Lives of Hitler's Jewish Soldiers - Untold Tales of Men of Jewish Descent Who Fought for the Third Reich

Bryan Mark Rigg

University Press of Kansas

2009

314 páginas

10h 28m

ISBN-10: 0700616381

From Publishers Weekly:

Several thousand Jews and over 100,000 others of Jewish descent served in the Wehrmacht from 1939 to 1945. Rigg dips into material he mined for Hitler's Jewish Soldiers to present a selection of personal histories. Many enlisted to protect their families, often in vain; Rigg tells heartrending stories of soldiers risking their lives in battle as relatives disappeared into extermination camps. When police grew suspicious of his forged papers, Karl-Heinz Löwy enlisted in the elite Waffen-SS, apparently its only Jewish member, and fought heroically. Helmut Krüger and Karl-Heinz Schleffler were serving faithfully when Hitler ordered all half-Jews discharged in 1940. Although they and the others discharged spent much of the war in dreadful labor camps, far more of them survived than thousands who appealed successfully to remain in service. Readers expecting expressions of shame will be surprised—most felt proud of their wartime experiences. Few admitted knowing of the Holocaust, but all knew Jews were being mistreated and felt helpless to change matters. As Rigg compellingly shows, these were men dealing with crushingly stressful circumstances as best they could. 64 photos. (Mar. 3)
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Review:

"Rigg has done exhaustive research that will force scholars once again to confront the nuances and complexity of life in Nazi Germany. His oral histories not only provide a poignant glimpse at the human stories behind the impersonal facade of Nazi racial laws, but also show just how these individuals - far from passive victims - responded in an effort to shape and influence their own fate. Rigg's evidence reveals the variety of strategies they employed to navigate the ambiguities of the Nazi racial state." Stephen G. Fritz, author of Frontsoldaten: The German Soldier in World War II "Fascinating and powerful." W.E.B. Griffin, author of The Brotherhood of War"