16. Theilhaber, Der Untergang, p. 93. See also Lowenthal, p. 270; Engelmann, p. 54; Kaplan, p. 12.

17. Theilhaber, Der Untergang, pp. 94, 160.

18. Haffner, p. 91. See also Edward Crankshaw, Bismarck ( ew York, 1981), p. 380; Bracher, pp. 25, 36; Marsha Rozenblit, The Jews of Vienna, 1867-1914 (New York, 1983), p. 127; Heinrich Walle, "Deutsche judische Soldaten, 1914- 1945. Ein Rundgang dutch die Ausstellung, " in Deutsche Judische Soldaten, 1914-1945, ed. Militargeschichtliches Forschungsamt (Bonn, 1984), p. 19. BAMA, BMRS, interview Rolf Zeiter, 14.05.1996, T-201.

19. Behr, p. 102.

20. Vuletic, p. 15; Gay, p. 141; Lowenthal, p. 234. Of course there were some Jews, like Edith Stein, mentioned earlier, who earnestly believed in the Christian message, but they were a minority.

21. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Hauck.

22. Dietz Bering, Stigma of Names (Michigan, 1992), p. 14. See also Friedlander, p.80.

23. Theilhaber, Der Untergang, pp. 116-17, 148.

24. Ibid., p. 153.

25. Robert E. Dickinson, Germany (New York, 1953), p. 100. From 1815 to 1925, Germany's population grew from twenty-eight million to eighty million. Dickinson, p. 104.

26. Adler, Jews in Germany, p. 107. See also Ritchie Robertson, The ''Jewish Question" in German Literature, 1749-1939: Emancipation and Its Discontents (Oxford, 1999), p. 286; Lowenthal, p. 270. By 1933, over 44 percent of German Jews who married, married non-Jews. Blau, "Die Mischehe im Nazireich, " Judaica: Beitrage zum Verstiindnis des judischen Schicksals in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart, Bd. 4 (1948), p. 46; Stoltzfus, Resistance, p. xxvi; Gordon, p. 17.

27. Meiring, p. 91; Louis A. Berman, Jews and Intermarriage: A Study in Personality and Culture (New York, 1968), p. 123; F. R. Bienenfeld, The Germans and the Jews (London, 1939), p. 99; Blau, "Die Mischehe im Nazireich, " pp. 46-57; Ernst Kahn, "Die Mischehen bei den deutschen Juden, " Der Jude, Eine Monatsschrift, Erster Jahrgang, Berlin (1916-1917), pp. 855-56; Behr, p. 112. See also Fritz Lenz, Menschliche Auslese und Rassenhygiene (Eugenik) (Munchen, 1932), pp. 228-29; BA-B, 15.09/36, C. V. Zeitung, 16.05-1935, Bl. 28; Theilhaber, Der Untergang, p. 104; Uriah Zevi Engelman, "Intermarriage, " Jewish Social Studies 2 (1940): 157-67; Werner Cohn, "Bearers of a Common Fate? The 'Non-Aryan' Christian 'Fate-Comrades' of the Paulus- Bund, 1933-1939, " in Leo Baeck Yearbook 33 (1988): 327-68; Arthur Ruppin, The Jews of Today (New York, 1913).

28. At the time, 201, 513 of Austria's 220, 000 Jews lived in Vienna. Chajim Bloch and Lobel Taubes, eds., Judisches Jahrbuch fur Osterreich (Wien, 1932), p. 8.

29. The remaining areas of Austria would have added a few thousand to the seventeen thousand possible mixed marriages from Vienna.

30. Avraham Barkai, "Population Decline and Economic Stagnation, " in German- Jewish History in Modern Times, vol. 4, pp. 32-33; Robertson, "Jewish Question, " p. 386. Austria prohibited marriages between Jews and Christians. If a Jew and a Christian wanted to marry, one of the partners had to convert so that both would be of the same religion. If one became konfessionslos (without religious affiliation), then he or she could marry a Jew or a Christian under Austrian law, unlike in Germany where couples could, since 1875, have a civil ceremony regardless of their religions (Israel Cohen, Jewish Life in Modern Times [New York, 1914], p. 305). Although Barkai estimates that these seventeen thousand dissidents probably did so to marry, these mixed marriage figures are low because only those Jews who married people who were konfessionslos were recorded. Marsha Rozenblit wrote that accurate figures cannot be recorded because "all those Jews who converted to Christianity or became konfessionslos prior to their marriage with gentiles elude statistical discovery" (Rozenblit, The Jews of Vienna, 1867-1914, p. 129). See also Ruppin, Jews of Today, pp. 166-67; Bloch and Taubes, p. 10.

31. The number derived from Ruppin's sources for the possible average of mixed marriages occurring in Vienna from 1921 to 1924 is 979 per year (Ruppin's records indicate that dissidents were numerous because "marriages with non- Jews contribute[d] to them considerably" [Ruppin, Modern World, p. 332]). If one assumes that the majority of dissidents Behr lists between 1912 and 1923 in Vienna (10, 429) did so to marry non-Jews, then that would yield an average of 869 mixed marriages per year in Vienna (Behr, p. 98). The number stated in this study (895) is between Ruppin's and Behr's averages.

32. Barkai, "Population Decline and Economic Stagnation, " in German-Jewish History in Modern Times, pp. 32-33; Ruppin, Modern World, pp. 331-32. Ruppin gives the figures of dissidents in Vienna as 2, 900 from 1901 to 1905, 3, 914 from 1921 to 1924, and 2, 692 from 1927 to 1929. If the average from 1901 to 1905 (580) is applied to 1906-1920, there could have been 8, 700 who left Judaism in Vienna during this period. If the average between 1921-1924 (979) is applied to 1925-1926, there could have been 1, 958 who left Judaism during this period. According to these calculations, around 16, 644 Jews "seceded" (Ruppin's word) from Judaism from 1901 to 1929. Since most did so to marry non-Jews according to Ruppin, then one can assume that at least 16, 000 mixed marriages occurred during this time in Vienna. However, since people of Jewish descent who were Christians were not recorded when they married, the number of mixed marriages must have been much higher than this estimate of 16, 000.

33. Statistics about the number of children in each family come from Ruppin, Behr, Theilhaber, Lenz, a U.S. Naval Intelligence study done on Germany in 1944, and the average number of siblings of the hundreds of people interviewed for this study. Ruppin, Behr, and Theilhaber had political agendas to prove. They believed that assimilation of Jews with non-Jews was not healthy for the Jewish people. As a result, one must look at their findings carefully, because it was in their interest to show that mixed marriages did not produce the same number of children as Jewish or non-Jewish unions. Moreover, it seems that their data focus only on marriages where the Jewish partner remained religiously Jewish and not those unions where the Jewish partner had converted to Christianity. Marriages where one of the partners remained religiously Jewish did indeed produce fewer children according to the national average. Lenz also must be looked at carefully because being a Nazi, he naturally wanted to present the data in such a way as to show the danger that Jewish assimilation had for German society. As a result, the data heavily relied on come from Germany, vol. 3, Economic Geography, ed. Naval Intelligence Division (Washington, D.C., 1944), pp. 67-78, and this study documenting Mischlinge in the offspring generation. Since many of the Jewish parents of the Mischlinge documented in this study did not remain Jewish, they would have not been included in the statistics given by Theilhaber and Ruppin, but rather included in the birthrates of couples who were either Protestant or Catholic. Given that the average number of children per Catholic family was 4.33 and per Protestant family was 3.06 (Meiring, p. 91), the numbers found in this study are more accurate for children of mixed marriages. See also Statistical Year-Book of the League of Nations 19J6/J7, ed. League of Nations Economic Intelligence Service (Geneva, 1937), pp. 35, 41.

34. Military age ranged from eighteen to forty-five years of age. IfZ, N 71-73, Pfundtner an Hossbach, 03.04.1935.

35. Meyer, Avraham Barkai, "Jewish Life under Persecution, " in German- Jewish History, in Modern Times, p. 252; Behr, p. 112; Berman, p. 123; Bienenfeld, p. 99. Most sources put mixed marriages from 1900 to 1930 at just over 30, 000. Barkai estimates that between 1870 and 1930, 50, 000 mixed marriages occurred. From this figure, roughly 30, 000 has been subtracted for the years of 1900 to 1930 to yield an estimate of 20, 000 between 1870 and 1900.

36. Behr, p. 112 (Behr writes that between 1876 and 1900, 8, 3 16 mixed marriages occurred); Meiring, p. 91 (Meiring writes that between 1874 and 1900, 8, 091 mixed marriages occurred). The number of 8, 000 does not take into account the mixed marriages happening between 1870 and 1875, as well as those in other German states such as Saxony, Baden, Wurttemberg, Hessen, and so on.

37. Ruppin, Jews of Today, p. 166. Ruppin states that 2, 488 mixed marriages occurred in Austria between 1881 and 1906 (an average of 99.52 mixed marriages per year). Taking this average and applying it to the years 1870 to 1900 gives one a total of 2, 985.6 mixed marriages. Since only mixed marriages where a Jew married someone who was konfessionslos (without religious affiliation) were recorded, the numbers Ruppin gives are very low. However, this is the only source found that indicates how many mixed marriages were occurring during this time. For more data on mixed marriages in Austria, see Max Grunwald, History of Jews in Vienna (Philadelphia, 1936), p. 527; Bloch and Taubes, p. 10; Cohen, p. 304.

38. These figures do nor take into consideration the children who were born our of wedlock. They would have added to the numbers presented here.

39. This number has been left according to a pure mathematical model. Although some of these half-Jews did not marry or married other Mischlinge and Jews, the Naval Intelligence figures from 1944 show that the net reproduction rate from 1880 to 1929 (with a few gaps) would have produced at least 92, 000 children. See Germany, vol. 3, Economic Geography, p. 73.

40. Michael R. Marrus and Robert O. Paxton, Vichy France and the Jews (New York: Basic Books, 1981), p. 42.

41. Schleunes, pp. 4-5; Hitler, Hitler's Secret Book, pp. 100, 212-14.

42. Hitler, Mein Kampf, p. 562.

43. Ruppin, Modern World, p. 4. Ruppin even traveled to Germany during the Third Reich and talked with the Nazi race theoretician, Dr. Hans Gunther (Friedlander, p. 64), where apparently he collected some of the data he used to write his above-mentioned book.

44. BA-MA, BMRS, File Ernst Prager, S. Prager to Rigg, 05.07.2001. See also Kaplan, p. 78.

45. Yahil, p. 80; Schleunes, pp. 193-94.

46. When Prussia regained its autonomy in 1812 from Napoleon, it emancipated the Jews under the leadership of Hardenberg and Stein. However, this did not mean that Jews enjoyed equal rights. Although they received more rights than before, they were still excluded from some professions and had difficulty becoming officers in the armed forces. The partial emancipation of 1812 was rescinded after the Congress of Vienna in 1815. Unconverted Jews could not hold elective office and by law could not become officers according to the 1812 law. See Vital, p. 62.

47. In 1871, Bismarck followed in the footsteps of Hardenberg and Stein, and emancipated the Jews in all of the newly unified German Reich (Gay p. 161). However, this emancipation was still imperfect (e.g., baptized Jews could not be judges). Only with the Weimar Republic would full civil and political rights be granted to the Jews. See Kaplan, p. 67.

48. Most of these six hundred thousand "declared themselves Jews and viewed themselves as a religious minority." Benz, p. 14. Had the people who declared themselves Christians who were of Jewish descent been included, this number would have been significantly larger.

49. Hilberg, p. 115.

50. IfZ, N 71-73, Die Juden und judischen Mischlinge im Deutschen Reich, Vorlaufiges Ergebnis der Volkzahlung vom 17.05.1939.

51. Martin van Creveld, Fighting Power (New York, 1982), p. 65. By 1942, the population of Greater Germany would be 112 million people. Naval Intelligence Division Germany, vol. 3, p. 341; Hitlers Tischgesprache im Fuhrerhauptquartier, Einfuhrung v. Picker, p. 9.

52. Anschluss means "annexation."

53. Federal Research Division, ed. Austria: A Country Study (Washington, D.C., 1994), p. 46; Karl Renner, Osterreich von der Ersten zur Zweiten Republik, II. Band (Wi en, 1953), pp. 94-95; IfZ, 71-73, Westdeutscher Beobachter, No. 159, 29.05.1940; Militargeschichliches Forschungsamt, ed., Das Deutsche Reich und der zweite Weltkrieg. Kriegsverwaltung, Wirtschaft und Personelle Ressourcen, 1939-1941, vol. 5/1, (Stuttgart, 1988), Rolf-Dieter Muller, "Die Mobilisierung del' Deutschen Wirtschaft fur Hitlers Kriegfuhrung, " p. 283; Bloch and Taubes, p. 5.

54. According to his figures, E. H. Buschbeck estimates that there were 300, 000 people of Jewish descent in addition to the 190, 000 adherents of the Jewish faith in Austria in 1938. E. H. Buschbeck, Austria (London, 1949), pp. 16, 149. Barkai puts the number of Mischlinge in Austria at 24, 400, which is very low looking at the data on birthrates (German-Jewish History in Modern Times, vol. 4, Barkai, p. 252) (see also table 2). Blau puts the Mischling figures for Austria at 16, 938 half-Jews and 7, 391 quarter-Jews in 1939 (Blau, "Die Christen judischer, " p. 273). Many of the Austrian Mischlinge documented in this study were filed as Mischlinge only when they were discharged from the Wehrmacht in 1940.

55. George F. Kennan, From Prague after Munich: Diplomatic Papers, 1938-1940 (Princeton, 1968), pp. 42-43; Das Deutsche Reich und der zweite Weltkrieg, vol. 5/1, Rolf-Dieter Muller, p. 284.

56. The Protectorate was the Czech lands of Bohemia and Moravia.

57. Hilberg, p. 268, n. 43. See also Picker, ed., Hitlers Tischgesprache im, p. 70, n. 16; Adler, Der Verwaltete Mensch, p. 281.

58. Present-day Gdansk in Poland.

59. Known also as Elsass and Lothringen in Germany. These provinces had a long history of being under different sovereigns and countries.

60. Kaiserliches Statistisches Amt, ed., Statistisches Jahrbuch fur das Deutsche Reich (Berlin, 1903), p. 7; Robert Gellately, Backing Hitler: Consent and Coercion in Nazi Germany (Oxford, 2001), p. 31.

61. For example, this study has documented eleven Mischlinge from Czechoslovakia, six from Danzig, and six from Alsace-Lorraine who served in the Wehrmacht.

62. Christopher R. Browning, Nazi Policy, Jewish Workers, German Killers (Cambridge, 2000), pp. 10-12.

63. BA-B, 15.09.1952, "Die Losung der Judenfrage, " von Dr. Achim Gercke, Sachverstandiger fur Rassenforschung beim Reichsministerium des Innern, Bl. 48.

64. In 1806, when Napoleon took over German lands, he gave Jews living there equal rights and ordered them to take on last names. See Gay, pp. 125-27.

65. BA-MA, 15.09/52, Bl. 47, pp. 9-10.

66. Yahil, p. n

67. Veit Valentin, Geschichte der Deutschen (Berlin, 1947), p. 691; George E. Sokolsky, We Jews (London, 1935), pp. 35, 118; Victor, p. 181.

68. Losener, p. 269.

69. BA-B, R 18/5514, Bl. 3, 29; IfZ, 71-73, 11.10.1935; Edward Peterson, The Limits of Hitler's Power (New Jersey, 1969), p. 140.

70. BA-B, 15'09/43, Bl. 53-55; BA-B, 25'09/39, Bl. 13; IfZ, 71-73, Pfundtner an Hossbach, 03.04.193 5. Bruno Blau disputes this figure of 750, 000 Mischlinge, saying it was an exaggeration. Blau, "Die Christen judischer, " p. 272.

71. Cohn, Jewish Life, pp. 327, 330.

72. BA-B, DZA 62 Ka. I 83, Bl. 83-84.

73. Centralverein deutscher Staatsburger judischen Glaubens. In 1893, some German Jews banded together to fight for their rights "in the face of anti-Semitic attacks." Kaplan, p. 13.

74. BA-B, R 15.09/36, Bl. 28; BA-B, R 18/ 520; Losener, p. 300. Ursula Buttner recognizes this problem and believes that the number of quarter-Jews the Nazis gave in their census of 1939 should have been larger because some quarter-Jews were able to conceal their ancestry. Buttner, "Persecution, " p. 271.

75. Some people have suggested that many Mischlinge may have emigrated. Although this study has documented a few who did emigrate during the 1930s (see BA-MA, BMRS, File Hans Schmitt), the vast majority of Mischlinge remained in Germany.

76. Blau, "Die Christen judischer, " p. 273.

77. Losener, p. 282; Adler, Der Verwaltete Mensch, p. 281. Theilhaber had already encountered some of the problems the Nazis now faced when recording statistics about German-Jewish assimilation. He admitted the numbers he compiled were smaller than in reality because people moved, did not report their new faith, or had never officially changed their religion. Theilhaber, Der Untergang, pp. 95-96.

78. From this study's data collected, half of the half-Jews were still serving in the Wehrmacht one year after this decree.

79. A field marshal is the U.S. equivalent of a five-star general (general of the army).

80. This study has done its best to record the accurate rank and Nazi "racial percentage" of every soldier, but because of the uncertainty of some of the data, there may be a few discrepancies whether one was" 50 percent" or" 2 5 percent Jewish."

81. Actually, according to Dr. Monnie McGee, for everyone hundred babies, an average of 49 percent of them are female. Consequently, the number of possible Mischling Wehrmacht personnel would be slightly higher. For the sake of simplicity, however, the numbers have been split evenly.

82. This study has documented a couple of female Mischlinge who served in the Wehrmacht, but their number remains unknown. For example, quarter-Jew Bettina Fehr worked in a munitions factory in Dippach bei Berka. She was employed by the armed forces and worked for a captain. Her station was 12 Hulsenkart. D.I.F.H.18. (BA-MA, BMRS, File Bettina Fehr, Bl. 3-5). The total number of female Mischling Wehrmacht personnel was probably around a few hundred, but this study has found no documentation to help give a clear picture about this facet of the history.

83. Oberkommando des Heeres.

84. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Wolters. See also Kruger, p. 75, n. 30.

85. Rolf-Dieter Muller and Hans-Erich Volkmann, eds., Die Wehrmacht. Mythos und Realitat (Stuttgart, 1999)' Wilhelm Deist, "Einfuhrende Bemerkungen, " in Die Wehrmacht. Mythos und Realitat, p. 39; Jurgen Forster, "Wehrmacht, Krieg und Holocaust, " in Die Wehrmacht. Mythos und Realitat, p. 948; Friedrich HoBbach, Zwischen Wehrmacht und Hitler, 1934-1938 (Gottingen, 1965), p. 125; Angolia, For Fuhrer and Fatherland, p. 366; data from the Deutsche Dienststelle, Berlin; information from Dr. Georg Meyer of the Militargeschichtliches Forschungsamt (Military Research Center) Potsdam/Freiburg, March 1998; Englemann, p. 202; Creveld, p. 65.

86. Since Austria was united with Germany during Hitler's rule, the history of Jews in the Austrian armies is also included. Also, before Bismarck united all the German states in 1871 as the Deutsches Reich (German Empire), there were separate states (e.g., Prussia, Bavaria). As a result, these states will be named as they were, but readers must keep in mind that also under Hitler, all these states were united as Germany.

87. Bauer, p. 39.

88. Charles Edward White, The Enlightened Soldier: Scharnhorst and the Militarische Gesellschaft in Berlin, 1801-1805 (New York, 1989), p. 133.

89. Walle, pp. 75, 86, n. 8p, in Deutsche Judische Soldaten, 1914-1945.

90. Schmidl, p. 97.

91. Schutzjuden were "protected Jews" during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. They paid a yearly tax to live and trade in a particular town or city. Some became court Jews, but the majority remained Schutzjuden.

92. Gay, p. 96.

93. Eda Sagarra, A Social History of Germany, 1648-1914 (New York, 1977), p. 161.

94. Gay, pp. 99-102; Sander L. Gilman, Jewish Self-Hatred (London, 1986), p. 87; The Encyclopedia Americana, vol. 18 (Danbury, 1984), p. 690.

95. Jonathan Steinberg, All or Nothing (New York, 1991), p. 230.

96. Manfred Messerschmidt, "Juden im preuflisch-deutschen Heer, " in Deutsche Judische Soldaten, p. 109; Rolf Vogel, Ein Stuck van uns (Bonn, 1973), pp. 28-30; Bering, p. 9.

97. White, pp. 133, 148. Craig, Prussian Army, p. 48. Besides wanting to have an army with loyal Prussian subjects, Scharnhorst probably wanted to get away from an army of foreigners. By 1804, mercenaries accounted for 50 percent of the army's manpower. Craig, Prussian Army, pp. 22-23.

98. The Jewish population in Prussia at the time was 123, 938.

99. Messerschmidt, in Deutsche Judische Soldaten, p. 110; Vogel, pp. 27-28, 31; Bering, p. 85.

100. Vogel, p. 29.

101. Wachtmeister is the U.S. equivalent of a staff sergeant.

102. Vogel, p. p.

103. Vogel, p. 52; Nachum T. Gidal, Die Juden in Deutschland van der Romerzeit bis zur Weimarer Republik (Konemann, 1997), p. 146.

104. Pour le Merite is the U.S. equivalent of the Medal of Honor. It was created in 1740 by Frederick the Great. During World War I, it was associated with German fighter-aces. The British gave the medal the popular name "Blue Max, " which referred to the color of the medal and to Max Immelmann, the first German ace to receive the award. By 1918, a soldier had to have shot down eight planes to receive this medal. Until 1918, this was the highest medal given for bravery for the German armed forces.

105. Vogel, pp. 31, 52; Gidal, p. 146.

106. The painting is called The Return of the Jewish Volunteer from the Wars of Liberation to His Family Still Living in Accord with Old Customs. It was painted between 1833 and 1834.

107. Kartine Lauer, Schicksale:Leben des Nathan Mendelssohn, p. I; Studien: Beitrdge zur neueren deutschen Kultur- und Wirtschajtsgeschichte, Band 8 (Berlin, 1993), pp. 59-84, Ilse Rabien, "Nathan Mendelssohn als preussischer Offizier im Befreiungskrieg 1813, " in Lauer, Schicksale, pp. 59-84.

108. Vogel, pp. 3 1, 52; Gidal, p. 146; Sidney Osborne, Germany and Her Jews (London, 1939), pp. 71-72; Militargeschichtliches Forschungsamt, ed., Handbuch zur deutschen Militdrgeschichte, 1648-1939 Bd. IV, 2: Militargeschichte im 19. Jahrhundert, 1814-1890 (Munchen, 1976), pp. 202-4; Werner T. Angress, "Prussia's Army and the Jewish Reserve Officer Controversy before World War I, " Leo Baeck Yearbook 17 (1972): 20-21.

109. Messerschmidt, in Deutsche Judische Soldaten, pp. 109-10; Gidal, p. 146; Joachim Schoeps, Bereit fur Deutschland (Berlin, 1970), pp. 213-15; Vogel, pp. 32-33; Engelmann, p. 207.

110. Vogel, p. 32.

111. Messerschmidt, in Deutsche Judische Soldaten, pp. 112-13; Horst Fischer, judentum, Staat und Heer in Preuflen im fruhen 19. Jahrhundert (Tubingen, 1968), pp. 135-40.

112. Walle, in Deutsche Judische Soldaten, 1914-1945, p. 20.

113. Prussian aristocrat who owned land.

114. Weimarer historisch-genealogisches Taschenbuch des gesamten Adels jehudaischen Ursprunges (Munchen, 1912); Semigothaisches Genealogisches Taschenbuch aristokratisch-judischer Heiraten (Munchen, 1914). (Both these books were brought out by the anti-Semitic Kyffhauser Publishing House. Although much of the data within these books is accurate concerning the genealogy of certain families, they need to be used with caution.) BA-B, 15.09/ 52, Bl. 46; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Hornstein; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Schmidt-Pauli; Kitchen, p. 47; Gunther Martin, Die bugerlichen Excellenzen (Dusseldorf, 1976), pp. 58-59; Engelmann, pp. 136-38; Lamar Cecil, Albert Ballin: Business and Politics in Imperial Germany, I888-19I8 (Princeton, 1967), p. 102; Holgar H. Herwig, The German Naval Officer Corps (Oxford, 1973), pp. 80-81. According to Herwig, young, single Jewish ladies placed advertisements in some newspapers. See also William Godsey, "The Nobility, Jewish Assimilation, and the Austro-Hungarian Foreign Service on the Eve of the First World War, " Austrian History Yearbook, vol. 27 (1996): 155-80.

115. Schmidl, Juden, p. 134.

116. Hitler, Hitler's Secret Book, p. 26. See also Speeches of Adolf Hitler, vol I, p.27.

117. Emil Ludwig, Bismarck (Boston, 1927), p. 320; Vital, p. 177. Interestingly, Bismarck's son, Herbert, married a half-Jew, Marguerite Grafin Hoyos. Engelmann, p. 171.

118. Martin, p. 59.

119. James J. Sheehan, German History, 1770-1866 (Oxford, 1989), p. 51; Schmidl, p.98.

120. Grunwald, pp. 177-81; George E. Berkley, Vienna and its Jews (Maryland, 1988), pp. 30-31.

121. Grunwald, p. 178; Berkley, p. 32; Schmidl, p. 112. If the number of Jews is included from Hungary, the total was 36, 200.

122. Grunwald, p. 179.

123. Osborne, p. 72. See also BA-MA, BMRS File Klaus Florey. Florey's grandfather, Franz Pick, born in 1863 in Theresienstadt, was a reserve officer in an exclusive Austrian cavalry regiment. He was already an officer when he converted to Christianity in 1894.

124. Schmidl, p. 184.

125. Jakob Wilhelm Mossner was baptized on 16 April 1836.

126. Karl Demeter, The German Officer Corps, 1650-1945 (New York, 1965), p. 398, n. I; Engelmann, p. 208; Gunther Martin, Die burgerlichen Excellenzen, pp.12-13.

127. Vogel, p. 34; Messerschmidt, in Deutsche Judische Soldaten, p. 116.

128. Istvan Deak, Beyond Nationalism: A Social and Political History of the Habsburg Officer Corps, 1848-1918 (New York, 1990), p. 174.

129. In the English-speaking world, this war has been called the Franco-Prussian War, but in Germany it is called the German- French War (Deutsch-franzosischer Krieg). Although Prussia's government and military conducted the war, all the German states, except Hannover and Kurhessen, participated in the conflict.

130. Messerschmidt, in Deutsche Judische Soldaten, p. 116; Vogel, pp. 35-37; Militargeschichtliches Forschungasmt, Handbuch IV, 2, p. 210; Gidal, p. 230; Gay, p. 161; Bering, p. 85. Angress, p. 2 1, n. I3; Osborne writes that" no less than 411 [Jews] were decorated for conspicuous gallantry." Osborne, p. 71.

131. Osborne, p. 71; Messerschmidt, in Deutsche Judische Soldaten, p. 116.

132. Yom Kippur is the Jewish holiday called the "Day of Atonement." On this day, those who observe it fast all day and ask forgiveness for all their sins committed during the past year.

133. Gidal, p. 231.

134. Walter Goerlitz, The German General Staff, 1657-1945 (New York, (971), p.96.

135. Vogel, p. 25.

136. Herwig, p. 43.

137. Martin Kitchen, German Officer Corps, 1890-1914 (Oxford, 1968), p. 44.

138. Demeter, pp. 224-25; Vogel, p. 43. See also Kitchen, German Officer Corps, pp.40-44.

139. Deak, pp. 174-75. See also Angress, pp. 32-33; Messerschmidt, in Deutsche Judische Soldaten, p. 116; Volker Rolf Berghahn, Germany and the Approach of War in 1914 (New York, 1993), p. 18.

140. Messerschmidt, in Deutsche Judische Soldaten, p. 116; Vogel, p. 38; Bering, p. 28; Angress, p. 33, n. 57.

141. Berkley, p. 38.

142. John Keegan, The Second World War (New York, 1989), p. 20.

143. The Jews were underrepresented among active officers, but overrepresented among reserve officers. The Jews represented 18.3 percent of the reserve officer corps in 1900. Deak, p. 133. During this time, it was still difficult for Jews to get augmented and become active officers in the Austro-Hungarian armed forces. See Schmidl, pp. 183-89.

144. Berkley, p. 38.

145. Vogel, pp. 22-23. During this time, being a Mischling was not even an issue in the armed forces. For example, the commander and chief of the military mission in Turkey who masterminded the Allied defeat at Gallipoli in 1916, General Otto Liman von Sanders (1855-1929), was a half-Jew. He was not alone during World War 1. Admiral Felix von Bendemann, a half-Jew, was the commanding officer of the navy station on the North Sea, and General Johannes von Hahn, a quarter-Jew, commanded the Thirty-fifth Infantry Division in 1914. Engelmann, pp. 208-9; Martin, p. 59.

146. Herwig, p. 95.

147. Kitchen, p. 43; Max J. Loewenthal, Das judische Bekenntnis als Hinderungsgrund bei der Beforderung zum preussischen Reserveoffizier (Berlin, 1911), p.31.

148. Jonathan Steinberg, "The Kaiser's Navy, " Past and Present 28 (24 July 1964): 106; Engelmann, pp. 231-32; Adler, Jews in Germany, p. 113; Cecil, Ballin: Engelmann, pp. 44, 231. His skills enabled him to form the first transatlantic shipping conference. In 1918, when the kaiser fled Germany, Ballin killed himself.

149. Vogel, p. 40; Angress, p. 34.

150. Vogel, p. 61; Angress, opp. p. 24.

151. Vogel, p. 70.

152. Adler, Jews in Germany, p. 117.

153. Interestingly, the number of Jews who died fighting in the German army during World War I-twelve thousand-is more than all Jews who died in Israel's wars of 1948, 1956, 1967, 1973, and 1982. Vogel, p. 139; statistics compiled during Marva training in the Israeli army.

154. Osborne, pp. 71-72; Adler, Jews in Germany, pp. 114-15; Bauer, p. 54; Demeter, p. 227; Gilbert, Holocaust, p. 21; Walle, in Deutsche Judische Soldaten, pp. 23, 38-39, 65; Messerschmidt, in Deutsche Judische Soldaten, pp. 119-20; Gidal, p. 312; BA-MA, RW 6/v. 73, BA-B, R 43 II/1273; Julius H. Schoeps, "Mulhe die Emanzipation misslingen?" in Juden in Deutschland, ed. Ludger Heid and Julius H. Schoeps (Munchen, 1994), p. 15; Engelmann, pp. 206-8. According to Ian Kershaw, after the 1916 Judenzahlung, the Prussian army stopped promoting Jews as officers. Kershaw, Hitler 1889-1936, p. 100.

155. Vogel, pp. 169, 345.

156. Walle, in Deutsche Judische Soldaten, 1914-1945, p. 49.

157. Adler, Jews in Germany, p. 114.

158. Ibid., p. 114.

159. Vogel, p. 75.

160. Ibid.

16I. Ibid.

162. Beckhardt probably displayed this symbol because he was a patriotic German and believed the swastika to exemplify his German loyalty, not because he had anti-Semitic tendencies. Only when the Nazis took over power in Germany in 1933 did this symbol universally become equated with anti-Semitism. However, many anti-Semitic associations had used the swastika long before 1933 to symbolize their belief in German superiority.

163. Felix A. Theilhaber, Juedische Flieger im Weltkrieg (Berlin, 1924), p. 49.

164. Vogel, p. 9.

165. He was responsible for developing ammonia synthesis (method of manufacturing synthetic ammonia gas), which made Germany independent from outside sources in making fertilizers and high explosives. Without his inventions, some claim, the war would not have lasted as long as it did.

166. Walle, in Deutsche Judische Soldaten, 1914-1945, p. 30; Jacob R. Marcus, The Rise and Destiny of the German Jew (Cincinnati, 1934), p. 82; Goerlitz, pp. 169-70; Fritz Klein, Verlorene Grosse(Munchen, 1996), pp. 216, 241; Vital, p. 649. Fritz Haber was a reserve NCO when World War I started. He also was a member of the Volunteer Automobile Service, which was made up of wealthy individuals who put themselves and their automobiles at the service of the army. After a few weeks of the war, he was given a commission as an active duty captain. This was a very high honor. Bismarck was made a reserve major for his role in creating the German Empire. When the Nazis came into power, Haber fled to Switzerland. He would die there as a refugee.

167. Friedlander, p. 74; Bauer, p. 78; Christhard Hoffmann, "Between Integration and Rejection: The Jewish Community in Germany, 1914-1918, " in State, Society, and Mobilization in Europe during the First World War, ed. John Horne (Cambridge, 1997), p. 95; Marcus, p. 82; Goerlitz, p. 169.

168. Adler, Jews in Germany, pp. 113-14; Speer, Third Reich, p. 249; Engelmann, p. 231; Jehuda L. Wallach, The Dogma of the Battle of Annihilation: The Theories of Clausewitz and Schlieffen and Their Impact on the German Conduct of Two World Wars (London, 1986), p. 193. Ludendorff was chief of operations for the army after 1916. According to Ian Kershaw, Ludendorff was "in effect Germany's dictator during the last two war years." Kershaw, Hitler, 1889- 1936, p. 186.

169. Martin Senekowitsch, "Ich hatt' einen Kameraden, " Der Soldat 12 July 1995, p. 6; Nathaniel Katzburg, Hungary and the Jews: Policy and Legislation, 1920- 1943 (Bar-Ilan Univ.), 1981, p. 203; Martin Senekowitsch, Gleichberechtigte in einer grossen Armee: Zur Geschichte des Bundes Judischer Frontsoldaten Osterreichs, 1932-1938 (Wien, 1994), p. I; Schmidl, pp. 5, 144; In 1910, the Austro-Hungarian Empire's Jewish population numbered 2, 258, 013. Deak, p. 13.

170. Deak, p. 196. See also Marsha L. Rozenblit, Reconstructing a National Identity: The Jews of Habsburg A14striaduring World War I (Oxford, 2001).

171. Osborne, p. 7I.

172. Schmidl, pp. 140-41.

173. Deak, p. 196. Some of the Jewish generals remained Jewish while others had converted to Christianity.

174. Until 1918, the Austro-Hungarian Empire awarded the Gold Medals for bravery (goldene Tapferkeitsmedaille) to NCOs during times of war. In 1917, it was also awarded to officers.

175. Deak, p. 196. Until 1918, the Austro-Hungarian Empire awarded the Orders of the Iron Crown Third Class (Orden der Eisernen Krone 3. Klasse) to officers and government ministers during times of war and peace.

176. Schmidl, p. 128.

177. Data gathered from statistical sheets compiled by Walter Pagler, director of Oder Shalom of the Central Jewish graveyard in Vienna.

178. Schmidl, p. 130.

179. BA-B, R 21 (76)/874, Bl. 284-85.

180. BA-B, R 2 I (76)/874, Bl. 139; for information on the Freikorps, see Keegan, The Second World War, pp. 27-30; Albert Seaton, The German Army, 1933- 45 (New York, 1982), p. 2.

181. Adler, Jews in Germany, p. 114.

182. Gay, p. 221.

183. During World War I, those Germans serving in the Bavarian, Wurttemberg, and Saxony army swore an oath to their Landesherren (kings). Those from Baden swore an oath to the Groft Herzog (grand duke) from Baden. Those men from Prussia swore an oath to King Wilhelm II, who was also the German kaiser (emperor). However, those in the navy (Kaiserliche Marine) and the colonial troops (Kaiserliche Schutztruppe) swore an oath only to the emperor, even though they may have come from Bavaria or Baden or other states. See also Cecil, Ballin, p. 100; Michael Balfour, The Kaiser and His Times (Cambridge, (964), p. 386; Lamar Cecil, Wilhelm II: Prince and Emperor, 1859-1900 (Chapel Hill, 1989), pp. 141-42, 226; John C. G. Rohl, The Kaiser and His Court: Wilhelm II and the Government of Germany (New York, 1994), pp. 190-212.

184. Vogel, p. 46.

185. Prussian war minister, Adolf Wild von Hohenborn, ordered on 11 October 1916 that all military commands conduct a census of Jews serving in the armed forces on active duty, those not drafted yet, and those found temporarily or permanently unfit for active service. The intent behind the order was to find out whether their participation in battle was commensurate with their numbers in society. This decree showed that the long tradition of anti-Semitism within the Prussian army, especially within the officer corps, was still very real. Hoffmann in State, Society, and Mobilization, p. 98.

186. Friedlander, pp. 73-74; Jurgen Forster, "Wehrmacht, Krieg und Holocaust, " in Die Wehrmacht. Mythos und Realitat, p. 949; Bauer, p. 54.

187. Kershaw, Hitler, 1889-1936, p. 100.

188. David Welch, Germany, Propaganda and Total War, 1914-1918: The Sins of Omission (New Brunswick, 2000), p. 200.

189. Hoffmann in State, Society and Mobilization, pp. 99-101; Ruth Pierson, German Jewish Identity in the Weimar Republic (New Haven, 1970), pp. 248-50.
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Re: Hitler's Jewish Soldiers: The Untold Story of Nazi Racia

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CHAPTER 4: RACIAL POLICY A D THE NUREMBERG LAWS, 1933-1939

1. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Hugo Fuchs, 08.07.1995, T-159.

2. Bauer, pp. 114-15; Dieter Rebentisch, Fuhrerstaat und Verwaltung im Zweiten Weltkrieg. Verfassungsentwicklung und Verwaltungspolitik, 1939-1945 (Stuttgart, 1989), p. 434.

3. Gellately, Gestapo and German Society, p. 102.

4. Kaplan, p. 21.

5. BA-MA, N 656/27, Hindenburg an Hitler, 04.04.1933, Bl. 10-17; Schleunes, p. 95. For an example of the type of letters Hindenburg received, see Friedlander, p. 16.

6. BA-MA, N 656/27, Hitler an Hindenburg, 05.04.1933, Bl. 10-17; Schleunes, p. 96. It is the author's opinion that Hitler was lying to Hindenburg about the law already being prepared to appease Hindenburg.

7. Gordon A. Craig, Germany, 1866-1945 (New York, 1978), p. 578; Henry Ashby Turner, Hitler's Thirty Days to Power: January 1933 (London, 1996), p. T64; Bracher, pp. 48-49; Victor, p. 78; Ian Kershaw, Profiles in Power: Hitler (London, 1991), pp. 68-69, 71-72; Friedlander, p. 17; Heinz Guderian, Panzer Leader (California, 1988), p. 30. For more details about Hitler's relationship with Hindenburg, see Speer, pp. 64-65; Haffner, p. 17.

8. Kershaw, Hitler, 1889-1936, p. 500.

9. Friedlander, p. 35.

10. Kershaw, Hitler, 1889-1936, pp. 362, 371-75, 391, 437; Redlich, pp. 88-89, 262, 307.

11. Hans Umbreit in Das Deutsche Reich und der zweite Weltkrieg. vol. 5/1, p. 283. Umbreit wrote, "Nach den im Reich ab 1933 angewandten Kriterien war jeder ein Jude, der mindestens einen Eltern- oder GroBelternteil judischen Glaubens besass."; Friedlander, p. 27. Saul Friedlander wrote, "The first of them [April T933 laws]-the most fundamental one because of its definition of the Jew-was the April 7 Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service." This study concurs with Kershaw when he writes that in the Aryan Paragraph, "there was no definition of aJew." Kershaw, Hitler, 1889-1936, p. 474.

12. BA-MA, W 01-5/173, Erste und Dritte Verordnung zur Durchfuhrung des Gesetzes zur Wiederherstellung des Berufsbeamtentums, Erste Verordnung v. 11.04.1933; Friedlander, p. 36.

13. Ibid., Erste Verordnung zur Durchfuhrung des Gesetzes zur Wiederherstellung des Berufsbeamtentums, 11.04. 1933; Hilde Kammer and Elisabet Bartsch, eds., Nationalsozialismus: Begriffe aus der Zeit der Gewaltherrschaft, 1933-1945 (Hamburg, 1992), p. 18; Reichsgesetzblatt (RGBl.), I, 11 April- 6 Mai 1933, pp. 135, 175, 195.

14. According to Ascher's grandson, Peter Gaupp, Sammy Ascher was an Oberstabsarzt (equivalent to an army major) during World War 1.

15. Although the Arierparagraph only addressed civil servants in its legal language, several Jews, regardless of their professions, were forced to retire or leave their work. This was especially the case with those doctors who worked in hospitals.

16. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Peter Gaupp, 17.01.1995, T-87. Tragically, Dr. Ascher felt so patriotically committed to Germany that when war fever was high in 1938, he declared to his family that he would have to serve again if his country called on him. His family laughed at him, but he was serious. BAMA, BMRS, interview Ursula Gaupp, 08.07.1995, T-158. Ascher was not alone in his desire to serve Germany once again. Half-Jew Gert Beschutz's father, Max, reported to the army in 1938, was rejected, and a few weeks later was sent to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. BA-MA, BMRS, File Beschutz, Bl. 3.

17. Bracher, p. 253; Kaplan, p. 24.

18. Viktor Klemperer, Ich will Zeugnis ablegen bis zum letzten, 1933-1945 (Aufbau Verlag, 1996), Buch I, p. 25.

19. BA-B, R 41/581, Partisch an Goring, 07.08.1933, Bl. 199-200.

20. Friedlander, p. 70.

21. BA-B, R 43 III 418a. As translated in Noakes, p. 298. See also Friedlander, p. 119.

22. Heeres-Verordnungsblatt (HVBl.), Nr. 73, 1933, p. 73; Rudolf Absolon, Die Wehrmacht im Dritten Reich. Band I-II, 30.1.1933 bis 02.08.1934 (Boppard, 1983); Sammlung wehrrechtlicher Gutachten und Vorschriften. Heft I (1963)- Heft 22 (1984). Bearbeitet v. Rudolf Absolon, Bundesarchiv-Zentralnachweisstelle, Aachen-Kornelimunster, 1985, Heft 9, p. 4; Vogel, p. 200.

23. Militargeschichtliches Forschungsamt, ed., Handbuch zur deutschen Militargeschichte, 1648-1939 VII. Wehrmacht und Nationalsozialismus, 1933-1939 (Munchen, (978), p. 57.

24. Craig, Prussian Army, pp. 373-466; Wallach, pp. 236, 303.

25. Corum, Luftwaffe, p. 145; Frei, National Socialist Rule, pp. 50, 74; Seaton, German Army, p. 104. Although Germany was rearming at an alarming rate, it still had a long way to go. Hitler had originally planned to start war in 1943 or thereafter, but starting the war in 1939 as he did, the Kriegsmarine was still weak compared with Britain, the Luftwaffe was still growing and developing long-range bombers, and the army, besides the Panzer divisions, was still largely a "foot-slogging infantry" dependent on horses and panje wagons.

26. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Paul Hirschfeld, 15-16.08.1994, T-12.

27. Creveld, p. 18; Kershaw, Hitler, 1889-1936, pp. 436, 446; Bracher, p. 72; David Thomson, Europe Since Napoleon (Cambridge, 1962), p. 684.

28. BA-MA, BMRS, File Ernst Prager, Bl. 29.

29. BA-MA, N 656/27, Hitler an Hindenburg, 05.04.1933, Bl. 15. Hitler had cynically written in his second book that if an officer's rank could be bought, then such a profession would be "comprehensible" to the Jews. Hitler, Hitler's Secret Book, p. 26.

30. Kershaw, Hitler, 1889-1936, p. 96; Fritz Stern, The Politics of Cultural Despair (London, 1974), pp. 161-62.

31. Heeresadjutant bei Hitler, 1938-1943. Aufzeichnungen des Majors Gerhard Engel. Hrsg. u. kommentiert v. Hildegard von Kotze. (=Schriftenreihe der Vierteljahreshefte fur Zeitgeschichte Nr. 29) (Stuttgart, 1974), pp. 3 1-32. Engel altered his diary after the war. As Jeremy Noakes writes, "[T]his is not in fact a diary but more like a memoir" (Noakes, "Development of Nazi Policy, " p. 333, n. 133). However, there is no reason to doubt the events surrounding the Mischlinge described in Engel's diary even if he had added them after the war. Documents in the archives and this study support Engel's activities regarding Mischlinge.

32. BA-MA, RW 6/73 a, Antwortentwurf v. 12. 10. 1933 an "Fridericus-Die deutsche Wochenschrift" von Friedrich C. Holtz.

33. Ibid., Pressestelle des Reichsbundes der Hoheren Beamten an Reichswehrministerium, 17.01.1934.

34. Handbuch VII, pp. 57-59; BA-MA, N 656/27; Manfred Messerschmidt, Die Wehrmacht im NS-Staat (Hamburg, 1969), p. 47.

35. Messerschmidt, p. 46; BA-MA, N 328/45, Admiral a.D. Ehrhardt an Admiral a.D. Forste, 14.11.1956.

36. Matthew Cooper, German Army (New York, 1978), p. 28; Seaton, German Army, p. 44.

37. Wilhelm Deist, "The Rearmament of the Wehrmacht, " in Germany and the Second World War, vol. I, The Build-up of German Aggression, ed. Militargeschichtliches Forschungsamt (Oxford, 1998), p. 522.

38. Hoheitsabzeichen.

39. Robert J. O'Neill, The German Army and the Nazi Party, 1933-1939 (London, 1966), p. 38; Wheeler-Bennett, Nemesis of Power, p. 678; Creveld, p. 84; Kershaw, Hitler, 1889-1936, p. 504; Seaton, German Army, p. 44; Craig, Prussian Army, p. 476.

40. Kershaw, Hitler, 1889-1936, p. 504. See also O'Neill, p. 38; Craig, Politics of the Prussian Army, p. 476.

41. Norman H. Baynes, ed., The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, vol 2 (Oxford, 1942), p. 1, 349.

42. Handbuch VII, p. 57; Berliner Morgenpost, 22.04.1934; Rudolf Absolon, Wehrgesetz und Wehrdienst, 1935-1945. Das Personalwesen in der Wehrmacht (Boppard, 1960), p. I 17; Messerschmidt, pp. 45-46; Kershaw, Hitler, /889- 1936, p. 504; O'Neill, p. 39; Jurgen Forster, "Wehrmacht, Krieg und Holocaust, " in Die Wehrmacht, ed. Muller and Volkmann, p. 950.

43. O'Neill, pp. 38-39, 76.

44. BA-MA, BMRS, general impression gained from data collected for this study; Absolon, Wehrgesetz und Wehrdienst, p. 117, n. 20.

45. Messerschmidt, pp. 45-46. See also Absolon, Wehrgesetz und Wehrdienst, p. 117, n. 20.

46. Handbuch VII, p. 57.

47. The commander was Captain von Schrader. He explained to Lebram that the Arierparagraph was necessary for the Reichswehr. BA-MA, N 656/2, Bl. 24.

48. BA-MA, N 656/2, Bl. 9.

49. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Friedrich-Christian Stahl, 12.11.1997, T -406.656/2

50. BA-MA, N , Bl. 12.

51. BA-MA, N 656/2, Raeder an Lebram, 19.04.1934, Bl. 8.

52. BA-MA, N 328/45, Ehrhardt an Forste; Ludovic Kennedy, Pursuit: Battleship Bismarck (London, 1993), p. 35; BA-MA, N 379/109a, 12.09.1956; BA-MA, Pers 6/2236, Personalbogen, Frau: Margarete Backenkohler geb. 09.05.1903, Bl. 2; BA-MA, 656/2, Bl. 13; discussion with Dr. G. Granier on 12.11.1997 in the Bundesarchiv-Militararchiv about Backenkohler's Jewish past. Interestingly, as the Bismarck was in its death throes, Lutjens sent a radiogram to Hitler praising the Fuhrer and the war. Perhaps Lutjens did so because he firmly believed in Hitler, or perhaps he was scared for his Mischling wife and children and wanted to ensure their protection by displaying his devotion. It was probably a mixture of both. Burkard Frhr. von Mullenheim- Rechberg, Schlachtschiff Bismarck, 1940-194T (Berlin, 1980), pp. 168-69; Jorg Duppler, ed., Germania auf dem Meere (Hamburg, 1998), p. 127.

53. BA-MA, N 656/2, Bl. 12; BA-MA, BMRS, File Admiral Conrad Patzig, Bl. 62.

54. BA-MA, N 656/2, Bl. 12-13.

55. Ibid., Dok., Kommando der Marinestation der Ostsee an Oberleutnant z. S. Lebram, 08.05.1934.

56. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Dietrich Beelitz 16.11.1997, T-401; BA-MA, N 656. Lebram disputes the fact that his brother committed suicide. Nonetheless, from eyewitnesses' testimonies and reports, it appears that Lebram's brother, Walter, killed himself. Walter Lebram, a pilot in the army air force, flew his plane into the ground.

57. Charles S. Thomas, The German Navy in the Nazi Era (London, 1990), pp. 86-87, 238; BA-MA, BMRS, File Hans-Georg von Friedeburg; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Ludwig von Friedeburg, 01.12.1997, T-415. Perhaps Raeder helped General Admiral Hans Georg von Friedeburg or perhaps it was Himmler, with whom Friedeburg was on good terms. Friedeburg remained at his post throughout the entire war without any problems. He and General JodI signed the formal surrender documents at General Dwight D. Eisenhower's headquarters in May of 1945. Friedeburg's grandmother was Adelheid Kuh, a half-Jew, perhaps a full Jew. Information gained from the Mitteilung des Instituts fur Personengeschichtliche Forschung, Bensheim, Germany, and from Baron Niklas Schrenck von Notzing at his personal archive dedicated to genealogies of the German aristocracy in Charlottesville, Virginia. The founder of this Institut in Bensheim was Wilfried Euler, who was a "Mischling expert" during the Third Reich. He worked in the Reichinstitut fur Geschichte des Neuen Deutschland (Reich Institute for the History of the New Germany). He worked closely with Achim Gercke. His sources need to be used with caution. Thanks to Dr. Patricia von Papen-Bodek for this information.

58. Thomas, p. 94; BA-MA, BMRS, interview von Friedeburg.

59. Many have previously assumed that Friedeburg was a quarter-Jew. Apparently, they have based this solely on his grandmother's last name (rather than her heritage from both sides). Also, the ignorance and sloppiness of certain officials and historians have created much confusion about Friedeburg's ancestry. Although it has been proven that his grandmother was a half-Jew, it has not been proven or disproven that both her parents were Jews according to the Nazi racial laws.

60. Hans Breithaupt, Zwischen Front und Widerstand. Ein Beitrag zur Diskussion um den Feldmarschall Erich von Manstein (Munchen, 1994), p. 123; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Ursula Freifrau von Knigge, 26.07.1997, T-392.

61. BA-MA, BMRS, File Klaus von Schmeling-Diringshofen, Bl. 5-6.

62. Much speculation has surrounded Manstein's possible Jewish ancestry. The fact that he was born von Lewinski and adopted by the von Mansteins has led some to believe that he descended from Jews. They state that Lewinski could be a variant of Levy with a Polish patronymic suffix. However, only one source has surfaced during this study that might lead one to believe that Manstein had Jewish ancestry. In a December 1994 interview, his adjutant, Alexander Stahlberg, who has Jewish ancestry himself, stated that Manstein claimed that the Lewinskis were Jews. Nonetheless, Stahlberg could not provide any documents to prove that this conversation had taken place or that Manstein in fact had Jewish ancestors. Manstein's son, Rudiger, claimed that his family could possibly have Jews in their past, but that there is no evidence to prove it either way. The SS investigated Manstein's (they actually called him Lewinski) ancestry in April 1944, after his dismissal. However, the file is incomplete, and it remains unknown what the SS discovered. Alexander Stahlberg, Die verdammte Pflicht (Berlin, 1987); BA-MA, BMRS, interview Alexander Stahlberg, 3- 4.12.1994, T-68; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Rudiger von Manstein, 17.11.1994, T-54; BA-B, NS 19/2177.

63. Military district.

64. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Knigge.

65. Breithaupt, p. 123.

66. BA-MA, BMRS, File Schmeling-Diringshofen, Bl. 5-6; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Knigge.

67. Retired (1926) Generaloberst Hans von Seeckt (1866-1936) was the chief of the army leadership (Chef der Heeresleitung) of the Reichswehr from 1920 to 1926. Later, he was an important military adviser to Chiang Kai-shek from 1934 to 1935, and some believe that he also helped non-Aryan soldiers get appointments to China. Interestingly, Seeckt's wife, Frau Dorothee von Seeckt nee Fabian, was adopted by Jews. It is unclear whether she herself was Jewish, although most assume that this was the case. See Martin, p. 60; Snyder, p. 319.

68. O'Neill, p. 76; Cooper, German Army, p. 46; Friedlander, pp. I 17-18; Wistrich, p. 14; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Knigge.

69. General Hans Oster and Colonel von Mellentin also helped Borchardt to get to China. BA-MA, BMRS, File Robert Borchardt, Bl. 22-3 I; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Elisabeth Borchardt, 18.02. 1995, T- 101; Vogel, pp. 305-6. Borchardt was later posted with the Sonderverband (Special Unit) 288 in Africa under Rommel. He commanded the Fifth Panzerjager Company. He had been one of the few German officers who had been trained with mechanized units during the Weimar Republic. He was later taken prisoner by the British and survived the war in POW camps in England and Canada.

70. Dal McGuirk, Rommel's Army in Africa (Osceola, 1993), p. 45; BA-MA, BMRS, File Robert Borchardt, Bl. 22-3 I; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Elisabeth Borchardt, 18.02.1995.

71. This phrase should not be confused with the way the Nazis used it to depict agrarian romanticism (after Walter Darre, "the Blut und Boden guru" [Kershaw, Hitler, 1936-1945, p. 374]). His friends nicknamed Schmeling-Diringshofen this before the Nazis were in power because of his love of the land and of hunting.

72. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Beelitz.

73. In 1938, as Germany was strengthening its alliance with Japan, Hitler decided that Germany "dismantle all the links" with China. See Wilhelm Keitel, The Memoirs of Field-Marshal Keitel, ed. Walter Gorlitz (London, 1961), p. 41. It was probably at that time that most Mischling soldiers in China returned to Germany. On their returns, Hitler granted most of them clemency. BA-MA, BMRS, File Robert Borchardt, "Vorlesung von Robert Borchardt."

74. Lowenstein had "perfected the technique of sound measurement which made possible more accurate and effective artillery fire" during World War I. Marcus, p. 82. From 2 February 1942 until 1 April 1943, the Nazis made him perform forced labor. On 1 July 1943, the Nazis deported him and his wife to Theresienstadt. They both would survive the Holocaust. He died in 1956 while vacationing in Israel, where he was also buried. Walle, in Deutsche Judische Soldaten, 1914-1945, p. 32.

75. Reichsbund judischer Frontsoldaten (RjF). This organization had thirty thousand members. Walle, in Deutsche Judische Soldaten, 1914-1945, p. 32.

76. BA-MA, RW 6/73, Lowenstein (Reichsbund Judischer Frontsoldaten) an Hindenburg, 23.03.1934.

77. Ibid., Lowenstein an Abteilungsleiter im Reichswehrministerium, 24.03.1934.

78. Bundeswehr is the armed forces of the Federal Republic of Germany founded In 1955.

79. BA-MA, BMRS, File Bernhard Rogge, Heft I, Generaladmiral aD. Boehm an Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 05.04.1961, Bl. 2.

80. Cooper, German Army, p. 29; Breithaupt, pp. 123-27.

81. Breithaupt, pp. 123-24, 126; BA-MA, BMRS, interview von Knigge.

82. Breithaupt, p. 124.

83. Ibid., p. 124.

84. Klaus-Jurgen Muller, Das Heer und Hitler (Stuttgart, 1969), p. 594; Breithaupt, p. 125.

85. Muller, Das Heer, p. 594.

86. Breithaupt, p. 125.

87. Klaus-Jurgen Muller, "Witzleben, Stulpnagel and Speidel, " in Hitler's Generals, ed. Correlli Barnett (London, 1989), p. 46.

88. O'Neill, p. 39.

89. Wilhelm Deist, in Die Wehrmacht, p. 43; Hans-Ulrich Thamer, "Die Erosion einer Saule. Wehrmacht und NSDAP, " in Die Wehrmacht, p. 426; Jurgen Forster, "Hitler's Decision in Favor of War against the Soviet Union, " in Germany and the Second World War, vol. 4, pp. 36-37; Messerschmidt, in Deutsche Judische Soldaten, pp. 124-25.

90. O'Neill, p. 28; William L. Shirer, The Nightmare Years (New York, 1984), pp. 189, 214; Craig, Prussian Army, p. 491; Geoffrey p. Megargee, Inside Hitler's High Command (Kansas, 2000), p. 22; Cooper, German Army, p. 24.

91. BA-MA, BMRS, File R. von Manstein, Manstein to Rigg, 21.07.2001; BA-MA, BMRS, interview R. von Manstein. The nephews were children of his niece Frau von Preuschen nee Lewinski.

92. Emmy Goring, An der Seite meines Mannes (Gottingen, 1967). Emmy Goring should be used with caution. She wrote this book as an apology for her husband, and many events are misrepresented. See Richard Overy, Goering (London, 1984), p. 18. Reichsmarschall Goring's attitude may have been influenced by his contact with Jews as a child. Goring's godfather, namesake, and mother's lover, Ritter Hermann von Eppenstein, was a Jew and probably the father of his youngest brother, Albert, who looked just like Eppenstein. Heinrich Fraenkel, Goring (New York, 1972), pp. 9-15; Ewan Buder and Gordon Young, Marshal without Glory (London, 195 I), pp. 20-30; Paul, p. 33; Asher Lee, Goering: Air Leader (New York, 1972), pp. 12-13.

93. See Overy, pp. 15-17.

94. Speer, p. 291.

95. Yahil, pp. 59-60; Carl Hans Hermann, Deutsche Militargeschichte (Frankfurt, 1966), pp. 452-53, 456; Kershaw, ProFiles in Power, pp. 72-73; Georg Franz- Willing, Die Reichskanzlei, 1933-1945 (Tubingen, 1984), p. 54. Although the SA continued to exist as an organization, it never exercised any real power during the Third Reich.

96. Kershaw, Profiles in Power, pp. 72-74. See also O'Neill, p. 50.

97. O'Neill, p. 54; Craig, Prussian Army, p. 479; Megargee, p. 29.

98. Kershaw, Hitler, 1889-1936, p. 437. See also Redlich, p. 100.

99. Kershaw writes that Reichenau was "one of the most thoroughly nazified generals." Kershaw, Hitler, 1936-1945, p. 70.

100. Nicolaus von Below, Als Hitlers Adjutant, 1937-1945 (Mainz, 1980), pp. 72- 73; Megargee, p. 27.

101. O'Neill, p. 54; Cooper, German Army, p. 30; Kershaw, Hitler, 1889-1936, pp. 524-25; Wistrich, p. 19; Messerschmidt, p. 51; Megargee, p. 29.

102. Cooper, German Army, p. 30; Franz-Willing, p. 61; Messerschmidt, p. 51.

103. Craig, Prussian Army, pp. xviii, 363; Messerschmidt, p. 32; Goerlitz, p. 55.

104. Christoph von L'Estocq, Soldat in drei Epochen (Berlin, 1993), pp. 112-13.

105. Goerlitz, p. 290; Kershaw, Hitler, 1889-1936, p. 525; O'Neill, p. 55; Seaton, German Army, p. 53; Messerschmidt, p. 52; Megargee, p. 29.

106. BA-MA, BMRS, File Walter Falk, Bl. 4. Falk would later be promoted to Gefreiter.

107. See BA-MA, BMRS, interview Spitz; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Hans Muhlbacher, 18.09.1994, T-22; BA-MA, BMRS, File Gerhard Bier, Bier an Rigg, 26.03.2001.

108. Fest, Face, p. 144.

109. Kershaw, Hitler, 1889-1936, p. 436.

110. Hossbach, pp. 10-12; O'Neill, p. 58; Seaton, German Army, p. 52.

111. Hermann, p. 455; Messerschmidt, p. 52. See also Craig, Germany, 1866-1945, pp. 585-86; Kitchen, Military History, p. 293; Megargee, p. 29.

112. Kershaw, Profiles in Power, p. 74.

113. Kershaw, Hitler, 1889-1936, pp. 497, 521.

114. Yahil, p. 60; Haffner, pp. 27-31; Guderian, pp. 59-60.

I I 5. RGBl., I, 1935, Nr. 28, p. 375 (Gesetz fur den Aufbau der Wehrmacht) bzw. Nr. 52, p. 602 ff. v. 22.05.1935 (Wehrgesetz v. 21.05-1935).

116. Frei, Manfred Funke, "Grossmachtpolitik und Weltmachtstreben, " in Das Dritte Reich, eds. Broszat and Frei, p. 140; Cooper, German Army, p. 130; Kershaw, Hitler, 1889-1936, p. 551; Kershaw, Profiles in Power, p. 121; Friedlander, p. 115; Kitchen, Military History, p. 295; Wallach, p. 219; Megargee, p. 32.

117. Friedlander, p. 115. By 1939, the army would be fifty-two active divisions strong. Craig, Prussian Army, p. 482.

118. BA-MA, BMRS, data collected throughout this study; Absolon, Wehrgesetz und Wehrdienst, pp. 117-18.

119. BA-B, R 43 II/1273; Walk, Sonderrecht fur den Juden, pp. 114-16; RGBl. I, 1935, p. 1, 047.

120. BA-MA, BMRS, File Wolfgang Lauinger, Bl. 23; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Luderitz.

121. For a discussion of the total number of eligible Mischlinge for military service, see chapter 3 on assimilation.

122. Friedlander, p. 144.

123. BA-B, R 43 II/I273, Akten betreffend Wehrgesetz, Bl. 112, Lowenstein an Lammers, 23.03.1935.

124. Ibid., Akten betreffend Wehrgesetz, Bl. 116-18, Lowenstein an Hitler, 05.10.1935.

125. BA-B. R 43 II/1273, Verband Nationaldeutscher Juden E. V. Geschaftsstelle Berlin, Verbandsfuhrer Dr. Naumann an Hitler, 20.03.1935, Bl. 110-12.

126. Vital, pp. 814-15. See Schoeps, Deutschland, p. 25.

127. Schleunes, p. 117.

128. Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, the armed forces high command.

129. Sonderrecht fur den Juden im NS-Staat, p. 3 18, Gesetz von 04.03.1940. Between 1940 and 1942, over thirty Jews tried to obtain special permission to enter the Wehrmacht. All were rejected. BA-B, DZA, Bl. 29. See also Klemperer, Buch II, 05.07.1942, p. 157.

130. BA-MA, Pers 61 7363, Bl. 9, Bericht uber Major der L[andes] P[olizei] Karl Helwig.

131. O'Neill, p. 76.

132. Kershaw, Hitler, 1889-1936, p. 564.

133. O'Neill, p. 77; Kershaw, Hitler, 1889-1936, p. 564; Messerschmidt, p. 76; Vogel, p. 239.

134. Vogel, pp. 233-34.

135. BA-MA, BMRS, general impression gained from this study; Vogel, p. 230. One could not become an officer, marry, and so on, without showing his Abstammungsnachweis (certificate of descent). Sometimes it was called Ariernachweis (certificate of Aryanhood). In addition, one had an Ahnenpass (ancestral passport), which was a small booklet with the certificate of descent and a detailed family tree. This document replaced previously required birth, baptismal, and marriage certificates. After the Nuremberg Laws, every German had to show he or she was an Aryan. A document without any gaps was requirement for full citizenship rights. Ironically, since Hider could not prove who his grandfather was, he could not fulfill this law he had sanctioned for Germany. See chapters 7 and 8 on exemptions.

136. BA-MA, BMRS, File Richard Cohn, Bl. 7, Arische Erklarung, 09.02.1939.

137. BA-MA, BMRS, File Hans-Joachim Korner, Beglaubigte Abschrift, 26.11.1954, Bl. 2-3, 4-6, Korner an Generalstaatsanwalt bei dem Kammergericht. Korner lost fifteen relatives in the concentration camps. Throughout 1942, it looked like the Gau- and Kreisleitungen found many Mischling soldiers and were reporting them to the proper authorities. Heeresadjutant bei Hitler, p. 122.

138. BA-MA, W 01-6/359, Kroner an Wehrmeldamt, 13.06.1941.

139. BA-MA, BMRS, File Edgar Jacoby; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Frau Jacoby, 11.01.1994, T-45; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Frau Edgar Jacoby, 19.11.1996, T-243; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Barbara Jacoby, 17.11.1994, T-p; BA-MA, W 01-6/359. Remarkably, Jacoby was later released and survived the war at his home because his brave Aryan wife (Marianne nee Gunther) refused to divorce him. Kathe Hilllmelheber was later sent to Theresienstadt. She would survive the war.

140. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Rolf von Sydow; BA-MA, BMRS, File Rolf von Sydow.

141. BA-MA, BMRS, File Rolf von Sydow, Bl. 44, Sydow an seine Eltern, 15.01. 1944.

142. Ibid., Sydow an seine Eltern, 22.03.1944, Bl. 35-36.

143. Obergefreiter was an acting corporal.

144. Colonel Seegers, in the Army Personnel Office P2 (Department for Personnel Matters of High-Ranking Officers and Education and Welfare), seemed to help several Mischlinge present their cases to the authorities. He probably worked closely with Major Klug (P2 Gruppe I: Deutschblutigkeit, Heirat) and Major Werneyer (P2 Gruppe I-Ie: Deutschblutigkeit) on these cases. Wolf Keilig, Das Deutsche Heer, 1939-1945: Gliederung, Einsatz, Stellenbesetzung (Bad Nauheim, 1956), p. 7. See also BA-MA, Pers 6/r0046 or BA-A, Pers 14492 to read how Seegers went about helping a Mischling. See also Der Prozess gegen die Hauptkriegsverbrecher vor dem Internationalen Militargerichtshof, Nurnberg 14. November 1945-1. Oktober 1946, Nlirnberg, 1948, p. 421.

145. BA-MA, Pers 6/11122, Bl. 3, General-Kommando XVII. Armeekorps (Wehrkreis-Kommando XVII) an OKH-H.p.A, 19.08.1939, Bl. 9, I I, Deutschblutigkeitserklarung fur Robert Colli, 24.06.1941; Die Ritterkreuz Trager; Die Trager des Deutschen Kreuzes in Gold, p. 68; Die Trager des Eisernen Kreuzes, 1939-1945, p. 154; Archiv der Republik Osterreich, Wien, Pers. Akt. Robert Colli.

146. DDS, Pers Marine-Oberbaurat Franz Mendelssohn; BA-MA, BMRS, File Franz Mendelssohn, Abschrift des Stammbaums von Moses Mendelssohn von Professor Dr. Peter Witt, Moses Mendelssohn und Fromet Guggenheim und ihre Nachkommen, p. 43, A.) II. Franz Viktor Mendelssohn; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Frau Mendelssohn-Eder, 26.02.1995, T-108; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Frau Mendelssohn-Barz, 17.03.1995, T-120.

147. Nachr. Tr. U. Pion. Fricke was in charge of this section from 15-11.1942 until 01.10.1944. Keilig, p. 6.

148. Amtsgruppen.

149. Department for Personnel Matters of Officers and Their Offspring (not including General Staff Officers). Keilig, p. 1.

150. BA-MA, BMRS, File Karl-Heinrich Fricke, Erinnerungen aus 70 Lebensjahren von 1914-1984 (Kaln, 1984), p. 182.

151. He registered himself as gottglaubig (a believer in God) but without any particular confession (konfessionslos).

152. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Hirschfeld, 15-16.08.1994, T-I2; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Hirschfeld, 22.11.1996, T-247.

153. BA-MA, BMRS, File Hirschfeld, Hirschfeld an Rigg 18.09.1994, Bl. 17-18: BA-MA, BMRS, interview Hirschfeld, 15-16.08.1994, T-I2; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Hirschfeld, 22.11.1996, T-247.

154. BA-MA, BMRS, File Hirschfeld, Hirschfeld an Rigg, 18.09.1994, Bl. 17. Hirschfeld named three other Jews who served in the Wehrmacht.

155. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Hirschfeld, 15-16.08.1994, T-12.

156. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Rabbi Chaskel Besser, 15.01.1995, T-86.

157. Deborah Hertz, "The Genealogy Bureaucracy in the Third Reich, " Jewish History, Haifa (fall 1997): 28.

158. Hertz, p. 28. Observant Jews do not allow non-Jews to be buried in Jewish cemeteries.

159. A literal translation of Judenbengel is "Jewish rascal" or "rogue."

160. Krackow, pp. 309-10.

161. Krackow, p. 98; BA-MA, BMRS, interview J. Krackow, 14.11.1994, T-50; BAMA, BMRS, interview J. Krackow, 18.11.1994, T-56; BA-MA, BMRS, interview R. Krackow.

162. See Bracher, p. 197.

163. BA-MA, RH 53-7/468, Bl. 8, Wehrmachtamt/Keitel an V.A. (VI), 09.01.1936; BA-MA, RW 6.73.

164. BA-MA, RH 53-7/468, Bl. 9, Generalkommando VII. Armeekorps an Chef des Heerespersonalamts.

165. Der deutsche Verwaltungsbeamte, 17.10.1937; See also Friedlander, p. 32; Gellately, Gestapo and German Society, pp. 132-58.

166. Kershaw, Hitler, 1889-1936, p. 530; Kershaw, Hitler, 1936-1945, pp. 233-34; Friedlander, p. 161; Victor, p. 164.

167. Vogel, pp. 234-38; Das Reichsburgergesetz vom 15.09.1935 (RGBl. 1935, Teil I, Nr. 100, p. 1, 146); Gesetz zum Schutze des deutschen Blutes und der deutschen Ehre vom 15.09.1935 (RGBl. 1935, Teil I, p. 1, 146); Erste Verordnung zum Reichsburgergesetz vom 14.11.1935 (RGBl., Teil I, 1935, Nr. 125, pp. 1, 333-36).

168. Kershaw, Hitler, 1889-1936, p. 567.

169. Losener, p. 273; Bracher, p. 253.

170. BA -B, Bestdnde aus der Zeit von 1867 his 194F Zivile Behorden und Einrichtungen des Deutschen Reiches, p. 56; BA-K, File 8/ RP 39, Kurt Meyer an Gustav Scholten, 03.10.1942; Hertz, p. 44.

171. Yahil, p. 43.

172. Kershaw, Hitler Myth, p. 236; Kershaw, Hitler, 1889-1936, p. 570; Baynes, Speeches of Adolf Hitler, vol I, p. 732.

173. Kershaw, Hitler, 1889-1936, p. 570.

174. Benz, p. 62.

175. Kershaw, Hitler Myth, p. 236; Kershaw, Hitler, 1889-1936, p. 570; Bauer, p. 110.

176. Hitler, Mein Kampf, p. 150.

177. Losener, p. 281.

178. BA-B, R 18/5514, Bl. 28, Schreiben Reichs- und PreuBisches Ministerium des Innern. Abteilung 1. Gegenuberstellung der Fassung Dr. Wagner, betrifft: Ausfuhrungsverordnungen zum Reichsburgergesetz und zum Blutschutzgesetz, 02.11.1935, Bl. 28; Losener, pp. 274-76; Schleunes, p. 127; Redlich, p. 155; Friedlander, p. 148; Kershaw, Hitler, 1889-1936, p. 571; Kershaw, Hitler, 1936-1945, p. 256.

179. BA-B, R 18/5514, Bl. 28, Schreiben Reichs- und Preussisches Ministerium des Innern, Abteilung I, 1. Gegenuberstellung der Fassung Dr. Wagner, betrifft: Ausfuhrungsverordnungen zum Reichsburgergesetz und zum Blutschutzgesetz, 02.11.1935, Bl. 29; Noakes, "Development of Nazi Policy, " p. 341.

180. BA-B, 15.09/52, Bl. 46-48. The Nazis used Menders name as a verb to describe genetic expression between mixed breeds. Johann Gregor Mendel (1822-1884) was an Austrian monk and was the first scientist to formulate the principles of heredity. Encyclopedia Americana, vol. 18 (Danbury, 1984), p.686.

181. Kershaw, Profiles in Power, p. 101.

182. IfZ, N-71-73, Diktat Stuckart im Verbindungsstab am 06.11.1935.

183. Losener, pp. 277-78; Kershaw, Hitler, 1889-1936, p. 564; Victor, p. 139; Burleigh, p. 291. The unintelligent Streicher probably took this idea from Arthur Dinter's book The Sin Against the Blood, a work of fiction. See also Stoltzfus, Resistance, p. xxviii.

184. Losener, p. 278.

185. IfZ, N 71-73, Reichs- und Preussisches Ministerium des Innern, Abt. I Referent: Losener, 11.10.1935.

186. IfZ, N 71-73, 11.10.1935; BA-B, R 18/5514, Bl. 30-31.

187. BA-B, R 18/5514, Bl. 29, Schreiben Reichs- und PreuBisches Ministerium des Innern Abteilung I, 1. Gegenuberstellung der Fassung Dr. Wagner, 02. I I. 1935; Hilberg, p. 47.

188. Losener, pp. 278-79; "Authentische Ausserungen zu den Nurnberger Gesetzen, " CV Ztg., 05-12.1935, Supplement 2; Yahil, p. 78.

189. Losener, pp. 268, 273. As translated by Noakes. Noakes, "Development of Nazi Policy, " p. 353.

190. Kershaw, Hitler, 1889-1936, p. 572; Jeremy Noakes and Geoffrey Pridham, eds., Nazism 1919-1945, vol. 4 (Exeter, 1983), p. I; Hilberg, p. 47.

191. Stoltzfus, Resistance, p. 65.

192. Verordnung zum Reichsburgergesetz 14.11. 193 5 (RGBl., Teil I, 1935, Nr. 135), pp. 1, 333-36; Hilberg, p. 48; The Holocaust: I, p. 31.

193. Hilberg, p. 48; Adler, Der Verwaltete Mensch, p. 280; If a Jewish woman had a child out of wedlock and the father's identity was not able to be determined, then the Nazis classified the child as a full Jew. See Akten-NSDAP, 107-00404.

194. Heeresadjutant bei Hitler, p. 32.

195. If a person was "three-eighths-Jewish, " he or she was most often classified as quarter-Jewish. Countless men and women documented in this study were actually 37.5 percent Jewish, and the majority were classified as quarter-Jews by the Nazis. See Akten-NSDAP, 107-00389-390. When a person was more than 37.5 percent Jewish but not 50 percent Jewish, he or she was then usually classified as a half-Jew. Likewise, when a person was more than 12.5 percent Jewish, for example, 18.75 percent Jewish, then he or she was usually classified as a quarter-Jew.

196. Nationalsozialismus. Begriffe aus der Zeit der Gewaltherrschaft, 1933-1945, pp. 39-40; Kershaw, Hitler, 1889-1936, p. 572; Norman Rich, Hitler's War Aims (New York, 1974), pp. 1-2.

197. BA-MA, RH 53-7/627, Bl. 12, Auszug aus RGBl. 1935 Teil I, Seite 1334, § 5 (Erste Verordnung zum Reichsburgergesetz).

198. Stoltzfus, Resistance, p. xxv; Kaplan, p. 191.

199. It seems that one reason why the term "non-Aryan" was not used in these new racial laws was to appease Nazi Germany's allies, such as Japan, who took offense at being labeled "non-Aryans." Pommerin, pp. 53-56, 67-69, 102-4; Yahil, p. 71.

200. Heeresadjutant bei Hitler, pp. 31-32.

201. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Peter Gaupp, 17.01.1995, T-87.

202. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Peter Gaupp, 27.04.1996, T-198.

203. Redlich, pp. 116, 320; Bauer, pp. 104, 121, 133.

204. Ian Kershaw, "Popular Opinion in the Third Reich, " in Government, Party, and People in Nazi Germany, ed. Jeremy Noakes (Exeter, 1980), p. 70.

205. Ibid.

206. BA-MA, BMRS, general impressions gained from data collected; Avraham Barkai, "Volksgemeinschaft, 'Aryanization' and the Holocaust, " in Final Solution, p. 37.

207. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Hans Koref, 06.01.1996, T-189.

208. Kommentare zur Deutschen Rassengesetzgebung, p. 15. This refers to Ezra, chapter 9 in the Bible, in which the prophet Ezra ordered mixed marriages broken up and all foreign women and children of mixed descent sent away. Some people, like Stuckart, believed that Ezra was racially minded by excluding non-Jews from the nation of Israel. However, Ezra seemed more motivated by a desire to keep the Jewish faith pure. He wanted to maintain the religion. That non-Jews like Ruth and Rahab could become a part of the Jewish community proved the point that Jews were accepting non-Jews when they embraced the Jewish religion (Ezra 8-10, NIV). Nonetheless, Ezra's policy was possibly one of religious discrimination.

209. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Hans Ranke, 09.12.1994, T-75.

210. Yahil, p. 6; The Holocaust, vol. I, Legalizing the Holocaust-The Early Phase, 1933-1939, introduction by John Mendelsohn (New York, 1982), pp.23-25.

211. Akten der Parteikanzlei der NSDAP: Rekonstruktion eines verlorengegangenen Bestandes: Bundesarchiv, Microfiches, ed. Institut fur Zeitgeschichte, Munchen, 1983, 101-28519, Bl. 90.

212. When historians refer to the Nuremberg Laws, they usually mean both the September laws and the supplementary decree from November 1935. This study follows this convention. See Bauer, p. 102.

213. BA-MA, Pers 612304 Admiral Conrad Patzig, Bl. 19. See O'Neill, chapter 5.

214. BA-MA, RW 6/56, Bl. 97.

215. Vogel, pp. 241-42.

216. Handbuch VIII, p. 58, "In einer Durchfuhrungsverordnung wm Reichsburgergesetz vom 14.11.1935"; Messerschmidt, p. 140.

217. BA-MA, RW 6/73, v. Mackensen an Hitler, 03.12.1935.

218. Ibid., v. Mackensen an Blomberg, 11.01.1936.

219. Wheeler-Bennett, p. 342; Dr. James Corum is of the same opinion as Wheeler- Bennett. Discussion with the author on 28 February 2001.

220. BA-MA, BMRS, general impressions gained from data collected; O'Neill, pp. 75-77.

221. DDS, Pers Franz Mendelssohn.

222. BA-A, Pers 53059 Oberst Peter Sommer, Bl. 22, Generalkommando X. Armeekorps (Wehrkreiskom-man-do X) an OKH, 10.08.1936.

223. BA-MA, RL 14/49.

224. Victor, p. 9.

225. Noakes, "Development of Nazi Policy, " pp. 323, 328.

226. BA-B, R 43 II/r275, Blomberg an Frick, 03.04.1936, Bl. 27, Blomberg an den Reichs- und Preugischen Minister des Innern, 03.04.1936; Akten-NSDAP, 101-22302, Blomberg an Lammers, 27.03.1936; Noakes, "Development of Nazi Policy, " p. 329.

227. BA-B, R 431111275, Blomberg an Lammers, 19.05.1936, Bl. 39, Blomberg an Lammers, 19.05.1936; Akten-NSDAP 101-22313, Blomberg an Lammers (countersigned by Keitel); BA-B, R 43 IO/1275, Bl. 39; Vogel, p. 254.

228. BA-MA, RH 53-71627, Bl. 25; O'Neill, p. 77. As translated in O'Neill.

229. BA-MA, RH 53-71627, Bl. 25; Messerschmidt, p. 75.

230. Jurgen Forster, "Operation Barbarossa as a War of Conquest and Annihilation, " in Germany and the Second World War, vol. 4, pp. 5I 3-14; Deist in Germany and the Second World War, vol. 1 (Oxford, 1998), p. 522; O'Neill, pp. 44-45, 64-66, 70-71; Martin Kitchen, Military History, p. 285.

231. Akten NSDAP, 101-22299, Bl. 13; Wehrgesetz 05.03.1936; Akten-NSDAP, 101-22304, Bl. 44, Frick an Lammers 30.03.1936; BA-B, R 43 III 1275, Bl. 39, Keitel an Lammers, 18.05-1936, Bl. 37; Walk, pp. 115-16; Vogel, pp. 254-55.

232. BA-MA, BMRS, general impression gained from the data collected; Absolon, Wehrgesetz und Wehrdienst, p. 118; Vogel, p. 255.

233. Hertz, pp. 48-49.

234. Hertz, p. 24. At the official exchange rate at the time, eighty million Reichsmarks would equal twenty million dollars. Hilberg, p. 24, n. 22.

235. See chapter 3 on assimilation.

236. Kreisleiter was a district leader of the NSDAP.

237. Gauleiter was a regional leader of-the NSDAP. Gauleiter was the second highest rank in the Party. The highest was the Reichsleiter. Benz, p. 90.

238. BA-MA, RH 53-7/514, Gauleitung Baden, Kreisleitung Mannheim an Wagner, 08.01.1936.

239. Ibid., Kommandierender General und Befehlshaber im Wehrkreis VII an Gauleiter der NSDAP, Gauleitung Baden, 20.03.1936.

240. Ibid., Stellv. Gauleiter, Gauleitung Baden an Reichenau, 13.07.1936.

241. BA-A, Pers 48220, Oberst Hans von Schlebrugge, Bl. 2, Dienstlaufbahn, and Bl. 68, Deutscher Verbindungsstab zum Kgl. Ung. AOK I, Beurteilung uber Oberst Hans v. Schlebrugge, 24.06.1944; Walther-Peer Fellgiebel, ed., Die Trager des Ritterkreuzes des Eisernen Kreuzes, 1939-1945 (Friedberg, 1986).

242. BA-A, Pers 48220, Bl. 14.

243. The German Abwehr was the military intelligence service.

244. BA-MA, RW 6/56, Bl. 122-23.

245. Messerschmidt, pp. 75-76; O'Neill, p. 77.

246. BA-MA, BMRS, File Heinz-Jurgen Kuhl, Bl. I, Hans-Henning Zabel an Rigg, 25.06. I 997; Neue Deutsche Biographie, ed. Historische Kommission der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Band 18, Familie Morgenstern, p. 110; Karl Friedrich Hildebrand, ed., Die Generale der deutschen Luftwaffe, 1935-1945, (Osnabruck, 1992), p. 265.

247. DDS, Pers Kapitan Arnold Techel; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Techel. See also Stoltzfus, Resistance, pp. 48-49.

248. BA-MA, RH 53-7/627, Bl. 2, Der Oberbefehlshaber des Heeres, vom 15.01.1936; O'Neill, pp. 76-77.

249. Walk, Gesetz vom 11.10.1936.

250. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Felix Bruck, 18.04.1998, T-422.

251. Oberschutze was a private. In practice, a Mischlinge was usually allowed to be promoted to Gefreiter.

252. Vogel, pp. 254-55.

253. Gefreiter was a private first class.

254. Klemperer, Buch I, 08.01.1939, p. 456.

255. BA-MA, RH 53-7/627.

256. BA-MA, RW 19/550; Walk, p. 231.

257. BA-MA, RH 53-7/627, Bl. 16, Generalkommando VII. Armeekorps (Wehrkreiskommando VII) an Kriegschule Munchen, 24.01.1938. See also BA-MA, BMRS, File Hans Sander.

258. BA-MA, BMRS, File Karl Henle, Harald Henle to Rigg, 17.07.2001; BA-MA, BMRS, interview August Sohn, 17.05.1996, T-204; BA-MA, BMRS, File Franz Henle, Bl. II, Sohn an Rigg, 05.04.1995, Bl. 30, Sohn an Rigg, 05.11.1995, Bl. 20, Sohn an Rigg, 30.06.1996. Henle came from a strong military back ground. His father, Franz, was a captain in the Bavarian army and received the EKII for his bravery in World War 1. His uncle, Ernst, was also a captain in the Bavarian army and received the EKII and EKI for his bravery in World War I. His grandfather, Carl Henle, was an active officer in the Bavarian army. He served as a first lieutenant in the Koniglich Bayrischen Infantrie Leibregiment. Henle's father, Franz, fearing the worst, committed suicide in 1944.

259. Kershaw, Hitler, 1936-1945, p. 52. There seems to be some confusion about Blomberg's wife's name. In Cooper's book on the German army, it is spelled Erna Gruhn (the umlaut is false). In Handbuch zur deutschen Militargeschichte, cited earlier, she is listed as Eva, which is wrong. In the Gothaisches Genealogisches Taschenbuch der Adligen Hauser from 1939, she is cited as Elsbeth Grunow. In the Genealogisches Handbuch des Adels Bd. XVI from 1985, she is listed as Margarethe (Elsbeth) Gruhn. In this section, Kershaw's version is used. Hitler's Luftwaffe adjutant, Nicolaus von Below, also mentions this problem about Frau Gruhn's name. Below, p. 62.

260. Hitler also felt embarrassed because he had been a witness at Blomberg's wedding. As Hitler said to his adjutant Fritz Wiedemann, "If a German Field- Marshal marries a whore, anything in the world is possible." Kershaw, Hitler, 1936-1945, pp. 52-53. See also Megargee, pp. 39-40.

261. Goerlitz, p. 319; Speer, p. 128; Keegan, Second World War, p. 38; Craig, Germany, 1866-1945, p. 700; Bracher, p. 308; Guderian, pp. 48-49, 436; O'Neill, p. 136; Kershaw, Profiles in Power, pp. 129, 133.

262. Alan Clark, Barbarossa: The Russian-German Conflict, 1941-1945 (New York, 1965), p. 14; Craig, Prussian Army, 1640-1945, p. 495; RGBL, II, 04.02.1938.

263. Wilhelm Deist, in Germany and the Second World War, vol. I (Oxford, 1998), p. 521.

264. Ibid. See also O'Neill, p. 72.

265. Kershaw, Hitler, 1936-1945, p. 57.

266. Ibid., p. 188.

267. BA-MA, RW 6/56, Bl. 397-415, Vorrrag von Admiral Canaris bei der Ic- Besprechung im OKW am 03.03.1938, Bl. 400-402. Some have suggested that maybe Canaris said this because he knew Nazi informers would report back on his activities if they felt he did not support Hitler. Those who believe that Canaris really did not believe what he said here cite his later actions against Hitler. No one really knows what Canaris really believed about Hitler and the Third Reich.

268. Kershaw, Hitler, 1936-1945, pp. 78-86; Stoltzfus, Resistance, pp. 89-93.

269. BA-MA, RH 15/419, Bl. 21, OKW (Keitel) an OKH, OKM, OKL, 03.11.1938; BA-MA, RH 53-7/627, Bl. 14.

270. Vienna, according to the historian Ian Kershaw, was "one of the most virulently anti-Jewish cities in Europe." Kershaw, Hitler, 1889-1936, p. 65. See also Friedlander, p. 241; Bauer, pp. 105-6; Evan Burr Bukey, Hitler's Austria: Popular Sentiment in the Nazi Era (North Carolina, 2000).

271. BA-MA, BMRS, Dokumente Heft 8, Erwin Mairamhof an Martin Senekowitsch, 14.09.1995, Matzling, Ruhestandsversetzungen am 15.Marz 1938; Schmidl, p. 149; Deak, p. 210.

272. Ibid., Oberstlt. Georg Bartl: KZ Dachau, KZ Mauthausen, Freitod; Oberstlt. Ferdinand Celar: Haft; Oberstlt. Mathias Gruber: Haft; Oberstlt. Franz Heckenast: KZ Buchenwald, gest. 1939; Hauptmann Franz Kaiser: Haft; Gen. Maj. Karl Kotik: in Haft verstorben; Major Marioncovich: in Haft gestorben; und Gen. der. Inf. Wilhelm Zehner: 1938 angeblich ermordet.

273. Schmidl, p. 149.

274. BA-MA, BMRS, File Dieter fischer, Heft II, Amelis von Mettenheim, Die Zwolj Langen Jahre 1933-1945, Bl. 9.

275. Gilbert, Holocaust, p. 60; Kaplan, p. 180.

276. BA-MA, BMRS, File Yosef Getreuer, Bl. I, Yosef Getreuer to Rigg, 18.03.1997.

277. From now on, German means German and Austrian.

278. Navy high command.

279. Luftwaffe high command.

280. BA-MA, RH 15/421, Bl. 21-22, OKW-Keitel an OKH, OKM, OKL, 03.11.1938.

281. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Braun, 10-14.08.1994, T-lo; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Braun, 07.01.1996, T-190.

282. BA-MA, RH 15/421, Bl. 22, OKW (Keitel), "Vorstehender Erla~ wird bekanntgegeben" 23.11.1938.

283. BA-MA, Wi VIII/45, 18.10.1938.

284. BA-MA, RH 53-7/8, Bl. 88; IfZ, 71-73; BA-MA, RH 391222, Beauftragter fur den Vierjahresplan-Schnellbrief an Reichsminister des Innern, Reichswirtschaftsminister, die ubrigen Reichsminister, 28.12.1938. In practice, this study has found that both types of intermarriages experienced certain privileges during the Third Reich, especially when a son was in the Wehrmacht.

285. Redlich, p. Il6; Kaplan, p. 80.

286. BA-MA, RH 53-71627, Bl. 11-12, Hitler an OKH, OKM, OKL, 20.01.1939; BA-MA, RM 92/5173, Bl. 141.

287. Besondere Marine-Bestimmungen (B.M.B.), 5.Jahrg., Blatt 12 v. 20.09.1939, 138. "Judische Mischlinge in der Wehrwirtschaft" Ziff.2.), p. 159 f.

288. Office of the United States Chief Counsel for Prosecution of Axis Criminality, ed., Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, vol. 2 (Washington, D.C., 1946), p. 869; Messerschmidt, p. 78. Although it is true that people's speech in public is often different from how they act in private, Raeder's speech did not have to talk about the Jews as he did. He simply could have spoken about the German fallen and veterans of World War 1.

289. Gilbert, Holocaust, p. 76.

290. Lucy Dawidowicz, ed., A Holocaust Reader (New Jersey, (976), pp. 57, 72- 74.

291. Aschheim, pp. 143-45, 150-51. Jurgen Matthaus, "German judenpolitik in Lithuania during the First World War, " in Leo Baeck Yearbook 43 (1998): 162- 64; Trude Maurer, Ostjuden in Deutschland, 1918-1933 (Hamburg, 1986), pp. 26-28.

292. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Heinz Gunter Angress, 10. I 2.1994, T -78.

293. Ahasverus, Wandering Jew (Ewiger Jude), was a medieval invention. Supposedly, this tale describes the Jew Ahasverus's curse for jeering at Jesus on the way to his Crucifixion. Consequently, according to the myth, God cursed him with eternal wandering and an unhappy life until "death should finally redeem him at the Last Judgement." Paul Lawrence Rose, German Question/Jewish Question: Revolutionary Anti-Semitism from Kant to Wagner (Princeton, 1990), pp. 23-24; Friedlander, pp. 196-97. The Nazis used Ewiger Jude in their anti-Semitic propaganda films and literature to show the racial inferiority of Jewry. Ahasverus should not be confused with the biblical king of Persia and Media. Trepp, pp. 158-60; Miles, pp. 357, 359-62.

294. BA-MA, BMRS, File Hans Muhlbacher, Bl. 52, Tagebuch, Teil V, 14.05.1941.

295. Landser was the ordinary German infantryman of World War II.

296. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Friedrich Schlesinger, 10.12.1994, T-77.

297. See BA-MA, BMRS, interview Braun, 10-14.08.1994, T-Io; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Braun, 07.01.1996, T-190; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Michael Gunther, 19.02.1997, T-308; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Hans B. (Bernheim), 29.10.1998, T-428. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Hermann Aub, 14.12. 1996, T-275. See also Gilbert, Holocaust, p. 90.

298. Not his real name.

299. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Bernheim.

300. Kruger, p. 66; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Kruger.

301. BA-MA, BMRS, general impressions gained from data collected; BA-MA, BMRS, File Joachim Leidloff, Teil II, Bl. 7a, Tagebucheintragung v. 17.09.1940 und 04.10.1940.

302. Ordinary soldier (artillery).

303. BA-MA, BMRS, File Brucher, Tagebuch, Bl. 17-18.

304. BA-MA, BMRS, File Brucher, Tagebuch, Bl. 18. One night while riding his motorcycle as the battery messenger, two Polish soldiers intercepted Florey. Shocked, Florey jumped up. At that moment, one of the soldiers shoved his bayonet into Florey. Fortunately for Florey, he was able to escape and only suffered a flesh wound. Florey received the Wound Badge. BA-MA, BMRS, File Klaus Florey, Florey to Rigg, 15.07.2001.

305. BA-MA, BMRS, File Brucher, Schlike to Brucher, 21.11.1939.

306. Stabsgefreiter (administrative private first class) is the equivalent of an E-4 in the U.S. Army. It was basically a consolation prize.

307. BA-MA, BMRS, File Fritz Steinwasser, Autobiographie, p. 71; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Fritz Steinwasser, 13.12.1994, T-79; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Fritz Steinwasser, 07.02.1997, T-302.

308. In the case of the Gunther family, Michael's grandmother, Gertrud Hensel nee Hahn, was 100 percent Jewish. Her husband, Kurt Hensel, had three Jewish grandparents, but his grandfather, Wilhelm Hensel (a famous painter), was a non-Jew. Because of this Aryan grandparent, some civil servants classified Michael and his siblings as quarter-Jews. From the data collected for this study, they should have been classified as half-Jews. This is especially the case, since they had two grandparents who were racially Jewish.

309. BA-MA, BMRS, File Konrad Schenck, Heft I, Bl. 6.

310. Gunther had passed his Abitur, or high school diploma, which was a requirement to become an officer.

311. BA-MA, BMRS, File Achim von Bredow, Heft I, Bl. 34, Achim an Ada, 25.08.1942.

312. Ibid., Heft I, Bl. 34.

313. Kershaw, Hitler, 1936-1945, p. 131; Bauer, p. 107; Benz, p. 26; Bering, p. 145.

314. BA-MA, BMRS, general impressions gained from interviewees.

315. From 1903 until 1918, Clara von Mettenheim was married to Lieutenant Colonel Erwin Fischer. Fischer was the chief of the General Staff of the army Abteilung (an Abteilung was a formation larger than a corps but smaller than an army) under General Strantz during World War I.

316. The crown prince had many Jewish friends-something that irritated Goebbels. See Goebbels Diaries, 1942-1943, pp. 47-48.

317. BA-MA, BMRS, File Dieter Fischer, Heft I, Bl. 42.

318. She had to go to the Judenstelle of the Gestapo to get the large red J stamped in her identification papers and add Sara to her name as prescribed by Nazi law.

319. BA-MA, BMRS, File Dieter Fischer, Heft I, Bl. 42.

320. BA-MA, BMRS, File Fischer, Heft I, Bl. 41, OKH an Clara v. Mettenheim, 16.12.1939.

321. Ibid., Heft I, Bl. 39-41, Keitel an Prof. v. Mettenheim, 24.12.1939.

322. The General Wehrmacht Office was the Allgemeines Wehrmachtamt (AWA).

323. BA-MA, BMRS, File Fischer, Heft I, Bl. 41, Reinecke an Clara v. Mettenheim, 16.01.1940.

324. HVBl., N r. 13I, 1940, p. 42. This order seemed to be given to most units. See BA-MA, BMRS, File Heinz Georg Heymann, "Meldung des Flak-Ersatz- Depots, " Ende Februar 1940.

325. BA-B, DZA, Bl. 200, Aktennotiz, 14.02.1940.

326. Rudolf Absolon, Die Wehrmacht im Dritten Reich. Band V I. September 1939 bis 18. Dezember 1941, (=Schriften des Bundesarchivs 16/V) (Boppard, 1988), p. 148.

327. Absolon, Die Wehrmacht im Dritten Reich. Band V, p. 148; Absolon, Wehrgesetz und Wehrdienst, p. II 8, n. 26; Messerschmidt, p. 358.

328. Kershaw, Profiles in Power, pp. 142-43.

329. BA-MA, BMRS, File Wolfram Gunther, Bl. 22-23.

330. For more information on Willy Rohr, see Bruce 1. Gudmundsson, Stormtroop Tactics: Innovation in the German Army, 1914-1918 (London, 1995); Timothy T. Lupfer, The Dynamics of Doctrine: The Changes in German Tactical Doctrine during the First World War (Fort Leavenworth, 1981), pp. 27-28.

331. BA-B, DZA 62 Ka. I 83, Bl. 200, Aktennotiz, Vorsprache beim OKW, 14.02.1940; Heinz Rohr, Geschichte einer Lubecker Familie (Hamburg, 1994), p. 86; IfZ, N 71-73, 27.05-1941, Antrage und positive Entscheidungen gemass §7 der Ersten Verordnung zum Reichsburgergesetz.

332. BA-B, DZA 62 Ka. 1 83, Bl. 200-200b.
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Re: Hitler's Jewish Soldiers: The Untold Story of Nazi Racia

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CHAPTER 5: THE POLICY TOWARD MISCHLINGE TIGHTENS, 1940-1943

1. BA-MA, BMRS, File Fischer, Bl. 37. Gruber helped many converted and unconverted Jews and was eventually sent to a concentration camp for his activities. He survived the war. Bauer, p. 135.

2. Viktor Brack worked in the notorious T-4 office in the KdF that dealt with the euthanasia program. On I September 1939, Hitler signed a document that authorized Bouhler and Brandt in the KdF to murder those deemed unworthy to live. Brack was Bouhler's deputy.

3. BA-B, DZA 62 Ka. I 83, Bl. 198, "Aktennotiz fur Reichsamtsleiter Brack."

4. Klemperer, Buch I, 11.08.1940, p. 546.

5. BA-B, DZA 62 Ka. I 83, Bl. 125-26, Blankenburg an Engel, 28.03.1940.

6. Ibid., Bl. 126, Blankenburg an Engel, 28.03.1940.

7. Ibid., Bl. 116, "Aktennotiz" von Brack, 10.07.1942.

8. BA-B, DZA 62 Ka. I 83, Bl. 192, OKW Az. 12 i 10-20 J (Jc) Nr. 524/40; BA-MA, RH 7/v. 23; Walk, p. 319; BA-MA, RW 19/853, Bl. 1-2. According to Rolf Vogel, Jesuit priests and members of former dynastic families of Germany were also discharged. Vogel, p. 256.

9. Vogel, p. 256.

10. BA-B, DZA 62 Ka. I 83, Bl. 155-56, Blankenburg an Engel, 23.05.1942, and Bl. 67, "Aktennotiz, IIb/Schr. Judische Mischlinge im Wehrdienst", 28.10.1943.

11. BA-B, DZA 62 Ka. I 83, Bl. 26; BA-B, DZA 62 Ka. I 83, Bl. 192, OKW Az. 12 i 10-20 J Gc) Nr. 524/40; BA-MA, RH 7/ v. 23. See also Losener, p. 310.

12. BA-MA, BMRS, File Du Bois-Reymond, Bl. 5, Lona Du Bois-Reymond to Rigg, 07.04.1997, and for a similar case, see BA-MA, BMRS, File Helmuth Baum.

13. BA-B, DZA 62 Ka. I 83, Bl. 67, "Judische Mischlinge im Wehrdienst, " Vf.: Blankenburg; BA-B, DZA 62 Ka. I 83, Bl. 89, Aktennotiz v. Parteikanzlei II B 4, 20.10.1942.

14. BA-MA, RH 7/v. 23, OKH, Nr. 2761/40 g PA 2 (Ic), 20.04.1940; Walk, p. 320; BA-MA, BMRS, general data collected on half-Jews.

15. This in fact would happen to Bamberger. On the night of 6 June 1940, Bamberger prevented a French attack from taking out his sleeping company. His officer, Lieutenant Schmidt, praised him and told him that had he not been a Mischling, he would have mentioned his name to the regiment and awarded him a medal for his bravery. BA-MA, BMRS, File Bamberger, Bl. 30; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Heinrich Bamberger, 08.11.1994, T-49.

16. BA-MA, BMRS, File Heinrich Bamberger, Bl. 22; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Bamberger.

17. BA-MA, BMRS, File Horst Geitner, Bl. 3-4, 14-15; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Horst Geitner, 38.03.1997, T-337. Tragically, as Geitner served on the front lines, his sister, uncle, and aunt were all sent to Auschwitz. They did not survive the war. After the war, Geitner entered the Bundeswehr. He served as a first lieutenant and wanted to prove to others and himself that he was worthy of the rank. Others did the same. See BA-MA, BMRS, File Rolf Vogel; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Frau Rolf Vogel, 18'03.1995, T-124.

18. BA-MA, BMRS, general impression gained from the interviewees.

19. BA-MA, BMRS, File Fischer, Heft I, Bl. 84, Pfarrer Gruber an Clara von Mettenheim, 29.05.1940; BA- MA, BMRS, interview Dieter Fischer, 12.12.1996, T-270.

20. This fact strongly contradicts the theory put out by the Wehrmachtsaustellung that all German officers were supportive of the Nazi regime and strong supporters of Hitler's. See Heer and Reemtsma, Vernichtungskrieg.

21. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Techel.

22. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Luderitz.

23. BA-MA, BMRS, File Gerd zu Klampen, Bl. I; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Gerd zu Klampen, 28.10.1998, T-427. See also BA-MA, BMRS, File Meissinger, Bl. 3.

24. BA-MA, BMRS, File Hans Gunzel, Bl. 4, Marion Freuh an Rigg, 05.04.1997; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Hans Gunzel, 23-24.07.1997, T-387.

25. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Braun, 10-14.08.1994, T-10; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Braun, 07.01.1996, T-190.

26. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Techel.

27. Schutze was an ordinary soldier.

28. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Joachim Le Coutre, 25.01.1997, T-389; BA-MA, BMRS, File Joachim Le Coutre, Joachim Le Coutre an Rigg, 09.04.1997. For a similar case, see BA-MA, BMRS; File Heinz Gunther Angress.

29. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Wolfgang Behrendt, 21.11.1994, T-58; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Goldberg; BA-MA; BMRS, File Meissinger, Bl. 3; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Meissinger.

30. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Kruger; BA-MA, BMRS, File Meissinger, Bl. 3.

31. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Wolfgang Spier, 06.12.1994, T-70.

32. Interestingly, one day while having an argument, a comrade called Gaupp a "Saujud (Jewish pig)" in front of many of their fellow soldiers. Gaupp reported this instance to his lieutenant, who then reported it to the captain, the company commander. The captain later met with Gaupp and asked him whether he wanted the man to make his apology privately or publicly. Gaupp asked that it be done privately. The captain then made this man do as he had promised Gaupp. Ironically, this comrade would become one of Gaupp's best friends. As Gaupp said, "[T]he whole time is full of puzzles." BA-MA, BMRS, interview Gaupp, 17.01.1995, T-87; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Gaupp, 27.04.1996, T-198.

33. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Gaupp, 17.01.1995, T-87; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Gaupp, 27.04.1996, T-198. According to Gaupp, the rejection letter was signed by Keitel.

34. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Christoph-Michael Salinger, 08.10.1998, T-424. Salinger takes the phrase at the end from the Bible where Jesus says, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." Jesus said this about those who crucified him. Luke 23:34 NIV.

35. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Braun, 10-14.08.1994, T-Io; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Braun, 11.03.1995, T-118; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Braun, 07.01, 1996, T-190. See also BA-MA, BMRS, File Meissinger, Bl. 3.

36. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Gerd Grimm, 24.09.1994, C-26; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Gerd Grimm, 09.01.1996, T-194.

37. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Schlesinger.

38. Unlike in the United States, it is quite common in Germany for organizations to write a recommendation when someone has fulfilled a certain task. Germans are obsessed with certificates.

39. BA-B, R 21 (76)/878, Bl. 141, "Bescheinigung von Oberleutnant und Kompaniechef Mertes", 17.07.1941.

40. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Hildegard von Gierke, 29.11.1997, T-413.

41. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Riess. Mazel tov means "good luck" in Hebrew. Riess witnessed the execution of French Senegalese soldiers at the Somme River from the fourth through the eighth of June 1940.

42. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Karl-Heinz Scheffler, 09.03.1995, T-113.

43. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Wilhelmina Benasuli, 19.01.1997, T-284.

44. BA-MA, BMRS, File Heinz Bleicher, "Wie ich den 8. Mai 1945 erlebte: Ein personlicher Bericht eines Betroffenen." See also BA-MA, BMRS, interview Egon Bahr, 13.02.1995, T-95.

45. Funker is an ordinary soldier (signal).

46. BA-MA, BMRS, File Ferdinand Lichtwitz, Heft I, Teil II, Bl. 1I. See also Creveld, p. 163, n. 2.

47. BA-MA, BMRS, File Bergmann, Heft II, 06.09.1940.

48. See chapters 7 and 8 on exemptions.

49. Over 60 percent of the half-Jews documented in this study fell after 1941.

50. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Bahr. The rations allotted to German Jews were "considerably fewer" than what was given to Aryans. Benz, p. 41. Also these ration cards were stamped with the word Jew, making it difficult for them to shop at certain stores. Kaplan, p. 151.

51. Kaplan, pp. 150--52. Jews usually had only one hour a day in which to shop for food.

52. Regional Party Office.

53. BA-MA, BMRS, File Walter Hamburger, B. Hamburger an Rigg, 15-12.2000; BA-MA, BMRS, File Hamburger, Hamburger an Rigg, 25.11.2000. See also BA-MA, BMRS, File Werner Bruck, Bl. 134; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Kruger.

54. Kruger, p. 69.

55. BA-MA, BMRS, File Brucher, Tagebuch, 01.09.1939, Bl. 2.

56. BA-MA, BMRS, File Hans Christian Lankes, Tagebuch, 1939, Bl. 41.

57. BA-MA, BMRS, File Bergmann, Heft III, 09.06.1940.

58. Ibid., Heft II, Bl. 6-7, 02.08.1940.

59. Ibid., Bl. 77, 22.08.1940.

60. Kaplan, p. 160.

61. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Lux.

62. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Bergmann.

63. BA-MA, BMRS, File Karl-Arnd Techel, Tagebuch, 23-30.04.1941; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Techel. See also BA-MA, BMRS, File Hans Sander, Teil II, Tagebuch, 1939, Bl. 16. See Schmidt, Politischer Ruckblick auf eine unpolitische Jugend, in: Kindheit und Jugend unter Hitler (Berlin, 1994), p. 221.

64. BA-MA, BMRS, File Christian Rosenthal, Bl. 3; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Partsch.

65. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Gert Ascher, 17.11.1997, T-408; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Ursula Ascher, 17.11.1997, T-409; Kennedy, p. 30; Dudley Pope, The Battle of the River Plate (Maryland, 1987), pp. 9, 97, 185.

66. BA-MA, BMRS, File Bergmann, Heft III, Bl. 9, 02.08.1940.

67. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Bergmann.

68. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Hans Meissinger, 17.09.1996, T-216; BA-MA, BMRS, File Meissinger, Meissinger to Rigg, 29.10.2000.

69. BA-B, DZA 62 Ka. I 83, Bl. 67, 116, "Aktennotiz in Blankenburgs Buro, nach Besprechung mit Engel, " 10.07.1942.

70. BA-B, DZA 62 Ka. I 83, Bl. 123, 190-91, Oberst Schmundt an Reichsleiter Bouhler, 02.10.1940.

71. BA-B, DZA 62 Ka. I 83, Bl. 184, Blankenburg an Losener, 18.12.1940; BA-B, R 21/448, Bl. 18.

72. BA-B, R 21/448, Bl. 18. See also Noakes, "Development of Nazi Policy, " p. 349.

73. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Beelitz; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Otto Wolters, 18.03.1995, T-123; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Otto Wolters, 06.12.1996, T-2P; BA-B, NS 18/482.

74. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Otto Wolters. See also Kruger, pp. 94, 107.

75. Bernhard Kroener, "Die Personellen Ressourcen des Dritten Reiches im Spannungsfeld zwischen Wehrmacht, Burokratie und Kriegswirtschaft, 1939-1942, " in Das Deutsche Reich und der zweite Weltkrieg. Kriegsverwaltung, Wirtschaft und personelle Ressourcen, 1939-1941, vol. 51r (Stuttgart, 1988), Teil III. p. 834.

76. Bernhard Kroener, in Das Deutsche Reich und der zweite Weltkrieg. Kriegsverwaltung, Wirtschaft und Personelle Ressourcen, 1939-1941, vol. 5.I, pp. 833-38; Seaton, German Army, pp. 145, 158; Kershaw, Profiles in Power, p. 153; Weinberg, Germany, Hitler, pp. 158-59; Megargee, p. 130; Keegan, Mask of Command, p. 261.

77. Weinberg, Germany, Hitler, p. 161.

78. Clark, p. 20. See also O'Neill, p. 135.

79. Jurgen Forster, "Hitler's Decision in Favor of War against the Soviet Union, " in Germany and the Second World War, vol. 4 (Oxford, 1998), p. 13. See also Redlich, p. 158; Kershaw, Hitler, 1936-1945, p. 311.

80. Office of the United States Chief Counsel for Prosecution of Axis Criminality, ed., U.S.A. Military Tribunals: Case No. 12-German Generals (Nuremberg, 1949), p. 10, 120.

81. Luftgaukommando VI was the VI Luftwaffe regional office.

82. BA-MA, RL 14/49, Luftgaukommando VI, Betr.: Nachweis der deutschblutigen Abstammung und Beforderungen, 08.01.1941.

83. IfZ, N 71-73; Losener.

84. IfZ, Eichmann Prosecution Document, Police d'Israel Quartier General 6-eme Bureau No. 1355, Bl. 1-2, Betrifft: Verbot der Eheschliessung mit Juden- Der Generalkommissar fur das Sicherheitswesen an den Reichskommissar v. 18.08.1941, 19.09.1941.

85. Endlosung (Final Solution) was the cover name for the systematic extermination of European Jews under Nazi control. See Gideon Hausner, justice in Jerusalem (New York, 1966), p. 95.

86. IfZ, Eichmann Prosecution Document, Police d'Israel Quartier General 6-eme Bureau No. 1355, Bl. 1-2.

87. BA-MA, BMRS, File Fischer, Heft I, Bl. 85-86, "Deutsches Arzteblatt, " Nr. 14/71, 05.04.1941, Generaloberstabsarzt Prof. Dr. Anton Waldmann, "Wege zur Lasung der Judenfrage, " pp. t55-57.

88. Walter Gross, Die rassenpolitischen Voraussetzungen zur Losung der Judenfrage (Munchen, 1943), pp. 28-32; Uwe Adam , judenpolitik im Dritten Reich (Dusseldorf, 1972), pp. 319-20; Adler, Der Verwaltete Mensch, p. 282.

89. State of Israel Ministry of Justice, ed., The Trial of Adolf Eichmann: Record of Proceedings in the District Court of Jerusalem, vol. 5 (Jerusalem, 1992), Session 118-119, p. 2, 170. See also Hausner, pp. 102-3.

90. IfZ, N 71-73, Aufzeichnung Dr. Losener, 04.12.1941.

91. BA-B, DZA 62 Ka. I 83, Bl. 18o Lammers an Reichsminister des Innern, 04.03.1941; Walk, p. 336.

92. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Maria-Anna van Menxel, 22.04.1995, T-150.

93. BA-MA, BMRS, File Hans Muhlbacher, 1941-1945. 1m Zeitalter der Gestapo, Erinnerungen von Olga Muhlbacher, Teil II, Bl. 6.

94. Buttner, p. 287.

95. A translation of Arisierung is "Aryanization." It seems this term for a Befreiung (exemption) happened most often between 1935 and 1938. See BA-MA, BMRS, File Ludwig Ganghofer. This term of Arisierung should not be confused with the other Aryanization the Nazis conducted, which forced Jewish business owners to sell their property to Aryans or forced Aryan businesses to rid themselves of any Jewish employees. See Hilberg, pp. 60-90.

96. BA-MA, BMRS, File Hans Muhlbacher, 1941-1945. Im Zeitalter der Gestapo, Erinnerungen von Olga Muhlbacher, Teil II, Bl. 16.

97. Yahil, p. 250; Dallin, p. 30, n. 2.

98. Seaton, German Army, pp. 129, 161, 200.

99. Absolon, Die Wehrmacht im Dritten Reich. Band V, p. 150.

100. The first sergeant was the Kompaniefeldwebel; among the soldiers he was known as the "Spiess"-a popular slang word for "sarge."

101. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Wolfgang Voigt, 09.04.1995, T-137; BA-MA, BMRS, File Wolfgang Voigt.

102. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Felix Bruck, 18.04.1998, T-422.

103. BA-MA, N 656/27, B1.2, Hans Dieter Henning an Lebram, 30.06.1977; BA-MA, N 379/87, speech from Vice Admiral Ruge, 11.11.60; BA-MA, File Bernhard Rogge, Heft III, Bl. 69; Raeder, p. 111.

104. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Horst von Oppenfeld, 05.01. 1995, T -84; Klemperer, Buch II, p. 212; BA-MA, BMRS, File Heinz Schlieper, Bl. 9; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Ruth Rilk, 05.02.1997, T-298; BA-MA, BMRS, File Borchardt; BA-MA, BMRS, File Otto Buchinger; BA-MA, BRMS, interview Robert Czempin, 09.02.1995, T-89; Klemperer, Buch II, 18.08.1942.

105. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Horst von Oppenfeld, 05.01.1995, T-84. According to Oppenfeld, the only time he had to concern himself with his ancestry was in 1938 when someone, probably in the Party, denounced him. He was required to go to a Wehrkreis officer in Stettin to examine his ancestry. When the official, a veteran of World War I, saw that his father and three uncles were World War I veterans and that two of them had died in action, the official said something like "Unsinn (nonsense), " closed his file, and dismissed him. Oppenfeld never heard about his ancestry again. He probably remained an officer either because he continued to fall under the Hindenburg exemptions of the Arierparagraph or because someone was protecting him. According to Manstein's adjutant, Alexander Stahlberg, Stauffenberg was responsible for helping Oppenfeld. Also, Oppenfeld's father, Rittmeister (captain in the cavalry) Moritz von Oppenfeld, was the adviser for agriculture and food security attached to headquarters staff of Hindenburg and Ludendorff during World War 1. Oppenfeld feels that his father's service under Hindenburg must have helped him tremendously.

106. Meyer, p. 236.

107. Wallach, p. 282.

108. BA-MA, BMRS, File Oppenfeld, Oppenfeld an Rigg, 16.12.2000. See also Seaton, German Army, p. 197.

109. Samuel W. Mitcham Jr., Rommel's Greatest Victory: The Desert Fox and the Fall of Tobruk, Spring of 1942 (Novato, 1998), pp. 114-15. See also Paul Carell, The Faxes of the Desert (New York, 1961), p. 181.

110. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Riess.

111. BA-MA, BMRS, File Hans Muhlbacher; BA-MA, BMRS, File Meissinger; BAMA, BMRS, interview Muhlbacher; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Meissinger. Meissinger worked for NASA after the war.

112. BA-MA, BMRS, File Muhlbacher; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Muhlbacher.

113. German Research Institute for Aviation.

114. BA-MA, BMRS, File Meissinger, 19.07.2001.

115. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Kurt Hohenemser, 28.11.1994, T-62. This Hohenemser is not to be confused with Kurt Heinrich Hohenemser, a quarter- Jew who during World War II helped design the first German combat helicopters. One of these helicopters, the FI 282 Kolibri, was used on reconnaissance and antisubmarine patrols from platforms on convoy escort vessels in the Aegean, Mediterranean, and Baltic Seas. BA-MA, BMRS, File Kurt Heinrich Hohenemser.

116. Kruger, pp. 81-83.

117. BA -MA, BMRS, interview Dietmar Brucher, 17.02. 1995, T -99; Dietmar Brucher's personal archive, Photoalbum; BA-MA, BMRS, File Bergmann, Heft I, Tagebuch, 28-29.09.1941.

118. Ersatzreserve II or Landwehr II. See BA-B, DZA 62 Ka. I 83, Bl. 155, Blankenburg an Engel, 23.05.1942; BA-MA, RH 7/23.

119. BA-MA, BMRS, from the data collected on half-Jews. See Absolon, Wehrgesetz und wehrdienst, pp. 118-19; Sammlung wehrrechtlicher Gutachten und Vorschriften, Heft 20/21, p. 174; Sammlung wehrrechtlicher Gutachten und Vorschriften, Heft 4, p. 73; Vogel, p. 257.

120. Absent without leave.

121. Lang, "Writing Holocaust, " in Holocaust Remembrance. See also Vuletic, p.33.

122. The Holocaust: 2. Legalizing the Holocaust -- The Later Phase, 1939-1943, introduction by John Mendelsohn (New York, 1982), Bl. 249, Pfundtner an Stellvertreter des Fuhrers, 07.05. 194 I. Apparently the Nuremberg Laws from 1935, which prohibited sexual relations between half-Jews and Aryans, were not being followed.

123. Hilberg, p. 262; Peterson, p. 30.

124. The SD (Sicherheitsdienst) was the security and intelligence service of the SS.

125. Yahil, p. 249; Seaton, German Army, p. 169; Jurgen Forster, "Operation Barbarossa as a War of Conquest and Annihilation, " in Germany and the Second World War, vol. 4, p. 491; Browning, Nazi Policy, Jewish Workers, German Killers, p. 3.

126. Jurgen Forster, "Operation Barbarossa as a War of Conquest and Annihilation, " in Germany and the Second World War, vol. 4, p. 514. See also Jurgen Forster, "Securing 'Living-space, '" in Germany and the Second World War, vol. 4, pp. 1, 193, 1, 210-11; Dawidowicz, War againstJews, p. 124; Orner Bartov, "Operation Barbarossa and the Final Solution, " in The Final Solution, p. 120.

127. Jurgen Forster, "Securing 'Living-space, '" in Germany and the Second World War, vol. 4, pp. 1, 227-29, 1, 233; Jurgen Forster, "Operation Barbarossa in Historical Perspective, " in Germany and the Second World War, vol. 4, p. 1, 249.

128. Jurgen Forster, "Securing 'Living-space, '" in Germany and the Second World War, vol. 4, pp. 1, 225; Jurgen Forster, in Die Wehrmacht, p. 953; Dallin, pp. 30-34; Orner Bartov, Hitler's Army (New York, 1991), pp. 84-88; Dawidowicz, War against Jews, pp. 123-24; Kershaw, Profiles in Power, pp. 154-55; Weinberg, Germany Hitler, pp. 162-63; Messerschmidt, pp. 398- 407; Wilhelm Deist, Militar, Staat und Gesellschaft. Studien zur preuflischdeutschen Militargeschichte (Munchen, 1991), pp. 380-84. Although no one protested this order, there are documented cases of officers simply not enforcing the decree once hostilities between Germany and the Soviet Union started. See Burleigh, p. 520.

129. Barbarossa ("Red Beard") was the code name for the German attack on the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941. This battle plan was named after Frederick I (von Staufen) or Frederick Barbarossa (1123-1 190), holy Roman emperor and German king.

130. Craig, Germany, 1866-1945, pp. 729-30.

131. Jurgen Forster, "Operation Barbarossa as a War of Conquest and Annihilation, " in Germany and the Second World War, vol. 4, p. 483.

132. Wilhelm Deist, in Die Wehrmacht, p. 45; Burleigh, p. 510.

133. Wallach, p. 266; Megargee, pp. 73, 80.

134. Percy Ernst Schramm, Hitler: The Man and the Military Leader (Chicago, 1971), p. 198.

135. Gerhard L. Weinberg, A World at Arms (New York, 1994), p. 170.

136. BA-MA, N 39/62, Bl. 47-49, v. Mackensen, "Wie ich zu Adolf Hitler gekommen bin, " v. 16.12.1939, abgeschlossen am 01.02.1942.

137. These SS units were special killing squads used to locate and exterminate Jews and commissars.

138. Paul Gordon Lauren, Power and Prejudice (London, 1988), pp. 129-30.

139. Gilbert, Second World War, p. 207. In the first five weeks, the Germans murdered over thirty thousand Jews.

140. BA-MA, BMRS, File Franz and Thomas Haller, Bl. 19-22. Schmundt probably believed, as Hitler did, that the Soviet leadership was and had been controlled by Jews (i.e., Trotsky).

141. Gilbert, Holocaust, p. 175.

142. Dawidowicz, War against Jews, p. 145.

143. Monologe im Fuhrerhauptquartier, 1941-1944, p. 90.

144. Messerschmidt, p. 358.

145. BA-B, DZA 62 Ka. I 83, OKW an Kanzlei des Fuhrers, Bl. 73.

146. Messerschmidt, p. 358; Absolon, Die Wehrmacht im Dritten Reich. Band V, p. 150.

147. Lifton, p. 24.

148. Kershaw, Hitler, 1889-1936, p. 487; Redlich, p. II I; Friedlander, p. 40; Frei, p. 122; Victor, p. 175; Georg Denzler and Volker Fabricius, Die Kirchen im Dritten Reich (Frankfurt, 1984), p. 113.

149. The Holocaust: 2. Legalizing the Holocaust, p. 285, 13.10.1941. See also Hilberg, pp.268-69.

150. A literal translation would be "frontline probation company." This company was probably part of a Bewahrungsbataillon (probation battalion). Probation battalions were punishment battalions of the German army that allowed one the possibility of rehabilitation-a grim possibility.

151. BA -MA, BMRS, interview Alfred Posselt, 04.01.1996, T- 185; Martin Senekowitsch, Feldmarschalleutnant Johann Friedlander, 1882-1945: Ein vergessener Offizier des Bundesheeres (Wien, 1995).

152. Bewahrungsbataillon is a probation battalion. To read about how one of these battalions operated, see Fritz Molden, Fepolinski und Waschlapski (Munchen, 1991).

153. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Heinz Schindler, 26.10.1997, T-404.

154. Meyer, p. 235.

155. BA-MA, BMRS, File Fischer, Fischer an Rigg, 01.12.2000; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Fischer.

156. BA-B, Sammlung Schumacher, Aktenvermerk fur III A, III V, II, 19.12. 1943; Keitel, pp. 13, 189.

157. Eichmann Prosecution Document, Police d'Israel Quartier General 6-eme Bureau No. 1355, Bl. 2, Generalkommissar fur das Sicherheitswesen an den Reichskommissar, 18.08.1941, 19.09.1941.

158. Dawidowicz, War against Jews, p. 124; Gilbert, Holocaust, p. 195.

159. Jurgen Forster, "Hitler's Decision in Favor of War against the Soviet Union, " in Germany and the Second World War, vol. 4, pp. 25-27, 34; Jurgen Forster, "Operation Barbarossa as a War of Conquest and Annihilation, " in Germany and the Second World War, vol. 4, pp. 481-84, 492; Jurgen Forster, "Operation Barbarossa in Historical Perspective, " in Germany and the Second World War, vol. 4, pp. 1, 245-46.

160. HVBl., Nr. 848, 05.09.1941, pp. 579-80.

161. Christopher R. Browning, Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland (New York, 1992), p. 177.

162. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Lankes.

163. BA-MA, BMRS, File Johannes Heckert, Bl. 1.

164. Jonathan Steinberg, "Types of Genocide: Croatians, Serbs and Jews, 1941-5, " in The Final Solution p. 190.

165. BA-MA, BMRS, File Konrad Schenck, Wolfram Gunther an Schenck, 22.01.1943, Bl. 20.

166. BA-MA, BMRS, File Friedrich Schlesinger, Berurteilung, 13.07.1943.

167. The Trial of Adolf Eichmann, vol. 5, sec. 115-118, p. 2, 297.

168. IfZ, N 71-73, Aufzeichnung von Dr. Losener betr. die Frage der Halbjuden und der privilegierten Mischehen, 04.12.1941; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Stephan Prager.

169. Interviews conducted by Colin Heaton with General Johannes Steinhoff from 26-28 January 1984.

170. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Lux.

171. BA-MA, BMRS, File Bernt von Helmolt, Bl. 2, Bernt von Helmolt an Bryan Rigg, 11.07. I 997; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Bernt von Helmolt, 22.07. 1997, T-385.

172. Ibid. Helmolt had been decorated with the EKII and the Silver Wound Badge (he had lost a foot). His brother, Eiche, was promoted to lieutenant and died in action in 1944.

173. Krackow, pp. 221-28.

174. Ibid., pp. 333-34.

175. At the request of the family, Lt. Ruge's Christian name has been deleted.

176. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Jurgen Ruge, 15.04.1995, T-143.

177. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Bergmann.

178. Not his real name.

179. J. W. v. Oechelhaeuser, Adelheit es ist soweit. Soldatisches Erleben (Munchen, 1981), pp. 67-71.

180. Stoltzfus, Resistance, pp. 115-16; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Goldberg.

181. BA-MA, BMRS, File Heinrich Schlepegrell, Bl. 3, Hauptmann Ehrlich, P[an]z[er]. Art[illerie]. Rgt. 33, Kommandeur, Bestatigung fur Ogfr. Sehlepegrell, 29.12.1943.

182. BA-MA, BMRS, File Schlepegrell, Bl.I, Heinrich Schlepegrell an Rigg, 06.04.1997.

183. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Ludwig Reinhard, 13.01.1996, T-196.

184. IfZ, N 71-73, Aufzeichnung von Dr. Losener, 04.12.1941.

185. The Trial of Adolf Eichmann, vol. 5, sec. 1 15-1 18, p. 2, 297.

186. Adam, p. 320; Hilberg, pp. 268-69.

187. The Trial of Adolf Eichmann, vol. 5, sec. I I 5-1 18, p. 2, 298; see also Rich, p. 2.

188. Hilberg, pp. 268-69.

189. BA-MA, BMRS, general impression gained through documenting several quarter-Jewish cases; Noakes, "Development of Nazi Policy, " p. 318. 190. Friedlander, p. 291.

191. See BA-MA, BMRS, interview Eva Heinrichs, 09.02.1997, T-305; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Kurt Heinrichs, 09.02.1997, T-306.

192. BA-MA, BMRS, File Karl Taraba; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Rosa Taraba, 08.01.1996, T-193. Most couples who married during the Third Reich received a copy of Mein Kampf Kershaw, Hitler, 1889-1936, p. 242; Redlich, p.69.

193. Hitlers Tischgesprache im Fuhrerhauptquartier, p. 79; Monologe im Fuhrerhauptquartier, 1941-1944, p. 148.

194. Hitlers Tischgesprache im Fuhrerhauptquartier, p. 79; Monologe im Fuhrerhauptquartier, 1941-1944, p. 148. For Hitler's thoughts on Menders theory of genetics, see Hitler, Hitler's Secret Book, p. 101.

195. Hitlers Tischgesprache im Fuhrerhauptquartier, p. 78.

196. A few quarter-Jews documented in this study had two quarter-Jewish parents.

197. IfZ, N7I-73, Aufzeichnung von Dr. Losener betr. die Frage der Halbjuden und der privilegierten Mischehen, 04.12.1941.

198. Ibid.

199. Office of the United States Chief Counsel for Prosecution of Axis Criminality, ed., U.S.A. Military Tribunals: Case No. 11 (Nuremberg, 1949, ) pp. 28, 526-27; Losener, pp. 311-12; Peterson, p. 147. See also Rebentisch, p. 113, n. 268; Klaus Oldenhage, Hermann Schreyer, and Wolfram Werner, eds., Wilhelm Lenz, "Die Handakten von Bernhard Losener, 'Rassereferent' im Reichsministerium des Innern, " in Archiv und Geschichte. Festschrift fur Friedrich p. Kahlenberg (Schriften des Bundesarchivs; 57) (Dusseldorf, 2000), pp. 686, 691-93, 696. Losener was arrested on 11 November 1944 by the Gestapo for having hidden two people involved with the 20 July 1944 bomb plot against Hitler. The Nazis sent him to a prison in Berlin, where he remained for the duration of the war.

200. Losener, p. 311.

201. Jochen von Lang, The Secretary: Martin Bormann (New York, 1979), pp. 235- 38.

202. Wheeler-Bennett, p. 525; Cooper, German Army, p. 344; Creveld, p. 43; Kershaw, Hitler, 1936-1945, pp. 451-52.

203. Fest, Face, p. 246; Keegan, Mask of Command, p. 272.

204. Hermann, p. 495.

205. Gordon A. Craig, "The Political Leader as Strategist, " in Makers of Modern Strategy from Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age, ed. Peter Paret (Princeton, 1986), p.497.

206. Kershaw, Hitler, 1936-1945, pp. 459, 472-73; Gilbert, Holocaust, p. 285. What Hitler said here was in reference to his famous "prophecy" of 30 January 1939. Benz, p. 61; Kershaw, Hitler, 1936-1945, pp. 152-53.

207. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Wolfgang Ebert, 13.07.1997, T-373; Wolfgang Ebert, Das Porzellan war so nervos. Memoiren eines verwohnten Kindes (Munchen, 1975), pp. 231-32.

208. Die Wehrmacht. Mythos und Realitat, Wilhelm Deist, p. 39; Die Wehrmacht. Mythos und Realitat, Jurgen Forster, p. 948; Deutsche Dienststelle (WASt) [=Wehrmacht-Auskunft-Stelle] fur die Benachrichtigung der nachsten Angehorigen von Gefallenen der ehemaligen deutschen Wehrmacht: Arbeitsbericht 1994-J99~ Berlin, 1996.

209. BA-B, DZA 62 Ka. I 83, Bl. 170.

210. SA-Gruppenfuhrer is a General Major in the SA.

211. BA-B, DZA 62 Ka. I 83, Bl. 171, Blankenburg an Girgensohn, 12.02.1942.

212. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Walter Scheinberger, 02.07.1995, T-157.

213. BA-MA, BMRS, File Werner Seldis, Bl. 14, Dr. Werner Seldis an Rigg, Sept. 1996. See also Klemperer, Buch II, 21.09.1943, pp. 440, 443.

214. BA-B, Sammlung Schumacher, Aktenvermerk, 19.12.1943.

215. BA-MA, BMRS, File Edgar Francken, p. 97, John Francken to Rigg, 08.03.1997.

2 16. When war broke out, Hermann told a Sippen-Gericht in Berlin what his mother, Julie Francken nee Spier, had told him on her death bed; namely, that an Aryan man and not her husband, Max Francken, was the father of her son, Hermann Francken. Hermann's testimony was accepted by the Nazis. Hermann no longer had to wear the yellow star and could drive his car.

217. BA-MA, BMRS, John Francken to Rigg, 08.03.1997, p. 97.

218. Akten-NSDAP, 101-15518/13, Lammers an Bormann, 16.01.1942.

219. Benz, pp. 8-9, 12, 81-82; Kershaw, Hitler, 1936-1945, p. 482.

220. Browning, Ordinary Men, pp. 14, 25, 58-70; Lifton, p. 159. Rudolf Hoss, "Commandant of Auschwitz, " in The Norton Book of Modern War, ed. Paul Fussell (New York, 1991), p. 508.

221. Bauer, pp. 200-201; Weinberg, Germany, Hitler, pp. 204, 224.

222. The Holocaust, vol. II, The Wannsee Protocol and a 1944 Report on Auschwitz by the Office of Strategic Services, introduction by Robert Wolfe (New York, 1982), p. 87; Bauer, pp. 200-206; BA-MA, N 642/12. The address of the villa was Am Grossen Wannsee 57.

223. Yehuda Bauer, "Conclusion: The Significance of the Final Solution, " in The Final Solution, p. 302.

224. Hilberg, pp. 257-62; The Final Solution, introduction by David Cesarani, p. 5; Jurgen Forster, "Securing 'Living-space, ''' in Germany and the Second World War, vol. 4, p. 1, 237; Nationalsozialismus, p. 58.

225. Gilbert, Second World War, p. 292.

226. Holocaust, vol. II, pp. 10-12; U.S.A. Military Tribunals: Case No. II, p. 28, 306; IfZ, N 71-73; Benz, p. 11.

227. Holocaust, vol. II, pp. 10-12; Adam, pp. 320-21; Benz, p. 11.

228. Trials of German Major War Criminals, vol. 14, Nuremberg, 14-24 May 1946, pp. 234-35; Adam, p. 321; Benz, p. 10.

229. Klemperer, Buch II, 18.08.1942; BA-MA, BMRS, File Henle; BA-MA, BMRS, File Prager; BA-MA, BMRS, File D. Fischer; BA-MA, BMRS, File Hamburger; BA-MA, BMRS, File Gunther Mirauer; BA-MA, BMRS, File Fritz Rosenhaupt.

230. BA-B, DZA 62 Ka. I 83, Bl. 73, OKW an Kanzlei des Fuhrers, Betr. Deutschblutigkeitserkarung judischer Mischlinge, 16'09.1943. See BA-MA, BMRS, File Georg-Friedrich Muller, Bl. 52; BA-MA, BMRS, File Haller.

231. U.S.A. Tribunals: Case No. II, p. 28, 308; Adam, pp. 322-23; IfZ, N 71-73, Eichmanns Buro, Ergebnis der Besprechung im Hauptamt Sicherheitspolizei uber die Lasung der europuischen Judenfrage, Notizen von Besprechungen von August und September 1941.

232. Office of the United States Chief Counsel for Prosecution of Axis Criminality, ed., U.S.A. Military Tribunals: Case No. 11.2 (Nuremberg, 1949), p. 48, 473.

233. Holocaust, vol. II, pp. 129-31.

234. Holocaust, vol. II, pp. 88-89, 99-103; U.S.A. Tribunals: Case No. II, pp. 28, 307, 28, 315.

235. Goebbels Diaries 1942-1943, p. 116.

236. Holocaust, vol. II, p. 217; Adam, p. 324; Meyer, p. 99.

237. Holocaust, vol. II, pp. 215-17; Losener, pp. 299-301; Adler, Der Verwaltete Mensch, p. 288.

238. Holocaust, vol. II, p. 219.

239. Yehuda Bauer, "Conclusion: The Significance of the Final Solution, " in The Final Solution, p. 302.

240. Kruger, p. 11; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Kruger; BA-MA; BMRS, File Kruger, Bl. 29. See also BA-MA, BMRS, File Florey, Bl. I; BA-MA, BMRS, File Gaehde, Bl. 17; BA-MA, BMRS, File Bergmann, Tagebuch, 06.05.1942.

241. See BA-MA, BMRS, File Johannes Reich, Bl. 6, Dr. J. Reich to Rigg, 11.12.1995; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Johannes Reich, 28.12.1995, T-181; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Kopp; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Scholz; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Bergmann; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Margold.

242. Paul Sauer, ed., Dokumente uber die Verfolgung der judischen Burger in Baden- Wurttemberg durch das nationalsozialistische Regime, 1933, -1945 (Stuttgart, 1966), Bd. II, p. 378; Laze, Teil II, Bl. 12.

243. See, for example, BA-MA, BMRS, interview Sachs; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Luderitz; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Angreg; BA-MA, BMRS, File Heinz Gunther Angreg, Bl. 3.

244. HVBl., Nr. 202, 1942C, p. 165, Behandlung judischer Mischlinge in der Wehrmacht.

245. HVBl., Nr. 384, 1942C, pp. 315-16.

246. HVBl., Nr. 202, 1942C, pp. 315-16; BA-A, H 20/490.

247. Trials of German Major War Criminals, vol. 14, Nuremberg, 14-24 May 1946, p. 235.

248. Adam, p. 327; Broszat and Frei, pp. 156-57; Losener, pp. 298-301; Noakes, "Development of Nazi Policy, " pp. 345-46.

249. For an example of the confusion, see Akten-NSDAP, 107-00387, 107-00390.

250. BA-B, DZA 62 Ka. I 83, Bl. 113, Bouhler an Bormann, 10.07.1942.

251. Lang, pp. 204-7; Rebentisch, pp. 452-53.

252. The Trial of Adolf Eichmann, sec. 113, p. 2, 039; U.S.A. Tribunals: Case No. II, p. 28, 528; Lang, p. 236; Noakes, "Development of Nazi Policy, " p. 344. See also The Trial of Adolf Eichmann, sec. I I 5-1 I 8, p. 2, 170; Hilberg, p. 606; Gilbert, Second World War, p. 340; Adler, Der Verwaltete Mensch, p. 288.

253. Adam, p. 329.

254. U.S.A. Tribunals: Case No. II, pp. 28, 308, 28, 314; Losener, p. 300; Trials of German Major War Criminals, vol. 14, Nuremberg, 14-24 May 1946, pp. 235-36.

255. Charles Burdick, ed., The Halder War Diary 1939-1942 (London, 1950), p. 678.

256. HVBl, Nr. 926, 25.09.1942, pp. 131, 501; Adam, p. 327; Sammlung wehrrechtlicher Gutachten und Vorschriften, Heft 20121, p. 175.

257. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Eduard Hesse, 30.10.1998, T-430; Landgericht Munchen I, Akten Werner Eisner, Protokoll aufgenommen in offentlicher Sitzung des Einzelrichters des 17. Zivilsenats des Oberlandesgerichts Munchen, Bericht von Zeuge Walter Julius Eisner, 3 Juli 1968, Heft IV, Bl. 648, Eduard Hesses Bericht uber Werner Eisner, 20 Januar 1969, Heft IV, Bl. 693, Aktenzeichen 17EU 529/ 66, Heft I, Aktenzeichen: 7 EK 2316/60, Bl. 2-3, report about Eisner written by Dr. H. March on 16 May 1961, Bl. 2-3, report by Dr. Jose Alvarado, 3 June 1965, La Paz, Bolivia, Bl. 455; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Byk.

258. The next three cases (Schinek, Kohn, and Mayer) are also described in Professor Steven Welch's Leo Baeck essay from 1999. Steven R. Welch, "Mischling Deserters from the Wehrmacht, " Leo Baeck Yearbook 44 (1999): 273-324.

259. Ordinary sailor.

260. BA-A, RW 55/15043, Bl. 69, Lt .. Berlling, 1. Batterie Marineflakabt. 814 an Kommando M. Flak. A. 814, 14.10.1942, Einsatzort. Special thanks to Professor Steven Welch for finding this document.

261. Ibid., Bl. 66, Thea Liebe an Gericht des Marinebefehlshabers Danemark, 08.10.1942.

262. Ibid., Bl. 74, Gericht des Marinebefehlshabers Danemark, Verfugung v. 29.10.1942. During the Third Reich, military courts handed down fifty thousand death sentences. Manfred Messerschmidt and Fritz Wullner, Die Wehrmachtjustiz im Dienste des Nationalsozialismus. Zerstorung einer Legende (Baden-Baden, 1987); Redlich, p. 107.

263. He apparently did not know his Jewish father, Otto Kohn.

264. BA-A, RW 55/1589, Bl. 25, Gericht der Wehrmachtkommandantur Berlin, 09.06.1942.

265. Ibid., Bl. 25, 70-80.

266. BA-A, RM 123/335944, Gericht der Wehrmachtkommandantur Wien, Urteil gegen Anton Mayer, 13.03.1944.

267. Ibid., Anton Mayer an GroGadmiral Donitz, 23.07.1944.

268. Allgemeines Marineamt was a branch of the navy supreme command.

269. BA-A, RM 123/335944, OKM an Gericht der Kriegsmarine Berlin, Betrifft: Strafsache gegen den M.A.Gefr. Anton Mayer, 23.04.1944; DDS, Pers Anton Mayer, Gericht der Kriegsmarine Berlin, 25.08.1944. Over fifty thousand death sentences were issued by the Wehrmaeht throughout the Third Reich. Messerschmidt and Wullner; Weinberg, Germany, Hitler, p. 309, n. 6. See also Manfred Messerschmidt, "German Military Law in the Second World War, " in The German Military in the Age of Total War, ed. Wilhelm Deist (Dover, 1985), pp. 323-35.

270. DDS, Pers Adm. Martin Baltzer, Bl. 3; BA-MA, BMRS, File Conrad Patzig, Dr. Gunter Patzig uber C. Patzig, p. 14.

271. Messerschmidt, p. 355.

272. U.S.A. Tribunals: Case No. II, pp. 28, 315; Hilberg, p. 273.

273. Adam, pp. 328-29.

274. AWA (I)=Allgemeines Wehrmachtamt (Inland).

275. Akten-NSDAP, 103-22530, Engel an Frey, 02.11.1942.

276. BA-B, Sammlung Schumacher, Rundschreiben der NSDAP, SS Abschnitt, 01.12.1942, Hamburg; BA-B. Reichskanzlei 4123, Bl. 74, Vermerk Lammers', RM Nr. 2566/43/A. Hitler enacted thirty restrictions on marriage according to how Jewish one was. Victor, p. 18.

277. Hertz, p. 35.
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Re: Hitler's Jewish Soldiers: The Untold Story of Nazi Racia

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CHAPTER 6: TURNING POINT AND FORCED LABOR, 1943-1944

1. Akten-NSDAP, 107-00392-393.

2. The author feels that this was probably the number of half-Jews registered only in Berlin because the number is so low.

3. BA-B, NS 18/482, Gussmann an Hauptverbindungsamt, Pg. Spangenberg, 10.02.1943.

4. Ibid., Der Chef der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD Kaltenbrunner an OKW, Goebbels, Speer und Reichsminister fur Bewaffnung und Munition, 03.03.1943.

5. Although the documents used that have Dietz's signature for this study do not contain his first name, it probably was none other than Heinrich Dietz, who had been a member of the Prussian army legal service since 1901. In 1933, he became the editor of the journal for military lawyers called the Zeitschrift fur Wehrrecht "and subsequently was a high-ranking civil servant in the war ministry." Manfred Messerschmidt, "German Military Law in the Second World War, " in The German Military in the Age of Total War, pp. 325-26. In 1938, the War Ministry was reorganized into OKW.

6. BA-B, DZA 62 Ka. I 83, Bl. 84, Aktennotiz, Anrufuber Feldwebel Dr. Vogtherr, 03.06.1943.

7. BA-B, NS 18/482, Aktennotiz, Betrifft: Heranziehung der judischen Mischlinge und judisch Versippten zur Dienstleistung im Kriege, 17.07.1943.

8. Akten-NSDAP, 103-22534, Aktennotiz Bormann fur Dr. Klopfer [Stellvertreter Bormanns als Leiter der Parteikanzlei], 14.10.1943.

9. Noakes, "Development of Nazi Policy, " p. 351.

10. Dieter Maier, Arbeitseinsatz und Deportation. Die Mitwirkung der Arbeitsverwaltung bei der nationalsozialistisehen Judenverfolgung in den Jahren, 1938- 1945 (Berlin, 1994), p. 217.

11. BA-MA, RH53-7/ 271, Bl. 51-53, Kommandeurbesprechung, 18.10.1943.

12. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Gerhard Wundermacher, 20.11.1995, T-167.

13. Meyer, p. 239.

14. BA-B, R 3/1583, Bl. 108, Speer an Himmler, 16.10.1944; Walk, p. 405; Adam, p. 381.

15. BA- B, Sammlung Schumacher, Aktenvermerk, 19. I 2. I 943; Keitel, p. 189. Keitel had abandoned not only his friend Burkner but also his aunt Ottilie (Tilly) Cahn nee Schulze, her Jewish husband, Max Ludwig, and their half-Jewish children, who were deported to OT camps. BA-MA, BMRS, File Peter Cahn, Bl. 6; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Peter Cahn, 11.12.1996, T-269.

16. The Deutscher Volkssturm (German home guard, or literally "people's militia") was made up of young boys and old men between the ages of sixteen and sixty during the last months of the war. With the Fuhrer's decree of 25 September 1944, the Deutscher Volkssturm was founded. Bormann was in charge of its organization and political education. Himmler was in charge of arming the units. Most who fought in the Deutscher Volkssturm received poor training and were sent to the fronts in eastern and western Germany to try and stop the Allied offensives. Close to 175, 000 Germans probably died while fighting in the Volkssturm. Kershaw, Hitler, 1936-1945, p. 715.

17. Kershaw, Hitler, 1936-1945, p. 714.

18. Akten-NSDAP, 101-12427, Deutscher Volkssturm, Anordnung 443/44, 09.12.1944; BA-B, NS 6/764, Bl. 133-34, Klopfer an Bormann, 30.10.1944; Speer, pp. 329, 391.

19. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Hermann Nast-Kolb, 22.11.1994, T-59.

20. Bloch, under orders from Canaris, rescued the Lubavitcher Rebbe Schneersohn in 1939-1940. Schneersohn was later able to make it to the United States via the Baltic states, Sweden, and the Atlantic.

21. BA-MA, BMRS, File Ernst Bloch.

22. Bruno Blau writes that in April 1944, half-Jews who did not have work or were not serving in the armed forces were sent to OT. Blau, "Die Mischehe im Nazireich, " p. 54. Interestingly, from the cases documented in this study, most of the Jewish wives of Aryan men deported to OT survived the war. They simply remained home and waited for the end of the war.

23. In Aktion Hasse, half-Jews wore uniforms and performed mostly construction work. Some half-Jews claim that it was not nearly as bad as Aktion Mitte. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Gerhard Schiller, 11.02.1995, T-92.

24. In Aktion Mitte, half-Jews performed forced labor and did not wear uniforms. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Schiller.

25. BA -MA, BMRS, general data collected; Sammlung wehrrechtlicher Gutachten und Vorschriften, Heft 2, p. 27. "B-men" stands for Bewahrungsmanner. Some half-Jews may have been deported to OT camps in 1943, but most of them were deported to such camps only in 1944.

26. Akten-NSDAP, 107-00394; Noakes, "Development of Nazi Policy, " p. 351.

27. BA-MA, BMRS, File Herbert Beyer, Bl. 3, 6, 50, Lebensbeschreibung.

28. Maier, p. 219; Noakes, p. 351.

29. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Angress.

30. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Friederich Schlesinger, 10.12.1994, T-77.

31. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Salinger.

32. BA-MA, BMRS, general impression gained from interviewees; Noakes, "Development of Nazi Policy, " p. 351.

33. Maier, p. 219.

34. Ibid., p. 228.

35. For an example of a Gestapo notification for OT, see BA-MA, BMRS, File Bleicher, Gestapo Stuttgart an Bleicher, 13.10. 1944; BA-MA, BMRS, File Carl Neubronner, Arbeitsamt Frankfurt an Neubronner, 01.03.1945. Others were arrested and deported, but they were a minority.

36. BA-MA, BMRS, File Bri.icher, "Amtliche Anzeigen, " des Leiter des Arbeitsamts Stuttgart; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Brucher.

37. BA-MA, BMRS, File Rehfeld. Helmut Rehfeld worked for the railroads between Liegnitz and Breslau as an engineer. During his work, he witnessed the transports with their human cargo on their way to Auschwitz and other extermination camps. One day, disgusted with the whole regime, he took down the Fuhrer's picture from his office wall, muttering that he could not work under his gaze. His boss denounced him to the Gestapo and after spending several weeks in a Breslau prison, the Nazis deported him to Buchenwald.

38. BA-MA, BMRS, File Gerhard Guttstadt, Bl. I, Elisabeth Guttstadt an Rigg, 11.08.1997. See also Werner Schmidt, Leben an Grenzen (Zurich, 1989), pp. 159-60.

39. BA-MA, BMRS, File H. Beyer, Bl. 49, Lebensbeschreibung.

40. Schmidt, p. 173.

41. On 1 August 1944, Sippenhaft[ung] was imposed as a result of the 20 July bomb plot. See Seaton, German Army, pp. 232-33.

42. BA-MA, BMRS, File Hermann Steinthal, Hermann Steinthal an Rigg, Bl. 3, Steinthal an Rigg, 14.11.1996.

43. BA-MA, BMRS, general impression gained from the data collected; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Behrendt; Schmidt, pp. 170-73.

44. Kruger, pp. 100-101; Klaus Budzinski, Der Riss durchs Ganze. Kolportage einer gestorten Deutschwerdung (Berlin, 1993), pp. 226.

45. Adam, p. 332.

46. Akten-NSDAP, 101-07575-Bl. 3, Bormann an Lammers, Betrifft: "Beamte, die judische Mischlinge oder mit Juden oder judischen Mischlingen verheiratet sind."; BA-B, R 43 II/599a, Bl. 71.

47. Neue Zuricher Zeitung, Montag, 15.01.1945, Bl. 6.

48. BA-MA, BMRS, File H. Beyer, Bl. 51, Lebensbeschreibung; BA-MA, BMRS, interview H. Beyer.

49. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Hanna Wollenberg, 19.06.1996, T-213.

50. BA-MA, BMRS, File H. Beyer, Bl. 52, Lebensbeschreibung; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Hans-Geert Falkenberg, 02.02.1997, T-289; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Kruger; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Schliesser.

51. BA-MA, BMRS, File H. Beyer, Bl. 49, 52, Lebensbeschreibung.

52. BA-MA, BMRS, general impression gained from data collected; Meyer, p. 241.

53. U.S. Holocaust Museum researcher Dr. Geoffrey Megargee, who is working on the numbers of Nazi camps, claims that the Nazis probably constructed over ten thousand camps; Nationalsozialismus, p. 17.

54. Trials of German Major War Criminals, Part 17, Nuremberg 20 June-1 July 1946, p. 52.

55. Ibid.

56. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Hans Radvanyi, 07.01.1996, T-192; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Reiner Wiehl, 17.05.1996, T-205.

57. BA-MA, BMRS, File Kurt Einstein, Bl. 2, Kurt Einstein an Rigg, 10.12.1996.

58. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Brucher.

59. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Techel; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Behrendt; BAMA, BMRS, interview Werner Gramsch, 16.11.1996, T-238; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Kurt Zeunert, 06.02.1997, T-300.

60. BA-MA, BMRS, File Ernst Ludwig, B1.12, Ernst Ludwig, Anlage zu meiner Erklarung, meine Verfolgung in den Jahren 1941-45 betreffend, 11.06.1949; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Ernst Ludwig, 22.01.1997, T-286. See also BA-MA, BMRS, File Rudolf Lowenfeld, Bl. 2.

61. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Bergmann.

62. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Heinz Neumaier, 21.04.1995, T-145; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Klaus Budzinski, 15.11.1994, T-51.

63. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Rath.

64. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Schliesser.

65. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Wiehl.

66. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Zeunert.

67. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Radvanyi; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Wiehl. Beate Meyer has drawn the same conclusion. See Meyer, p. 247.

68. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Salinger. See also BA-MA, BMRS, interview Schliesser.

69. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Wiehl; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Peter Cahn, 17.03.1995, T -121; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Peter Cahn, 11.12.1996, T-268; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Hans Cahn 11.12.1996, T-269; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Walter Scheinberger, 18.03.1995, T-121a; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Karl Neubronner, 09.04.1995, T-136; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Hans Horn berger, 08.04.1995, T-132.

70. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Lichtwitz.

71. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Falkenberg. Ironically, after the war, the Allies put Falkenberg in prison because they thought he really was an OT officer.

72. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Harald Ettheimer, 02.09.1995, T-164.

73. Vogel, p. 262.

74. Frontfuhrer or Baufuhrer in the OT was a second lieutenant.

75. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Horst Schmechel, 29.11.1994, T-65. Schmechel was in several OT camps. They were Hazebrouk, Watten, Vizernes, and Boulogne Sur-Mer in France.

76. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Budzinski.

77. Niedersachsischer Verband Deutscher Sinti, ed., "Es war unmenschenmoglich." Sinti aus Niedersachsen erzahlen-Verjolgung und Vernichtung im Nationalsozialismus und Diskriminierung bis heute (Hannover, 1995), pp. 50, 87. This unit was named after SS Oberfuhrer Oskar Dirlewanger, who was a sadist and necrophiliac. Clark, p. 391, n.3; Keegan, Second World War, p. 482; Guderian, p. 356.

78. BA-MA, H 6/172, Schreiben Chef des Heeres-Personalamts Burgdorf, 03.01.1945; BA-MA, Pers 7786.

79. B. H. Liddell Hart, The German Generals Talk (New York, 1979), p. 178. General Heinrici's wife was half-Jewish.

80. Adam, pp. 332-33.

81. Kershaw, Profiles in Power, p. 165; Redlich, pp. 232-34, 275; Maser, pp. 376, 394, 402; Keegan, Mask of Command, p. 309.

82. Schleunes, pp. 3-4; Eberhard Jackel, Hitler's Weltanschauung (Stuttgart, 1981), p. 78; Kershaw, Profiles in Power, p. 30.

83. Buttner, "Persecution, " p. 288.

84. Holocaust, vol. I, Legalizing the Holocaust, p. 31.

85. Globke and Stuckart, p. 17.

86. A. Ruter-Ehlermann and C. F. Ruter, eds., Sammlung deutscher Strafurteile wegen nationalsozialistischer Totungsverbrechen (Amsterdam 1968-198 I), Bd. VI, p. 406.

87. Schleunes, p. 130.

88. U.S.A. Military Tribunals: Case No. 11.2, p. 125.

89. SS colonel.

90. BA-B, NS 19/1047, Bl. 2-3, Hildebrandt an Himmler, 17.03.1943. See also Noakes, "Development of Nazi Policy, " pp. 339-40.

91. BA-MA, S 19/1047, Bl. 10; Adam, p. 328.

92. Stoltzfus, Resistance, p. 57.

93. Akten-NSDAP, 107-00409-410.

94. Eichmann Prosecution Document, Police d'Israel Quartier General 6-eme Bureau No. 1102, Der Reichsminister fur die besetzten Ostgebiete (Schmitz), 30.01. 1942; HZ Hefte N-7 I -73, Dr. Feldscher, betr. "Verscharfung des Judenbegriffs, " 13.08.1941; BA-B, NS 19/1772, Bl. 2; Holocaust, vol. 2, Legalizing the Holocaust, Bl. 103; Noakes, "Development of Nazi Policy, " pp. 344-45.

95. Ibid.

96. Hilberg, p. 309.

97. Ibid., p. 152

98. Noakes, "Development of Nazi Policy, " p. 338; Kurt Patzold, ed., Verfolgung, Vertreibung, Vernichtung. Dokumente desfaschistischen Antisemitismus 1933 bis 1942 (Leipzig, 1984), pp. 249, 264-65.

99. Ruter-Ehlermann and Ruter, p. 15.

100. Klemperer, Buch II, 12.05.1943, p. 377, 23.01.1944, p. 475.

101. Arendt, p. 174. One half-Jew who escaped from Denmark was the famous scientist Niels Bohr, who later found his way to the United States and worked on the atomic bomb project.

102. Trial of Adolf Eichmann, vol. 7, session 42, p. 752, Witness Charlotte Salzburger nee Wreschner; and Losener, pp. 299-302; Eichmann Prosecution Document, Police d'Israel Quartier General 6-eme Bureau No. 1102, Reichsminister fur die besetzten Ostgebiete (Schmitz), 30.01.1942, Aufzeichnung, pp. 2-3; BA-B, NS 19/1772, Bl. 2, Reichsminister fur die besetzten Ostgebiete, 02.05-1942; Bauer, p. 229; IfZ, N 7 1-73, Der Judenbegriff in den besetzten Gebieten; Hausner, p. 256; Meyer, p. 9; Adler, Der Verwaltete Mensch, pp. 283-84.

103. See Stoltzfus, Resistance; Kaplan, pp. 149, 193.

104. Maier, p. 203; Rebentisch, p. 439.

105. Lifton, p. 56.

106. Kershaw, Hitler, 1936-1945, p. 486; Arendt, p. 96.

107. Hilberg, p. 296, n. 164. Muller became head of the Gestapo in 1939 under Himmler. Gellately, Gestapo and German Society, p. 55.

108. David Roskies, ed., The Literature of Destruction: Jewish Responses to Catastrophe (New York, 1989); Chaim A. Kaplan, "Scribes of the Warsaw Ghetto: Scroll of Agony, " p. 446.

109. This was an SS Captain.

110. Stoltzfus, Resistance, pp. 184-86.

111. Ernst Klee, Euthanasie im NS-Staat: Die Vernichtung lebensunwerten Lebens (Frankfurt, 1985), p. 419; Noakes, "Development of Nazi Policy, " p. 348; Victor, p. 172; Weinberg, Germany, Hitler, p. 240; Adler, Der Verwaltete Mensch, p. 16.

112. Der Sturmer, 09.11.1944.

113. Bauer, pp. 190-91, 206; Buttner, "Persecution, " p. 289.

114. Trial of Adolf Eichmann, vol. 2, sec. 42, p. 755; BA-MA, BMRS, File Hanns- Heinz Bauer. BA-MA, interview Hanns-Heinz Bauer, 29.03.1998, T-421.

115. BA-MA, BMRS, File Hans Kirchholtes, Bl. 4.

116. Wolf Zuelzer, "Keine Zukunft als 'Nicht-Arier' im Dritten Reich, " in Der Judenpogrom, p. 154.

117. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Hans Doppes, 19.05.1996, T-207; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Bauer; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Ferdinand Lichtwitz, 18.07.1997; BA-MA, BMRS, interview R. Schenk, 23.05-1997, T-349; BA-MA, BMRS, File Herbert Simon, Bl. II; BA-MA, BMRS, File Erik Blumenfeld; BA-MA, BMRS, File Helmuth Rosenbaum, Bl. 9; BA-MA, BMRS, File Werner Eisner. See also Meyer, pp. 236, 251, 469; Hans A. Schmitt, Quakers and Nazis: Inner Light in Outer Darkness (Missouri, 1997), pp. 174-75; Adler, Der Verwaltete Mensch, p. 320; Owings, p. 48.

118. Kershaw, Hitler, 1889-1936, p. 487; Redlich, p. III; Frei, p. 122; Lifton, p. 27; Denzler and Fabricus, pp. 112-13.

119. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Hans-Oskar Lowenstein de Witt, 06.12.1994, T-71. See also Alfred Posselt, Soldat des Feindes (Wi en, 1993), pp. 18-19.

120. BA-MA, BMRS, File G. Bier, Bier an Rigg, 26.03.2001.

121. Bauer, p. 206.

122. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Steinwasser.

123. Kershaw, Hitler Myth, pp. 238-40, 250-51; Gilbert, Holocaust, pp. 73-75; William Sheridan Allen, "Die deutsche Offentlichkeit und die 'Reichskristallnacht'- Konflikte zwischen Werthierarchie und Propaganda im Dritten Reich, " in Die Reihen fest geschlossen. Beitrage zur Geschichte des Alltags unterm Nationalsozialismus (Wuppertal, 1981), pp. 397-411; Hilberg, p. 29; Kaplan, p. 148.

124. Redlich, p. 156; Bormann Lang, p. 221; Noakes, "Development of Nazi Policy, " p. 354; Nazism 1919-1945, vol. 3, pp. 1, 031-43; Denzler and Fabricius, pp. 98, 116-32; Rebentisch, p. 431; Victor, pp. 93, 172. Over seventy thousand mentally ill and deformed patients were murdered because of this program. Kershaw, Profiles in Power, p. 141; Kershaw, Hitler, 1936-1945, pp. 261, 427- 30; Redlich, p. 154; Stoltzfus, Resistance, pp. 15, 145; Gellately, Consent and Coercion, p. 103. Gellately notes that Hitler might have also felt that it was a good time to stop the euthanasia program because the expertise of the personnel who had been working in the euthanasia centers was needed for the extermination now going on in the East.

125. In February 1943, Goebbels ordered around two thousand Jews living with Aryan spouses arrested. The government planned to deport these Jews. However, wives, children, family, and friends in Berlin protested day and night for one week. Sometimes almost six thousand people protested. Amazingly, under such pressure, the Nazi regime relented and freed the Jews in March. Geschichte und Gesellschaft. Zeitschrift fur Historische Sozialwissenschaft 21. Jahrgang/ Heft 2 April-Juni 1995, Protest und Widerstand (Gottingen, 1995), Nathan Stoltzfus, "Widerstand des Herzens, " pp. 218-47; Stoltzfus, pp. xvi-xxii; Noakes, "Development of Nazi Policy, " p. 354; Weinberg, Germany, Hitler, p. 231; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Goldberg; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Elisabeth Behrend, 03.03.1997, T-32I; Meyer, p. 57; Schmitt, p. 175; Richard J. Evans, Lying About Hitler: History, Holocaust, and the David Irving Trial (New York, 2001), p. 84; Owings, p. 462; Goebbels Diaries, 1942-1943, pp. 276, 288, 294.

126. Arendt, p. 159; see also Schmitt, p. 174.

127. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Wiehl.

128. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Braun, 10-14.08.1994, T-10; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Braun, 07.01.1996, T-190.

129. BA-MA, BMRS, File Wilhelm Droscher.
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