Hitler's Jewish Soldiers: The Untold Story of Nazi Racial Laws and Men of Jewish Descent in the German Military [Hardcover]

Bryan Mark Rigg (Author)

Book Description

Series: Modern War Studies | Publication Date: April 2002

On the murderous road to "racial purity" Hitler encountered unexpected detours, largely due to his own crazed views and inconsistent policies regarding Jewish identity. After centuries of Jewish assimilation and intermarriage in German society, he discovered that eliminating Jews from the rest of the population was more difficult than he'd anticipated. As Bryan Mark Rigg shows in this provocative new study, nowhere was that heinous process more fraught with contradiction and confusion than in the German military.

Contrary to conventional views, Rigg reveals that a startlingly large number of German military men were classified by the Nazis as Jews or "partial-Jews" (Mischlinge), in the wake of racial laws first enacted in the mid-1930s. Rigg demonstrates that the actual number was much higher than previously thought--perhaps as many as 150,000 men, including decorated veterans and high- ranking officers, even generals and admirals.

As Rigg fully documents for the first time, a great many of these men did not even consider themselves Jewish and had embraced the military as a way of life and as devoted patriots eager to serve a revived German nation. In turn, they had been embraced by the Wehrmacht, which prior to Hitler had given little thought to the "race" of these men but which was now forced to look deeply into the ancestry of its soldiers.

The process of investigation and removal, however, was marred by a highly inconsistent application of Nazi law. Numerous "exemptions" were made in order to allow a soldier to stay within the ranks or to spare a soldier's parent, spouse, or other relative from incarceration or far worse. (Hitler's own signature can be found on many of these "exemption" orders.) But as the war dragged on, Nazi politics came to trump military logic, even in the face of the Wehrmacht's growing manpower needs, closing legal loopholes and making it virtually impossible for these soldiers to escape the fate of millions of other victims of the Third Reich.

Based on a deep and wide-ranging research in archival and secondary sources, as well as extensive interviews with more than four hundred Mischlinge and their relatives, Rigg's study breaks truly new ground in a crowded field and shows from yet another angle the extremely flawed, dishonest, demeaning, and tragic essence of Hitler's rule.

This book is part of the Modern War Studies series.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Working in newly opened archives and reexamining old evidence, historian Bryan Mark Rigg turns up a surprising wrinkle in the history of Nazi Germany: the presence of part-Jewish soldiers not only in the ranks but also in the upper echelons of the German military. One such soldier recalled, "I served because I wanted to prove Hitler's racial nonsense wrong. I wanted to prove that people of Jewish descent were indeed brave and courageous soldiers." By Rigg's estimate, as many as 150,000 soldiers, sailors, and airmen of partial Jewish descent (Mischlinge, in Nazi terminology) served in Adolf Hitler's forces--some, such as field marshal and war criminal Erhard Milch, placed in high positions by Hitler himself even as he tightened the noose on the Jews of Europe. Rigg considers the role of these men as they negotiated the confusion of the monolithic, racist state in dealing with Germans of partial Jewish descent. "[Their] experience clearly demonstrates the complexity of life in the Third Reich," writes Rigg. His book sheds light on a difficult subject in the face of certain controversy, and it merits discussion. --Gregory McNamee

From Publishers Weekly

What the Nazis called partial Jews, or mischlinge, served in the Wehrmacht during World War II, often joining to prove their loyalty and becoming decorated soldiers. Rigg, who received a B.A. from Yale in 1996, studied at Cambridge and currently teaches at the online American Military University, estimates their numbers to have been in the range of 150,000. He begins by carefully describing Nazi racial law and recounting the assimilation and military service of "/ Jews" (among other categories) in the German and Austrian states in the two centuries before WWI. Moving on to the Nazi era, Rigg details the exemptions to Aryan law that allowed mischlinge to serve. The extent to which the mischlinge knew of the regime's true character is a constant theme, and feelings of helplessness in the face of knowledge of the Holocaust are vividly illustrated with numerous examples, such as the mischling soldier who visited Jewish relatives the night before they were deported to an extermination camp not knowing then that "deportation" meant "death." Interviews with some surviving mischlinge (including former chancellor Helmut Schmidt, who served in the Luftwaffe), along with quotations from memoirs and diaries, help to enliven an otherwise dry, academic style. By 1944, many of the loopholes in the racial purity laws were closed, and many military mischlinge perished in the camps. Those who survived were later often rejected by the Jewish community because of their service in the German armed forces.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 528 pages
• Publisher: Univ Pr of Kansas; 1St Edition edition (April 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0700611789
• ISBN-13: 978-0700611782
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.2 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (50 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #624,769 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

109 of 117 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars My own experience, July 15, 2002

By 

Anita Bleyleben - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hitler's Jewish Soldiers: The Untold Story of Nazi Racial Laws and Men of Jewish Descent in the German Military (Hardcover)

I spent my youth and adolescence during WWII in the Third Reich.
Although Aryan by birth I followed the fate of and befriended
several 'Mischlinge' (half- and quarter-jews) during and after
the War, and even knew some who served in the Wehrmacht. I found
Brian Mark Rigg's book excellent in scope and fair in its
contents. The research he conducted is extraordinary. The author
shed light on an angle that hitherto has been neglected by
historians of Nazi-Germany. He also describes splendidly the
irrational stupidity of the racial laws with their tragic
consequences. I wonder whether these 'Mischlinge' fought
valiently in the German Army as a refuge from the Gestapo or
under the peer pressure of the 'comradeship' of one's fighting
unit.They wanted to prove to the system that they were real' Germans.
I vividly remember also Aryan friends who were strong
Anti-Nazis but who courageously fought in the Wehrmacht,
particularly on the eastern front. Some of them were even
scheming plots to kill Hitler. Was it again the bonding among
soldiers or did they consider Naziism the smaller evil to
Bolshevism? I think these questions can only be only answered
individually.

38 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Assimilation..., April 30, 2003

By 

Socol Anna, 9-th grade (Karney Shomron, Israel) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hitler's Jewish Soldiers: The Untold Story of Nazi Racial Laws and Men of Jewish Descent in the German Military (Hardcover)

The book is about the phenomenon of people of partial Jewish descent (mischlinge in German) that served in the German military (Wermacht) during the World WarII. The book is the result of a ten years' study including 430 interviews with mischlinge that had served in Wermacht. The book is very serious: for example, index and references comprise one third of the volume. The author claims that about 150,000 mischlinge (probably, about half of them - halachic Jews) served in Wermacht.

The first chapter discusses the question: who is a Jew? Several points of view are presented. The Halacha says that person born to a Jewish mother is also a Jew; and also one that converts to Judaism (makes "giyur"). However, many Jews believe that Jewishness means "ethnic allegiance". Reform Jews believe that "paternal descent" is also enough to be a Jew. The author mentions that this problem (who is a Jew) in modern Israel is "second only to Israel's preoccupation with problems of peace and security."
The second chapter explains who were mischlinge and how they felt in Nazi Germany. In most cases, mischlinge felt themselves as Germans. Part of them felt like second-class Germans, and many of them made their best to be considered as Aryans (i.e. pure Germans).
The third chapter is about the assimilation in Germany and Austria, and also about Jews serving in German Military prior to WWII. The assimilation rate in Germany and Austria was very high: for example, between 1901 and 1929 ther were over
36,000 mixed marriages in Germany alone. And from all the facts we see that many Jews served in the German army during WWI and afterwards. They felt united to fight for Germany.
The next three chapters give the historical background. When Hitler came to power, he started the racial policy. This policy was established by "Nuremberg laws" that were legislated in 1935. The aim of these laws was to stop connection between Jews and non-Jews. The term "Jew" was not defined by these laws, and as a wide-spread practice mischlinge were not treated as such. Later, around 1941, mischlinge in the Army felt that something bad towards them was happening. At that time in the SS offices "the mischlinge question" was discussed. In 1943 there was a "turning point" for mischlinge: the Party decided that half-Jews could not serve in in elite military units. Many mischlinge were removed from their positions. After that it was decided that half-Jews should be exterminated in the long-term perspective. Many were sent to forced labor camps.
The next two chapters are about exemptions from the racial policy. The author says that thousands applied for racial exemptions, i.e. for the right to continue military service. Many of them obtained such exemptions, and the first question
is why Hitler granted such exemptions (he treated each case personally with little or no advice from anybody else). B.M. Rigg points that several authors say that this is because of his own allegable Jewish past, i.e. Hitler feared that his grandfather had been Jewish. However, we have no facts to confirm or deny this allegation.
At first, if the person was a Party member, Hitler gave exemption in many cases. From 1940 more mischlinge had problems with obtaining an exemption, and after the July 1944 bomb attack on Hitler almost no more exemptions were granted.
The last chapter discusses the question: what did mischlinge know about the Holocaust? We can see from the author's study that they did not know about killing Jews. Mischlinge soldiers did not know that the Nazis killed their relatives. Similarly, most half-Jews did not realize what would happen to them after deportation.

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars STOP! Life is NOT Black and White but Grey, May 29, 2002

By 

Dr. Louis J. Karmel (Greensboro, NC USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hitler's Jewish Soldiers: The Untold Story of Nazi Racial Laws and Men of Jewish Descent in the German Military (Hardcover)

This excellent book goes way beyond its subject, although if it did not it still would rate 5 stars, in the presentation of unbelievable facts mixed with ancedotal recitations of history. The personal disclosures by German military officers and enlisted men of their Jewish heritage, most of whom were half to quarter Jews, and their tribulations due to their ancestry coupled with acceptance at the highest levels was amazing.

Additionally, Hitler's hatred and obession with Jews was also tempered with his empathy for "Mischling's"(mixture of German and Jew)in certain situations such as the mother with a yellow Star of David on her clothes who had trouble getting food and Hitler helping her because of her son's military service to Germany. On the other hand, some "Mischlinge" were sent to concentration camps. The author states: "Ironically, Hitler was the one who allowed them both to serve and to apply for exemptions." As the war progressed he became less lenient. The final days found him in his bunker still worried about the Jewish question and how to rid society of Jews. Yes, his main objective was the eradication of Jews but at the same time one found him giving out many exemptions. His behaviors were obviously erratic and disturbed. There he was locked in battle with the Soviet Union at Stalingrad and his obesssion was with granting exemptions not with the battle per se.

The book was absorbing and scholary at the same time. As a former professor I appreciated the referencing of all the surprising data. As a psychologist I know life is not always black and white but I find I and most people need to be constantly reminded of this simple fact.

One of the most informative and interesting boooks I've read in the last few years.