The German Nazi Party is responsible for some of the greatest atrocities in all history, notably the Holocaust in which around 6 million Jews were killed. But in Nazi Germany what happened to mixed race, or ‘Mischlinge’ people - that is people who were partly Jewish and partly not Jewish by descent? Seth Eislund explores this question by looking at the work of three historians.
Erhard Milch, who was in charge of Nazi Germany’s aircraft production in World War II. His father was Jewish and his mother was not Jewish.
From its inception in 1920, the German Nazi Party saw the Jews as an “anti-race” that threatened to destroy the purity of German blood. Following Adolf Hitler’s assumption of power in 1933, the Nazi government legalized its racist anti-Semitism with the 1935 Nuremberg Laws. In addition to discriminating against Jews, these laws created a racial category called “Mischling,”[1] or “mixed-race,” for Germans of partial Jewish descent. There were different classifications of Mischling depending on how much “Jewish blood” a person possessed. A “full Jew” had three or more Jewish grandparents, a “Mischling First Degree” (a “half-Jew”) had two Jewish grandparents, and a “Mischling Second Degree” (a “quarter-Jew”) had one Jewish grandparent.[2] While Nazi legislation defined who a Mischling was, what was the regime’s policy towards Mischlinge, and how was this policy enforced? Historians Peter Monteath, Bryan Mark Rigg, and Thomas Pegelow provide compelling answers to this question. While the three scholars use different methodologies to examine Nazi policy towards Mischlinge, they agree that such policy was inconsistent and vacillated between persecution, semi-toleration, and racial reclassification.
Monteath’s Approach: A Social Analysis
Drawing on extensive oral history research, Peter Monteath argues that Nazi legislation towards Mischlinge displayed a clear disconnect between ideology and practice, and that Mischlinge consequently lived anxious and tumultuous lives. Monteath observes that there were two main schools of thought regarding Nazi Mischling policy. The first school tended towards a pragmatic integration of Mischlinge into German society. This form of thinking led to the opening of the draft to Mischlinge in 1935, and the declaration of “mixed marriages” as privileged and protected against anti-Semitic persecution in 1938.[3] The second school of thought, however, was more radical. Its adherents saw Mischlinge as equivalent to Jews, and therefore they needed to be removed from Germany. These party radicals pushed for violent measures against Jews, such as pogroms like Kristallnacht.[4] These integrationist and radical schools of thought manifested themselves in local Nazi policy. For instance, certain German cities, like Dortmund and Hamburg, gave illegitimate half-Jewish children a “German upbringing,” while Königsberg saw such children as thoroughly “semitised” in blood and mentality.[5] Furthermore, at the infamous Wannsee Conference of 1942, its attendees agreed on conflicting resolutions to “the Mischling Question.” It was agreed that half-Jews should be treated as “full Jews,” while Mischlinge married to Germans with Aryan blood should be exempted from being treated as Jews.[6] Similar to the Nazi government’s inconsistent policy towards them, Mischlinge lived uncertain and anxious lives. They existed in a grey area between the racial categories of “Jewish” and “Aryan,” and faced persecution ranging from daily slights to the deportation and mass murder of relatives and friends.[7] Thus, Monteath convincingly argues that Nazi Mischling policy and the lives of Mischlinge were incoherent and chaotic.
Rigg’s Approach: Mischlinge in the Military
While Monteath does an excellent job of describing the specificities and constant uncertainty of Mischling life and policy in Nazi Germany, his analysis overlooks a key aspect of the Nazi regime: the military. However, Bryan Mark Rigg provides a thorough examination of Nazi policy towards Mischling soldiers in the Third Reich, which he calls “a maze of confusion and contradictions.”[8] According to Rigg, the Nazis either persecuted or tolerated Mischling soldiers based on their perceived loyalty and importance to the regime, which varied widely on an individual basis. Rigg states that despite their Jewish ancestry, half-Jews and quarter-Jews were legally allowed to serve in the German military until 1940.[9] However, they were forbidden from becoming non-commissioned officers or officers without the personal approval of Adolf Hitler. Hence, due to their Jewish blood, Mischling soldiers were not allowed to advance in rank. Their Aryan commanders, who were their superiors in rank and blood, were destined to command them. Thus, the Nazis saw Mischlinge as useful to their military goals but refused to treat them as equal to Aryan soldiers due to their Jewish ancestry. However, Mischling soldiers were treated far better than their Jewish parents, who lost their jobs and civil liberties due to Nazi legislation.[10] This demonstrates a disconnect between the Nazi treatment of “full Jews” and Mischlinge. While a “full Jew’s” blood was completely tainted, a Mischling possessed some Aryan blood and could therefore serve the Third Reich. While Hitler eventually decided to expel all half-Jews from the German military in 1940, he made several exceptions. Hitler personally signed thousands of special permission forms that “allowed [half-Jews] who had proven themselves in battle… to [remain] with their units.”[11] This demonstrates that Hitler approved of veteran half-Jewish soldiers more than he did ordinary half-Jewish soldiers, as their extensive service demonstrated their loyalty and utility to the regime. Thus, Rigg makes the potent observation that, in military terms, Nazi policy towards Mischlinge was influenced by an individual soldier’s perceived devotion and significance to the regime based on their decoration and experience in combat.
Pegelow’s Approach: The Language of Nazi Racial Categories
Although he reaches similar conclusions to Monteath and Rigg, Thomas Pegelow’s analysis differs from theirs. Instead of examining the social or military aspects of Nazi policy towards Mischlinge, he examines the language behind Nazi racial categories, arguing that “Racial discourses were not static, but were constantly remade.”[12] Pegelow focuses on the Reich Kinship Office (RSA), which was created in 1933 with the mission of “determining people’s ‘racial descent’ in cases of doubt.”[13] The RSA’s decisions about a person’s racial descent had severe consequences: being designated as “Aryan” resulted in one’s safety while being designated as “Jewish” resulted in one’s death in a concentration camp. Mischlinge knew this, and many tried to avoid persecution by publicly disputing their Jewish ancestry with the RSA.[14] Pegelow’s portrayal of Mischlinge corroborates Monteath’s argument that Mischlinge lived frantic lives due to their ambiguous status in Nazi policy. Consequently, Pegelow argues that the RSA committed “linguistic violence” against Mischlinge. This was because the RSA constructed racial categories through language, such as the German Volk and the Jewish race, and it used language to determine who was a member of each group.[15] The RSA excluded some Mischlinge from the Volk, thereby condemning them to persecution and death. However, they also declared 4,100 Mischlinge, or 7.9% of all Mischlinge who petitioned for racial evaluations, to be legally Aryan.[16] Thus, the RSA’s classification of over 4,000 Mischlinge as Aryan demonstrates that Nazi policy towards Mischlinge was inconsistent. The category of “Mischling” was fluid and ambiguous, and it’s meaning changed depending on the individual Nazi official who interpreted it. Some Nazis associated Mischlinge with the Aryan side of the racial spectrum, while others saw Mischlinge and Jews as identical.
Conclusion
Peter Monteath, Bryan Mark Rigg, and Thomas Pegelow’s research demonstrates that Nazi policy was inconsistent towards Mischlinge, as it shifted between persecution, quasi-toleration, and conflicting racial definitions. According to Monteath, Nazi officials contested the status of Mischlinge: some party members advocated for the integration of Mischlinge into German life, while others saw them as “full Jews” and pushed for their removal from Germany. Mischlinge lived similarly incongruous and anxious lives: they suffered varying degrees of persecution and constantly worried that they would face imprisonment and death. Similarly, Rigg observes that even Hitler’s policy towards Mischlinge serving in the German military was contradictory. While Hitler discriminated against Mischling soldiers by preventing them from serving as NCOs or officers, he signed thousands of forms that allowed battle-hardened Mischlinge to continue fighting during the Second World War. Lastly, Pegelow argues that Nazi racial categories, such as “German” and “Jewish,” were linguistically constructed and therefore subject to constant change. Nazi functionaries defined Mischlinge, who occupied an uncertain place within the Nazi racial hierarchy, as either Aryan or Jewish based solely on their individual assumptions. Thus, the inconsistency of Nazi policy towards Mischlinge reflected the latter’s ambiguous status in the Third Reich. For the Nazis, Mischlinge were members of a contradictory and perplexing racial category, a bizarre mix of the most superior race and the most inferior race, and Nazi policy towards them was equally paradoxical.
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[1] In German, “Mischling” is singular and “Mischlinge” is plural.
[2] Peter Monteath, “The ‘Mischling’ Experience in Oral History,” The Oral History Review 35, no. 2 (2008): 142, www.jstor.org/stable/20628029.
[3] Monteath, 142-143.
[4] Monteath, 143.
[5] Monteath, 144.
[6] Monteath, 144-145.
[7] Monteath, 154.
[8] Bryan Mark Rigg, “Hitler’s Jewish Soldiers,” in Gray Zones: Ambiguity and Compromise in the Holocaust and Its Aftermath, ed. Jonathan Petropoulos and John K. Roth (New York: Berghahn Books, 2012), 123.
[9] Rigg, 119-121.
[10] Rigg, 119-120.
[11] Rigg, 121.
[12] Thomas Pegelow, “Determining ‘People of German Blood’, ‘Jews’ and ‘Mischlinge’: The Reich Kinship Office and the Competing Discourses and Powers of Nazism, 1941-1943,” Contemporary European History 15, no. 1 (2006): 43, www.jstor.org/stable/20081294.
[13] Pegelow, 44.
[14] Pegelow, 45.
[15] Pegelow, 46.
[16] Pegelow, 64.
Bibliography
Monteath, Peter. “The ‘Mischling’ Experience in Oral History.” The Oral History Review 35, no. 2 (2008): 139-58. Accessed April 23, 2020. www.jstor.org/stable/20628029.
Pegelow, Thomas. “Determining ‘People of German Blood’, ‘Jews’ and ‘Mischlinge’: The Reich
Kinship Office and the Competing Discourses and Powers of Nazism, 1941-1943.” Contemporary European History 15, no. 1 (2006): 43-65. Accessed April 23, 2020. www.jstor.org/stable/20081294.
Rigg, Bryan Mark. “Hitler’s Jewish Soldiers.” In Gray Zones: Ambiguity and Compromise in the Holocaust and Its Aftermath, edited by Jonathan Petropoulos and John K. Roth, 118-126. New York: Berghahn Books, 2012.
