The Untold Story of Hitler's Jewish Soldiers and Racial Laws (2003)

0:00Coming program on C-SPAN 2's Book TV: As many as 150,000 soldiers, sailors, and airmen of partial Jewish descent served in Adolf Hitler's forces. Historian Bryan Mark Rigg considers their role in the new book, "Hitler's Jewish Soldiers." This talk is an hour and 15 minutes. Well, for those of you, I want to thank the University Press of Kansas and also C-SPAN's Book TV for being here tonight because this is a special event. Not only have I had the honor of having Professor Rigg speak here once, but he's here twice. He was here about this time last year. Brian received his bachelor's degree with honors in history from Yale University in 1996. He was then awarded the Henry Fellowship for graduate study at Cambridge University, where he received his master's and his PhD. Currently, he is a professor of history at American Military University.

1:00at American Military University, and he has served as a volunteer in the Israeli army and as an officer in the United States Marine Corps. In addition to his extensive research travel, he has also engaged in humanitarian work in Romania, Bulgaria, the Bahamas, South Africa, and France. An unprecedented and invaluable result of his work and his efforts to record the stories of these men in this book has been his success in gathering over 30,000 pages of records, more than 500 hours of videotaped interviews, and 3,000 photographs that document the military experiences of these men. In 1997, the Federal German Military Archives purchased what is now called the Brian Mark Rigg Collection, and these materials are now housed in the Bundesarchiv in Freiburg. Ladies and gentlemen, would you please welcome Dr. Bryan Mark Rigg. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. If I don't use the microphone here at the podium, can everybody hear me? I always feel like I need to be in a church or a shul if I'm behind a podium. I'd like to first give some thanks to some very special people who have helped me throughout the years. At Yale University, I'd like to thank Professor Paula Hyman, Henry Turner, and Jeffrey Sammons for their continued support and help, especially during my undergraduate years. And I'd also like to especially thank my graduate professor at Cambridge University, Jonathan Steinberg, who helped me tremendously during my master's and graduate work. Also, I'd like to thank Professor Michael Berenbaum, who helped me tremendously in putting my work together and then with some other projects that I've been working on.

2:28undergraduate years. I'd also like to especially thank my graduate professor at Cambridge University, Jonathan Steinberg, who helped me tremendously during my master's and graduate work. Also, I'd like to thank Professor Michael Berenbaum, who helped me tremendously in putting my work together and then with some other projects that I've been working on. He's been incredibly generous with his time and helpful. And he's a research director at the Shoah Foundation, for those who do not know Michael Berenbaum. He's a brilliant, brilliant historian. I'd also like to thank the William E. Colby Military Writers' Symposium for the award that they gave me this year for my book, for first-time author in military history. I was indeed honored by that. Before I begin talking to you tonight about my research on Jews and men of Jewish descent who served in the German military during World War II, I'd like to give you a little background on myself, which will perhaps help you understand a bit about my motivation and my drive to look into this subject matter. I was born in Texas in 1971.

3:31and was brought up in a very Protestant environment. I didn't know about my own Jewish background until I was 21 when I went over to Germany, started researching my family's background, and found this out, which was quite shocking for me. When I found this out, I started thinking to myself, you know, what would have happened to me and my family had we remained in Germany? and not come over to America. So this played with my imagination quite a bit at that time when I was 21, which was basically when I started really becoming very interested in the Holocaust and World War II history. I also have the dubious honor of having failed first grade twice. I have what people today call ADHD, or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. I also had a speech impediment when I was young. I got my T's and F's mixed up quite often, which made for quite interesting conversations when I played with my trucks around my family's friends. Or when I asked the babysitter to tuck me into bed and so on, my mother was very worried about me as a young child. After failing first grade for the second time, she realized she had to do something very quickly to get me back on track. So she looked around for special schools and found a wonderful school at Texas Christian University called StarPoint. It was for severely learning-disabled kids.

4:49I met all the requirements and was accepted there. And when I went there, if you look at my file from the Child Study Center there in Fort Worth, you will read that I had the philosophy at the time, "I can't." I can't do it. They would start doing a test with me. I would finish halfway. I mean, I'd go halfway through, stop it. I couldn't finish it until the doctor or the nurse that was working with me, "I can't do it." So I went to this school. I expressed my frustrations. I also expressed how everybody thought I was abnormal, or at least that's the way I felt. The church that we went to was also the school where I had failed first grade twice. So every time we went to church on Sunday, the kids that I had gone to school with didn't let me forget my failure. When I went to Starpoint, I had a wonderful teacher. Her name was Mary Stewart. She took me under her wing and said, "No, you're not a freak. You're not abnormal. You're just different." and I'm here to help you find your strengths. And in this one year, I went from not being able to pronounce individual words to reading books at the third and fourth grade level, doing elementary geometry and algebra. And in that year, I realized I was a contrarian in many respects. Somebody told me I couldn't do something. Well, you know, I'll look into it and see what I can do. Also, I learned that the limitations put on people usually come from themselves, not from what other people are saying. And so it's a matter of who you listen to as far as criticism is concerned. And that teacher really instilled in me great confidence. And when I graduated from Yale University, Mary Stewart was there.

6:16And I went on, as Shmuel Anthony mentioned, and thank you, Shmuel, for that warm introduction. And so I went on from Yale and went on to Cambridge University where I did my graduate studies. And I mentioned that story about my background also to help you understand a little bit about my motivation with this research. When I first began doing this research, I faced a lot of opposition from professors I consulted. They said I wouldn't find anything and that I shouldn't waste my time. Yet, that voice inside of me insisted, "I'll look into it. They say I can't do it; I'll see what I can find out." Now, when people hear about my research about Jews and men of Jewish descent who served in the German armed forces during World War II, I often get the question, how did you get involved with this research? Well, it started in 1992 when I had finished my first year at Yale University and decided to spend the summer in Germany learning the language of my ancestors and researching my family's background. I enrolled in the Goethe-Institut for German Language. And after a month of studying there, I asked one of my instructors if he could recommend a film I could watch to improve my German.

7:26he in turn asked me, "Well, what subject matters are you interested in?" I told him, "World War II and the Holocaust." He then told me, "You've got to go see the film Europa, Europa." So I went to a Berlin theater in the middle of the city, bought my ticket, and entered an empty auditorium. While waiting for the film to begin, I heard the doors open behind me, and I turned to see an old man walk in. His eyes had not adjusted to the darkness, and he was a little discombobulated with his surroundings. He leaned up against the wall, and it was evident that he was unsure of his footing. So, with my good Texas upbringing, I went up to the man and asked him if I could help him find a seat. He was very appreciative, and I sat him next to me. He quickly heard that my German was not very good, and he began to speak English to me. And since he spoke fluent British English, he told me if I had any questions during the film that I should just ask. Well, he basically translated the entire dialogue. And since we were the only ones there, we were not worried about bothering anyone. The film is about Shlomo Perel, a German Jew who fled to Poland in 1936 due to Nazi persecution. In 1939, when Germany invaded Poland, he escaped to Russia.

8:35In 1941, when Germany invaded Russia, he had nowhere else to run to, and he was taken prisoner outside of the city of Minsk. During his interrogation, he emphatically denied that he was Jewish and said that he was a Volksdeutsche, an ethnic German, instead. His testimony was accepted, and a few days later, he found himself serving in a tank company as their interpreter since he could speak Polish, Russian, and German. He spent one year in this combat unit, and after this year, his company commander, Captain von Munchau, who was childless at the time, decided to adopt him, of all things, and sent him back to a Hitler Youth prep school where he survived the war. Now, after this film, I asked the gentleman next to me, his name was Peter Milius, what he thought about this film. And he said, "Wait, it's very close to my own history. Would you like to go talk?" And I said, "Sure." And we walked down the street to a restaurant where he would tell me a story until the early hours of the morning. Peter was of Jewish descent and spent four years in the German armed forces. He told me about the fear he felt of falsifying his documents and serving in the German army. The German military at the time was called the Wehrmacht. I'll be using this term quite often. He also told me about the pain and suffering he experienced when he lost his only brother, Walter, at the Battle of Leningrad in 1942. Additionally, he recounted the constant worries he felt for his half-Jewish mother.

9:55After the war, the Russians took him prisoner, and he spent the next four and a half years in a Siberian prisoner-of-war camp. Now, after this experience with Peter, I thought it was a strange coincidence that this kid from Texas goes to Germany to learn the language of his ancestors, research his family's background, and in the process, goes to this film about a Jew serving in the Nazi military, only to sit next to a Wehrmacht veteran of Jewish descent. And then, one month later, I go and research my own family's background, and I find Jews in my family tree, which I'd never known before. So that's how I originally got involved with this subject matter. Now, what have I found? In the fall of 1992, I returned to Yale to begin my sophomore year, and I began to ask several of my professors about looking for more men of Jewish descent who served in the German military. And they all told me that they had studied the Holocaust and World War II history for 20, 30, even 40 years, and that they had never heard about this before. They recommended that I study some serious German history instead of chasing after some curious anomalies who would not add anything to our understanding of the Third Reich. Now, most of these professors were very nice to me. They gave me their professional opinion. However, once I found out that they had not looked into this subject matter, or they didn't know anybody who had looked into it, I decided to explore it.

11:16I thought if I could find 20 or 30 individuals like Shlomo or Peter, I could write an interesting senior essay. So I began to take courses on the Holocaust and World War II history with great energy. By the end of this year, I was awarded a scholarship from Yale to return to Germany, live with Peter, and document his life more thoroughly. After this summer with Peter, I came back to Yale, and I began to organize a seminar at Yale to bring Shlomo Perel from Israel to Yale to speak at the Hillel in the history department, which actually happened in April of 1994. I also, during this year, began to conduct independent studies about World War II and the Holocaust. By the end of this year, I had documented seven living Wehrmacht veterans of Jewish descent. I wanted to go to Europe to interview these individuals, so I applied for several small scholarships and got many of them. I knew it was a fight against time because of the age of these veterans, so I actually decided to take off a year between my junior and senior years and dedicate the next 14 months to this project. To give you a sense of the urgency I felt at the time, I'll tell you a quick story about Alexander Stahlberg, whom I called up for an interview.

12:31Alexander Stahl, and also I'll describe how I went about doing my interviews, and Stahlberg is a perfect example of that as well. I called him up when I went over to Germany, and I said, Herr Stahlberg, can I please interview you? And Stahlberg was the adjutant to the famous Field Marshal Erich von Manstein, who was actually born von Lewinski. As a result, many people thought he was Jewish. Alexander Stahlberg was of Jewish descent, and he was claiming to me that he had evidence that Manstein was also of Jewish descent. So I called him up, and I said, "Herr Stahlberg, this is the project I'm doing. Can I come interview you?" He said, "Sure. I'd love to talk to you. However, you better hurry up. I have one foot in the grave and another one on the banana peel. If you want to get here, you better do it now." I said, "Okay, Herr Stahlberg. I'll get there as soon as I can." And so I packed up my backpack, and this is how I did my research. I had a backpack with a tripod, a radio, a camera, a computer, a printer, a transformer, some extra food, and some clothes. I would bike around Germany. As soon as I found somebody, I'd set up my studio, interview them, and basically rescue their story before they took it to the grave.

13:36So when I started looking at the map where Stahlberg lived, I was like, oh my goodness. Because I also had a mountain bike, and I'd go around Germany with the backpack on my back with the mountain bike riding around. And I looked at the map, and I saw he lived in the middle of Mecklenburg at Gartow. And the closest town there with a train link was Wittenberge, about 70 miles away. I was like, oh my goodness. How am I going to do this? Well, you got to do what you got to do. So I got on the train really early one morning. I got out of Wittenberge, biked all day, 70 miles there. It was in December, so it got dark early. And I was on a dirt road, and I didn't see a few of the potholes. So I bloodied up my lip a few times, got very dirty. So when I showed up at his home, I was a disaster. And he opened the door, and instead of inviting me in to give me some tea, he said, "You probably want to take a shower." I was like, "Yes, please." So I cleaned up, and then for the next two days, I conducted several interviews with him, and they were a wealth of information. And sure enough, three weeks later, he passed away. Not because of the interview, but he was just an old guy in frail health. So this was the sense of urgency I felt during this year. It was a fight against time. So this year, my goals were to interview between 20 and 30 individuals, make my German fluent, and find supporting documents in the German archives.

14:58Well, in the first month alone, I conducted over 30 interviews, and it never slowed down thereafter. By the end of this year, I had conducted almost 400 interviews and collected over 20,000 pages of documents. I returned to Yale to begin my last year in the fall of 1995, and I had the honor to write my senior essay under the supervision of Professors Jeffrey Sammons, Henry Turner, and Paula Hyman. I graduated with honors in history and was awarded the Henry Fellowship to conduct graduate studies at Cambridge University. And while at Cambridge, I had the honor to study under Jonathan Steinberg. Many of you will know who his famous father, the famous rabbi in New York, was, and that was Milton Steinberg, who wrote the book As a Driven Leaf. Now, when I was in Cambridge, I spent, on average, two weeks out of every month going to Austria or Germany to conduct more interviews and collect more documents. By the end of this year, I had conducted almost 400 interviews and collected over 20,000 pages of documents. The Federal Archives became interested in my research, inspected my documents, and then offered me an archive office in their Federal Archives in Freiburg in exchange for my collection. I took them up on their offer, moved to Germany, and for the next two years, I organized my collection.

16:13It is now called the Brian Mark Rigg Collection, and it comprises over, as Sam introduced, as he was introducing me, he mentioned, it comprises over 30,000 pages of documents, over 500 hours of video with 430 interviewees, and over 3,000 photographs. It documents by name and rank over 1,700 men who were of Jewish descent and served in the German armed forces during World War II. And many of these men, 1,700. And many of these men were very prominent individuals during the Third Reich and World War II history. And during my speech, when I describe people or use terms like "half-Jew," "quarter-Jew," or "Aryan," please, in your mind's eye, have these terms in quotation marks. They are Nazi terms, but they give the history its meaning. The first prominent individual I'd like to describe to you is State Secretary, "half-Jew," Erhard Milch. Milch became a powerful Field Marshal during the Third Reich. Field Marshal is equivalent to a five-star general. He ran the Luftwaffe, the German Air Force, and was its most powerful figure for personnel, planning, production, and strategy.

17:29His greatest contribution to the Luftwaffe was to organize the massive program of aerial rearmament begun in 1933. And by 1936, under Milch's leadership, the German air industry had become a first-class organization producing modern aircraft reaching Luftwaffe flying units. Hitler had said in 1936 that there are two names linked with the birth of our Luftwaffe, Göring's and Milch's. In April of 1940, when Germany started to encounter a lot of problems with its invasion of Norway, Milch's skills as an excellent organizer and administrator helped lay the foundation for air power in Norway. Hitler was eventually successful in this Norwegian campaign thanks to the solid leadership generals like Milch displayed. Now, had Germany been unable to secure its northwest flank in Norway in 1940, Hitler probably would have been unwilling and possibly unable to launch his invasion of France one month later. And for his accomplishments during the Norwegian campaign, Hitler awarded Milch the Knight's Cross, the Ritterkreuz, the US equivalent of the Medal of Honor. Right here, always worn around the neck.

18:38A few months later, after the successful conclusion of the war in France, Milch was one of three Luftwaffe generals whom Hitler promoted to Field Marshal. And by 1944, this half-Jew ranked seventh among Hitler's subordinates. Now, many of you might be asking yourselves, how in the heck does a half-Jew become a Field Marshal in the Luftwaffe back then? Well, Hitler, in his warped ideology, felt like he could look at somebody, and if they looked like an Aryan, phenotypically, they had blonde hair, blue eyes, and a good military track record, he would actually give them the "kosher stamp of approval" of Aryanhood. Milk received one of these exemptions, or one of these, uh, awards, if you will. Also, what makes Milk's case quite interesting is what his mother did. She is an example of what many mothers tried to do; most were unsuccessful, but she was successful. She went to Göring and said, "You know, my Jewish husband, Anton Milk, is not the father of my six children; it is my Aryan lover, who happens also to be my uncle."

19:42They inspected the documents. They looked at the files. And sure enough, they declared all six children Aryan. So during the Third Reich, Jewish ancestry was horrible, but incest was all right. The next distinguished general I'd like to tell you about is half-Jew Helmut Wilberg. Wilberg was an incredibly intelligent man and a first-rate commander who helped develop the operational concept that we today call Blitzkrieg. During World War I, he was the first air commander to organize and employ whole air groups in the ground support role. He was one of the most senior air commanders in the German Air Force and commanded over 700 planes during the Flanders Campaign in 1917, during a high point of German air power during the Great War. The army considered him a leading pioneer in ground support tactics. And in 1920, after the Versailles Treaty was in full force in Germany, he was handpicked by the government and military leadership to be the Luftwaffe commander who was operating secretly in Russia.

20:54In 1935, when the Luftwaffe officially came back into being, so to speak, as it was called a different term in World War I, he prepared the manual which served as the Luftwaffe's primary expression of battle doctrine into World War II. Also in 1935, he was head of the War College. In 1936, Hitler allowed him to be the staff officer of the Condor Legion during the Spanish Civil War. He was in charge of the entire operation. Now, this civil war provided Germany with more combat-trained veterans than any other military in the world when Hitler launched the globe into World War II in 1939. One general wrote of Wilberg after the war that owing to his career and abilities, he was the logical choice to command the Luftwaffe, a position given to Göring because of party politics. He was tall, good-looking, and a pleasure to work for. Unfortunately, he was a half-Jew. He would die in a plane crash in 1941.

22:00The last distinguished commander I'd like to tell you about is Quarter Jew Admiral Bernhard Rogge. Rogge was the most successful surface raider, or auxiliary cruiser captain, during World War II. These ships were also called Q-ships. Now, what surface raiders were, is that these ships would masquerade around the high seas as freighters or merchant marine vessels, and when they would get close to an enemy ship, they would drop their hidden doors, revealing their cannons, and tell the enemy, "Either surrender or we're going to blow you out of the water." Rogge captured or sank almost two dozen enemy warships for a combined total of 150,000 metric tons. He was awarded the Oak Leaves to his Knight's Cross for his accomplishments during World War II. Basically, he was awarded two Medals of Honor. Also, he probably had a profound impact on the way Japan launched its invasion of Southeast Asia in 1941 after it attacked us at Pearl Harbor. In 1940, Rogge captured a British steamship, which had several confidential documents on board drawn up by the British War Cabinet.

23:03Among many other things, these documents had detailed notes on British war strength in East Asia, an assessment on the feasibility of Australia and New Zealand coming into the war if Japan were to attack, and how they would operate under the Commonwealth. It also had detailed blueprints of Singapore's fortifications, and an assessment of the feasibility of Japan entering the war. Roca turned these invaluable documents over to the Japanese, and the Japanese Emperor awarded him a samurai sword. Only two other Germans during World War II were awarded samurai swords by the Emperor of Japan, and they were Reichsmarschall Göring and Field Marshal Rommel. With the success that Japan had with its invasion of Southeast Asia in late 1941 and early 1942, one can see that they put to good use the documents Roca gave them. So as one has just heard, many of these men who I have documented were not curious anomalies, but they played very significant roles during the history of World War II and the Third Reich.

24:12Now, recently, interest in World War II and the Holocaust has grown dramatically. Books on the subject matter frequently hit the bestseller list, and newspapers run articles on the Holocaust or World War II history every week. Whether it is a doctoral thesis calling the vast majority of Germans Hitler's willing executioners, or an exposé on IBM's role in the Holocaust, it seems like the general public just cannot get enough. And also with Spielberg's brilliant films Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan, the thirst for knowledge about World War II and the Holocaust has grown even more. Now, it is true, however, that there are many areas of study relating to the Holocaust and World War II history that remain largely unexamined and poorly understood. My research represents one of these areas of study. While I do not pretend to offer the final word, I do hope to provide my readers and listeners with a new way of looking at one of the most central issues in the history of the Holocaust and the Third Reich, namely Jewish identity. To understand my research, one must first be aware of Jewish law, halakha, and how it defines a Jew, because this causes a lot of confusion about my research. For Jews today, especially observant Jews, a Jew is a person who is born of a Jewish mother or who converts to Judaism. Knowing this will help one understand the confusion surrounding the men I have documented and whether they are Jewish or not.

25:36Also, to understand my research, one must have a fundamental understanding of the Nazi racial laws. In 1935, the Nazis issued the Nuremberg Laws, which created the racial categories of Jew, half-Jew, and quarter-Jew. A full Jew, according to the Nazi racial laws, was a person who had three or more Jewish grandparents or a person who practiced the Jewish religion. A half-Jew, also called a Mischling of the first degree—Mischling singular, Mischlinge plural. These are horrible terms. Mischling means bastard, hybrid, mutt. This just shows you what the Nazis thought of these people. And a half-Jew, and it's a very strange concept. One man told me, who I interviewed, he's like, you know, being half-Jewish, it doesn't exist. It's like being half-Protestant or half-circumcised. But we had to take it seriously, he told me. Now, a half-Jew, according to the Nazi racial laws, was a person who had two Jewish grandparents. And a quarter-Jew, or a Mischling of the second degree, had one Jewish grandparent.

26:38Now, for all the Nazi talk of the Jews being a race, they ultimately had to use religious criteria to define that race. Death certificates, birth certificates, marriage certificates throughout Germany always noted a person's religion. As a result, the Nazis had to use these documents to define somebody's race instead of looking at their blood, to use their Nazi term, or their physical characteristics of having big noses, big ears, and flat feet. Knowing this, one sees just how bankrupt the Nazi racial laws were. Nonetheless, people had to take them very seriously, and they caused a tremendous amount of trauma and pain to tens of thousands of families. And by way of illustration to show a little bit of the confusion that went on, the next story is quite telling. In 1937, five-year-old half-Jew Erwin Fuchs boarded a crowded streetcar with his older brother. Now, they had both been told by their parents they could not sit down in public transportation because the Nazis in their town had prohibited this of people who were of Jewish descent, so they remained standing.

27:44And as the tram was moving down the street, an elderly woman scooted across her seat and said to Erwin, "Here's half a seat for you, little one." Erwin became confused. He looked down at the old woman and then up at his brother and asked, "Which side of me is Jewish, the left or right?" Now, this sad story dramatically illustrates the pain, confusion, and trauma that swept literally hundreds of thousands of people's lives and turned their whole identity upside down. Now, when people hear about these Nazi racial laws, I often get the question: How could people affected by these laws serve in the military? I thought anybody with any Jewish descent was exterminated. Well, this is where my research becomes very interesting. Full Jews, who I've documented, who served in the German armed forces during World War II, did so with false documents. As far as their commanders were concerned, they were Aryans and treated accordingly. In other words, the official policy of the Nazi government was that full Jews could not serve. Half Jews, on the other hand, had to serve.

28:56The conscription laws of 1935 included half-Jews in the draft. However, they could not become NCOs or officers without Hitler's personal permission. In other words, they couldn't become professional soldiers. Now, on the one hand, Hitler possibly allowed these men to serve because he did not want to deny the Wehrmacht so many potential soldiers. From his experience in World War I, he knew how many men could be lost in one battle, and perhaps he felt he needed to field every person he possibly could without bending his ideology too much once the war came. On the other hand, it is very difficult to find rational explanations for Hitler's behavior. And allowing tens of thousands of half-Jews to serve in the military did not make sense when looked through the lens of Nazi racial ideology. Hitler and the Nazis would soon encounter a lot of problems with this policy. After the successful conclusion of the war in Poland in 1939, tens of thousands of Jews returned home, only to find that their families were being even more persecuted than before they left for war. Dad had lost his job. Mom was being slapped around the street by Gestapo agents. Grandma was being arrested by the SS and thrown in prison. And many of these soldiers went to their commanders and said, "Hey, look. I serve this country honorably. I have the Iron Cross. I bled for this nation. Look how you're treating my family. This is a disgrace."

30:09i serve this country honorably. I have the Iron Cross. I bled for this nation. Look how you're treating my family. This is a disgrace. And to the credit of thousands of Aryan officers, they send such complaints up the chain of command. Even the families affected by this persecution felt the need to get into the action and write the government and military directly. For example, a very brave, courageous woman, full Jew, Clara von Mettenheim, wrote the Commander in Chief of the Army in 1944, General von Brauchitsch, on behalf of all half-Jewish soldiers, asking him to work with the party to alleviate the problems families like hers experience. She wrote, "I speak to you as a mother of three soldiers and as an old army officer's wife. My sons are soldiers from head to toe. The crown prince of Germany is the godfather of one of my sons, and General von Seeckt held the other one at his christening. My sons are half-Jews because of me, and while they were serving on the front lines in Poland, we were persecuted on the home front as if there were no more important tasks to be done during the war."

31:12Please stop this mistreatment of half-Jewish soldiers and that of their families." Clarifon Mettenheim felt desperate, and she did not understand why a family of her social standing should endure such persecution. She pleaded with Brauchitsch to remove the obstacles her sons faced, and she also obviously felt deeply responsible for the misfortune that had visited them. She also described how disturbed it had made one of her sons, Dieter, feel when he returned home from the front only to find that his mother had been slapped and hit, basically knocked to the ground, by an SS officer, and that his sister had been expelled from several organizations, one of them being her school. He also had accompanied her to the Jewish Affairs Office in Frankfurt to get her Jewish identification papers on Hermesweg, and on that day he wore his full-dress military uniform. Not to provoke anyone, but because he had to return to his unit later that evening. Well, when they entered this office, the Nazi bureaucrats there were horrified to see this Jewish woman with her soldier son. She received her ID papers under humiliating circumstances. Dieter later returned to his unit that evening, very disturbed, and reported this to his commander, who then sent the complaint up the chain of command. Clara von Mettenheim obviously felt the need to write the commander-in-chief of the army about this story.

32:31Now, when this story reached Hitler, he declared—and many stories like this actually did reach Hitler—but when he heard about this story with Clara von Mettenheim and Dieter, amongst others, he declared such events intolerable. He said that either they needed to protect the Jewish parents of half-Jewish soldiers, or they needed to discharge the half-Jews. Well, Hitler said, we cannot protect full Jews. Discharge the half-Jews. And this discharge order went out on the 8th of April, 1940. Now, all half-Jews serving in units that would invade Denmark and Norway on the 9th of April remained untouched because this discharge order never reached them. The vast majority of the men who were serving in units that would invade France one month later also remained untouched due to bureaucratic mishaps and the secrecy involved with the invasion. However, after Hitler successfully defeated France in only six weeks, many of these men were found and dismissed. According to one man who worked in the Supreme Headquarters of the Army, whom I've been able to interview, he said that by the end of 1940, over 70,000 half-Jews had been dismissed.

33:35Now, from my research, 50% of all the half-Jews whom I have documented were still serving by the summer of 1941. This indicates to me that many of these half-Jews were not known to be half-Jews by the authorities. Many of these half-Jews were successful at hiding their ancestry, and this discharge order wasn't being widely enforced. Also, this discharge order, Hitler had decreed within this order that any half-Jew who had performed well in battle was allowed to apply for clemency. And when one did so, this allowed him to remain several months in his unit as he got his application together and as a decision was given. So that's the policy that affected half-Jews. Quarter-Jews also had to serve under the conscription laws of 1935, but they, like their half-Jewish counterparts, could not become NCOs or officers without Hitler's personal permission. And this policy did not change throughout the entire war. Now, when people hear about half-Jews and quarter-Jews serving, I often get the question, "Well, how many people are we actually talking about here?"

34:38Well, looking at assimilation records, birth rates, mixed marriage rates, and talking to a few statisticians and mathematicians, I conservatively estimate that 60,000 half-Jews and 90,000 quarter-Jews served in the Wehrmacht during World War II. Now, when one knows that 17.5 million men went through the ranks of the Wehrmacht, one sees that this number is a very small percentage. I mean, less than 1% of these 150,000 Mischlinge soldiers represent the total size of the German armed forces back then. But in light of the Holocaust, this number is quite shocking. And this number is both shocking and important for what it tells us about how Jewish identity was viewed, constructed, and contested by German citizens, Nazi leaders, military commanders, and the German-Jewish population within German borders, and for what it tells us about how these perceptions saved some while condemning others to the death camps. Also, my research is very important for what it tells us about Hitler and his involvement with the Jewish question, especially giving exemptions to Mischlinge.

35:42Generals, admirals, U-boat captains, battleship captains, fighter aces, and tens of thousands of ordinary Mischlinge soldiers all served because Hitler allowed them to. Many of them with a personal exemption from him. Now, it seems like there were three types of exemptions that allowed a half-Jew to remain in the military. The first type simply allowed him to remain. The second type allowed him to remain and be promoted. These forms are called special permissions. The third type were called Deutsche Blutigkeitserklärungen, or the German blood declarations. And this allowed a recipient to describe himself as an Aryan in all official documentation. Now, how many men actually received some form of clemency? Well, due to the chaotic filing system, it is very difficult to ascertain the exact number. The different departments and offices that dealt with these applications did not create a central database. Nonetheless, after the war, Hitler's Secretary of State, Lammers, said that Hitler gave thousands during his rule. And I concur with this assessment.

36:47Especially when one knows that Hitler had decreed that any Mischling soldier who had been severely wounded in battle, i.e., lost both his legs, his arms, his eyesight, was to be retroactively declared an Aryan to the date of his injury. Also, Hitler had decreed that any Mischling soldier who had died in combat was to be posthumously declared an Aryan. Hitler said, and I quote, "I do not want to be ungrateful to Mischling soldiers who have shed blood for the Third Reich." Before I go on to the next section, very quickly, although this picture was not used for an application, this is a typical application, a photograph series that was a requirement. Hitler laid great emphasis on how somebody looked in the application. And if he looked phenotypically Jewish, he was immediately rejected. And if he looked Aryan, he had good chances of being Aryanized. And he always wanted front and side shots of the person. And here's an example of those types of photographs. Now, when people hear about tens of thousands of men serving, and that many of them were generals and admirals, U-boat captains, battleship captains, divisional commanders, and so on, I often get the question: well, didn't these men know about the Holocaust?

38:06Soldiers in war usually have enough trauma with the physical hardships and the psychological burdens of killing and death that constitute the everyday life of combat. They also have to worry about their persecution and the persecution of their relatives at the hands of their own countrymen. Jewish and Mischling soldiers not only served in armed forces controlled by a government hostile to them as racially inferior beings, but many of them did so at a time when they were experiencing their own persecution, witnessing the persecution of their loved ones, and even the occasional deportation and death of a family member. So as I conducted this research, I closely looked at the question: did these men know about the Holocaust? And when I say the Holocaust, I mean the systematic extermination of six million Jews under Hitler. And when I began this research, I thought that overwhelmingly, yes, I would find that all these men knew about the Holocaust. How could they not know? Shockingly, I found the opposite to be true. Yes, many of these men knew about deportations, but where their relatives were being deported to was beyond their knowledge. Many of them knew about concentration camps, but what actually was going on in the camps was beyond their imagination.

39:13Many of them knew about executions going on in the East, but many of them thought that these executions, or many of them rationalized that these executions were for criminals, prisoners of war, and partisans. Most of them did not know that when their relatives were deported, they most often were deported straight to their deaths. And on average, each man who I've documented lost between seven and eight relatives in the Holocaust. And the most telling fact to prove these men's ignorance is the story of half-Jews in Organization Todt, the OT forced labor camps. By late 1941, tens of thousands of half-Jews had been dismissed. And here is an irony of history. While most of these men were dismissed and one would think, "Okay, it's going to be really bad for them," they were lucky because of their status of being half-Jews, as they were also half-Aryans. So, they were protected by that side to some degree, and the Nazis didn't really know what to do with them yet. So, most of them returned home, and they found work, or they began to study. Most of the time, it was substandard work. And in the universities, they were not usually allowed to study what they wanted to because medicine and law, for example, were unworthy. I mean, they were considered unworthy to study these prestigious topics.

40:34so they had to take lesser degrees. But nonetheless, they were still able to study, and they were relatively safe at home, or they were able to work, while their Aryan comrades had the honor to go to Russia and get slaughtered. When one knows that 75% of all Germans who died in World War II died on the Russian front, one sees, percentage-wise, that half-Jews survived at a higher rate than their Aryan comrades. But by 1944, Hitler had decided to utilize this valuable pool of manpower, and he started to deport them to forced labor camps. Now, had half-Jews known about the Holocaust, why did they report to their own deportation stations? The vast majority of the men whom I have documented reported when called, and this indicates to me that they did not know. Because had they known, one would think they would have done everything they could to go into hiding, obtain false documents, and go underground, or even try to escape to Switzerland or Sweden. Now, it is true that it was very difficult to find a hiding place in Nazi Germany back then, and obtaining false documents was a risky business at best. Also, reaching Switzerland was very difficult because the border was heavily patrolled on both sides, and Sweden was also very difficult to reach, being separated from Germany by the Baltic Sea.

41:44nonetheless, had these men known about the Holocaust, one would think that they would have tried their luck no matter what the cost. And many of them had a chance to make a quick getaway. Most of them received their deportation notices from the Gestapo or local employment agencies, which gave them several days, if not months, until they had to report. Nonetheless, most reported when called, and this was the beginning of their own Holocaust. As one man told me, he said, I didn't know why we were being called up or where we were going. I didn't even know about Auschwitz until after the war, and I simply thought my life was not in danger. Here was a man who lost seven relatives in Auschwitz. Another man told me, he said, "Even when I was in the camp and talking amongst the other half-Jews, none of us came to the idea that the relatives that we had who were deported before us were deported to their deaths. It was simply beyond our imaginations." Renowned professor in England, Ian Kershaw, eloquently describes how difficult it was to know about the Holocaust during World War II. He wrote, "During the war years, interest in the Jewish question declined further. The deportation passed off apparently little heeded by the population. The German people seemed to have asked little and cared less about the fate of the Jews. The war, its worries and deprivations dominated public opinion. The Jews were out of sight and out of mind."

43:04Knowledge of executions going on in the East was widespread, and rumors of executions going on in the East circulated. Details about the systematic gassing program appear, however, to have been largely unknown. There are many historical insights one can glean from my research, besides seeing just how difficult it was to know about the Holocaust. My research shows us that we cannot look at the Third Reich in extremes of black and white. Not every German soldier who wore a uniform back then was a Nazi, as we use that term today. And not everybody of Jewish descent was a victim of the death camps. Also, my research shows us that there were hundreds of thousands of people who were persecuted for being Jewish, not because they themselves called themselves Jewish, but because the Nazis called them Jewish and treated them accordingly. And with this in mind, it's interesting to note that half-Jews in Poland and Russia were labeled as full Jews and sent off to the death camps, although many of them had converted to Christianity, assimilated, and had no more contact with Judaism.

44:08But since they were half Slavic, they didn't have that half Aryan Germanic blood to protect them, and they didn't have those Aryan relatives to help them out, they were deemed unworthy, and they were slaughtered within that six million. So one sees with this history just how complicated life was during the Third Reich. The Mischling policy, the Nazis showed, was a maze of confusion and contradiction, which reflected the regime's own uncertainty with how to deal with Germans of partial Jewish descent. Now, it seems like there were many reasons why it was so difficult to implement this policy. One reason was that the Nazi ideology of race came into conflict with maintaining power. Had Hitler been too aggressive with his mistreatment of Mischlinge in the 1930s and 1940s, he might have lost the support of thousands of Aryans who held key positions in the government, economy, and military who had Mischlinge relatives. Nathan Stoltzfus, a historian, brings this point out very well in his book, Resistance of the Heart. Also, until 1935, this category of people, the Mischlinge, never existed. So the bureaucrats had to rely on denunciations, honest confessions, and church, court, and temple records to identify these people. In the Wehrmacht, discharge orders were often hindered by officers who valued a trained soldier and an honest comrade more than they did the Nazi racial laws.

45:30I mean, the very fact that Hitler reserved the right to give exemptions to his racial laws shows that even he saw how contradictory and confusing they could be. But as renowned professor at Yale University, Henry Turner, wrote, Hitler was driven by an unshakable conviction that reality would eventually conform to his will. Hitler truly believed that he could make his irrational philosophy meet up with reality, and his diplomatic and military triumphs from 1933 to 1940 reinforced his own belief in his infallibility as leader, as the prophet, leader, and racial hygienist. Hitler perverted the German legal system, and he forced it to implement his racial ideas as laws. Now, in light of how aggressively he pursued the persecution of the Jews, it is quite shocking how much time he spent on the Mischlinge, especially giving them exemptions. I mean, maybe one can understand the careful analysis of keeping a Mischling general at his post, but many to whom Hitler gave an exemption to were privates, common soldiers who had no bearing on the war's outcome.

46:34I mean, Hitler giving these exemptions to these types of men and the support of thousands of Aryan officers in connection with these applications contradicted the Nazi worldview. I mean, the very fact that the arch anti-Semite himself, Adolf Hitler, gave even one exemption is quite shocking, but he gave thousands. But as Professor Kirchhoff wrote, nothing was as it seemed during the Third Reich. I mean, many of Hitler's actions seem to demonstrate that he believed that Jewish blood, to use a Nazi term again, even in minute amounts, ruined a person. Other actions seem to demonstrate that he believed in Mendel's theories of genetics, and that a half-Jewish, a Mischling soldier, could actually inherit all of his blood from his Aryan parent. Hitler continued to waver on facts about race, and many of his decisions during the Third Reich did not reflect the true categories of race so central to Nazi rhetoric and ideology. Also, Hitler's policy with the Mischlinge shows the triumph of Nazi ideology over reason.

47:34In 1942, when Hitler was encountering many difficulties at the Battle of Stalingrad, he could have recalled probably around 70,000 half-Jews whom he had dismissed at that time. But instead, he focused on a few hundred men to see if they were blonde enough, blue-eyed enough to be declared of German blood. I mean, did Hitler have nothing better to do than, at the height of the Battle of Stalingrad, to look at an application from a private to see if he looked Aryan enough to be brought into the fold? I mean, Hitler shows just how obsessed he was with the racial ideology under the Nazis with this process and with these actions. He also demonstrates with this behavior that he valued an Aryan society more than he did winning the war. As Hitler has said, the Jewish question takes priority over all other matters. Now, after the unsuccessful bomb attack on his life in 1944, he actually started to revoke most of the exemptions that he had given to date. Now, discharging so many high-ranking officers, many of them generals with the Knight's Cross, did not make strategic sense during this time period. But as the war worsened, Hitler's persecution of not only the Jews, but also the Mischlinge dramatically escalated. And had Germany prolonged the war, God forbid, had Hitler won the war,

48:51Half-Jews would have shared the fate of the full Jews. And quarter-Jews would have been selectively sterilized, and in some cases, as the decree was written, exterminated if they looked too Jewish. And that was a sad fate that awaited Mischling soldiers. Now, as many of you probably have thought about during this talk, My research often departs from history and enters into the realm of identity. And before I tell you two quick stories, I'd like to give you the background on this photograph here. In 1939, a memorandum went out from the Propaganda Ministry in Berlin under Goebbels to several German military units asking for the most Aryan-looking soldier they had. Werner Goldberg won the competition. And for three months, he was the Nazi propaganda child for the typical Aryan German soldier until they found out that his father was Jewish. Here's just another example of how absurd the Nazi racial laws were.

49:52Now, the first story I would like to tell you about, let's call the gentleman Heinrich Bayer. That's not his real name. Bayer had served two years in the German military, was discharged, and sent to a forced labor camp. After the war, he said, you know, luckily he survived, and he said, I'm going to do something for my Jewish family. I'm going to go to Israel, I'm going to fight in the wars there, and I'm going to help establish that country. So he goes there, and for several years he fights in the battles there. And in 1953, his battalion commander calls him to the duty hut and says, you need to go down to the courthouse and get your ID papers in order. So he goes down to the courthouse, and as the bureaucrat is looking through his file, he says, okay, you were persecuted for 12 years for being a Jew in Nazi Germany. You served in the military? How did that happen? He explained. You were sent to a forced labor camp. You lost your father in Auschwitz. What about your mother? Oh, my mother, well, she's a Christian. She's Gentile. Oh, said the bureaucrat, you're not Jewish. Wait a minute, Bayer said. For 12 years, I was persecuted for being a Jew. I served in a forced labor camp. My father died in Auschwitz. I have now served this country as an officer. I'm a captain for six years. I've been wounded seven times. You're telling me I'm not Jewish? The bureaucrat said, hey, I'm just telling you what's on the books. You can either prove that your mother's Jewish or you can convert to Judaism. Well, I'm an atheist, Bayer said. Well, we have a problem, said the bureaucrat.

51:13Bayer got so fed up with this process that he went back to Germany and said, maybe in that democratic country I can decide who I want to be. The next story I'd like to tell you about is about Heinrich Hamburger. Hamburger, I just finished interviewing him outside of Munich. I was packing up my bag, putting all my things in it for my studio, my wandering studio. As I was doing so, his girlfriend walked in and said, "You know, you should take the young American tonight." He tried to hush her up very quickly. She said, "No, Heine, the young American would find it very interesting. You should take him this evening." So I looked at her, then at Hamburger, and I asked him, "What's going on this evening?" He very sheepishly looked down at the ground and said, "Uh..." The veterans from my unit, we get together at a bar once a month and talk about our lives and drink some beer and talk about the war. Would you like to come? I was like, yeah, that sounds very interesting. He said, well, if you come, you've got to promise me two things. The first thing is you can't tell anybody that I'm a half-Jew. For the last 60 years, I've kept this hidden, and I like to keep it that way.

52:14I was like, okay, Herr Hartenberger, I won't tell anybody that you're Jewish. He's like, and second of all, you can't tell them what you're studying because then they'll wonder why you came and talked to me. You've got to tell them you're studying something like the artillery tactics of the mountain troops or something of that sort. I was like, well, how about I tell them I'm studying the social dynamics of the Wehrmacht on the company level? And he went, "Yeah, yeah, that's good, that's good. Tell him you're doing that." I was like, "Okay, Herr Hartenberger, that's what we'll tell him I'm studying." So a few hours later, we entered this bar, and as we opened the door, the smell of smoke smarted our nostrils, and I could hear the men singing World War II songs. I couldn't believe I was there. And he took me to a back room, a conference room, where there were about 40 veterans. Many of them had been told beforehand, because Herr Hamburger called up a few of them to tell them about the young American historian. So they were very eager to meet me. They brought their diaries, and some of them brought their medals and photographs. As we walked into the room, Herr Hamburger, I could tell he was very nervous. He was latched onto my right shoulder as if to prevent me from jumping up on the table and telling everybody that I was a half-Jew. But after about an hour, he realized I was being very discreet, and he left me to my own devices. I started working my way around the table.

53:21And I eventually came into conversation with the company commander, who was still alive at the time, 93 years old, a big brood of a guy, about 6'4", 220 pounds. He had scars all up and down his forearms and hands where, in 1943, he had been knocked unconscious by a concussion grenade. When he came to, he was in a Russian prisoner of war camp. He was put on burial details, and during one of these details, he noticed on some nearby hills where the Russian guards were watching them that they were not doing their job very well. They weren't paying attention. So he had his men bury him alive in a wooden crate. And when he was sure the Russian guards were gone, he clawed his way out of this crate, out of the earth, and made it back to his lines, where he served two more years as an infantry officer. So this guy was pretty hardcore, who I was talking to. And as he was describing the tactics he used and how he trained his men and his experiences in Russia, I asked him, you know, during my study about the social dynamics of the Wehrmacht on the company level, I've come across an interesting phenomenon about Jews and men of Jewish descent who served in the Nazi military. Have you ever heard about this before? He looked at me in a very surprised way. He spotted Hamburger at the other end of the room and then said to me in a conspiratorial tone,

54:30Don't tell Hamburger, but we know he's a Jew. I won't say anything. Now, this story is very important for several things that it tells us. And the first thing that it told me back then, and it was something I was continually encountering, which I was not expecting to find, and that is that for many of these men's comrades, they had accepted these so-called mischlinge into the fold. Many of them had known about the racial background. Many of them actually tried to help these people and their families in their precarious situation. And that was something I was not expecting to find. Another thing that was very interesting, getting back to that very first point also, this company commander who I was talking to, on three separate occasions, wrote recommendations for Homburger to get him the German Blood Declaration because Homburger had been severely wounded in battle. And under the clause of exemptions, if you were severely wounded in battle, you could apply for clemency. And on three occasions, this company commander did so. On the third occasion, he was finally successful. Homburger, to this day, still believes it was his battalion commander who died in battle, not his company commander.

55:39Now, the second thing that was very interesting that this story tells us, and this is something I found consistently with the men I interviewed, is that a lot of them cower at being called Jewish, and they do everything they can to prevent this knowledge from getting out there to the public. But what's interesting about Homburger, and he's also an example of many men who I've documented, is that when you walk into his office, his bookshelf is lined with books about Judaism, German Jewish history, and Israel, even a menorah in the corner of his room. He's fascinated by this topic. And when I asked him about this, he's like, "Yeah, yeah." When I called him on this, really, he's like, "Yeah, I know I'm a paradox. I'm a closet Jew." So, as one sees when looking at this research that I especially have done, identity was very crucial to look at. And identity is very difficult to define. I mean, where does it come from? Does it come from my parents? Does it come from the religion I'm born into? Does it come from the government I'm born under? Can I decide who I am? Am I black or am I white? Am I a Jew or am I a Christian?

56:40Am I worthy to live or am I worthy not to live? Who decides the answers to these questions? And I believe it is very important to look at these questions because ultimately, the way I come to define myself directly influences the way I understand and interpret history, and more importantly, the way I treat others. And therein lies the wisdom. Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. Well, we do have time for questions and answers from the audience, so I just want to let you know, when you come up to the microphone, you can just speak in your normal tone, because we'll hear you, and I'll be right back. Before we start, though, I want to... Make a comment, Brian. I remember last year when you spoke, and then this year, your book has been the recipient of the 2003 Colby Award. Could you tell us a little bit about that? Sure. Well, can I, Bob, can I ask you to tell? Can I have the honor? There's a very distinguished author we have here tonight, Bob Sorley, and he will do a much better job and a much more eloquent job of describing this. He is part of the symposium. I was just awarded the award from it, so please. Sure, I'd be honored to do that.

57:57that the Military Writers Symposium at Norwich University is the venue in which the Colby Writers Award is presented. The first year that they had such a symposium, William Colby, the former director of Central Intelligence, was the leading figure taking part. By the time of the next year's conference, he had died, and so to honor him and thank him for what he had done, they named it then the Colby Military Writers Symposium. And each year at Norwich University, over a period of about three days, young authors like Brian are invited there to talk about their books, to go to classes, to sign books in the bookstore, and then the pièce de résistance is a panel session with about six authors and a moderator, and then a banquet at which the recipient of the award is given his award. to talk about their books, to go to classes, to sign books in the bookstore, and then the pièce de résistance is a panel session with about six authors and a moderator, and then a banquet at which the recipient of the award is given his award. And that is always given to a first-time author, although the others who take part may be very well-known authors. So, this year in the spring at Norwich, Brian was the recipient of the Colby Award, and he gave a great talk there. Tonight is an expansion, I would say, even more interesting than that. All right. Thank you. Congratulations. Thank you, Bob. That's Sam. Appreciate it. Let's get to the first question here.

59:16I'd like to ask whether you ran across any ranking personalities who were officers at the very heart of racism in Germany, members of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt, the SD, and the SS. I ask that because I never ran across this. I was the field office commander of CIC in Berlin right after the war, rounding these guys up, and this question never really arose. Good question, sir. You're speaking about the extermination policies, and then you're probably talking more about the SS. I have found a few men who were a part of the SS, but they’re a small, small minority and no distinguished personalities. The SS was very, very methodical about looking into the ancestry of their personnel. If you were enlisted personnel, you had to trace your ancestry back to 1800. If you were an officer, you had to trace it back to 1750. There was one notorious case of a woman who probably was responsible for several hundred, if not a few thousand, people's deaths, who was a Jew who served in the capacity of a catcher, a greifer, under the Gestapo. Her name was Stella Goldschlag, and she was called the Blonde Poison. She was a very beautiful woman, blonde, blue-eyed. The Gestapo had even promised her potential honorary Aryan status.

1:00:37After the war, she continued working for them. What they did to her is they deported her parents, had her parents write a couple hundred postcards, then killed the parents, and then had the postcards, you know, one postcard go every two or three weeks. Then they employed her in the Gestapo office in Berlin and said, hey, if you work for us, we'll keep your parents alive, and you will remain alive. What we want you to do is go around and find the Jews in hiding and then tell us where they are. So she would go around, find Jews, and say, "Hey, I'm also looking for a hiding place. Can you tell me where to go and where to hide in your address book?" And then she would take it back. So this is a horrible situation regarding what was going on with a few of the people I've identified. Erhard Milch, the field marshal, could also be considered a war criminal. he was a half-Jew, and he knew about the extermination going on. He knew about the slave labor going to Auschwitz to be processed. He also knew about the experiments going on in Dachau, and he actually sanctioned them—the high-altitude experiments. After the war, he was brought up in the second Nuremberg trials, found guilty, and sentenced to life in prison.

1:01:39He was let out after 10 years and did a lot of work, I think, for BMW and Mercedes and so on. So you do have a small, small percentage. But luckily, none of the higher-ups that you might be thinking about. Heydrich, there were a lot of rumors about him. Heydrich, the SS general, there were a lot of rumors that he possibly had Jewish ancestry, possibly even Hitler. And why this question comes up quite often, I'll go ahead and answer this, especially since it's germane to your question, because if Heydrich did have Jewish ancestry, he would be one of the people that you're talking about. One thing that we can be certain about these two people is that they worried that they had Jewish ancestry. According to Dr. Fritz Redlich, the former head of psychiatry at Yale University, he wrote a book called Hitler: The Diagnosis of a Destructive Prophet. And he goes really into depth about Hitler's tormented soul in many respects, about the fear of possibly having Jewish ancestry. And these are the facts about Hitler. Hitler's grandmother was 42 years old, working in a home in Austria as a maid, when she suddenly became pregnant.

1:02:41And when Hitler was rising in the '20s and in the '30s, there were a lot of rumors circulating in the political arena. There were many rumors about his potential Jewish background because his father was born a Schicklgruber. He wasn't born Hitler. His father later on adopted the name Hitler when he was in his 40s. And it's interesting to think that had his father not done it, if Hitler could have actually risen to power with Heil Schicklgruber. It just doesn't sound right. But there were a lot of rumors going around back then of Hitler having a Jewish background. Hans Frank, his lawyer, claimed in the Nuremberg trials after the war that Hitler, with all these rumors flying around, ordered him in the late '20s, early '30s, to go down to Austria and inspect this. And Hans Frank claimed that he found documents that the grandmother had been working in a Jewish home in Graz, Frankenreiter, Frankenberger. We've never been able to find this family, by the way. But according to his testimony, the grandmother was working in this home when she suddenly became pregnant. And then he found correspondence between the Jewish family and Hitler's grandmother. For 13 years, Hitler was given child support. An interesting law in the books back then in Austria was that if you had a child out of wedlock and they knew who you were, you had to support the child for 13 years. Interesting coincidence. Also, when the Nuremberg Laws came out, Hitler ordered that no Aryan woman under the age of 45 could work in a Jewish home for fear that she would be impregnated.

1:04:09Coincidence? Also, he had supposedly a lot of documents about his family destroyed, and also even a cemetery destroyed in Döllersheim. So Hitler was definitely scared about something. He had many reasons to be scared about several things in his family, especially back in that generation. His father was born out of wedlock. His father was an alcoholic. His father beat his mother and beat the kids, even beat the dog. uh... there was a history of incest in the family and a history of insanity—surprise, surprise. uh... and uh... there were these types of things. He had a lot of demons he was trying to get rid of. And Redlich focuses on his book about the possibility of Jewish ancestry. Heydrich is also the same story. He had a lot of people in the twenties and thirties throwing rumors at him. "Hey, you have Jewish ancestry. uh... the Schutz in your family were actually Jewish," and so on. And Bruno Heydrich... and I... I interviewed somebody who actually had a mother who took piano lessons under Bruno Heydrich. Bruno Heydrich was the father of Reinhard Heydrich. He was a musician and music teacher in Halle. Everybody in town thought he was a Jew. So when Reinhard Heydrich was rising up, he didn’t look anything like his father. His father was short, dark, and swarthy. A lot of people said, "Yeah, he's a Jew. He has to be. Look at him." His son was very tall, blonde, and blue-eyed. So he never got it for his phenotypical traits, although he had a very high voice. In the Navy, they actually called him the "Blonde Moses."

1:05:31Interestingly enough, he took people to court several times for slander, for calling him of Jewish descent, and so on. He definitely worried about it. But those are the only two cases where you're talking about the center of extermination policies where you might have heard, "Yeah, there were some of those people of Jewish descent like Heydrich," but there's no documents to prove it. All right, we have a question over here. Could you comment about the motives of the Jewish soldiers? Were they in support of the German aims or the Nazi aims? Or were they just doing this to survive and for their family's survival? Very good question, sir. We have to realize that most of these men were drafted. They had to serve. They didn't have a choice. Also, one thing we have to realize, and this is the sad tragedy of German Jewry, is that they came from very proud traditions of military service. Let's not forget that in World War I, 100,000 German Jews served in the German military. 12,000 of them died in combat. More Jews died in the German military in World War I than all Jews in Israeli conflicts from 1948 to 1982. The Austro-Hungarian Empire is even a more dramatic example. 300,000 Jews served in the empire's military in World War I. 25,000 died in combat. More Jews died in the Austrian military in World War I than all Jews in all Israeli conflicts to date.

1:06:36military in World War I than all Jews in Israeli conflicts from 1948 to 1982. The Austro-Hungarian Empire is an even more dramatic example. 300,000 Jews served in the empire's military in World War I. 25,000 died in combat. More Jews died in the Austro-Hungarian military in World War I than all Jews in all Israeli conflicts to date. So these men came from very strong military traditions. Their fathers, grandfathers, uncles, and cousins had all been drafted. So when they were drafted, yes, there was a lot of confusion at the time. But they didn't think it was as absurd as we do today. They were serving their country. Also, many of them in the 30s thought Hitler would be just like one of the other Weimar Republic parties, rise up, do a few things, and then be kicked out. They didn't think he was going to be there for 12 years, and they definitely didn't think that they would start being exterminated, especially when they were serving. Now, getting to another angle of your question, many of these men, what gave their service meaning once they were there, was saying, hey, they're not going to touch a grandmother. They're not going to touch a mother of a soldier, especially if they have the Iron Cross. So many of them were doing more in combat to help protect their families and also protect themselves. So it was, to one extent, to be part of the crowd, to do what everybody else in society was doing and also survive.

1:07:56Now, the full Jews, a lot of times that was strictly a survival technique. But when you get to the half-Jews and quarter-Jews, you're dealing with choiceless choice. To use Lawrence Langer's term, a wonderful writer of Holocaust testimonies, you're dealing with a lot of choiceless choices with these men. And had they gone to the authorities and said, "Hey, I don't want to serve. I feel Jewish. You're persecuting my family," not only would they put themselves in jeopardy, but they would put their whole family in jeopardy. And in countless cases, these men's service did actually postpone and even, in some cases, actually prevent the deportation and death of loved ones. Gestapo agents come to the house to pick up grandma, and they see a picture of all the grandsons in military uniform, and they go away confused. And sometimes guys come home from the front, they hear about granddad being deported or mom being deported, they go to the deportation station in full-dress military uniform. The guys say, "Hey, we can't deport the mother of a soldier." That happened countless times, which I was not expecting to find. But the testimonies and the documents prove it. Brian, we have a question over here. Yes. I have several questions if I may. First of all, did Hitler know about the captain of the Bismarck having Jewish blood?

1:09:07And Henry C., isn't Henry C., his wife was Jewish or something? You're well informed. Your first question, the fleet commander that the Bismarck was part of was Lütjens. A lot of people think that commander, Captain Lütjens, was of Jewish descent. I have not found any documents on Lütjens' background. The reason why people think he was of Jewish descent is because of his wife, a born Backenkoller, who was a half-Jew. and his sons were naval officers and also Aryanized. Also, his brother-in-law was Admiral Backenkoller, who was Aryanized, who was a half-Jew. So he got a lot thrown on him, so to speak, because of whom he had married. Just like General Carl August von Gablenz, who also was one of the key people in building up the Luftwaffe. A lot of people thought that he was of Jewish descent, and there possibly might be. I've taken his ancestry back five generations, and I can't find anything yet because in the Nazi documents, there's a lot of stuff that is written that he was of Jewish descent, and he was having a lot of problems. What's interesting is that his wife was of Jewish descent, and he got a lot of flak, so to speak, because of that. Heinz Reinefarth is another example. You're well informed. Heinz Reinefarth was a four-star general. I read your book. Oh.

1:10:26Okay, thank you, sir. Yes, Heinrici, he was in charge of the defense of Berlin at the end of the war. He was a brilliant defensive strategist. And he had a half-Jewish wife. And she and their children had to submit these lengthy, lengthy applications. The son, who later became a captain in the army, had to submit ten photographs. before Hitler decided to Aryanize the family. And the son served the entire war, and Heinrici served with little difficulty. Although Hitler had some problems with him because he spoke his mind and got into Hitler's face quite a bit. And there are some third, fourth-hand stories I've heard of Hitler saying, "I should have never Aryanized his wife." But I couldn't substantiate those claims, so I didn't bring it into my book, although it was a wonderful story. There's two others, if I may. Yes, sir. Do you know Professor McMeekin from Clemson University? Professor who, sir? McMeekin. McMeekin. He wrote Hitler's Shadow...

1:11:40war. And he simply said, see, Hitler was, just as you said, more interested in exterminating the Jews than even winning the war in Russia, or even winning the war, period. So I think, I thought it was excellent because it was the first time that I always suspected that. But when I picked up this book, I think it recently came out, he's from Clemson University, a university professor, and he's not Jewish. wrote this thing, and I think it's good. I would agree with him. I would agree with him totally. Okay. Just another one, if I may, about Europa Europa. Mrs. Holland, who directed it or produced it, and they were expecting that to win the Foreign Film Award in Cannes, and they did. Do you know why? Excuse me for my ignorance, sir. I do not know. Okay. Well, we'll end on one final note. I saw you in the research room today, and you were doing research at the National Archives. What were you doing, and what's coming up next for you?

1:12:41I've been very blessed. I just signed a two-book contract with Yale University Press. And the book that I've been working on here, the National Archives, has been great with helping me find these documents. As I was doing my research, I came across this crazy story about an ultra-ultra-Orthodox rabbi being rescued by half-Jewish Abwehr officers, half-Jewish Secret Service military officers. As I looked more and more into it, and it had been mentioned here and there in a few books, and one book, Winfried Meyer wrote in his book Unter Niemann, about 10 pages on it, and it was a fascinating story. And he was the most thorough author that I had found who had explored this, but there was still a lot, still a lot left to be known. And so as I started looking more and more into this, I realized that our government actually was responsible for the rescue of this man. What happened was the Lubavitchers, this rabbi was the head of the Lubavitcher movement. His name was Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn. And the Lubavitchers are a Chassidic group, and they are ultra-Orthodox. Beards, peyos (side locks), you know, black suits, you know, the shtreimels (fur hats), and very, very pious. That's what Chassidic means in Hebrew, pious.

1:13:57And at the time, it was very difficult to ascertain exactly how many followers he had. But according to the documents here in this archive, the leaders here in America were indicating that there were 160,000 followers in America. They are very passionate and very loyal to this man. They believe that he is the Moshe Rabbeinu, the Moses of his generation. He is also the potential Mashiach. If the Mashiach is going to come, it will be through him. And also, he has almost a direct link to the Divine in many respects. I mean, he is very holy. You know, for Christians today, if you tell them Jesus made a lot of mistakes and he might not be the son of God, you know how a lot of Christians would react to that. They would react the same way about the Rebbe if you said anything derogatory about their Rebbe. So, when the Rebbe was in Warsaw in 1939, when Germany invaded, These guys in America, 160,000 of them, went crazy. And they started writing the government, "Help us save this Rebbe." A very distinguished man. He had traveled here in 1929, met President Hoover, met Brandeis, met a few senators, Senators Wagner and Cohen, and so on. So he was fairly well connected in the government as well. So this made it all the way up to Cordell Hull, and it must have gotten to Roosevelt as well.

1:15:08And they decided to take this very seriously. They had an election coming up in 1940. A lot of people were interested in this case. A lot of politicians were knocking on their doors, James Farley and so on. Let's take it seriously. So they got in touch with Robert Pell in the State Department, the Foreign Affairs Office. And Pell had been at the Évian Conference in 1938 when they were talking about refugees there. And they met some Germans, one of them being Göring's Secretary of State of the Four Year Plan. And although the refugee crisis there was not solved, Voltat told Pell that if there is ever a Jew in Germany that you want to rescue, just get in touch with me and I'll take care of it. Well, in 1939, when Hull and a few others in the government got in touch with Pell, he said, I'll get in touch with Voltat, he'll help us out. Got in touch with Voltat, Voltat said, yes, I'll do it. And he got in touch with Canaris, the head of the secret service of the German military, the Abwehr. And Canaris said, okay, I'll take care of it. And that's where I come into play. He went to Ernst Bloch, ...and said, who's half-Jewish, and said, "Hey, I have a mission for you. I want you to take some other guys who are heading up to Warsaw, find the Rebbe, and rescue him." And so Bloch does what he's told. He later on rescued some other people and got them to Switzerland. So this was a project that they were undertaking. But if you can just imagine the situation: these men are going up to Warsaw, in full military uniform, and they're approaching ultra-Hasidic Jews saying, "Hey, we've been ordered to come up here and find your Rebbe and help rescue him. Can you tell us where he is?"

1:16:34Yeah, you know, these insidious Jews are like, yeah, oh, that's great. And I want to join the SS. Yeah, where do I sign? So there's a lot of, you know, the Rebbe going to different houses, trying to escape. Hey, these guys are there to kill him, you know, a lot of intrigue going on. And they finally convince the Rebbe, through telegrams coming from America and so on, through Riga, that there is this officer. He's there to help you. Trust him. So they do trust him. Now, Bloch is faced with going through SS checkpoints with these ultra, ultra-Orthodox Jews. You know, his mother is with him. The Rebbe's mother is with him. His wife, his grandson, his son-in-law, his daughter. I mean, you've got a whole flock of them right there. And so he'll get out to the SS, and he'll be like, you know, these Jewish pigs, we're taking them to Berlin. We're going to shoot them after we interrogate them. I'm under diplomatic orders to take them. Then he gets back into their car, and according to the documents, he must have told them eventually sometime, he basically says, hey, don't worry. I'm half-Jewish. I'm here to help you. What's going on here? It doesn't make sense. Finally, he gets them to Berlin. From Berlin, since most of the Jews that were in this party were Latvian citizens, he gets them on to Riga. From Riga, they get to Stockholm. From Stockholm, there's a comedy of errors of everything they have to go through. And then finally, they get into the ocean, U-boat infested waters, and they make it to America. And now we have the head of Lubavitch in Brooklyn, New York.

1:17:56and the largest Hasidic sect in the world. So that's the next book that I'm working on. Well, if Bryan Mark Rigg can come here to the National Archives, so can you. We've got facilities all around the country. Come here. Come to our website at archives.gov. First of all, C-SPAN, thank you very much for coming for Book TV. Thank you all very much for coming. And ladies and gentlemen, Bryan Mark Rigg. Thank you. Thanks for coming. Bryan Mark Rigg is the author of Hitler's Jewish Soldiers. It's published by the University Press of Kansas.