CHAPTER 7: EXEMPTIONS FROM THE RACIAL LAWS GRANTED BY HITLER
1. Many interviewees, fellow students, and academics have expressed this view.
2. Ibid.
3. Hamann, pp. 71-77; Kershaw, Profiles in Power, p. 19; Redlich, pp. 11-13; Victor, pp. 9, 13, 16, 123.
4. Discussion with Dr. Fritz Redlich at his home in Connecticut on 23 September 2000. See also Monologe im Fuhrerhauptquartier, 1941-1944, p. 357.
5. Kershaw, Hitler, 1889-1936, p. xxv.
6. Hamann, pp. 8, 73-76; Redlich, pp. 6-8, 11, 223-224, 255; Robert G. L. Waite, The Psychopathic God Adolf Hitler (New York, 1977), p. 131.
7. Victor, p. 8; Redlich, pp. 34, 43, 46, 82, 99; Bormann Lang, p. 119.
8. Hamann, p. 76; Maser, p. 21; Bormann Lang, pp. 129-30. For more about Patrick Hitler, see Kershaw, Hitler, 1889-1936, pp. 8-9, 604 n. 28.
9. Redlich, pp. 11, 224, 255.
10. Maser, pp. 15, 36-38; Redlich, p. 6.
11. Redlich, pp. 7-8; Maser, p. 17; Victor, p. 20; Heiden, p. 43.
12. Kershaw, Hitler, 1889-1936, pp. 351-53; Redlich, pp. 79-80, 285-86; Victor, p. 154.
13. Redlich, pp. 9, 257; Maser, p. 61; Heiden, p. 43.
14. Maser, pp. 315, 598-622. Maser is convinced that Hitler fathered an illegitimate son, Jean Marie Loret, during World War I.
15. Waite, pp. 33, 127-37.
16. Kershaw, Hitler, 1889-1936, p. ll; Redlich, pp. 10, 255-56; Victor, p. 22.
17. Maser, pp. 36-37.
18. Kershaw, Hitler, 1889-1936, p. 13; Hamann, p. 16; Redlich, p. 258; Maser, p. 329; Victor, pp. 19-20, 23, 29.
19. Victor, pp. 20, 22.
20. Redlich, pp. 7-8, 223, 256, 281; Victor, p. 20.
21. Kershaw, Profiles in Power, p. 19; Redlich, pp. 6, 11-13, 256; Ralph Giordano, Wenn Hitler den Krieg gewonnen hatte (Hamburg, 1989), p. 103; Victor, pp. 20; Waite, pp. 33, 127-37.
22. Kershaw, Hitler, 1889-1936, p. 7; Hamann, p. 268; Maser, p. 14.
23. Kershaw, Hitler, 1889-1936, p. 7.
24. Victor, p. 17; Hansjurgen Koehler, Inside Information (London, 1940); Hans Frank, Im Angesicht des Galgens (Schliersee, 1955).
25. Victor, pp. 17, 155.
26. Koehler, pp. 145-49. Koehler claims that while he worked under Heydrich, he came across a file created by the chancellors of the Austrian Republic, Engelbert Dollfuss and Kurt von Schuschnigg, both political enemies of Hitler, that claimed that Hitler's grandmother had worked in the Rothschilds' mansion in Vienna, where she became pregnant.
27. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Niklas Frank, 16.10.1996, T-227. See also Maser, pp. 46-47, 269. Frank had even claimed after the war that he was part Jewish. Joseph E. Persico, Nuremberg: Infamy on Trial (New York, 1994), p. 22. Frank's son, Niklas, states that no documents have been found to prove that his family has Jewish ancestry. BA-MA, BMRS, interview N. Frank.
28. Kershaw, Hitler, 1889-1936, p. 9.
29. Waite, p. 127.
30. Supposedly, no records are available to confirm or disprove whether there was a Jewish family by the name of Frankenberger in Graz during this time. According to Kershaw, there were no Jews called Frankenberger in Graz during the 1830S. Moreover, Jews were not allowed in the whole of Styria (Steiermark) because they were not allowed to live in that part of Austria until the 1860s. Kershaw, Hitler, 1889-1936, p. 8. See also Redlich, p. 12; Maser, p. 27.
31. Victor, p. 17.
32. Hamann, pp. 72-74; Redlich, pp. 11, 257; Waite, pp. 130-31; Speer, p. 117; Bracher, pp. 58, 64. There has been much speculation that the town was destroyed by the Russians after the war. The sources are unclear on this point. It is possible that both the Russians and Hitler did their fair share of destruction for their own reasons. Most likely, as mentioned earlier, Hitler had documents from Dollersheim removed and destroyed. Hitler may have known that the parish priest of Dollersheim had altered Hitler's father's birth register by marking out the name Schicklgruber, "replacing 'out of wedlock' by 'within wedlock, ' and entering 'Georg Hitler' in the hitherto empty box for the father's name." Kershaw, Hitler, 1889-1936, p. 5; Redlich, pp. 7-8. See also Maser, pp. 23-24.
33. Redlich, p. 11.
34. Kershaw, Hitler, 1889-1936, p. 86. Hitler's evasion of the Austrian draft does not mean he was a coward. His war record as a dispatch runner in the German army during World War I, where he was wounded three times and awarded both the EKII and EKI (unusual for a corporal), was proof that he was indeed a brave soldier. Kershaw, Hitler, 1889-1936, pp. 91-97; Redlich, pp. 40, 259; O'Neill, p. 5; Keegan, Mask of Command, p. 236.
35. Bormann Lang, p. 119.
36. Victor, pp. 13-14, 17, 147.
37. Redlich, p. 320. See also Monologe im Fuhrerhauptquartier, 1941-1944, p. 310.
38. Waite, p. 129. See also Monologe im Fuhrerhauptquartier, 1941-1944, p. 293.
39. Secretary of Treasury (Reichsfinanzminister) Matthias Erzberger was the leader of the Catholic Zentrum party and was perhaps one of the most hated members of the Middle by the Right in Germany. He had advocated peace at the end of World War I and had attacked the military leadership in the Reichstag during the war. He was assassinated in August 1921. Bauer, p. 78. Craig, Prussian Army, pp. 325, 368.
40. Persico, pp. 327-29; Redlich, pp. 13, 320; Kershaw, Hitler, 1889-1936, p. 569; Friedlander, p. 150; Victor, pp. 18, 125.
41. Redlich, pp. 320, 116, n. 72.
42. BA-B, NS 6/ 487, Bl. 4. See also Maser, p. 388.
43. Redlich, pp. 3, 223-24.
44. Ibid., p. 11.
45. Redlich, pp. 11-12, 72; Giordano, p. 103.
46. Maser, p. 323; Redlich, pp. 78, 284.
47. Hamann, pp. 53-57; Redlich, pp. 22, 115, 323; Victor, p. 41.
48. Heeresadjutant bei Hitler, pp. 31-32.
49. Kershaw, Hitler, 1889-1936, p. 96; Bauer, p. 81; Stern, pp. 161-62; Maser, p. 144; Joachim c. Fest, Hitler (Frankfurt, 1987), p. 103.
50. Kershaw, Hitler, 1889-1936, p. 348; Cooper, German Army, p. 20; Frei, p. 14; Victor, p. 78. Hitler not only knew about the homosexuality of the commander of the SA, Ernst Rohm, but also knew that several of Rohm's lieutenants (e.g., SA leader Edmund Heines) were also "notorious" homosexuals. Kershaw, Hitler, 1889-1936, p. 514; Redlich, pp. 98-99, 273; Friedlander, p. 208.
51. Kershaw, Hitler, 1889-1936, p. 348; Bormann Lang, p. 65.
52. The name Izzy or Isi, derived from the Jewish name Itzig, may have achieved its popular usage as denoting a "dirty Jew" from books such as Gustav Freytag's Debit and Credit (Soll und Haben), published in 1855. Freytag's widely read book portrayed the Jewish merchant Veitalltzig as everything a Nazi would view a Jew as being: dirty, dishonest, and evil. Course on German literature taken with Professor Liselotte Davis at Yale University, spring 1994.
53. Gunther Deschner, Reinhard Heydrich (Berlin, 1987), p. 67; Victor, p. 146. Another biography on Heydrich, which thoroughly deals with Heydrich's supposed Jewish ancestry, was written by Shlomo Aronson: Reinhard Heydrich und die Fruhgeschichte van Gestapo und SD (Stuttgart, 1971). This book is often referred to in order to refute the claim that Heydrich may have been Jewish. See Aronson, pp. 12-17. Historian and professor Hugh Trevor-Roper of Oxford believed that Heydrich did have Jewish ancestry. See G. S. Graber, The Life and Times of Reinhard Heydrich (New York, 1980), p. 81. See also Cornberg and Steiner, p. 161.
54. BA-MA, N 656/9, Bl. 9, p. 3.
55. Call um MacDonald, The Killing of SS Obergruppenfuhrer Reinhard Heydrich (New York, 1989), p. 11.
56. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Joachim Schaper, 25.05.1997, T-351. This seemed to be the general belief in Halle. See Edouard Calic, Reinhard Heydrich: The Chilling Story of the Man Who Masterminded the Nazi Death Camps (New York), 1985, p. 21.
57. Calic, p. 22. The Gauleiter of Halle, Rudolf Jordan, believed that Heydrich's father was Jewish. He cited Riemanns Musik Lexikon from 1916 for proof. He stated that next to Bruno Heydrich's name was the statement that his last name should actually be "Suss." BA-B, NS 22/1051.
58. Felix Kersten, The Kersten Memoirs, 1940-1945 (New York, 1957), pp. 96-97. Joachim Fest believes that Kersten's memoirs have "so far stood up to all checks." Fest believes that they prove that Himmler definitely believed that Heydrich was of Jewish descent. Fest, Face, pp. 335-37, n. II. Professor Richard Evans of Cambridge University believes Kersten's memoirs are full of errors and need to be used with caution. Calic believes that Kersten only "tried to exonerate the SS by claiming that" Heydrich was responsible for the mass murder of Jews and that his murderous lust to kill Jews resulted from "an inferiority complex produced" by his knowledge that he was partially Jewish (Calic, p. 52). This study believes that the memoirs can be used to show that there were many around Heydrich, among them Hitler and Himmler, who may have believed he was Jewish, which must have had a severe effect on Heydrich.
59. Speer, p. 146.
60. Fest, Face, p. 101.
61. Helmut Maurer, Van Mensch zu Mensch. In Canaris' Abwehr (Berlin, 1975), p. 125; Snyder, p. 145.
62. Maurer, pp. 124-26; Charles Wighton, Heydrich: Hitler's Most Evil Henchman (London, 1962), p. 25; Fest, Face, p. 105 n. 26; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Alexander Stahlberg, 3-4.12.1994, T-68; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Theodor Oberlander, 19.09.1994, T-23; Engelmann, pp. 210-11; Walter Schellenberg, The Schellenberg Memoirs (London, 1956), p. 207. Schellenberg's memoirs need to be looked at with caution, since he was fighting for his life when he wrote them and was doing everything he could to cover up his past. Another dubious work that mentions Heydrich's possible Jewish past is that of SS officer Wilhelm Hoettl. See Wilhelm Hoettl, The Secret Front: The Story of Nazi Political Espionage (New York, 1954), pp. 20-30. See Hilberg, p. 677, about Hoettl.
63. BA-MA, N 179, Milchs Tagebucher, Notiz vom 31.01.1933.
64. Office of the United States Chief Counsel for Prosecution of Axis Criminality, ed., U.S.A. Military Tribunals: Case No. 1-2, Nuremberg Trials (Nuremberg, 1949), p. 1776.
65. BA-MA, N 179, Milchs Tagebucher, Notiz vom 01.11.1933, Bl. 46; BA-B, R 15.09/90, Bl. 2, Goring an den Leiter der Reichsstelle fur Sippenforschung, 07.08.1935; BA-MA, BMRS, File Erhard Milch, Heft III; BA-MA, Pers 8-385 Horst Boog uber Erhard Milch, Die Militarelite, p. 351; Wistrich, p. 210; Heiden, p. 500.
66. Williamson Murray, Luftwaffe (Baltimore, 1985), pp. 6-7.
67. Corum, Luftwaffe, pp. 161-62. See also Murray, p. 9.
68. Corum, Luftwaffe, p. 181.
69. Cooper, German Air-Force, p. 13.
70. Adam R. A. Claasen, Hitler's Northern War: The Luftwaffe's Ill-Fated Campaign, 1940-1945 (Kansas, 2001), pp. 99-100.
7 I. Ibid., pp. 121, 140.
72. Ibid., p. 140.
73. Joel S. A. Hayward, Stopped at Stalingrad: The Luftwaffe and Hitler's Defeat in the East, 1942-1943 (Kansas, 1998), p. 286.
74. Hayward, pp. 286-310; Murray, p. 148.
75. Heiden, p. 352.
76. Hajo Herrmann, Eagle's Wings (England, 1991), pp. 38-43; James S. Corum, The Roots of Blitzkrieg (Kansas, 1992), pp. 144-68; Corum, Luftwaffe, pp. 30, 34, 52, 59-61, 125-27, 142-46, 180; James S. Corum, "The Old Eagle as Phoenix: The Luftstreitkrufte Creates an Operational Air War Doctrine, 1919-1920, " Air Power History, (1992): 13-21; Cooper, German Air-Force, pp. 39, 379-89; Dr. A. Baeumker, Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Fuhrung der deutschen Luftfahrttechnik im ersten halben Jahrhundert 1900-1945, Heft XXXXIV der Schriftenreihe "Langfristiges Planen der Forschung und Entwicklung"(Juli 1971); Helmut Wilberg, Absehliefiender flieger=Erfahrungsberieht uber die Schlacht in flandern (Gedruckt in der Buch- und Steindruckerei der Artillerie-fliegerschule Ost I); Hildebrand, pp. 513-14.
77. Corum, Roots of Blitzkrieg, p. 152.
78. Ibid., p. 153.
79. Ibid., p. 151.
80. Ibid., p. 162. Wilberg was instrumental in making arrangements with the Soviets to allow German pilots to train at the Russian air base of Lipetsk.
81. Ibid., p. 167. The manual was called Luftwaffe Regulation 16, The Conduct of Air Operations (Luftkriegsfuhrung).
82. Ibid., p. 168.
83. The Condor Legion "comprised of four fighter-bomber, four fighter, one reconnaissance, and two seaplane squadrons detached from the Luftwaffe." Craig, Prussian Army, p. 487.
84. BA-MA, N 76I!7, Bl. 2, Bericht General Erwin Jaenecke; Herbert Molly Mason Jr., The Rise of the Luftwaffe (New York, 1973), pp. 168-71, 218-21; Corum, Luftwaffe, pp. 147, 183-84, 219-21. The office in Berlin that conducted the operations for the Condor Legion was called Sonderstab W (Special Office W; the W is for Wilberg).
85. BA-MA, N 761/7, Bl. 1-3, Bericht General Erwin Jaenecke.
86. BA-MA, BMRS, File Achim von Bredow, Heft II, Bl.55, Bredow an seine Mutter, 24.10.1941.
87. General Studnitz commanded the Eighty-seventh Infantry Division that invaded Russia in 1941 with Field Marshal Ritter von Leeb's Army Group North.
88. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Wilhelm von Gwinner, 17.11.1994, T-53; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Wilhelm von Gwinner, 16.12.1996, T-280.
89. BA-MA, N 379/ 260, Lebram an Ruge, 10.04.1976.
90. BA-MA, N 379/ 260, Lebram an Ruge, 10'04.1976; BA-MA, N 328/32, Forste an Ehrhardt, 12.12.56.
91. Cajus Bekker, Hitler's Naval War (New York, 1977), p. 70; M. J. Whitley, Destroyer! German Destroyers in World War II (Maryland, 1983), pp. 118, 130; BA-MA, BMRS, File Georg Langheld. For example, from 10 October 1942 until 9 April 1943, Langheld was fleet commander of the Fourth Destroyer Flotilla. From January 1944 until April 1944, he was fleet commander of the Eighth Destroyer Flotilla, and from 20 April 1944 until 10 May 1945, he was fleet commander of the Fifth Destroyer Flotilla.
92. Kurt Pritzkoleit, Die Neuen Herren (Munchen, 1955), pp. 96-97; Meyer, p. 152; Corn berg and Steiner, p. 156.
93. Friedlander, pp. 52-53, 153; Stoltzfus, Resistance, p. viii; Corn berg and Steiner, p. 159.
94. BA-B, R 21/874-878, Bl. 103.
95. Lorzer and Goring had served together during World War I as pilots and were good friends.
96. BA-MA, BMRS, File Lt. Franzel, Bl. 2.
97. Meyer, p. 152; Gerhard Bracke, Melitta Grafin Stauffenberg. Das Leben einer Fliegerin (Munchen, 1990); BA-MA, BMRS, File H. Lange. She flew over twenty-five hundred Sturzfluge with the Stuka dive-bombers Ju 87 and Ju 88. Goring also awarded her the Gold Military Flyer Medal with diamonds and rubies. In 1945, she was shot down by an American fighter.
98. Nazism, 1919-1945, vol. 4, p. 31.
99. Oberfusilier is a private.
100. General von Briesen and Keitel were good friends, which must have also played a role in helping Rudiger von Briesen to get the Genehmigung. This especially could have been the case, since Hitler thought highly of General von Briesen. See Keitel, p. 95.
101. BA-A, Sammlung Judische Soldaten, Oberst v. Briesen, Kommandant von Prag, an einen ungenannten Regimentskommandeur, 07.11.1940; BA-MA, BMRS, File v. Briesen.
102. Thomas, p. 103, n. 39. Nevertheless, Raeder's son-in-law found it advisable to live abroad during the Third Reich.
103. Erich Raeder, Mein Leben. Von 1935 bis Spandau 1955 (Tubingen, 1957), p. 112.
104. BA-B, NS 6/78, Bl. 13-14, Der Stellvertreter des Fuhrers an Gauleiter des Gaues Schleswig-Holstein der NSDAP, Pg. Hinrich Lohse, 03.09.1938, Abschrift von Schreiben Hitlers uber Konteradmiral a.D. Karl Kuhlenthal, 06.07.1938.
105. BA-MA, N 328/20, Kuhlenthal an Forste, 28.10.1950.
106. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Gerhart von Gierke, 05.04.1997, T-344; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Rolf von Gierke, 29.11.1997, T-414.
107. Information gained from Dr. Georg Meyer of the Militargeschichtliches Forschungsamt (Military Research Center), Potsdam/Freiburg, March 1998, "Gluckliche Mischung aus preuBischem Charme und judischer Bescheidenheit."
108. Bernd Gericke, ed., Die lnhaber des Deutschen Kreuzes in Gold, des Deutschen Kreuzes in Silber der Kriegsmarine (Osnabruck, 1993), p. 201.
109. BA-MA, N 328/32, Raeder an Katz, 06.01.1940.
110. Ibid., Bestatigung fur Katz, 06.01.1940.
111. Lieutenant field marshal (Feldmarschalleutnant) is a general's rank. It is the equivalent to the British rank of lieutenant general (Generalleutnant in the Wehrmacht) and was used in the Habsburg monarchy until 1918. From 1918 until 1920, it was used in the Volkswehr of Austria. Afterward, the rank was not used throughout the 1920s and early 1930s. In 1933, the Austrian military (Osterreichisches Bundesheer) reinstated the rank until its incorporation into the Wehrmacht in March of 1938. See 1918-1968 Die Streitkrdfte der Republik Osterreich. Katalog zur Sonderausstellung im Heeresgeschichtlichen Museum Wien 1968 (hrsg.), Heeresgeschichtlichen Museum/Militarwissenschaftlichen Institut Wien (Wien, 1968), pp. 149-57.
112. Johann Friedlander distinguished himself on the General Staff before and during World War I. After 1928, he "headed the defense ministry's department of training, equipment and education." In 1936, he was transferred to the inspector general's office. He retired in 1937. Schmidl, p. 148.
113. As the Russians invaded Poland, where many of the death camps were located, the Nazis evacuated the camps and forced the inmates to walk long distances to concentration camps in the West. During these forced marches, called "death marches, " many of the inmates died of exhaustion and disease. Many also were executed on the side of the road.
114. Senekowitsch, Feldmarschalleutnant Johann Friedlander, pp. 20-28; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Posselt.
115. Office of the United States Chief Counsel for Prosecution of Axis Criminality, ed., Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, Supplement B (Washington, D.C.), 1946, p. 1, 246. This man was probably Ribbentrop's personal physician, Dr. Oscar Bosch. According to family friends, Bosch's contact with Ribbentrop saved Bosch's mother. BA-MA, BMRS, File Oscar Bosch, Bl. 4-5. If it was not Bosch, then it might have been SS Captain Thorner. He was Ribbentrop's secretary in London and a "12.5 percent Jew." Ribbentrop had helped Thorner by taking his case personally to Hitler. John Weitz, Hitler's Diplomat: The Life and Times of Joachim von Ribbentrop (New York, 1992), p. 132.
116. Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression: Supplement B, p. 1, 246.
117. Kesselring: BA-MA, N 431/1154, Beglaubigte Abschrift von Irmgard Horn, 18.03.1947; Sauckel: BA-MA, BMRS, File Hans Sander; Lammers: BA-MA, BMRS, File Ernst Prager and BA-B, Reichskanzlei 7.01 41 12, Bl. 363-65; Canaris: BA-MA, BMRS, File Robert Borchardt, BA-MA, BMRS, File Ernst Bloch; Bormann/Heydrich: BA-MA, WF-ol/r0230; Donitz: Messerschmidt, p. 356, BA-MA, BMRS, File di Simoni; Ribbentrop: BA-MA, BMRS, File Joachim von Ribbentrop, BA-MA, BMRS, File Bosch; v. Manstein, Schmundt v. Gottberg and Raeder: documented throughout this book; v. Schirach: Krackow, p. 98; BA-MA, BMRS, interviews]. Krackow; BA-MA, BMRS, interview R. Krackow; Kaltenbrunner: BA-MA, BMRS, interview Koref.
118. Meyer, p. 152; Cornberg and Steiner, p. 148.
119. Gilbert, Holocaust, p. 615; Craig, Germany, 1866-1945, p. 750.
120. Clark, pp. 339-40. Pringsheim was a well-known professor for Roman and German civil rights in Freiburg and Gottingen, and then in Oxford from 1939 to 1946.
121. Even Adolf Eichmann helped save a half-Jewish cousin and a Jewish couple in Vienna; in addition, he had a Jewish stepmother. While working in Vienna in the late 1930s, Eichmann had a Jewish mistress, an old flame from his youth. Arendt, pp. 30, 88, 137. Eichmann was not alone in committing Rassenschande among the Nazi elite. The famous Stuka pilot and fanatic Nazi, Luftwaffe Colonel Hans-Ulrich Rudel, had a half-Jewish lover, Frau Erika Leykam, during the war. Personal interview conducted with Leykam by Gunter Czernetzky, director of the film project ZeitZeugen Video in Munich; BA-MA, BMRS, File Erika Leykam. Alfred Rosenberg, the Nazi racial theorist and Reich minister of eastern regions, also had a Jewish mislress. Wighton, p. 126.
122. Hitler renamed Lodz Litzmannstadt in honor of General Litzmann. Benz, p. 49. General Litzmann had become famous in 1914 during World War I for breaking through the Russian front near Lodz. He conquered the fortress Brest-Litovsk.
123. They actually were "18.75" Jewish and thus, according to Nazi practice with racial policy, regarded as quarter-Jews.
124. BA-MA, BMRS, File Walter Lehweg-Litzmann, Bl. 7, Stammbaum Lehweg- Litzmann, Bl. II, and Bl. 37, Der Kommandierende General des VIII. Fliegerkorps an Frau Dr. med. Lehweg-Litzmann, OLI 1.1941; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Jam Lehweg-Litzmann, 27.05-1997, T-354.
125. Die Trager des Ritterkreuzes des Eisernen Kreuzes, 1939-1945. Die Inhaber der hochsten Auszeiehnung des Zweiten Weltkrieges alter Wehrmachtteile (Osnabruck, 1993), p. 166. Walter Lehweg-Litzmann became a General Staff officer and a squadron commander.
126. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Friedrich Rubien, 27.07.1997, T-394.
127. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Rubien. According to Rubien, the family member Senator Fritz Beindorff paid this amount.
128. Goebbels Diaries, 1942-1943, p. 285.
129. BA-MA, BMRS, File Werner Bujakowsky, Bl. 16.
130. BA-MA, BMRS, File Ludwig Mayer, Bl. 23, Telegram M. Steinhardt to Mayer 27.09.1935, Bl. 25, H. Mayer an ihre Mutter, 06.10.1935 and Bl.30, H. Mayer to v. Tschammer, October 1935.
131. BA-MA, BMRS, File Ludwig Mayer, Bl. 31, H. Mayer to Mr. Avery Brundage, president of the American Olympic Committee, 26.10.1935, Bl. 35, H. Mayer to Dr. Aurelia Henry Reinhardt, 10.12.1935.
132. Klemperer, Buch 1, 12.08.1936, pp. 292-93.
133. BA-MA, BMRS, File Mayer, Bl. 31; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Erika Mayer; Shirer, Nighmare Years, pp. 230-33. See also Friedlander, p. 181.
134. BA-MA, BMRS, File Mayer, Bl. 35; Yahil, p. 71.
135. Apparently, after the women's fencing event was over, Hitler refused to congratulate Mayer; Iona Elek, the gold medalist from Hungary; and Ellen Preis, the bronze medalist from Austria, because they were all of Jewish descent. Engelmann, opp. p. 353.
136. Friedlander, p. 181. Several reports state tliat Ball was half-Jewish (Cornberg and Steiner, p. 160). Since Friedlander is an authority on German Jews, his data has been taken for Ball's case.
137. BA-MA, BMRS, File Wolfgang Furstner; Richard D. Mandell, The Nazi Olympics (New York, 1971), pp. 88, 93, He committed suicide in 1936 because of the persecution he experienced as a half-Jew.
138. Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk, Personliche Erinnerungen: II. Teil, 25 Jahre Berlin, 1930-1945 (Essen, 1973), p. 173; Cornberg and Steiner, pp. 159-60; Vuletic, p. 22, n. 37. Lewald was the man who introduced the tradition of carrying the torch from Olympia in Greece to the host city.
139. Mandell, pp. 71-77. Gretel Bergmann, a German athlete of Jewish descent, was not as lucky as Mayer or Ball. Two weeks before the Games, the Nazis informed her that she could not participate because of her Jewish ancestry. She was predicted to win the gold in the high jump, had she been allowed to compete. See also Friedlander, p. 181.
140. Keegan, Second World War, p. 486; Keegan, Mask of Command, p. 281.
141. Hitler, Mein Kampf, pp. 290-91. See also Hitlers Tischgesprache im Fuhrerhauptquartier, p. 310.
142. Speer, p. 145. See also Goebbels Diaries, 1942-1943, pp. 51, 60; John W. Dower, War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War (New York, 1986), p. 207.
143. Hilberg, p. 45; Lauren, p. 124, Stoltzfus, Resistance, p. 42; Dower, pp. 207, 269; Yahil, p. 71.
144. Snyder, p. 170; Craig, Germany, 1866-1945, p. 696.
145. Snyder, p. 170; see also H. R. Trevor-Roper, The Last Days of Hitler (New York, 1947), pp. 21-22; Otto Klineberg, "Racialism in Nazi Germany, " in The Third Reich, ed. Maurice Baumont, John H. E. Fried and Edmond Vermeil (New York, 1955), p. 859; Dower, p. 269; Goebbels Diaries, 1942-1943, pp. 77, 79, 86, 91. Hitler called the Japanese the "Prussians of the East." Hitlers Tischgesprache im Fuhrerhauptquartier, p. 398, n. 388.
146. Goebbels Diaries, 1942-1943, p. 138; Redlich, p. 149; Kershaw, Hitler, 1936- 1945, p. 504.
147. Otto Klineberg, "Racialism in Nazi Germany, " in The Third Reich, p. 859.
148. The mufti left Beirut in 1939, took up residence in Baghdad, and put himself at the pro-Axis political effort there, which culminated in a "pro-Axis coup" in 1941. The mufti proclaimed over the airways a jihad (holy war) against the British, who were occupying Iraq at the time. Although the Germans promised support, it did not arrive in time, and the mufti and his forces were defeated. After the defeat, the mufti left for Berlin in September 1941. The mufti stayed in Germany until the end of the war. Conor Cruise O'Brien, The Siege: The Saga of Israel and Zionism (New York, 1986), pp. 250-52.
149. Lepre, p. 31.
150. Hitler had promised Hajj Amin el-Husseini that he would slaughter the Jewish community in Palestine once German forces had taken over that area. Weinberg, Germany, Hitler, p. 220; Browning, Nazi Policy, Jewish Workers, pp.49-50.
151. Bauer, p. 44.
152. O'Brien, pp. 251-52. Hitler felt that Arab men with blond hair and blue eyes were descendants of the Vandals who had occupied northern Africa. Monologe im Fuhrerhauptquartier 1941-1944, p. 124.
153. Hitlers Tischgesprache im Fuhrerhauptquartier, p. 403. As translated in O'Brien, pp. 251-52. Hitler even claimed that Turkey's leader Ataturk could not have descended from the Turks because he had blue eyes. Monologe im Fuhrerhauptquartier, 1941-1944, p. 217.
154. Hilberg, p. 7; BA-B, NS 19/3134, Bl. 1-2; Maser, p. 282; Hitlers Tischgesprache im Fuhrerhauptquartier, Einfuhrung von Picker, p. 45; Bormann Lang, p. 156; Dimont, pp. 331-32.
155. Horst von McGraw, The Evolution of Hitler's Germany (New York, (973), p. 56; Monologe im Fuhrerhauptquartier, 1941-1944, pp. 96-99, 412-13; Redlich, p. 309; Friedlander, pp. 102, 177; The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, vol I, p. 19.
156. Institut zur Erforschung und Beseitigung des judischen Einflusses auf das deutsche kirchliche Leben. See Friedlander, pp. 326-27.
157. Bauer, p. 133; Redlich, p. 302; Burleigh, pp. 13-14, 259-60.
158. Omer Bartov, Hitler's Army (New York, 199 I), pp. 14, 39; see also Megargee, p. 174.
159. Rudiger Overmans, Deutsche militarische Verluste im Zweiten Weltkrieg (Munchen, 1999), pp. 266, 278.
160. BA-MA, BMRS, File Gert Beschutz, Bl. 3.
161. BA-MA, N 328/45, Ehrhardt an Forste, 14.11.1956; Heeresadjutant bei Hitler, p. 32; Noakes, "Development of Nazi Policy, " pp. 316, 333.
162. BA-MA, N 328/45, Ehrhardt an Forste, 14.11.1956.
163. Heeresadjutant bei Hitler, pp. 121-22, n. 375; BA-B, DZA 62 Ka. I 83, Bl. 140, Engel an Blankenburg, 17.06.1942.
164. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Gert Ascher, 17.11.1997, T-408; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Ursula Ascher, 17.11.1997, T-409.
165. BA-MA, BMRS, File Heinrici, Heft I, Bl. 21, Dr. Heinrici an Rigg, 05-12.1995; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Dr. Heinrici, 16'05-1996, T-203.
166. Ibid.
167. BA-B, DZA 62 Ka. I 83, Bl. 140, Engel an Blankenburg, 17.06.1942.
168. BA-MA, WF01/10230, Bl. 1-2, Engel an Kapitan z.S. a.D. Vanselow, 19.11.1940.
169. BA-MA, N 118/4.
170. Deutsche Arbeitsfront (DAF) (German Labor Front).
171. BA-B, DZA 62 Ka. I 83, Bl. 93, Engel an die Kanzlei des Fuhrers der NSDAP, 26.09.1941.
172. Stufe means "level." For example, Stufe III wounded soldiers had lost either an arm, a leg, or both feet-to name just a few of the wounds that qualified a soldier for this classification. These soldiers also received fifty Reichsmarks a month. BA-MA, RH 12-23/834, p. 93.
173. Absolon, Wehrgesetz und Wehrdienst, p. 120; See also BA-B, DZA 62 Ka. 1 83, Bl. 91-92, Parteikanzlei, Beforderung von Schwerstbeschadigten, 11.10.1941.
174. This number was probably small because only those who applied were considered for the exemption. In other words, once a Mischlinge was injured, he did not get an exemption de facto. He, like any other Mischlinge attempting to receive an exemption, had to apply for it.
175. BA-B, R 2I!448, Bl. 34, Der Reichsminister des Innern (Schonfeldt) an Rust, 20.02.1942.
176. BA-B, DZA 62 Ka. I 83, Bl. 72.
177. Ibid., Bl. 73, OKW an Kanzlei des Fuhrers, 16.09.1943.
178. Ibid., Bl. 67b, "Judische Mischlinge im Wehrdienst, " von Blankenburg.
179. BA -MA, BMRS, File Bamberger, Bl. 2, Lammers und Keitel an Bamberger, 17.08.1943 and Bl. 35-36, Autobiographie.
180. See BA-B, R 21-448, Bl. 35, von Schonfeldt an Rust, 20.2.1942.
181. BA-MA, BMRS, File Emil Lux, Heft IV, Bl. 8. Knoll/Hochschule fur Welthandel an Regierungsdirektor Dr. Kock, 20.07.1944, and Bl. 12, OKW an Rust, 08.10.1943; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Lux. While Lux served in Russia, his mother, Jenny nee Schultz, was persecuted at home and forced to wear the Jewish star. When he returned home from the front and his hospitalization, he found that his mother was gone. The Gestapo had forced her to enter the Jewish Hospital in Berlin at Iranische Strasse.
182. BA-B, DZA 62 Ka. I 83, Bl. 67b-68.
183. BA-B, DZA 62 Ka. I 83, Bl. 82.
184. BA-B, DZA 62 Ka. I 83, Bl. 73, OKW an Kanzlei des Fuhrers, 16.09.1943; BA-MA, BMRS, File G. F. Muller, Bl. p; BA-MA, BMRS, File Haller.
185. Two men in this study received Hitler's declarations this way. However, it is difficult to document men who received this award because of the problems of finding their families or military files.
186. BA-B, DZA 62 Ka. I 83, Bl. 72.
187. Kampfzeit (time of struggle) was between 1920 and 1933 when the Nazis struggled for power.
188. Heeresadjutant bei Hitler, pp. 31-32.
189. BA-MA, RH 53-7/ 1120.
190. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Wolter; Das Deutsche Reich und der zweite Weltkrieg. vol. 511, Kroener, pp. 709-12.
191. IfZ, N 71-73, Antrage und positive Entscheidungen gemass §7 der Ersten Verordnung zum Reichsburger-gesetz, 22.05.1941; Losener, pp. 284-85.
192. Meyer, p. 157.
193. BA-B, DZA 62 Ka. I 83, Bl. 136-39.
194. Ibid., Bl. 147-48.
195. IfZ, N 71-73, Bl. 106, Zahl der Gnadenentscheidungen nach dem Reichsburgergesetz, 10.09.1942; Losener, p. 310.
196. BA-B, DZA 62 Ka. I 83, Bl. 29-45.
197. Ibid., Bl. 43.
198. Rebentisch, p. 435, n. 200. H. G. Adler also said that exemptions probably ran into the thousands. Adler, Der Verwaltete Mensch, p. 302.
199. BA-B, DZA 62 Ka. I 83, Bl. 117, "Aktennotiz" von Brack, 10.07.1942.
200. BA-MA, BMRS, interview W. v. Gwinner.
201. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Hamburger; BA-MA, BMRS, File Hamburger, Hamburger an Rigg, 25.11.2000.
202. BA-MA, BMRS, File Prager.
203. BA-MA, WF01-20740, Koken an Engel, 15.10.1942.
204. Ibid., Engel an Koken, 19.10.1942.
205. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Arnim Leidoff, 02.12.1995, T-93.
206. Konigsberg is now Kaliningrad, Russia.
207. Actually, Goring said this phrase. Hitler was never recorded as saying anything like the above.
208. BA-A, Pers 36790 Georg Meyer, Beurteilung vom 01.03.1944. Margot Meyer von Ruhle maintains that this military report was only written as it was because it was a necessary condition for promotion. In other words, it was a formality. BA-MA, BMRS, File Georg Meyer, Meyer von Ruhle an Rigg, 11.01.2001.
209. BA-MA, BMRS, interview Margot Meyer von Ruhle 02.09.1995, T-163; BA-MA, BMRS, interview Helmut Meyer-Krahmer, 27.07.1997, T-393; BA-A, Pers 36848 Helmut Meyer-Krahmer. According to Margot Meyer von Ruhle, Georg was only "12.5 percent or 18.75 percent" Jewish. However, Georg Meyer's cousin, Helmut Meyer-Krahmer, says that this is incorrect. He and his four cousins were all quarter-Jews. According to Meyer-Krahmer, Georg must have obtained false documents to prove that their grandmother was not a full Jew but a half-Jew. He naturally did so to mitigate his situation. Since Meyer- Krahmer knows his family's personal history better than most, his version has been used.
210. BA-MA, BMRS, File Prager.
211. Vogel, p. 313. Philipp Borchardt was later released, and he and his daughter left for England, where they spent the rest of the war.
212. BA-MA, BMRS, interview E. Borchardt; McGuirk, p. 45.
213. BA-A, Pers 4393, Beurteilung, 13.05.1942.
214. BA-MA, BMRS, File Borchardt, Bl. 46, E.M. Heard to Rigg, 02.12.1996. Borchardt defended himself after the war, claiming that he fought for Germany and that his family had a long history of military service and cultural accomplishments. Two brothers of his great-grandfather fought in the War of Independence of 1813-1815. One died in Leipzig. During the Franco-Prussian War, two brothers of his grandfather served in the Prussian army. One was terribly wounded in the Battle of Sedan. One of his father's brothers, Rudolf, was a poet and translator and was friends with Hugo von Hofmannsthal and Rudolf Alexander Schroder. During World War I, Rudolf Borchardt served four years in the German army. Another uncle, Ernst Borchardt, served as a lieutenant and died soon after the war because of his battle injuries. Another uncle, Robert Borchardt, served as an Unteroffizier and died in battle in 1916. Borchardt's father would have served in the army, had he not been born with a deformed left leg. Robert Borchardt claimed that serving Germany as he did was no different from what his Jewish ancestors had done before him.
215. BA-MA, BMRS, File Eike Schweitzer, Bl. 24, Eike Schweitzer an Tante Dorle, 11.01.1942.
216. BA-MA, BMRS, File Schweitzer, Bl. 13.
217. Although Wilberg was in charge of the operations of the Condor Legion, was in charge of the officer school, and was responsible for developing Luftwaffe air doctrine, he still did not become chief of staff, probably because of his ancestry.
218. See Kershaw, Hitler, 1936-1945, pp. 105-6, 289, 386, 417; Nazism 1919-1945, vol. 4, pp. 8-13; Keitel, p. 105; Megargee, p. 65.
219. BA-MA, BMRS, File Gerd Schneider, Bl. 77, Frey an Schiller, 10.02.1943 and Bl. 82, Wehrmachtfursorge, Bescheid-Rente, 26.03.1943.
220. Germany and the Second World War, vol. 4, M. Messerschmidt, p. 8; Seaton, German Army, p. 80; Speer, p. 157; Kershaw, Hitler, 1936-1945, pp. 576-77. See also Wallach, pp. 306-7; Keegan, Mask of Command, pp. 295-98.