Rating: 
Summary: Unwanted but Loyal
Review: Brian Mark Rigg's "Hitlers Jewish Soldiers" brings a new dimension to Third Reich and Wehrmacht scholarship. The Third Reich of the movies is often portrayed as a seamless juggernaut brought down only because of Hitler's decision to fight a two-front war. The reality was far more complex. Nazi Germany was a hodgepodge of competing governmental, party and military bureaucracies with overlapping responsibilities, run by ambitious men with often disparate agendas. Thus it is not surprising that even in what the Nazis considered the unambiguous goal of the removal of Jews from German life, there arose contradictions, confusion and exceptions in the particulars of its implementation.The 1935 Nuremburg Laws began the eclipse of Jewish existence in Germany. Casting a wide net, the Reich ascribed Jewish identity to some who were astonished at their inclusion. In defining as Mischlinge (mixed breeds)those Germans with one or two Jewish grandparents, many who had been raised Christian and considered themselves Aryans suddenly found themselves on society's scrapheap. This affected the Wehrmacht in that serving officers and NCOs who were "full"`Jews and Mischlinge -- many who had served with distinction in World War I -- were ordered purged from the ranks. The 'lucky" one applied for and received -- from Hitler personally -- exemptions enabling them to continue serving, or in some cases declarations that they were "of German blood" and entitled to the rights of Aryans. A notable example is the retention of Luftwaffe General -- later Field Marshall -- Erhard Milch, the organizational wizard who helped prepare the air armaments industry for the coming war. Although legally unable to serve in leadership positions, Mischlinge continued to be liable for conscription and served past the outbreak of the war. In 1940, party ideology trumped military necessity and they began to be removed from active service. Astonishingly, as many as 150,000 soldiers identified as Jews or Mischlinge served, many with great disntction and a few reaching general officer rank. Using Extensive archival reserach and hundreds of personal interviews with Mischlinge, Author Rigg presents a lucidly written and fascinating account of their experiences. In his understanding of Third Reich institutions (Hitler's chancellery office, the interior ministry, armed forces and service high commands inter alia), we see puzzlement, frustration, arbitrariness and delay in implementing laws and directives as they pertained to these soldeirs. We also see individual advisors and decision makers whose inclination to help or hinder affected the careers and even survival of the Mischlinge. We also see the situation from the soldiers' perspective: surprised and demoralized, but in the main still eager to serve, whether to prove their loyalty to Germany or protect their families. Rigg is at his best interweaving the intense personal experiences of the soldiers -- still vivid in the telling after fifty years -- with how their fate was being decided at institutional level. To the credit of the individual services, small units and commanders generally supported Mischlinge, many of whom had proven themselves to their comrades on the field of battle. Sadly, as the war progressed, protection became increasingly difficult. "Hitler's Jewish Soldiers" is an immensely readable, informative contribution to an aspect of Third Reich history that is complex, little known, and fraught with emotion even now for those affected.
Rating:
Summary: Hitler's Jewish Soldiers
Review: Bryan Mark Rigg has completed a scholarly work on one segment of the Holocaust and World War II which has been largely ignored by Historians and Holocaust Scholars. He has gone into territory which illustrates that Germany was far more complex than the setting which most academics have described. His research relied upon traditional archival materials as well as being richly sprinkled with the personal histories of those who were labeled as being Jewish or partly Jewish. The Nazis were not above special exemptions from the laws for those who had powerful friends and sometimes for those whom Hitler simply decided to grant an exemption. The real life Angst of those who wanted to be good Germans and who wanted to define themselves as German is a story which will be unsettling to many. However, their sacrifices frequently did not change the fate of their own families and Rigg has a decent amount of documentation to strongly suggest that Hitler at the end of the war ...along with some of the more zealous of the Nazi ideologues were going to eliminate those who were 50% and even 25% Jewish. Zimbardo in his Stanford Prison experiment noted the importance of the social setting in unlocking behavior..whereby individuals conform to the norms of the group. In this instance, significant numbers of those defined by the racial laws as inferior through their status of Jewishness ...decided for a variety of reasons to identify with the racial attitudes and the norms of the Nazis. The fact that Riggs brings out is that when some of those with mixed ancestory went to Jewish groups for assistance... they were denied ...just as many were ultimately denied an exemption by Hitler and the party. They were caught between two cultures and largely ignored by scholars and historians. One other interesting aspect was the sheltering of these military men by their own units...their comrades...this did not take place in every instance but it did take place with a high degree of frequency. This book could be read with 'I.B.M. and the Holocaust' to learn how the Nazis tracked down the ancestory of populations in Europe. Riggs has done an impresssive and scholarly job...one that will cause discomfort for traditional Holocaust Scholars and traditional historians. Highly recommended. There is a wealth of information in his notes...and his documentation of various elements and incidents is outstanding. Professor, Dr. Peter Kassebaum
Rating:
Summary: Hitler's Jewish Soldiers
Review: Bryan Mark Rigg's book 'Hitler's Jewish soldiers' is a fascinating read from both a Political Science and a military history view point. Since 1945 the history of the Third Reich has been portrayed as in a manner that served the political views of the historian. Dr. Rigg avoids this pitfall by not attempting to explain away the bloodiest war in history, he instead take the stories of German veterans of that war and puts their experience into the well documented context of the time. What you end up with is a tragic yet riveting view of people whose lives, careers, and very sense of self are shattered by the racial laws of Hitler's Germany. Though even Hitler could not commit to his narrow racial views as he assigned 'honorary Aryan' status to some, while leaving others to die.
The Zionist view of the Third Reich has been of demonic fascists monolith responsible for the attempted annihilation of an entire race of people. As convenient as this view is for the modern state of Israel, Dr. clearly documents that the truth was far more complex than that. There was not agreed upon 'race' of Jews in Europe. Dr. Rigg documents the shock of people across German society from when the Nazi racial laws when an acted when people who had never even considered then selves Jews where informed at they where by law. Soldier, Officers, Admirals, sailors, decorated war heroes, many of whom went to church ever Sunday, where informed by their government that somewhere in their family tree there was an 'impurity'.
This is not the story of Jews in the death camps who became 'capos' and assisted the Nazis in the Holocaust. This is the story of regular Germans who went off to fight for their country. Some hid their 'racial' background, but many did not. At the onset of the war soldiers with one Jewish parent could serve in the Wheremacht. By the time they where at the gates of Moscow, the bar moved a tens of thousands of the 'Jews' where discharged, only 'ΒΌ' Jews could then serve.
In reading this book you can not help but develop sympathy for these 'marginal men' not accepted by Jewish community or by the Nazi Government, many found the only place they could be treated as equals was among their comrades in arms, in the Wehrmacht, where they fought and died for a government that hated them and was abusing their families while the one some of their nation's highest awards for bravery.
The Orwellian nightmare where a few fanatics blinded a Christian nation to their diabolical racist schemes that was so essential in the early re-armament of Germany does not find a great deal of factual support in this book either. The facts that Dr. Rigg has uncovered clear show that when Hitler railed against the 'Jews' many heads in Germany bobbed in agreement look to the sprawling ghettos of the East. Centuries on inter-marriage and assimilation lead to fully Germanized, cosmopolitan Germans agreeing in principle to parts, or even, as they understood it, all of the Nazi program, never dreaming that the wrath would be turned upon them.
Anyone who has any interest in the true nature of world war two needs to read this book. It is meticulously documented and thoroughly researched. I don't believe that anyone can read this book and not be profoundly effected.
Rating:
Summary: Neither history nor life are always black and white
Review: Don't judge others until you walk in their shoes!
I stumbled on to this book after watching it profiled on "Dateline NBC." What truly amazes me is that Dr. Rigg really is the first historian to uncover this incredible story that should have been plain and obvious given the number of people involved in it. This really makes one wonder why this topic was not common knowledge beforehand. Even if there had only been a few of these cases, that itself should have warranted attention. I have read fairly extensively on the Holocaust and had never seen anything more than just a footnote prior to reading this book on the subject of Jewish people or people of Jewish descent who served in the German military during WWII. As a military officer and Christian of Jewish birth and upbringing, I really understood on some level the torment that some of these men endured not knowing where they fit in. The morale that I got from this book is that life can be incredibly strange and complicated. It's easy to judge what others did 60 years after the fact, because we now know how it all ended. The bottom line is that sometimes it's alright not to know how we view things or people that we cannot truly understand. Dr. Rigg's scholarship is incredible. His research is exhaustive. My only criticism is that I wished the book were a little less of a scholarly work and more human at times because it was hard to get inside the minds of the characters. However, since the purpose of the book was not to be a novel, my criticism is really unwarranted and doesn't detract from anything. This book is a must read for anyone interested in military history, religion, and Nazi Germany.
Rating:
Summary: The Schocking Truth
Review: Dr. Rigg completed a revolutionary work that changes everything what we have been taught about W.W.II, life in Nazi Germany, and the Holocaust. Nobody would argue that inhumane Nuremberg Laws created by Hitler and his associates eventually caused many atrocities against Jews in Europe. However,150,000 Jewish soldiers in Wehrmacht is a shocking figure. It would rather represent a rule than an exemption. Of course, many people heard about Luftwaffe Field Marshal Erhard Milch being a half-Jew, due to publications in "Der Stuermer". The chief editor Julius Streicher made Milch a target of his vicious anti-Semitic publications.
Jewish ancestry of Reinhard Heydrich was widely discussed even among top Nazi and SS officials. The story of Colonel (Major at that time) Ernst Bloch, who was able to rescue Lubavitcher Rabbi Schneersohn should not be compared to the story of Oscar Schindler. Colonel Bloch rescued the religious leader of Hassidic community without having any personal gain. Some sources point out that he contacted SS Reichsfuehrer Himmler, not Admiral Canaris, to secure safe transfer of Schneersohn to Netherlands.
However those facts had been always considered as isolated episodes of war and practically were never mentioned. One should consider that the figure of 150,000 served in Wehrmacht, SS, Luftwaffe, and Kriegsmarine represent only male Jewish or Mischlinge of the age 18-45 or the top officers who were a little older.
Dr. Rigg was able to contact and interview in person about 400 people almost fifty years after the
war ended. Taking into consideration that most of Jewish soldiers probably died within last fifty years, the
number of 150,000 appears to be accurate. Their personal testimonies shed more light on what was happening in reality in Nazi Germany.
I believe that Dr. Rigg's work must be used by every person who is studying or teaching History of WWII to provide more accurate presentation of the subject.
Rating:
Summary: Ideology
Review: For anyone wishing to understand the confusion of Nazi Germany, this book by Rigg is a must read. The work is the end of a ten year project, one that began pretty much by happenstance as Rigg was working on a Yale University grad thesis. It wasn't long before he was on the trail of some important data. To learn that many in the Nazi ranks had Jewish blood is to sense the problem of identification. Who was and who was not worthy to fight for the Reich? As Rigg points out, there were many exceptions to the rule; even Hitler allowed some Jews into the ranks, especially when these were good soldiers. In many cases men were not aware of their Jewish roots and were culled from the ranks when their background became known. Some lied to stay in the forces; some were shot! Rigg's book gives additional insights as to the thinking that ran rampant in 1930's Germany.
The book includes a chapter in which he cites comments by a few German Jews who survived the war in the Nazi forces. "Why," he asked, "didn't you stand up for the right." One 75% Jewish officer said: "Ideology had made us inhuman." In addition to the text, the book includes over 100 pages of footnotes as well as an extensive bibiliography, a valuable tool for any student of WW-II.
Rating:
Summary: It is a Must Book--Blazes a Vanishing Trail
Review: For those of you who never considered that a book about persons of Jewish ancestry in WWII could change your views about the war, the 18th-20th centuries, the nature of prejudice in America, and do so with alarming alacrity, specificity, and clarlity, this book will astound you. Considering current problems in the Middle East, this volume, based on primary research interviews with "Mischlinge" (persons of Jewish ancestry who probably didn't consider themselves anything but good Germans), will break every assumption you can make about the War. You'll see the major figures, including Hitler, in a vastly different light--that is, he is merely one figure in a problem with its roots going back to the free German states of the 1700s, at least. Dr. Rigg goes to great lengths to show how the figures of the number of half and quarter Jews reported by the state don't add up at the beginning of the global war, that there were many ways that these individuals dealt with racial laws and their service to the Fatherland and Hitler, and that following the war they have struggled with intense psychological pain and inner conflict about their activities. There is little doubt that there are many Americans suffering with similar problems. I won't detail them here--but the reader won't have any trouble finding the parallels. This book is amply documented, and Dr. Rigg's primary research materials, gathered at great expense and diligence in the 1990s, as the so-called Mischlinge were dying off daily, is a great testament to a work of great urgency, done carefully and presented systematically. His analysis is dispassionate--yet each page speaks with the passion of a the participants, their families and relatives. There is such irony here, such as the origin of the photo on the cover--the "poster boy" of the Aryan Wehrmacht (Army) soldier. This is a timely period in our understanding of the World Wars, and the Cold War, as material involving the progenitors becomes available and declassified. This book will be an essential volume in the library of the sophisticated reader, war buff, and serious student of the 20th century. It is about so much more than the fate of Jews or partial Jews in the "thousand year Reich"...and makes all writing about the Wannsee Conference seem like a hornbook or primer rather than the defining word about the "Final Solution" (Endloesung) of the "Jewish Question" in Nazi Germany and its spheres of influence. In that regard, I strongly recommend the reader consider viewing the HBO DVD titled "Conspiracy" or the German Film "The Wannsee Conference" (with English subtitles). One cannot possible fathom the problems inherent in the today's Middle East and America without considering the implications of Dr. Rigg's work.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Untold Chapter of Nazi Germany's Racism
Review: Historian Bryan Mark Rigg has told a spellbinding account in "Hitler's Jewish Soldiers" of a hitherto unknown aspect of Nazi Germany's Anti-Semitic racial laws. Contrary to the views expressed by another Amazon.com reviewer, this book does not expose a "Holocaust" myth, but rather, reinforces it, showing the contradictions in Hitler's policy and treatment of Mischlinge (those Germans of mixed Jewish and Gentile background) prior to and during the course of World War II. Indeed, Rigg points conclusively to Hitler's aim of exterminating those Mischlinge who were of 50% Jewish background if World War II had ended in victory for Nazi Germany. And yet, despite numerous legal roadblocks set up by Hitler and his senior aides devoted to the "Jewish" problem (most notably SS leaders Heydrich and Himmler), Rigg has provided a valid estimate of at least 150,000 Mischlinge soldiers, airmen and sailors who served in the Wehrmacht, including several admirals and generals. Rigg elucidates the contradictions in Nazi policy towards Mischlinge through detailed examinations of several case histories which he uncovered. Most of Rigg's book is based on original research, including personal interviews of surviving Mischlinge, which he began over a decade ago as a Yale University undergraduate. It is truly a spellbinding account told in Rigg's crisp, concise prose, replete with ample footnotes. To his credit, Rigg has written one of the most important histories of Nazi Germany that I have come across; one which should be read by everyone interested in Nazi Germany's persecution - and systematic annihilation - of European Jewry, especially of its own German Jewish minority.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent book on an unknown subject
Review: I first learned about the previously unknown subject of Germans of Jewish descent when watching the author of this book being interviewed on NBC's Dateline. Bryan Mark Rigg examines an unexplored fact, that numerous soldiers in the German Wehrmacht during World War 2 were of partial Jewish descent and some earned the highest honors and decorations. In fact the chief of staff of the 2nd SS Panzer Division 'Das Reich', Obersturmbannfuehrer (Lt Col) Peter Sommer was of partial Jewish descent and given the strict racial laws of the SS, this was highly unusual. In the German military, the divisional chief of staff was the de facto commander of the unit and Peter Sommer may have on occasions served as the actual divisional commander, which was the greatest irony of all, given the war record of Das Reich and some of its more controversial actions, especially in France in 1944. An interesting aspect concerning German Jews is that many of them considered themselves completely assimilated in German life and those 'Mischlinge' (the German term for mixed race individuals-this is a perjorative term equivalent to'mongrel' or 'half breed') who served were unaware or unwilling to acknowledge the Holocaust until the end of the war. Many of these soldiers owed their survival to sympathetic officers and comrades who considered the German racial laws rightfully ridiculous. Some officers and enlisted personnel of so-called suspicious antecedents even received exemptions from Hitler himself declaring them Aryan and allowing them to serve. An oddity in this book is a quote from Hermann Goering stating that he would protect Jews and indeed two important officers in the Luftwaffe (German Air Force) were half-Jewish: Helmut Wilberg, one of the most important strategists in the pre-war Luftwaffe and a putative commander of the Luftwaffe until his death in an accident in 1941 and Erhard Milch, who became Head of Production of the Luftwaffe and who ended up tried as a war criminal. Rigg notes that Goering's pragmatism outweighed any possible conflicts concerning Nazi racial laws as well as the possibility of Goering's Jewish descent. Rigg notes that Goering's family had Jewish ancestors and other references state that Goering's mother was the mistress of a Jewish nobleman in Imperial Germany and there may have been suspisions that the nobleman was Goering's actual father. Despite the courage of the partial Jewish officers and men in this study (Rigg documents at least 10 winners of the Knight's Cross), their final fate had Germany won the war would have been the same as their Jewish relatives. In fact, by 1944 most Mischlinge were no longer serving in the military but as forced laborers. An engrossing read and an important comtribution to Holocaust and World War 2 studies. Don't miss it!
Rating:
Summary: My own experience
Review: 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.
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