This is coolbert:
Here too is an assertion, seemingly preposterous, but true!
Thanks to the author Bryan Mark Rigg and the Kansas Press, the story as told in 2003, the winner of the Colby Prize for military history.
Jews - - serving in the Wehrmacht [German army] during the Second World War [WW2], obedient to and willing participants in the German and Nazi cause?
Such a thing could be? At face value the very thought is repugnant and beyond even the extreme of possibility that the absurdity of it seems just self-evident.
THOSE VERY PERSONS SO HATED BY ADOLF HITLER AIDING AND ABETTING TO SOME DEGREE THE INSANE AND WARPED DESIRES OF THE DICTATOR! ABSURD AND PREPOSTEROUS ARE MILD TERMS TO DESCRIBE THIS ALL?
"Hitler's Jewish Soldiers"
"'The Untold Story of Nazi Racial Laws and Men of Jewish Descent in the German Military' by Bryan Mark Rigg
"Contrary to conventional views, Rigg reveals that a startlingly 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. Rigg demonstrates that 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."
[those high-ranking officers, of flag rank even, to include Field Marshal Milch, Admiral Lutjens of the Bismarck and Captain Rogge of the Atlantis]
However, NOT SO FAST SHELBY! We have to be very careful here. Definitions and perceptions are most important! Clarification is needed and big time!
* These persons, military men and classified as Jews by the German Racial Laws, WOULD NOT have been acknowledged as Jews by rabbinical authority. Were Jewish under the German Racial Laws in that they had ONE GRANDPARENT THAT WAS A JEW! NO MORE than that to begin with!
* These persons also would have NOT THOUGHT of themselves as being Jewish. Had been raised either irreligious or as a Christian, not practicing Jewish ritual or following aspects of Jewish culture. Saw themselves and being German through and through, part of secular German society and loyal to Germany!
A thorough recognition and understanding of the facts, the definitions, the perceptions is essential in this case.
Too, it is speculated that among even the top "brass" of the Nazi regime, there was the aspect of the Mischlinge to include such prominent persons as:
* Reinhard Heydrich. "The Nazi Hangman".
* Emil Maurice. The "best friend" of Hitler and SS Mann # 2.
OH MY, what are we to make of all this? Again, the definitions and perceptions are most important! Just don't overdo it.
coolbert.
This is heavy stuff, but it was nice of you to raise this issue, it kept me thinking...
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