Pathfinder
2006-01-11 19:25:46 UTC
By Brian Murphy for World War II Magazine
The idea of Jews fighting for Adolf Hitler seems wildly improbable. On
seeing the title of Bryan Mark Rigg's book, you might imagine there were, at
most, 50 to 60 such men who served in the Wehrmacht and thus escaped the
horrors of the Holocaust. In fact, about 150,000 Germans of at least 25
percent Jewish descent spent time in the Wehrmacht. Many of them served with
great distinction, many were true German patriots-and many fought with the
express written permission of Adolf Hitler.
Rigg, a former Israeli soldier and U.S. Marine officer, has documented an
aspect of World War II that almost defies belief. His book is, for once, a
genuine untold story of World War II. Rigg has opened brand new territory
for historians and students of the war, offering new insight into the Nazi
mentality on race. Hitler's Jewish Soldiers reveals the reactions and
actions of Germans who suddenly found themselves cast in the role of "race
enemies" of their own country.
Rigg traveled extensively to conduct interviews with hundreds of Wehrmacht
veterans, their families and survivors. In addition, he pored over thousands
of pages of official documents and personal papers (now housed in a
permanent collection in Germany). The result of his exhaustive study is a
startling, tragic and morally perplexing story.
Before Hitler's rise to power, Germans of full or partial Jewish descent
were assimilated into German society. They considered themselves fully
German in thought and action. Surprisingly, many of those German Jews also
shared their countrymen's racial prejudices. According to Rigg, many German
Jews believed that the cartoonish stereotype of the eastern Jew (Ostjuden)
that the Nazis promoted was accurate. German Jews felt a duty to distance
themselves from that image by thorough assimilation into the mainstream.
"Ostjuden simply represented all that many Jews had fought to distance
themselves from," Rigg writes.
However, it was blood, not attitude or assimilation, that mattered to the
Führer. He regarded Jewish descent as a genetic disease that had to be
eradicated from German life. Upon gaining office, Hitler and the Nazis began
issuing a series of decrees and enactments, culminating in the hateful
Nuremberg Laws of 1935 that stripped Jewish Germans of their citizenship and
civil rights.
Germans of mixed Jewish descent, the so-called Mischlinge, suddenly found
themselves in limbo. As many as 3 million Germans, at least 25 to 50 percent
Jewish by descent, fell into this category. Many had no idea they had a
Jewish ancestor until the Nazis told them.
Suddenly second-class citizens, thousands sought to "redeem" themselves as
Germans through service to the party in the Wehrmacht. They were eager to
demonstrate they were Germans first in a Germany where it was a crime to be
Jewish at all.
Rigg points out that "These Mischlinge internalized Nazi standards.... Many
behaved the same way as Aryans.out of loyalty to Germany, belief in the Nazi
government, because they were scared to act otherwise, for opportunistic
reasons or, most commonly, out of a mixture of all four."
Sympathy with Hitler's goals for Germany was apparently very common among
Mischlinge. Rigg was told by more than one of his interviewees, "If not for
my [Jewish] grandmother, I could have been a Nazi."
Wehrmacht policy on Mischlinge varied depending upon which service one was
in (it was best to be in the Luftwaffe or the Kriegsmarine) and whom one
knew (a high party official or military officer with access to Hitler or the
Reich Chancellery was best), as well as upon whose desk a particular soldier's
file landed. Despite pressure from the Nazi Party to eject all partial Jews
from the service, Wehrmacht officers were largely willing through the end of
the war to retain the services of those Mischlinge in whom the Reich had
invested money and time in training and who proved good and tested comrades
in battle. A very select few of high-ranking and talented individuals never
had to worry.
General Gotthard Heinrici, who was married to a half-Jew, had little to fear
for his family. Field Marshal Erhard Milch, a half-Jew, was rightly
perceived to be so valuable to the Luftwaffe that Hermann Göring had
official ancestral documents falsified to hide Milch's Jewish father.
Officially, however, the Wehrmacht pronounced itself eager to conform to
Nazi policy on Jews. General Werner Blomberg led the pack, issuing an order
in 1934 discharging all Jews from the armed forces. The discharges led to an
enormous sense of bereavement, especially among officers. "Most felt shocked
that their ancestry suddenly disqualified them from serving," Rigg writes.
The future field marshal, Colonel Erich von Manstein, protested the policy
to his superiors in 1934, writing, "The honor of these young men is all our
honor." He added that anyone wishing to sacrifice his life for Volk (people)
and country had already proven himself Aryan. Manstein's protest reached
Blomberg, who ordered General Werner Freiherr von Fritsch to have Manstein
disciplined. Although he himself was an antisemite, Fritsch quietly ignored
the order.
A year later, in 1935, there was universal conscription, and the attitude of
the military began to soften on the Mischlinge issue. By the start of the
war Mischlinge could serve, but they could not be promoted above private.
Rigg quotes a letter from one Mischlinge that illustrates the frustrations
many of them felt as a result of this confusing and contradictory new
policy: "I can't be promoted, which is a real hardship, as only someone who
has served in the army for a long time can really understand. If I were an
idiot, then all this wouldn't be so hard to take....My captain tells me all
the time how truly sorry he is that he cannot promote me to Unteroffizer,
and I'm continually asked [by my comrades] why I'm not promoted."
In 1940 the policy tightened once again. As described by Rigg, the change
was triggered by an obscure incident. Decorated combat veteran Dieter von
Mettenheim accompanied his Jewish mother to a government office to get her
required special identity card. Shocked at the treatment his mother
received, Mettenheim protested to his superiors, and the complaint reached
the desk of the Führer in March 1940.
Hitler responded that such a thing happening to the mother of a highly
decorated veteran was intolerable. The Führer therefore decided that either
all half-Jews like Mettenheim must leave the Wehrmacht, or the government
must protect their Jewish parents. Since Hitler had no interest in
protecting Jews, he ordered the discharge of all half-Jewish soldiers.
Rigg points out how, in the face of this treatment, many officers protected
their part-Jewish comrades. A pipeline was opened, from combat officers
through their superiors, up to the secretary of state and head of the Reich
Chancellery, Hans-Heinrich Lammers, and to the Führer's army adjutant-major,
Gerhard Engel. Those men established an appeals lifeline directly to Hitler.
Astonishingly, Hitler played along. He would review each case file with
extreme care, sometimes waiting months and years as extra documentation was
sought before making a decision.
If he were so inclined, the Führer would sign a decree called
Deutschblütigkeitersklärung (a "German-bloodedness" or "Aryanization"
certificate) or a Genehmigung (exemption) allowing an individual to serve in
the party or Wehrmacht. Those certificates could be given out only under
Hitler's signature. For the most part, Aryanization certificates went to
soldiers with combat decorations or who did not "look Jewish" (Hitler
insisted on photographs with each file) and whose politics were reliable.
The impact those decrees had on the men who received them would be hard to
overestimate. Many times when Rigg was conducting the interviews for his
book, an old veteran would open the closet or go into the attic and fish out
a yellow Aryanization certificate, signed by Adolf Hitler and preserved for
half a century, as a token of the aging warrior's vindication and validation
as a true German.
By the end of 1942, however, the Final Solution was underway, and the Nazi
Party lobbied Hitler to declare all half-Jews to be full Jews and to
exterminate them. That did not happen, but Hitler had finally grown weary of
issuing Aryanizations and exemptions.
Lammers left as head of the Reich Chancellery, and Martin Bormann took his
place, taking full control of the Nazi Party apparatus. Adjutant-major Engel
found himself in the front lines, and the pipeline of clemency shut down for
good.
For some Mischlinge soldiers, the Aryanization certificate or exemption
signed by Hitler was enough to protect their families from the worst Nazi
persecution. Sometimes, however, it was not enough. As Rigg points out, many
families of Mischlinge soldiers were tyrannized while their nephews, sons
and husbands fought at the front.
An important question that arises as one reads this book is to what extent
the Mischlinge who served in the German armed forces knew of the Holocaust.
Most of the people Rigg interviewed said they were not cognizant of those
events. They conceded that they were aware of the persecution of the Jews,
but the vast majority asserted they did not know what was really going on.
A very small few claim to have known quite a lot about the Final Solution.
There were Mischlinge in the SA, SS and Waffen-SS who knew what was
happening, and others in the Wehrmacht who at least witnessed the
deportation or execution of captured Jews. Still, none of the Mischlinge
documented in Hitler's Jewish Soldiers admitted to direct participation in
the Holocaust.
Rigg, a Yale- and Cambridge-trained historian, displays faultless and
thorough scholarship in putting together this compelling and hitherto untold
story. Despite his scholarly diligence, however, he will likely come under
attack from all sides, now and long years into the future, for focusing on
such a controversial subject. That makes his skill and dedication to the
truth-wherever it may lead-all the more admirable, and his book all the more
indispensable.
The idea of Jews fighting for Adolf Hitler seems wildly improbable. On
seeing the title of Bryan Mark Rigg's book, you might imagine there were, at
most, 50 to 60 such men who served in the Wehrmacht and thus escaped the
horrors of the Holocaust. In fact, about 150,000 Germans of at least 25
percent Jewish descent spent time in the Wehrmacht. Many of them served with
great distinction, many were true German patriots-and many fought with the
express written permission of Adolf Hitler.
Rigg, a former Israeli soldier and U.S. Marine officer, has documented an
aspect of World War II that almost defies belief. His book is, for once, a
genuine untold story of World War II. Rigg has opened brand new territory
for historians and students of the war, offering new insight into the Nazi
mentality on race. Hitler's Jewish Soldiers reveals the reactions and
actions of Germans who suddenly found themselves cast in the role of "race
enemies" of their own country.
Rigg traveled extensively to conduct interviews with hundreds of Wehrmacht
veterans, their families and survivors. In addition, he pored over thousands
of pages of official documents and personal papers (now housed in a
permanent collection in Germany). The result of his exhaustive study is a
startling, tragic and morally perplexing story.
Before Hitler's rise to power, Germans of full or partial Jewish descent
were assimilated into German society. They considered themselves fully
German in thought and action. Surprisingly, many of those German Jews also
shared their countrymen's racial prejudices. According to Rigg, many German
Jews believed that the cartoonish stereotype of the eastern Jew (Ostjuden)
that the Nazis promoted was accurate. German Jews felt a duty to distance
themselves from that image by thorough assimilation into the mainstream.
"Ostjuden simply represented all that many Jews had fought to distance
themselves from," Rigg writes.
However, it was blood, not attitude or assimilation, that mattered to the
Führer. He regarded Jewish descent as a genetic disease that had to be
eradicated from German life. Upon gaining office, Hitler and the Nazis began
issuing a series of decrees and enactments, culminating in the hateful
Nuremberg Laws of 1935 that stripped Jewish Germans of their citizenship and
civil rights.
Germans of mixed Jewish descent, the so-called Mischlinge, suddenly found
themselves in limbo. As many as 3 million Germans, at least 25 to 50 percent
Jewish by descent, fell into this category. Many had no idea they had a
Jewish ancestor until the Nazis told them.
Suddenly second-class citizens, thousands sought to "redeem" themselves as
Germans through service to the party in the Wehrmacht. They were eager to
demonstrate they were Germans first in a Germany where it was a crime to be
Jewish at all.
Rigg points out that "These Mischlinge internalized Nazi standards.... Many
behaved the same way as Aryans.out of loyalty to Germany, belief in the Nazi
government, because they were scared to act otherwise, for opportunistic
reasons or, most commonly, out of a mixture of all four."
Sympathy with Hitler's goals for Germany was apparently very common among
Mischlinge. Rigg was told by more than one of his interviewees, "If not for
my [Jewish] grandmother, I could have been a Nazi."
Wehrmacht policy on Mischlinge varied depending upon which service one was
in (it was best to be in the Luftwaffe or the Kriegsmarine) and whom one
knew (a high party official or military officer with access to Hitler or the
Reich Chancellery was best), as well as upon whose desk a particular soldier's
file landed. Despite pressure from the Nazi Party to eject all partial Jews
from the service, Wehrmacht officers were largely willing through the end of
the war to retain the services of those Mischlinge in whom the Reich had
invested money and time in training and who proved good and tested comrades
in battle. A very select few of high-ranking and talented individuals never
had to worry.
General Gotthard Heinrici, who was married to a half-Jew, had little to fear
for his family. Field Marshal Erhard Milch, a half-Jew, was rightly
perceived to be so valuable to the Luftwaffe that Hermann Göring had
official ancestral documents falsified to hide Milch's Jewish father.
Officially, however, the Wehrmacht pronounced itself eager to conform to
Nazi policy on Jews. General Werner Blomberg led the pack, issuing an order
in 1934 discharging all Jews from the armed forces. The discharges led to an
enormous sense of bereavement, especially among officers. "Most felt shocked
that their ancestry suddenly disqualified them from serving," Rigg writes.
The future field marshal, Colonel Erich von Manstein, protested the policy
to his superiors in 1934, writing, "The honor of these young men is all our
honor." He added that anyone wishing to sacrifice his life for Volk (people)
and country had already proven himself Aryan. Manstein's protest reached
Blomberg, who ordered General Werner Freiherr von Fritsch to have Manstein
disciplined. Although he himself was an antisemite, Fritsch quietly ignored
the order.
A year later, in 1935, there was universal conscription, and the attitude of
the military began to soften on the Mischlinge issue. By the start of the
war Mischlinge could serve, but they could not be promoted above private.
Rigg quotes a letter from one Mischlinge that illustrates the frustrations
many of them felt as a result of this confusing and contradictory new
policy: "I can't be promoted, which is a real hardship, as only someone who
has served in the army for a long time can really understand. If I were an
idiot, then all this wouldn't be so hard to take....My captain tells me all
the time how truly sorry he is that he cannot promote me to Unteroffizer,
and I'm continually asked [by my comrades] why I'm not promoted."
In 1940 the policy tightened once again. As described by Rigg, the change
was triggered by an obscure incident. Decorated combat veteran Dieter von
Mettenheim accompanied his Jewish mother to a government office to get her
required special identity card. Shocked at the treatment his mother
received, Mettenheim protested to his superiors, and the complaint reached
the desk of the Führer in March 1940.
Hitler responded that such a thing happening to the mother of a highly
decorated veteran was intolerable. The Führer therefore decided that either
all half-Jews like Mettenheim must leave the Wehrmacht, or the government
must protect their Jewish parents. Since Hitler had no interest in
protecting Jews, he ordered the discharge of all half-Jewish soldiers.
Rigg points out how, in the face of this treatment, many officers protected
their part-Jewish comrades. A pipeline was opened, from combat officers
through their superiors, up to the secretary of state and head of the Reich
Chancellery, Hans-Heinrich Lammers, and to the Führer's army adjutant-major,
Gerhard Engel. Those men established an appeals lifeline directly to Hitler.
Astonishingly, Hitler played along. He would review each case file with
extreme care, sometimes waiting months and years as extra documentation was
sought before making a decision.
If he were so inclined, the Führer would sign a decree called
Deutschblütigkeitersklärung (a "German-bloodedness" or "Aryanization"
certificate) or a Genehmigung (exemption) allowing an individual to serve in
the party or Wehrmacht. Those certificates could be given out only under
Hitler's signature. For the most part, Aryanization certificates went to
soldiers with combat decorations or who did not "look Jewish" (Hitler
insisted on photographs with each file) and whose politics were reliable.
The impact those decrees had on the men who received them would be hard to
overestimate. Many times when Rigg was conducting the interviews for his
book, an old veteran would open the closet or go into the attic and fish out
a yellow Aryanization certificate, signed by Adolf Hitler and preserved for
half a century, as a token of the aging warrior's vindication and validation
as a true German.
By the end of 1942, however, the Final Solution was underway, and the Nazi
Party lobbied Hitler to declare all half-Jews to be full Jews and to
exterminate them. That did not happen, but Hitler had finally grown weary of
issuing Aryanizations and exemptions.
Lammers left as head of the Reich Chancellery, and Martin Bormann took his
place, taking full control of the Nazi Party apparatus. Adjutant-major Engel
found himself in the front lines, and the pipeline of clemency shut down for
good.
For some Mischlinge soldiers, the Aryanization certificate or exemption
signed by Hitler was enough to protect their families from the worst Nazi
persecution. Sometimes, however, it was not enough. As Rigg points out, many
families of Mischlinge soldiers were tyrannized while their nephews, sons
and husbands fought at the front.
An important question that arises as one reads this book is to what extent
the Mischlinge who served in the German armed forces knew of the Holocaust.
Most of the people Rigg interviewed said they were not cognizant of those
events. They conceded that they were aware of the persecution of the Jews,
but the vast majority asserted they did not know what was really going on.
A very small few claim to have known quite a lot about the Final Solution.
There were Mischlinge in the SA, SS and Waffen-SS who knew what was
happening, and others in the Wehrmacht who at least witnessed the
deportation or execution of captured Jews. Still, none of the Mischlinge
documented in Hitler's Jewish Soldiers admitted to direct participation in
the Holocaust.
Rigg, a Yale- and Cambridge-trained historian, displays faultless and
thorough scholarship in putting together this compelling and hitherto untold
story. Despite his scholarly diligence, however, he will likely come under
attack from all sides, now and long years into the future, for focusing on
such a controversial subject. That makes his skill and dedication to the
truth-wherever it may lead-all the more admirable, and his book all the more
indispensable.