Jews in the German Army

Jews in the German Army and the Wermacht

The atrocious rule of Germany's military leader Adolf Hitler is one among the many historical events that left not only scars to a large number of people who were directly affected by the said German holocaust, but, also to those who became witnesses of the brutal military regime.

Adolf Schicklgruber, whose last name was taken from his grandmother, was born on the 20th of April, 1889 in the small town of Braunau Am Inn, in Austria.

He was also known as Adolf Hiedler, but he preferred to be called Hitler because it was easy to remember and it sounded rich.

No one could ever imagine that this young boy, who used to go to church regularly and was even a member of the local choir, will one day, become the master of destruction and a murderer of millions. At his very young age, like any other children, he has been a dreamer. He wanted to be an artist. In a way, he has fulfilled that dream. When his parents passed away, he lived on his own and earned a living through his paintings. He never had any close relationship with anybody and had only one friend since childhood. He was a good speaker and he loved to deliver speeches but he never wasted his time in listening to others. There was no room for him to correct himself and did not tolerate being corrected at all. He did close his mind for any failure. This young man's personality was the very instrument that brought him to his unparalleled stature. When it comes to his family, he was as secretive as he tried to mislead any information that may take a lead to trace his background. He even falsified documents and one time stated that his father's occupation was a post office officer instead of a customs officer. After taking over Austria, among the very first things that he did was to have a survey carried out over the place where his relatives and parents' origin could possibly settled. Then he ordered them to be evacuated.

When it comes to dealing with others, he had early shown some of the traits that would describe the way he had lead his people. He was not able to establish any ordinary human relationship. His temper easily outburst and he was very quick to anger.

In 1914, when the World War I begun, Hitler served as a volunteer for service in the German army. Six years later, he joined Nazi, which is also known as Nationalist Socialist German Workers Party as its leader. He easily gained support from other members because of his tough characteristics as a leader, in particular mention, from the German Armed Forces. They were the same Wehrmacht who swore an oath of personal allegiance on the 2nd day of August, 1934 to Adolf Hitler, instead of giving their loyalty to the constitution. That was also the same day when the Reich President died and Hitler took the offices of the president and chancellor. It was indeed through the Wehrmacht's support that Adolf Hitler was able to attain his desire for world domination but also a staying power of his racist ideology.

It was so remorseless to see that the government idiolect and humbug forced the troop not only to fight well but to commit absolute crimes against the people, particularly the Jews. This also demonstrated how Germany's soldiers were transformed into merciless instruments of a barbarous policy. Those who opposed the Nazis were brutalized, hospitalized, or murdered.

But, the question was, who were those Jews?

The word "Jew" was derived from the name of the tribe of Judah, named after one of the twelve sons of Israel, Jacob. During the biblical times, a child "inherited" his Jewishness from his father, contrary to the connotation of a Jew as defined by the Law of Return. As classified by Nazis based on racial laws which was first enacted in the mid-1930s, the Jews were composed of partial Jews, who were half and quarter Jews. They were also known as "Mischlinge" or German-Jewish "mongrels." Based on Bryan Mark Riggs' research, they highly comprise the large fraction of the population and were estimated at around 150,000 men, including the top ranking officials in the military like generals and admirals, as well as some veterans. Most of them were Halakically Jewish. According to the "Law of Return," a Jew is a person who was born from a Jewish mother and remained unconverted to another religion or has been converted to Judaism. These people assimilated and lived in accordance with the German society for a number of centuries. They have become well integrated in the German military as a way of life and they even fought with the Nazis during World War II and during Germany's invasion to Poland in 1939. The child's Jewishness is its birthright, which its parents cannot take away.

For some, Jewishness is an ethnic allegiance. Since the Jews inhabited in almost every place, there caused a variation in cultural values and historic legacy among them. Others were still puzzled. A huge number of the population do not know how to describe their own Jewish heritage and were confused when observant Jews told them they were Jewish. Some felt Jewish in their own way, not because they have Jewish mothers but because the Nazis persecuted them for being partially Jewish. Their Jewish identity was born of discrimination rather than religious or civilizing tradition.

These Mischlinge did not even consider themselves as Jewish not until the time Adolf Hitler leads the Wehrmacht, who served as his military general staff. Wehrmacht High Command, also known as OKW, was only Hitler's military office. It was charged with translating Hitler's ideas into military orders, and had little real control over the Army, Navy and the Air Force High Commands. Eventually, they have exercised an increasing amount of direct command authority over the military units. This gave birth to a rivalry between the Wehrmacht High Command and the Army High Command., also known as OKH. Hitler decided in favor of OKW.

Hitler looked deeply into racial inequity. He dwelt deeply into "racial purity" by totally exterminating the Jews from the German system. The policies he had implemented regarding Jew identity became so inconsistent with the racial laws. The Nazis reinforced a preconception that Hitler based his anti-Semitic tirades when they issued decrees against the Eastern Jews. Most of the Mischlinge struggled for so many years to convince the Nazis that they were not Jewish but rather loyal German patriots. However, there were also hundreds of thousands in number of Mischlinge who were exempted from the persecution and survived the Nazi onslaught but never convinced them that they were fully "Aryan." Not all who were of Jewish ancestry suffered from the racial stupidity of the racial law. Among them were German Muslims who were accepted as full Germans. There were also 200 full-blooded Jews in Berlin that were spared from the persecution, and they were the Schutzjuden, or the protected Jews. Those who were practicing Judaism but were not racially Jewish like Karaims and Tats were also exempted. There were also 6,000 full-blooded Jews who served the army and were spared. German Mischlinge and those who served in the Wehrmacht, particularly those who were top-ranking officials were also among the Jews who were not included in the persecution. They have served the German Army and followed its decrees including the persecution of their very own tribe. In a way, they have also some protected the German Jews.

Since the ancestry issue became so prominent, most of the documents that trace the descent of the officials were intentionally destroyed. For Hitler, those Jews who have become Christian converts were considered as full-blooded Jews. Non-German Mischlinge did not pass the cruelty imposed by the Hitler rule. They suffered all kinds of nastiness and cruelty from the hands of the Nazis. Some were persecuted and were crucified the same way as Christ, although, they portrayed Jesus as a Jewish-rejected anti-capitalist.

Since most of the Wehrmacht were considered as partly Jews, Hitler distrusted the Armed Forces and prompted himself to replace the members of the Army who had traditionally stood guard at the Chancellor's office, with his personal SS bodyguard. He even elevated the SS to the status of a fully independent organization within the Party. It was also the same SS bodyguard that led the Wehrmacht's March 1936 occupation of the neutral Rhineland, in violation of the Versailles Treaty. This was in the aim of reacquiring German territories taken by the said treaty and the addition of ethnic German regions of former Austria-Hungary to form a Greater Germany. It was very clear that Hitler's agenda was to take over the neighboring countries. In June 22, 1944, while the World War II was raging in action, the subsequent battle with Soviet resulted in the destruction of German Army Group Centre with over 800,000 German casualties, the greatest defeat for the Wehrmacht during the war.

Meanwhile, Adolf Hitler took advantage of the people's dissatisfaction with the treaty and in the hands of the Nazis, this issue was used to rationalize brutal persecution of entire ethnic minorities and political groups. This effort against previous international settlements enabled a junction of their political programs, war aims, and racist ideologies.

Hitler has also decreed that the SS were to be treated as "organizations in the service of the State," and thus, achieved a very high status in the society. The special position of the SS man meant that he must be dealt with in a special way. With that, no state court, nor even a Nazi Party court, had the right to judge an SS man. If so, this was to be the sole privilege and responsibility of SS judges and high ranking officers.

It was so obvious that because of the privileges that were granted to the SS, there rose a conflict between them and the German Army. The latter felt that they were deliberately opposed.

Given the above information, we have noticed that there were a lot of roles that Jews have played in fighting for the German military. The Mischlinge fought in the German Army in order to prove that they were real Germans. Others fought as a way to escape the hardship, pain, and even death that was caused by Hitler's implementation of the racial laws. Another one could be because of companionship and a great bonding that has developed between soldiers. Some soldiers remained with the army, hoping that it will serve as a protection not only for themselves but for their families and relative as well. Without them knowing, they were just used to gather a greater force but soon they will be exterminated together with the other Jews.

There was really a great division between the Jews during those times. German Jews inflicted hardship to non-German Jews, although, there is the same Jewish blood that run in their veins. Some Mischlinge were in favor of the Nazi racial classification as well as the undivided policies of conventional Judaism. They even disgusted the way non-German Jews pay tribute to their God through prayers and thanksgiving.

These same Jews were the ones who fought for the Third Reich. At first, they saw themselves as real Germans just like the Jews of the U.S. civil war who fought for the south and yet, there, they were fighting against each other.

The Word War II aftermath seemed to be a nightmare experience and did left a deep speck in every nation in almost every aspect - emotionally, physically, economically, to name a few. Millions of people lost their lives, those who survived suffered disability, emotional stress brought by the invasions remained for years, economic distress and poverty were tremendously present almost everywhere, and a number of people were displaced and became prisoners of war.