Hitler’s Jewish Soldiers

Bryan Mark Rigg joins us once again, this time to talk about his study of German Jews who served in the Third Reich. On the murderous road to “racial purity“ Hitler encountered unexpected detours, largely due to his own crazed views and inconsistent policies regarding Jewish identity. After centuries of Jewish assimilation and intermarriage in German society, he discovered that eliminating Jews from the rest of the population was more difficult than he’d anticipated. Bryan will explain that nowhere was that heinous process more fraught with contradiction and confusion than in the German military. Bryan will talk about the large number of German military men were classified by the Nazis as Jews or “partial-Jews“ (Mischlinge), in the wake of racial laws first enacted in the mid-1930s. The actual number was much higher than previously thought - perhaps as many as 150,000 men, including decorated veterans and high-ranking officers, even generals and admirals. We will discuss some of these men and their varying