12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Includes Details on Full-Blooded Nazi-Spared German Jews, October 4, 2009
This review is from: Lives of Hitler's Jewish Soldiers: Untold Tales of Men of Jewish Descent Who Fought for the Third Reich (Modern War Studies) (Hardcover)
In this sequel to his HITLER'S JEWISH SOLDIERS, Rigg focuses on individuals' experiences. WARNING: The descriptions of the carnage at the Russian front are graphic, and may be upsetting to the sensitive reader.
Rigg reminds the reader that racial Nazi ideology and Nazi officials decided who was Jewish; self-identifications and self-repudiations of Judaism did not. Tens of thousands of Christians of Jewish origin, most of whom didn't feel Jewish, were murdered by the Nazis as Jews. (p. 17). According to the Nuremberg laws, a Jew was anyone who had three or four Jewish grandparents. A half-Jew (1st Degree Mischling) had two Jewish grandparents and a quarter-Jew (2nd Degree Mischling) had one Jewish grandparent. (p. 12). According to the Halakah (rabbinical law), more than half of the 2nd-Degree Mischling were Jews. (p. 13).
Some of the interviewees acknowledge once admiring Hitler, as for the extensive employment opportunities created by his Autobahn program. (p. 79). The interviewees served in the armed forces as German patriots. (e. g., p. 57). Rigg considers the Yiddish term Goy to be derogatory. (p. 14).
While it is true that the majority of the German Jews and Mischlinge interviewed by Rigg escaped persecution by concealing their background or being fortunate to serve under officers that disregarded it, there were also quite a few of them known and spared by top Nazi officials and re-labeled Aryans. Hitler did this with the stroke of a pen. (p. 13). In his Chapter 3, which is on those who received the Deutschblutigkeitserklarung (declaration of German blood), Rigg wrote: "No fewer than twenty-one generals, several admirals, and one field marshal of Jewish descent served with Hitler's consent. And thousands in the lower ranks of the Wehrmacht remained there because Hitler personally exempted them from the laws." (p. 171). Rigg reiterates the fact that Erhard Milch had been either a half-Jew or full Jew. (pp. 177-178). In his Chapter 4, Rigg discusses those who got the Genehmigung (racial amnesty, and permission to remain in the German armed forces.)
The implications of the foregoing are clear. Typically, the Jewish victims of the Germans are, tokenism aside, exclusively featured in educational Holocaust materials. The chief argument adduced in support for this monopoly is the one about Jews being uniquely targeted for TOTAL extermination. This is once again shown to be manifestly incorrect.
The religious views of the interviewees figure prominently in this book. The interviewees recall their ancestors' conversions to Christianity for opportunistic reasons, and describe their Christianity as mainly a cultural one--like that of most gentile Germans. Currently, many of the interviewees fault German Christian leaders for supporting Hitler, and view both Christianity and Judaism as purveyors of divisiveness and intolerance. One of them saw the Jews' problems as the outcome of Jewish particularism and sense of being better than others. (p. 86). Most of the interviewees lost belief in God as a result of the Holocaust and of the battlefield horrors they had experienced. One, however, believed that God had audibly led him away from a location of certain death (pp. 73-75), while another interviewee felt that God was with him and that his sense of being abandoned by God was no different from that of Christ while on the Cross. (p. 241). Rescued Rebbe Joseph Isaac Schneersohn (1880-1950) is faulted by Rigg for contending that the Holocaust was God's punishment for the Jews' sins. (pp. 266-268). [However, one should remember that collective divine punishment for the Jews' sins is a common Old-Testament theme (e. g., the Babylonian Captivity).]
Several of Rigg's interviewees took part in the 1939 German conquest of Poland. Ironic to the common portrayal of Polish soldiers as foolhardy, one of the interviewees alluded to German foolhardiness: "[Dieter] Fischer recalled that his Frankfurt division lost 25 percent of its officers, many to snipers noticing rank insignia on their uniforms. He pointed out that `stupid courage' got many killed. One day several officers drove up and asked for a status report. Fischer explained they had spotted a Polish tank down the road and should not go further. `Are you a coward?' one of the officers asked. They drove on and a few minutes later, the tank blew up the car. Every officer inside died." (pp. 232-233).
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6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Required for Anyone Trying to Understand the Holocaust and Even Jewish Law, September 11, 2009
This review is from: Lives of Hitler's Jewish Soldiers: Untold Tales of Men of Jewish Descent Who Fought for the Third Reich (Modern War Studies) (Hardcover)
As most of us know, every now and then we actually encountered a teacher somewhere along the line who really did leave us with something to think about after the course was over and such was the case of history Professor Moshe Gershovich for me. Educated at Tel Aviv and Harvard universities, in teaching Holocaust studies at the University of Nebraska, Professor Gershovich said that his goal was to teach about the Holocaust dispassionately, objectively, and analytically. While I did not fully understand that pedagogy at the time, particularly with respect to the carnage of the Holocaust, I eventually got Professor Gershovich's point. Dispassion and analysis are critical and it would be difficult, if not impossible, to find anything more valuable than Bryan Mark Rigg's The Lives of Hitler's Jewish Soldiers documenting his seminal research of men of Jewish ancestry, or Mischlinge, fighting for Hitler's Third Reich in furthering that goal.
The book, which essentially is a sequel to Rigg's first book,
Hitler's Jewish Soldiers: The Untold Story Of Nazi Racial Laws And Men Of Jewish Descent In The German Military (Modern War Studies), presents case studies of individuals who had served in Germany's armed forces and analyzes generally, the common experiences, perceptions, and attitudes of the Mischlinge, while delineating many experiences that where exclusive to particular individuals upon which the study focused. The commonalities, however, were fascinating, especially when considered within the context of Hitler's reign of power from 1933, with the Nazis' ascension, to 1945, when Hitler put a bullet in his brain.
Most Mischlinge, for example, fully celebrated Germany's military conquests, particularly those that occurred prior to the conclusion of the Phony War. Most disagreed with Hitler's racial policies but thought that it was necessary to defeat Communism. Most were repulsed by the Treaty of Versailles and celebrated Germany's unilateral rejection of the agreement's restrictions. Most credited the National Socialists with improving the German economy, although most thought that the Nazis' time in power would be short lived - a position affirmed by Paul-Ludwig Hirschfeld, a former Wehrmacht lieutenant who had been born into a Jewish family and raised as a religious Jew when he said, quoting from Rigg, "As a Jew, I hated Hitler, but I have to respect some of the things he did . . . He had a smart mind and accomplished many things for the economy and especially for the new armed forces. People often forget that Hitler had some good characteristics. Do you think the Germans would have followed a completely evil, deranged madman?"
Most, however, even those who had been born to Jewish mothers and classified as Jews by both the Nazis as well as rabbinic law, did not consider themselves Jewish. Many had experienced rejection by their Christian family members after having married into Jewish families. Many had experienced rejection by their Jewish family members after having married into Christian families. Most, and their families, had converted to Christianity, many not out of any particular religious conviction, but in order to assimilate into the dominant European society. All, to one extent or another, had been classified as Jews according to the nation's racial laws. Most had lost family members in the Holocaust and most would have eventually been murdered themselves. Most, even those who had been discharged from the military pursuant to the prohibition of Jews serving in the armed forces, had been decorated for bravery in combat under the misguided belief that by doing so would demonstrate their Germanity and protect their families back home. Most did not know the true dimensions of the Holocaust, even those few who had observed elements of the German military murdering unarmed civilians. And interestingly most, after having endured the savagery of combat, held fast to a belief that there was no God or if there was, He was not worthy of worship because He had not intervened to bring the killing to a conclusion. In short, most today were atheists.
While the book is limited in scope to the Mischlinge, in reading The Lives of Hitler's Jewish Soldiers, as uncomfortable as it might be, one is forced to confront the direct parallels between the Third Reich's racial laws and the provisions of Halakah, or Jewish rabbinic law, in defining who is a Jew. It is inescapable. In promulgating the Nuremberg Laws, the Nazis intricately distinguished Aryans from non-Aryans subclassifying the latter by lineage to determine who was a quarter Jew, half Jew, three quarter Jew, full Jew, etc. Irrespective of when the "blooding defiling" occurred within one's lineage, miscegenation of any kind tainted the familial line from one generation to the next. As a result, the Nazis prohibited intermarriage and encouraged divorce in instances where intermarriage had occurred. Restrictions in education, employment, housing, benefits, citizenship, and the like emanated and were applied to those deemed not to be German. One's belief, acculturation, patriotism, religious or familial background - none of that mattered. Germany's racial laws determined who was a German and who was not and that was that. It was that comprehensive . . . and that overwhelmingly confusing.
In Judaism, one is determined to be a Jew predicated upon matrilineal descent or conversion based upon Halakha, or Jewish law. A sound interpretation of Halakha, however, is dependant upon one's affiliation with the various movements within Judaism, whether that be Reform, Conservative, Reconstructionist, or Orthodox. Each movement adheres to different precepts regarding conversion, matrilineal, or patrilineal descent but universally, a child born to a Jewish mother is considered to be Jewish, a doctrine specifically held by the Orthodox. Today, while Jews live throughout the world, the largest concentrations are centered in Israel and the United States. As a percent to population, in Israel - the Jewish nation, the Orthodox are a numerical minority but wield enormous political power. And just as with the Nazis or any other group who discerns - no, demands that they have somehow cornered the market on revealed truth, they are uncompromisingly doctrinaire. As a result, restrictions in education, employment, housing, benefits, and citizenship, have been applied to those deemed not to be pure, a stance that is anathema to the vast majority of Israelis.
As reported by Rigg, Wehrmacht veteran Karl-Heinz Maier whose family had been impacted in the Holocaust, immigrated to Israel at the end of the war, joined the Palmach, the forerunner of the Israel Defense Force (IDF), rose to the rank of major, and fought with distinction during the War of Independence. After that, he was disqualified for citizenship under the Law or Return because "local authorities" declared him to not be Jewish. "[F]or twelve years," Rigg's reported, "the Nazis persecuted him because he had a Jewish father, but the Israelis called him a Goy (a derogatory Yiddish term for gentile (parenthesis in the original)) because of his gentile mother." Interesting. In Jewish tradition, there is a doctrine which transcends the entire corpus of the Talmud, Halakha, Shulkhan Arukh, Aggadah, and all other works of Jewish scholarship and can be summed up by one word: If you believe that Karl-Heinz Maier was not a Jew, you are Meshugenah in the fullest sense of the word. And as with the Nazis' racial laws, the uncompromising application of an anachronistic interpretation of Halakha has spread nothing but confusion, division, hate, and turmoil.
Echoing Professor Gershovich, there can be great benefits to studying the Holocaust objectively, dispassionately, and analytically. While there is a dearth of scholarship concerning both men and women of Jewish descent serving in the Third Reich's government and military, the inclusion of the subject is indispensible in any attempt to truly understand the complexities and depth of the Holocaust. The contribution that Bryan Mark Rigg made in furthering that objective cannot be overstated. The Lives of Hitler's Jewish Soldiers, aside from being eminently readable, is thoroughly supported by peer reviewed solid scholarship. It is essential for anyone not only trying to understand the insanity of the Third Reich, but the lunacy of empowering a backwards minority who intransigently dispenses with rationality to the determent of the whole.
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