Rating: 
Summary: Thought-Provoking Book
Review: I think that this book is very thought-provoking in that it explores another dimension of how people with Jewish ancestry was treated in the third reich.I also like that the author is unafraid to tell a story that some may not want to hear, but a story that, I think, must be told in order to gain a further understanding of what the people of Jewish descent went through in Nazi Germany. I definitly recommend this book to any history buff.
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Summary: Educational and Moving
Review: In this wonderfully written and painstakingly researched work, Bryan Mark Rigg manages to dig beneath the astonishing statistics presented, to find the stories of human conflict and frailty. Thank goodness these first hand accounts were recorded before it was too late! I was moved over and over again with each new story of the tumultuous lives that partial Jews (Mischlinge) lived during WW II. We all know about the tragedy of the Holocaust and the Death Camps, but Rigg breaks new ground when telling the stories of quarter and half Jews serving in Hitler's armed forces. Even Rigg cannot explain Hitler's reasons for making certain choices (although he does a respectable job of explaining why Hitler continually changed his mind about what should be done with the Mischlinge), but he gives great insight into the reasoning behind why partial Jews did not leave the country and even fought for the Third Reich. Whether they were hiding in the army, attempting to save their families by fighting or simply defending the Fatherland as proud Germans, the result of Dr. Rigg's personal interviews and years of research is both fascinating and heartbreaking. A must read for serious historians and anyone concerned with the human condition.
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Summary: A Stunning Light on a Dark Time
Review: One reads Bryan Rigg's "Hitler's Jewish Soldiers" with continuing astonishment at its stunning contents and with admiration for the author's industry, ingenuity and devotion. The irrationality of Nazi racial policies and their effects stand revealed again for the arbitrariness of their definitions, as they confront the tasks of waging war with a military force containing perhaps 150,000 soldiers and sailors who, by Nazi definitions, are hardly fit to live, let alone be among their "aryan" warriors. As a Jew who escaped from that hell in time, one reads this powerful book with grim fascination. What inner conflicts between their patriotism or their sense of duty on the one hand, and their knowledge and feelings of their mixed ancenstry drove these men onward, and how did they resolve them ? What forces and attitudes were at work among the top leaders of the German armed services that impelled them to keep the "mischlinge" - the mixed breeds - in their services and how did they persuade the top Nazi leaders to allow it? What did they know about the fate of their Jewish mothers, fathers, grandparents, cousins, and what did , or could, they possibly have done about that ? How did they conduct themselves in combat, what did their associates and leaders know about them, and how much did it matter to them ?
Mr. Rigg's more than four hundred personal interviews with former soldiers, his copious documentation, and his adherence to a rigorous standard of discovery and disclosure make this a "must read" for those who are still seeking to understand what seems, even at this long remove of time, utterly inexplicable.
The author has succeeded in shining a bright light into yet another of the many dark corners still hidden from our view. I urge this book upon the public.
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Summary: A Must Read for Everybody Interested in the Holocaust
Review: The author describes and analyzes the fate of German soldiers of Jewish descent and their families during the 3. Reich. It especially looks at the conditions under which Jews and "Mischlinge" according to Nazi racial definition could stay and serve in the Wehrmacht and how the process worked that led to an exemption. This book is in many respects a must read for everybody interested in the Holocaust. It is very well written and in my opinion a perfect blend between oral history and archival research. Therefore, it is both interesting for professional scholars and the broader public. The author's arguments are well documented by a large number of interviews with former German soldiers of Jewish descent and references to archival sources. The author gives an exemplary account of some of these men but at the same time also analyzes the broader implications of his findings. It is in the fate of these men where some evidence can be detected about what a possible future might have looked like in terms of anti-Jewish policy and in terms of further "cleaning the Volkskoerper" if Germany had won the war. I also completely agree with Rigg's conclusion that given Hitler's personal involvement in any single exemption it is very hard to imagine that he was not in control of the general path of anti-Jewish measures including the extermination in the East. Therefore, Rigg is adding another important piece of evidence in answering the question whether Hitler personally gave the order for the extermination. Rigg further analyzes the question what these soldiers knew about the "Final Solution". Some of them were probably the only people who potentially had knowledge from the perpetrators' and the victims' side, and they were personally affected by the persecution. He concludes that most of those men had only a vague idea or did not know anything about the extermination camps and that the unthinkable was a very powerful barrier of thought even or especially in these instances. The book further demonstrates how much Jews had assimilated in German society and even in the military. It shows how these soldiers were torn apart between different identities but also that many were ashamed of their heritage and tried everything to get back into the mainstream of German society either to save themselves and their families but often also because they believed in the "resurrection of the German nation" and wanted to contribute. Therefore, the book is a powerful reminder that if we study history closely, we will encounter many shades of gray.
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Summary: Assimilation...
Review: 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.
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Summary: "Knowledge and History"
Review: The introductory page to Bryan Rigg's HITLER'S JEWISH SOLDIERS insightfully quotes historian Ian Kershaw: "Knowledge is better than ignorance; history better than myth."
Rigg's book has already set off much controversy in Holocaust history circles, and according to how I see it, that's a good thing. I'm not exactly unfamiliar with Mr.Rigg or the book: it was my pleasure while I was teaching at the University of Vienna in the late 'nineties to give him some assistance with finding names of some of the Austrian Jewish soldiers who had served in the Wehrmacht, and to provide some general editorial suggestions. I saw then that his dedication to telling a story which was bound to ruffle feathers would take its part one day in the ongoing completion of all the unknown chapters still to be narrated in the unique phenomenon of the European Holocaust against the Jews. The book in fact has already troubled Raul Hilberg, Christopher Browning, and other great names in the field: who says they should be termed "Jews" at all? Why imply they willingly served Hitler as Jews? What does this say about Jews' part in the continuation of the war as an attempt to eradicate Jewish history from Europe? And so forth. Much quibbling over numbers: how many? When? How? Where? How many of the odious terms of 'half' and 'quarter'; the 'mixed-breed Mischlinge' appearing on every page. On and on the tragic and sad stories go, real people, their real anxieties over lives disrupted and shattered, pressures and stresses placed on ordinary individuals who did not 'fit': Bryan Rigg is insatiable and relentless in showing the nature of mixture in human life, in Jewish as well as German Christian lives. So intertwined, so mixed together in all the marriages and alliances, sometimes hatreds, that tied these people over the ages. All of it is quite inexplicable, the paradoxes and cross-purposes, the loyalties and rejections - it is the stuff of German Jewish history, literature, and culture. All credit to Rigg for getting into this nasty corner, for his intelligence and tact, for his decades long persistance. The book fits into no category at all; but like much of original Holocaust historical inquiry, it asks all the needed questions, and never dares to settle them. Enough with the myths of the Holocaust; we need facts, like these, knowledge.
Rating: 
Summary: Where do they fit?
Review: The provocative title, "Hitler's Jewish Soldiers" does this book justice. An estimated 150,000 men of partly Jewish background, some of them highly decorated or holding high rank, served in the Nazi military during World War II. Their problematic parentage stemmed from the Nazi racial laws of the mid-30s. Those who were half or quarter Jewish were designated Mischlinge. Leading severely restricted lives, many survived the war, many did not. Sometimes not even knowing they had Jewish blood, many had gone into the military out of a patriotic desire to serve Germany, or, in the case of the professionals, to lead a military way of life. Ironically, these half and quarter Jews were often rejected by both Germans and Jews. They found they only belonged with their combat comrades-in-arms. As the war ground on, many of them were forced out of the military and no doubt in time, most of them would have been killed by the Nazis. Author Bryan Mark Rigg, a professor at American Military University, stumbled upon the existence of these soldiers almost by accident. He is to be greatly commended for an outstanding, well-written book, the result of years of archival research and hundreds of interviews. Today, his research papers are kept in the archives of the German Armed Forces for future researchers. The story of the Mischlinge will not be forgotten.
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Summary: A Novel Look at the Holocaust
Review: The well-written "Hitler's Jewish Soldiers" documents many interesting facts of WWII never before printed. Before reading the book, I had never realized the large number of inter-marriages in German and Austrian society pre-WWII. In addition, I had never thought it possible that a Jew could serve under Hitler. However, Dr. Rigg describes the persecution that 25% Jews, people that did not even identify themselves as Jews, faced during the Nazi regime. The extensive research Dr. Rigg performed to document the evidence in the book is laudable and the writing style of Dr. Rigg deserves praise. This book is a contribution to the history of WWII and Holocaust memoirs.
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Summary: A Must read!
Review: This book is about Hitler's perspective on race and blood and the thousands of Jewish people who actually fought for the Reich. What is strangely intriguing is that Hitler actually granted many half and quarter Jews, Aryan status merely because of their physical appearance(what Hitler considered the ideal Aryan features) and by family status! Many Jewish people or children of mixed marriages among the Germans and Jewish folk had no idea of the atrocities of Nazi Germany at the time and many were proud and honored to have fought for the Axis power. Hitler brought to the nation a false sense of pride and the Germans were kept in the dark concerning the Concentration Camps. Many were shocked after the war to find out that this tragedy went on, on their German soil! The young man who gave their lives to fight in the German army had no clue as they were fighting for their nation, that their Jewish parents were being sent to Death and Labor camps to suffer. Others who were aware of the fact that they were not pure Germans, hid their identity in the army to secure their lives and the lives of their families and they also felt if they served the Reich they would be promoted to General status and their families would not be harmed because they defended their nation against the Allies. The book is quite interesting and it's thorough in explaining to the reader the certain racial bounderies and rules at the time so the reader has a better understanding of exactly what occured and how many drastic measures were taken to ensure the purity of the German Aryan Race. This book is a requirement to anyone who enjoys reading up on Germany's role in WW2. Enjoy the book!...
Rating: 
Summary: The author and his subjects lack a moral compass
Review: This book, which is worth reading despite its flaws, studies individuals with Jewish ancestors or relatives who served in the German armed services in World War II. Many of the book's subjects badly wanted to serve Hitler's regime, and did so quite enthusiastically, even while some of their own family members were murdered. Many of the photographs in the book show men who were decorated for their service on the Eastern Front. It is now realized that the Wehrmacht, Reserve Police Battalions, and SS integrated their efforts during the invasion of the Soviet Union, with all of the German services participating in atrocities resulting in the deaths of millions, especially Jews and POWS. The recent exhibition and book, "the German Army and Genocide," shows this very clearly in photographs, and it has also emerged in accounts about the atrocities committed by Police Battalions and Einsatzgruppen. It is clear that the majority of the people the author interviewed or studied blinded themselves about the crimes and intentions of the Nazi regime and lacked a conscience or any kind of moral compass, despite having Jewish relatives, even a parent. Men who were drafted, of course, presented a different situation - choices were limited. The author can be credited for researching his material assiduously, but book's main flaw - as I see it - is the failure to explore more deeply his subjects' participation in Hitler's war, and their relative indifference to Nazi policies and atrocities, which many on the Eastern Front must have observed. The Germans hanged large numbers of civilians in every town and city they entered in the USSR, and left them hanging to intimidate those remaining alive. The Germans often killed the whole Jewish population of towns in the Ukraine within a week of overrunning them. Thousands of Soviet POW's were executed and left along the roads. Even if they didn't participate, it was almost impossible for the subjects of Rigg's book to be unaware of the treatment of the Jews or POW's. Rigg needed to probe further to explore how people from a "mischling" background willingly became part of the Nazi armed services and why so few of his subjects seemed to have a conscience. Very few of Rigg's subjects made an attempt to emigrate or otherwise opt out of serving the regime. Robert Lifton's theory of "doubling," the phenomenon of the German physicians who experimented on prisoners and participated in mass murder while still managing to think of themselves as healers and credible physicians applies here.
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