Tony Greenstein's Blog: BBC Exclusive: – Germany’s Jewish soldiers who fought in Hitler’s Army Tony Greenstein's Blog Socialist, anti-Zionist, anti-racist 9 November 2016 BBC Exclusive: – Germany’s Jewish soldiers who fought in Hitler’s Army According to the BBC's logic historians should question the extent of anti-Jewish discrimination in Nazi Germany! In what can only be described as a BBC propaganda piece on behalf of Israel’s claim that there is equality between Jews and Arabs, the BBC today showed a programme’ Israel's Arab Warriors on BBC Arabic TV. The clear implication was that if Palestinians were prepared to fight to the Israeli state it must be because it is a State of equality between Jews and Palestinians rather than being a State of systematic racist discrimination. The army unit where Hermann Bendheim served in WWI. Credit Udi Bendheim Why the Arabs are even allowed to serve in the West Bank and share the privilege of participating in the occupation and repression of their own people. It is noticeable, by way of contrast, that the BBC have never shown a programme which focussed on the inequality and racism in Israeli society. The puff piece for the programme breathlessly tells us that ‘Over six months a BBC Arabic documentary team gained extraordinary access to the Gadsar - an all-Arab unit of 500 within the Israeli Defence Force.’ Quite why it is extraordinary the BBC didn’t say, since such a programme was in the interests of Israeli hasbara. In fact there is nothing new at all in racist states employing members of minorities or, in the case of South Africa the majority Black population. The South Africa Defence Forces included large numbers of Black and Coloured soldiers and the Police force was almost equally divided between Black and White. Of course the senior ranks were reserved for the White population just as in the Israeli army the most senior ranks are almost exclusively Jewish despite the Druze population having served in the Israeli Occupation Forces for years. [see The Use of Blacks in the South African Armed Forces by Kenneth W. Grundy 1981] Jane Corbin, who has form on the question of Palestine/Israel (having previously done a piece justifying Israel’s murderous attack on the Mavi Marmara – see Jane Corbin – the BBC’s Prostitute of the Airwaves) tells us, in a section entitled 'Aid to integration' that ‘ On the Gadsar base Mahmud and the other new recruits take the oath of allegiance to Israel. His parents and fiancee are there to see him swear on the Koran as he is given his own gun. "I'm proud of him - this is his choice and we back him. We are happy and he is happy," says his father, Jamil Kashua. Back at home in an Arab town in northern Israel there is a barbeque in Mahmud's honour. But he will only wear his uniform when he is in the family compound."A few guys saw me wearing the uniform and told me that I'm a traitor. I told them that's my own business but I don't care what others say," Mahmud says."If I'm a traitor then why is he living in this state?" Indeed. Why is his detractor living in a Jewish state and criticising it at the same time?Corbin tells us that ‘In contrast to many of his friends Mahmud gets a good salary as a soldier. Unlike Jewish recruits he can apply for a grant of land to set up his own home.’ What we are not told is that his Jewish compatriots have no need for a grant of land since it is theirs anyway as Israeli Jews. And just to emphasise the point, the BBC helpfully quotes Jamil as saying that ‘"Guys who go to the army have a good position and live comfortably," says Jamil. "The army supports them financially and their lives move forward." Such is the way of collaborators. Haneen Zoabi MK For most Israeli Palestinians the participation of Palestinians in the IOF is a source of shame not pride, an example of collaboration with the enemy. As Haneen Zoabi, Balad member of the Knesset (who the Zionists are trying to remove) said: "Ninety per cent of the Arabs who serve in the Israeli army don't have equality with Israelis. Israel does not need them to protect its security, it's a political issue - first to divide and rule." It is, as Haneen Zoabi explains because "Fifty-two to 54% of our Palestinian people in Israel are under the poverty line - and the government's policy of creating poverty obliges people to look for the only solution they can." That is the point the BBC deliberately skates over. Becoming collaborators in the Israeli army won’t make Arabs equal with Jewish citizens of what is a Jewish supremacist state. As Mohammed Ayashi, says ‘"Sometimes its hard because I am an Arab like them and they look down on me but in the end I am doing my job and I have to do this," Mohammed says. "Some people from the way they answer us you can tell they can't stand us - they look down on us with contempt." ‘In the end I’m doing my job’ how many war crimes have taken place under this rubric? Wasn’t that Eichman’s defence in his trial in 1961? Finnish Jewish soldiers outside a field synagogue a few miles from German troops If it wasn’t for the war between Britain and Nazi Germany and if TV had been available, we could have expected a BBC feature that could have been broadcast at the beginning of Operation Barbarossa on the extent of Jewish participation in the German army. If television had been around in 1941 then we can confidently expect that the BBC, true to its mission of impartiality, would have reported on the phenomenon of the Jewish soldiers who served either in or for the Jewish army, as the following story demonstrates. Not only did 150 thousand Jewish soldiers of mixed-race (Mischlinge) fight directly in Hitler’s army but full Jews even fought on Hitler’s side as part of the Finnish Army. (see The Jews who fought for Hitler: 'We did not help the Germans. We had a common enemy'), Ha’aretz 5.7.14 When Hitler Honored Jewish Soldiers and Werner Goldberg As Wiki explains: ‘Goldberg's story formed part of the 2006 documentary Hitler's Jewish Soldiers, a 58-minute film produced by Larry Price in association with the Israel Broadcasting Authority. Price was inspired by the 2002 book Hitler's Jewish Soldiers by Bryan Mark Rigg.’ Goldberg featured in an episode of the Yesterday TV series Nazi Collaborators, first screened in the UK in December 2010. But at least in Goldberg’s case, the BBC rightly described him as a collaborator. In the case of Israel’s army, those Palestinians who collaborate are considered heroes. Nor was Finland alone as far as Jewish soldiers were concerned. Hungary, a Nazi ally, was the only Axis country to send Jewish troops to the Eastern front [Hannah Arendt, Eichmann, The Banality of Evil, p. 195. Hitler's Jewish Soldiers by Jerry Klinger, describes the service of Mischlinge (half or quarter Jews) in the Nazi army. Leo Skurnik, a Jewish medical officer (second row, second from right), was awarded an Iron Cross "The Ideal German Soldier" "In hardly any people in the world is the instinct of self-preservation developed more strongly than in the so called "chosen."…What people, finally, has gone through greater upheavals than this one – and nevertheless issued from the mightiest catastrophes of mankind unchanged? What an infinitely tough will to live and preserve the species from these facts." Adolf Hitler3 – Mein Kampf4 In 1940, Unteroffizier Dieter Bergmann wrote to his Jewish grandmother, Elly Landesberg nee Moackrauer: The Jewish Blankett brothers, who all fought for Finland "Don’t you realize how much I’m with my whole being rooted in Germany. My life would be very sad without my homeland, without the wonderful German art, without the belief in Germany’s powerful past and the powerful future that awaits Germany. Do you think that I can tear that all out of my heart?...Don’t I also have an obligation to my parents, to my brother who showed his love to our Fatherland by dying a hero’s death on the battlefield….Someday, I want to be a German amongst Germans and no longer a second-class citizen only because my wonderful mother is Jewish."5 "Under traditional Jewish law, a child born to a Jewish mother, no matter whom the father may have been, is Jewish…. I am confused…. Who is a Jew? What is a Jew? When are you a Jew? What if you do not want to be a Jew? Can we choose?" "The Nuremberg Laws or Nurnberg Laws (German: Nürnberger Gesetze) of 1935 were anti-Semitic laws in Nazi Germany introduced at the annual Nuremberg Rally of the Nazi Party. After the takeover of power in 1933 by Hitler, Nazism became an official ideology incorporating scientific racism and anti-Semitism. There was a rapid growth in German legislation directed at Jews, such as the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service which banned "non-Aryans" from the civil-service." The Nuremberg Laws, as they became known, did not define a "Jew" as someone with particular religious beliefs. Instead, anyone who had three or four Jewish grandparents was defined as a Jew, regardless of whether that individual identified himself or herself as a Jew or belonged to the Jewish religious community. Many Germans who had not practiced Judaism for years found themselves caught in the grip of Nazi terror. Even people with Jewish grandparents who had converted to Christianity were defined as Jews."6 Leo Skurnik, left, and Salomon Klass The lack of a clear legal method of defining who was Jewish had, however, allowed some Jews to escape some forms of discrimination aimed at them. The enactment of laws identifying who was Jewish made it easier for the Nazis to enforce legislation restricting the basic rights of German Jews…. The Nurmberg Laws, intended to define who is a Jew and who is an Aryan, were deeply flawed. They were flawed, not just because of the "racial" separation they were intended to create between the Jew and the non-Jew, but because they failed to make clear what to do with the Mischlings. "The word Mischling means ‘half-caste, mongrel or hybrid’….The term was first applied to people with one black and one white parent in Germany’s African colonies. Some Germans at the time called these children the ‘Rehoboth bastards.’ In the 1920’s, when French colonial soldiers had affairs with women in German territories they occupied, the children who resulted were called Mischling. Hitler believed that the Jews brought these French Blacks to Germany to destroy the ‘White Race.’ …In 1935, the Nuremberg Laws created two new "racial" categories: the half-Jew (Jewish Mischling first degree), and the quarter –Jew (Jewish Mischling second degree). A half-Jew had two Jewish grandparents; a quarter –Jew had one. Since Nazi racial policy declared anyone of the Jewish religion a full Jew regardless of ancestry, most were by definition Christians." …After the advent of Nazi rule in 1933, the process of assimilation came to a halt, but the results of that assimilation, namely Mischlings, confounded many Nazis. Nazis were confused about Mischlings, since they were both Jewish and German. Adolf Eichmann, SS-Obersturmbannfueher and chief of the Jewish Evacuation Office of the Gestapo, acknowledged that the unclear racial position of Mischling temporarily protected them. For the Nazis, Mischling were also half or three-quarters German, and thus 50 percent or 75 percent valuable."7 The confused status of the Mischling resulted in confused responses. Werner Eisner, a half-Jew and severely wounded Wehrmacht veteran was deported to Auschwitz for sleeping with an Aryan. Dr. Hans Serelman, a German Jew, was also sent to a concentration camp. His crime, he donated his own blood to save a non-Jewish patient. In practice Mischlings German citizenship was stripped away. They were denied access to certain universities for advanced degrees including medicine and law. They were denied access to recreational facilities and civilian jobs. Mischlings were denied positions of authority over Aryans. They were excluded from some churches, even though they were baptized Christians. They were socially ostracized. "The Evangelische Landeskirche officially announced that "racially Jewish Christians have no place and no rights’ as members in the Protestant Church." 8 Being 50% Jewish, or only 25% Jewish, did not protect the Mischlings. Growing "racial" restrictions on Mischlings slowly constructed a bleak future. The sudden grouping of the Mischling with the Jew logically should have created a common link of sympathy and mutual support between the Mischling and the Jew. It did not. Most Mischlings did not identify with the Jewish community. Many had grown up as baptized Christians and even were themselves very anti-Semitic. They preferred to think of themselves as normal, as part of the whole of German fabric, as part of the "Volk". Their language, their culture, the societal relationships and schooling all had been German. Even for those who grew up knowing that they had had a parent who was Jewish, they preferred not be left behind and identified as Jewish. They yearned, worked and did everything within their capabilities to prove themselves as good, loyal members of the Germanic peoples. They needed to show the German world that their German blood was the dominant force that flowed in their veins. On the other hand, the pure Germans without the taint of Jewish blood, kept a closer eye on the Mischling. They kept an eye to see if any of the corrupting influence of Jewish blood showed itself. Historically, one of the ways for Jews to prove themselves more German than Jewish was to fight for the "Fatherland". Many Jews had served in the German and Austrian armies during World War I. Tens of thousands had died in that conflict, laying down their lives for the Kaiser and the Emperor. A large number of Jews rose to officer ranks, especially in the Austrian army. Thousands of Jews, in both armies, were decorated for bravery with the highest honors. Service in the armed forces, during World War I, had been a way for the Jew to gain access to greater acceptance, opportunity and to prove their loyalty to everything Germanic. As the Nazi political and war machine rumbled into life and rearmament, only fifteen years after the end of World War I, existence for the Jew and the Mischling became more threatening, more tenuous. For the full Jew, little could be done in the "racist" mania of authoritarian Germany. The Mischling faced a paradox. "During the war, many felt torn between the desire to belong, regain some of their lost pride, and protect themselves and their families through military service and the realization that to do so, they had to serve Hitler… Half-Jew Horst Geitner Wehrmacht service, in the early years of the war, protected them from the Gestapo. Ilse Korner wrote of her deceased husband, half-Jew and Lieutenant Hans Joachim Korner, ‘He wanted to distinguish himself through his bravery and willingness to fight as a soldier and thus, escape the persecution of the Nazis’…… their sense of pride made them seek every opportunity to be like everyone else. Most believed their meritorious service would convince their comrades and society to accept them as "normal."9 Mischlings disproportionally risked their lives on the battlefield to prove themselves to their comrades, officers and Nazi masters. Many were decorated with Nazi Germany’s highest military honors, including 20 who received the Ritterkreuz.10 Wehrmacht soldier Helmut Kruger’s mother was Jewish. "He did all he could to prove his loyalty to Germany by showing his bravery in battle. He won the EKII, the EKI, and the Golden Wound Badge. His brother, Reinhardt, claimed that he was brave soldier only because he was a Mischling fearing to be called a "cowardly Jew (feiger Jude)’. The ironic paradox; ‘Kruger stated that if it was not for his Jewish mother he would have joined the Party and the SS."11 Mischling status greatly restricted upward mobility in German society and in the army. Mischlings, with the cooperation of their families, sought to change the official classification of who they were. They wanted to be recognized as Germans. One of the methods was to obtain legal waivers, Genehmigungs, granted by German officialdom – a toleration of their Mischling status because of their particular service and benefit to the Reich. The most sought after legal solution to Mischling disqualifications was for a legal review and determination of pure blood, racially untainted with Jewish blood, the Deutschblutigkietserkarung. Hermann Goering had said it was he who decided who was a Jew or not. The reality, the decision as to who ultimately was a Jew could only be granted by Adolf Hitler. Hitler reviewed each situation personally. With the Deutschblutigkietserkarung , formerly classified Mischlings were cleared of any Jewish taint. They could and did advance to high administrative and military positions. Half –Jew Field Marshall Erhard Milch "In 1933 Frau Clara Milch went to her son-in-law, Fritz Heinrich Hermann, police president of Hagen and later S.S. general, and gave him an affidavit stating that her deceased uncle, Carl Brauer, rather than her Jewish husband Anton Milch, had fathered her six children. After SA Colonel Theo Croneiss denounced (Erhard) Milch12 to Goering, Goering took Milch’s mother’s affidavit to Hitler. In 1935, Hitler accepted the mother’s testimony and instructed Goering to have Dr. Kurt Meyer, head of the Reich Office for Genealogy Research, complete the paperwork. On 7 August 1935, Goering wrote Meyer to change Milch’s father in his documents and issue him papers certifying his pure Aryan descent. After the war, according to one Goering’s interrogators, John E. Dolibois, Goering was proud of his action to help half Jew Milch remain in Luftwaffe…. Milch became a Field Marshall who ran the Luftwaffe – in charge of planning, production and strategy. Milch’s daughter was married to an SS General."13 A large number of former Mischlings rose to high rank: 2 Field Marshals, 15 Generals, 2 full Generals, 8 Lieutenant Generals, and 5 Major Generals. Former Mischling were Nazi party members – 4 were full Jews, 15 were half Jews and 7 were quarter Jews. - Of the estimated 150,000 Mischlings, half Jews and quarter Jews, in the Nazi armies, most never rose to officer levels. Wehrmacht soldier Joachim Lowen told his story. "My own brother (Heinz) went to the Gestapo and claimed that our mother was a slut and had been a prostitute. The Gestapo reviewed our case and declared us Deutschblutig (of German blood)." Mother was destroyed – Heinz died on the Russian front, he was a oberscharfuher of the Waffen SS."14 Yet some Mischlings and their families refused to abandon their own but were abandoned by the Jewish world. Of the many ironies of life in pre-Nazi and during the 12 years of Nazi Germany’s existence, Jewish attitudes towards the Mischling were equally confused. Bryan Mark Rigg, the noted historian, in his book, Hitler’s Children, interviewed 1,671 Mischlings. 60% were Halachicly Jewish. He commented about those who had Jewish self identification: "Half-Jews with Jewish fathers were more likely to feel a connection with Judaism than those with Jewish mothers, who by Halakah were Jews. This fact shows that Halacha in many respects was out of step with social reality – namely, that a father’s religious convictions influenced a child’s upbringing more than the mother’s did. Perhaps this was because of the generally patriarchal nature of most German households. This corroborated by the fact that most in this study who were circumcised had Jewish fathers. "15 Jewish traditional values frowned on intermarriage. "Helmuth Kopp remembered how, on the few occasions he saw him during the 1920’s and early 1930’s, his Jewish grandfather, Louis Kaulbars, hit him with a whip and called him goy. Although… truncated (16,476 more characters in archive)