Hitler's Jewish Soldiers

Got a DVD documentary as a gift today in the mail. It is called "Hitler's Jewish Soldiers" and is about the 150,000 (60,000 with one Jewish parent and 90,000 with one Jewish grandparent who served in the German Wehrmacht during World War 2.

One such person was Werner Goldberg (1919-2004) - his picture is above -  who was considered a "Mischling ersten Grades" or "Mixed Race - First Degree." According to the Nazis they were 3⁄8 or ​1⁄2 Jewish and according to the 1935 Nuremberg Laws "Only partly belongs to the German race and nation; approved to have Reich citizenship."

He had his picture taken after the German invasion of Poland in September 1939 and it ran in the German newspaper: Berliner Tageblatt as well as in recruitment posters throughout Germany to show him as "The Ideal German Soldier." After the fall of France in May 1940 the German authorities realized he was Jewish and he was forced to leave the Wehrmacht where he worked in a factory for the rest of the war (saving his "full" Jewish father from deportation several times.)

"Mischlinge of the Second Degree" and Jews married to Germans before 1935 were allowed to continue in the Wehrmacht up until 1943 when they started to be deported to the death camps themselves. The Rosenstrasse protests of February-March 1943 in Berlin was the only time from 1933-1945 that the German people (in this case the spouses married to Jews before 1935) protested against the Nazis' Final Solution against the Jews. 1,800 "Mischlinge" were arrested and about to be sent to the death camps when their German spouses stood-up against the Gestapo and the "Mischlinge" were released and sent home.

"Mischlinge" and Jews married to Germans before 1935 were only protected in Germany itself and not in any German-occupied territory. They were treated as full-Jews.