# Hitler's Jewish Soldiers Price Documentary

- Canonical page: https://bryanmarkrigg.co/media/item/8c48a299e8f75b81af61/hitler-s-jewish-soldiers-price-documentary/
- Media type: video
- Creator / site entity: Bryan Mark Rigg, PhD
- Description: This documentary examines the extraordinary and deeply contradictory experiences of Germans with Jewish ancestry who served in Hitler’s armed forces during World War II. Through archival material, historical analysis by Bryan Mark Rigg, and firsthand testimony from veterans including Werner Goldberg, Hansgert Falkenberg, Arno Spitz, and Helmut Kopp, the film explores Nazi racial classifications, the Nuremberg Laws, military exemptions, concealment of Jewish ancestry, and the difficult choices these men faced between military service, persecution, and survival. It also follows soldiers who attempted to protect Jewish relatives, witnessed aspects of Nazi persecution, or survived by remaining inside the very military system that threatened their families. The documentary ultimately explores questions of identity, loyalty, survival, complicity, and the contradictions within Nazi racial policy.
- Topics: Bryan Mark Rigg, Video, World War II, Nazi Germany
- Content URL: https://bryanmarkrigg.co/media-file/8c48a299e8f75b81af61?v=web-audio
- Thumbnail image: https://bryanmarkrigg.co/media-poster/8c48a299e8f75b81af61
- Encoding format: video/mp4
- Published: 2026-09-21T02:18:57.4798361Z
- Modified: 2026-09-20T22:26:16.6836056Z
- Spoken language: English (en)
- Full transcript: https://bryanmarkrigg.co/media-transcript/8c48a299e8f75b81af61.txt

## Full transcript (English)

This is Private Werner Goldberg. In 1939, a Berlin newspaper labeled him as the ideal German soldier. His picture was used on a recruiting poster for the Wehrmacht, Hitler's army. He served in the German army until 1940. He was dismissed because of his last name, Goldberg. Werner Goldberg, the ideal German soldier, was a Jew. Goldberg, your name? You are Aryan? I said, I don't know what that is. He said, I tell you, stand up. You are not Aryan. I said, I must ask my father. What follows is a very strange story about men who, despite their Jewish ancestry, were drafted into the same Nazi army that was out to destroy their Jewish relatives. The Nazis called these men Mischling. I didn't want to join the Wehrmacht. I had to go to the Wehrmacht. I also put up a tent. I also put up a tent. Here, around, here. I am also a Yeshiva soldier, and of course, what I thought to myself, all this is what I need, that maybe my father, my mother, someone in my family will see me, here is our son, a German soldier, with a cross on his head. This is what I know for sure. I was proud being a soldier of part Jewish descent to become a German. Yes. Yes, I had aspired that. Since the Middle Ages, Jews like Moses Mendelssohn, Heinrich Heine, and Albert Einstein have made significant contributions to German culture. Jews were proud Germans and served with distinction in the German armies. The rise of the Nazis in 1933 and Hitler's consolidation of power brought deep and ultimately destructive changes to Germany. Life began to change radically for the half million German Jews. And their part Jewish children and relatives. All around them, the Nazi racial policies were put into practice. Jewish shops were boycotted. Jews were forced out of their professions. Life became more and more dangerous for Jews in Germany. The Nazis put the infamous 1935 Nuremberg laws into practice. These laws changed the citizenship rights of the Jews. But who was a Jew according to the 1935 Nuremberg laws? A person with two Jewish parents was considered Jewish. A full Jew and was not drafted into the army. Full Jews in the army were summarily dismissed. Mischling was a derogatory German term for those of mixed blood. Mischling were drafted into the army. A half-Jew with a Jewish mother or father was drafted. Quarter Jews and eighth Jews were also drafted. The Nuremberg laws dealt with two things. One is the so-called law on human rights and German dignity. It determined that Jews do not belong to the German nation. The other is the Law on Citizenship. It determined that Jews do not belong to Germany. They are the subjects of the German state. After determining who is not German, now we need to determine who is Jewish. And that's what they did. Of course, they were drafted into the army. American history professor Brian Mark Rigg researched the issue and wrote a book on the subject. The term Mischlinge was used for mutts, dogs, crossbreeds and so on. It was a horrible term. And really, with the Nazi takeover of power in 1933 and then with the Nuremberg laws in 1935, was this term readily used for people? Some of these offspring of mixed marriages identified with the Nazi-ruled government. They served in every branch, were of nearly every rank. Some stayed in the army for the security it offered. A very few were like Air Force General Erhard Milch, who was assistant to Nazi Field Marshal Hermann Göring. He knew about slave labor going to Auschwitz. He knew about experiments going on in Dachau. And he was a really nasty individual. He was a Nazi party member and so on. But he's a small, small minority of most of these people. Only a very few of the part-Jewish officers were like Milch. Major Ernst Blanc received a shocking assignment to rescue the 6th Lubavitch Rebbe from Poland's Warsaw Ghetto. Now, when Blanc gets up there, and he's going up to ultra-high ground, he sees some Hasidic Lubavitcher Jews, and he's asking them, Hey, where is the Rebbe? We want to rescue him. And the Lubavitchers are like, Yeah, sure you do. And we want to join the German army. But eventually, Blanc gets them to agree to this. They, of course, believe he's an angel in human form. He looks over to Rebbe Schneerson, and he says, Don't worry about it. I'm half-Jewish. I'm here to protect you. You know, Meshuggah. The next day, he escorted them to the border of Lithuania. Then he bid them farewell. And then Rebbe Schneerson went up to Riga, waiting there for his visa from the United States. Not all the part-Jewish soldiers were of high rank. Some were simple soldiers, who served in all aspects of the armed forces. And within the context of the military, I conservatively estimate that 60,000 half-Jews and 90,000 quarter-Jews served in the German armed forces during World War II. And these people were in no man's land in many ways. One way was, OK, yeah, they're not full Jews. They're not going to be persecuted 100%. But also, they're not Aryan, so they're not going to be treated as 100% German citizens. The Nazi rule brought with it many odious surprises. Imagine what it was like for a boy who thought he was immune from the Nazi horrors to one day find out that, according to the Nazis, he was in fact a Jew. Werner Goldberg was brought up Lutheran. He didn't discover his father was Jewish until the headmaster, a Nazi party member, came into his Berlin classroom to separate the Jews from the Aryans. I got to home and asked my father, what is Aryan and what is not Aryan? And so he told me, yes, our family is a Jewish family. I said, you are not Jewish. No, I am a Christian. And I got Christian in 1902. But we never talked about this. We talked about Jewish history. We talked about the Old Testament. That was for both the same. But we never told about race. What is, what race? That was all German. Young Werner Goldberg didn't want to join the Hitler Youth because he'd have to wear a cap with a swastika. I was in the Boy Scout organization. And in there, the Hitler Youth, they asked me if I would take the swastika. And I said, I didn't want this. And so they told me, I should go out. Not all boys were surprised to find they were Jewish. Helmut Kopp knew his mother was Jewish. Kopp's Jewish mother died when he was an infant. Because of complicated family matters, he was placed in Berlin's Ahava Jewish Orphanage. He was circumcised when he was 12 years old. And there, I have to say, I was a child, and still an orthodox home. All the holidays were held there. For example, the dishes were coughed up. Yes? The dishes were coughed up. When a plate of milk was placed on top of meat, it wasn't right. I had, I was, I had a bar mitzvah in a Jewish orphanage. I also laid twigs. Twigs. I also laid them. Around here. His mother married him in German. She was a Jewish mother, and he was a Christian. And I don't know how they lived, but she remained Jewish. But it wasn't something out of the ordinary. Of course he wasn't Jewish in the German sense, in Germany. According to the halacha, he was Jewish. When we came to Israel in 1934, my father thought that my mother's parents, Helmut's mother's sister, would come to Israel. He sent them an affidavit from the British government and they came to Israel. And I, they couldn't take me because I, I was called Jacob. And they had, the Nazis had very big differences between the Jews and the Jews. They didn't just take a 14-year-old boy and go to Palestine. That didn't work. They wanted him to go to Israel. Even though he wasn't Jewish, they organized it, that is, they made him an American. He had a relationship at the age of 14, 15, with the Hitler Youth, apparently, as friends, like in school. There was a sense of love that he had. Apart from that, I always say, what he behaved as a child is something else. We have the same grandmother, and he's this, and he's that, and it's like, I don't want to say brother, but he's that, right? And if I had the sense of doubt that he could have done something, that he was this, I wouldn't have talked to him. Helmut Koch left the Jewish orphanage and eventually was drafted into the army. And there, first-grade children were also brought in. So, I already have the explanation in the pattern that I am Aryan or Jewish. And there, I also crossed out two parents as Aryan. I went in as Aryan because I signed the explanation in Aryan. Yes. And there, I have, I, before that, I had already thought it all out. I, how I was drafted on the 2nd, 12th, and then, we stood in front of each other and then, we stood in front of each other again, all naked in front of the investigation commission and then, they said, what do you have there? And there, the other comrades, with seven, we stood in a row and there, they said, yes, the head, it had a Jewish pimple. And there, I said, no. And there, there were, there were all in uniform, the top. And I said, no, I had a phimosis and you can still see, I have three and, how, when was that with the phimosis, did you ask? I said, yes, I was 12 years old. They did it like this and, and then, it was good. And then, a doctor came and then, put on rubber gloves and then, he turned my spine back and forth and then, he said, yes, that can be phimosis. Why we don't see these people being sent off straight to the camps was a political decision. Hitler and the Nazis did not want to persecute them too much because they knew they would ostracize Aryan relatives who were in the economy, business, you know, government and in the military. Hansgert Falkenberg knew that his mother was Jewish and had converted to Christianity. My mother's side was Jewish and there were very, very big tensions with her mother. It was a very strange fact that I never, together with my grandmother, went to the Stettin Synagogue because my mother had forbidden it more or less. Me and my grandmother went to the Jewish cemetery and I could see the stones. This is strange Hebrew scripture. Then I saw my past is in a way different from the past of others of my same age. By the strange biology teacher I still remember his name Tobias who told Aryans are the leading race and Mixlings are weaklings. I thought I have to prove the contrary. This consciousness I will prove as far as I can with my physical ability. To tell this is all nonsense what you talk about superiority. Falkenberg's Jewish mother fled to England with her husband and daughter. Falkenberg decided to stay in Germany because of the promise of a university scholarship. But instead he found himself drafted into the German army. To lead in a paragraph Mixlings should not go to the Wehrmacht. So every German Mixling had to go had to be a soldier. There were units just around the border to Poland. So we were sent to the Wehrmacht. Two days later the British declared war. Germany's full Jews were exempt from the draft but not the half Jews. In his speech before the Reichstag in 1939 Hitler declared he would exterminate all Jews. It was during this period in about 1939 that a German leader declared war. Hitler was making the perfect statement to our people. He was convincing his people that we have to do something that Once a week, she had her star already, but we would meet at the end of the streetcar station and walk in the forest. And that was quite painful. It was quite clear that I would not go in my uniform to the usual aid pension and take her up, but that we wouldn't meet somewhere outside, not to be observed or so. I just thought if we are for ourselves for a time, not seen by others or so, or not even asked by unknown people, what does a soldier there, somebody with a yellow star, yeah. She was much more important than the star. In St. Louis, she was the most important woman in the world. Instead of wearing the German uniform, did it occur to Falkenberg to slip away from the army? I had no connections, never, to any enemies, to any group of resistance or so. Once I tried even very late to escape to Switzerland, and I constructed it very carefully. And after six weeks of learning. Really, to ski and all that, I first found out that it is very, very risky. And second, that there's even a chance that the Swiss sent me back to Germany. Europe was fascistic. Even Switzerland was in some way, fascistic. I didn't think about giving someone a chance to escape from the army. Where would he escape? Where would he go? Where would he go? Where would they take him? Where would they take him? Here you can escape. There you can't. This is a photograph of Arno Spitz, taken with his family in their backyard in Berlin. He is wearing a paratroop uniform with three iron cross metals for bravery. Arno Spitz was raised in a privileged environment. His grandfather was a successful businessman. Arno Spitz's father grew up in a comfortable upper middle class Jewish family that had converted to Christianity. Spitz's father cared little for religion. And married a non-Jewish German woman. By 1937, Spitz's father had fled Nazi Germany for the United States. My father was not brought up in the Jewish faith at all. But, of course, he had been, most, not all, of his friends were Jewish. And my father left after the takeover of Hitler. Arno Spitz was sent with his unit to the front lines in Denmark. He was never asked if he was part German. And it might have been that just at that time, there was some inquiries about the ancestry of soldiers and that nobody cared about that issue. Nobody ever came of the idea that I could have a Jewish ancestry. I was, I did not look at it at all. During his army service, Arno Spitz was decorated three times with the iron cross for bravery. Arno Spitz was sent with his unit to the front lines in Denmark. At that time was my first combat. I was in a very extreme situation there with a paratroop battalion. And I was shown by my captain the bunker that I was supposed to take together with 10, 12 or so other soldiers. And on a little, very little elevation, there were the Russian bunkers built. And while I was moving ahead on my head and my knees, those bullets of these two centimeter guns behind me always flew above my head. So I could not raise my head at all because it would have been shorn off immediately. And then I rose up and took my machine pistol and wanted to break into the bunker. But then I noticed there were two Russian soldiers lying dead on the right side of the bunker. So I sprayed them with my guns in order to make sure whether they were dead or not. But they were dead. I'm glad they were dead. And I went into that bunker and the bunker was empty. It was such a, and dramatic. There was the village, we couldn't see any Russians right at the border of that village. We were about 100 meters or so from the border of that village. We went back into that village and at the beginning of a street, this orderly put up his, set up his machine gun and shot along the road of that village. And we had counter fire. And after a short time, the orderly was dead. The battalion commander decorated me right away with an iron cross. But, well, this iron cross meant a lot to me. Probably at that time, I might have recalled for myself that I was part Jewish. And I said, well, Jewish people are often claimed to be cowards. And my mother, even my mother, who was very pro-Semitic. My mother was very pro-Semitic. But even she told me once, Jewish people are cowards. And I thought of that at that moment. I said, this I recall quite well. That said, you see, I'm not a coward. Historians believe that as many as 20 men who served in the German army during World War II eventually immigrated to Israel. Some fought for the foundation of the Jewish state. Ephraim Glaser was born Jewish in Hungary and today lives in Haifa, Israel. During the Second World War, Glaser was captured by the Nazis and escaped. He lived in the forest and soon found himself starving. He approached a German army base to beg for food, claiming he was Aryan. I came out of a Hungarian camp, a work camp, in a terrible situation, with thorns and wounds and all kinds of troubles. Suddenly I arrive at a place, you have to understand this from our point of view, that suddenly I arrive at a place where they respect me. The Germans looked at me with respect. No, it was all an accident. An accident, really an accident, an accident of an accident. And I arrived to a German army. I arrived to a German army because of anger. And because of my arrogance, because of Aryanism, I was able to get along quite well with the Jews as a non-Jew, as one who looks like a non-Jew. And that's how I managed to go around for about two weeks. Two weeks, that's what it was, without any documents, without any connection. And that's how I managed to get along quite well with the Jews as a non-Jew. Glazer reached a German supply base, knocked on the door, and met a very friendly German officer. To this day, it remains a mystery to me why and how this man went and helped us in all kinds of difficult cases. I have a suggestion for you. Maybe you are willing to join our unit as an interpreter for Hungarian, for German, for everything. Here we have the right to translate. Glazer agreed to the offer. The Russian border was far away, and suddenly Glazer discovered he had dangerously incriminating evidence with him. I had a German passport, and I began to take off my shoes. And suddenly I discovered that I had some very, very dangerous and dangerous things in my non-Jewish eyes. And those were some pictures of my father with a beard and lips, and my mother, and my family, and my brothers. From Palestine, from Israel, they sent us pictures. And from behind, there was a sanctuary in Hebrew. And after that, I came and saw that I had something else. At the time, the Hungarians asked us to give them our prayer bag. But I, in a rage, left to myself the prayer bag that came from the Land of Israel, which reminds us of Jerusalem, with the Western Wall, and the beautiful Tafur. And I see that I am transmitting my doubts, and I find these things. What am I going to do? For some reason, I cannot explain, I decided that I will not throw these pictures away, I will wrap them in a blanket, and I will put them in my bag, of the Germans' flags, of the German flags. That's where I put the pictures. And when I saw the prayer bag, I wrapped it in a blanket, and I put it in the German flag. Hansgert Falkenberg's godmother was a Nazi party member. Even so, she was shocked to hear that Falkenberg's Jewish grandmother had been deported to a concentration camp in Poland. And she asked, just by the way, what about Umchen, my grandmother? And I said, didn't you hear about it? And she said, no, what? She has been transported to Poland three weeks ago, with all Jews still staying in Stettin, to the east. And she said, this is horrible. Why didn't you tell me? Something has to be done with it. And I said, you are a member of the party, you are a Nazi. And she said, yes, yes, yes, yes, I still believe that the Jews are unhappy for Germany, but it has nothing to do with your grandmother. In 1940, the Nazi government plugged the loophole in their draft laws, and the paradox of having Jews serving in the German army and the half-Jews serving in the army at that time was to be demobilized. The half-Jews who were freed could no longer enjoy the safety of being in the army, and now found themselves at the mercy of the Gestapo. But the army was a place where soldiers were usually accepted if they did their jobs, and not too many questions were asked, no matter what the Nazi regulations. Werner Goldberg was offered the chance to stay in the army. Yes, but you may stay if you want. And I said, well, my father told me, if everybody, everyone not want you, stay not. And so I hear of my father's voice and went. The Gestapo came to the units to check if any Michelin were still in the ranks. Falkenberg's commanding officer gave him a chance to avoid discovery. I have to make a proposal. If I send you tonight to the front, so you have a chance to stay longer with the army. You know, this is one of the people nobody had asked, so he did it out of his own. I said, certainly, yes, thank you. And I immediately went away the same night to Denmark. That saved more than a year for me as a soldier for the German army. And all my school comrades, who in the meantime were lieutenants or... Overlieutenants told Gerd, stay with the Wehrmacht, stay with the army. That is the safest place in Germany. Was Helmut Kupp frightened he'd be discovered as a Jew when he was in the army? Jeden Tag. Jeden Tag hatte ich Angst gehabt. Private Kupp declined his commanding officer's offer to promote him to sergeant, fearing his Jewish background would be discovered. And later he had a company commander. The company commander was a lieutenant. He said, Kupp, you have the good stuff for a war service officer. Don't you want to sign up? I said, no. I couldn't. Because at that moment, for example, you can go to Obergefreiter or to Unteroffizier, but then they look at the papers. And then it gets tricky. The war was at its peak. But for men like Helmut Kupp, who were living a lie under the noses of the Germans, the future looked bleak. He was a tank driver on the dangerous Russian front. From the labor service directly to the army, to the German Wehrmacht. And since I had reported to the tank driver, I also came to this troop. And with the troop I was later at the 2750th Panzerjägerabteilung. And then we were deployed in front of Scharkow. And Scharkow was a... So we took it three times. We lost it three times. And there we had heavy losses. So over half of our unit. At the high mountain combat school in Mittenwald I was promoted to lieutenant. I think I was proud. I didn't... Proud to even... This much I know for sure. I was proud being a soldier of part Jewish descent to become a German officer. Yes. Yes, I had aspired that. Well, we did not think that Hitler as a Nazi man, being at the same time the highest commander of the army, to us there was always a split between traditional, traditional German army and political institutions. There was a difference between army service and Hitler service. Did Kopp think that as a part Jew his life was in danger? Yes. It was only to survive that I wrote it down. When I... I thought about it. In this respect, either put me on the wall or in the concentration camp. I was at the command center but the Jews were afraid of me. And I spoke to many Germans. This is what many people do not understand in Israel as well. That most of the Germans were in the army at the time. Those who did this, it was a very small part of the Germans. And there are those who said that I was once a Nazi soldier, I changed my mind. I believe him 100%. Some say I was never a Nazi, right? But if someone tells me that he was a Nazi soldier and changed his mind, I believe him. It is impossible to know who was a Nazi. There were those who believed in the Nazi doctrine and their Jewish origin did not bother them. And there were those who were soldiers who served because it was the right of the citizen without having a positive impact on the Nazi ideology. This is an entirely individual case. Helmut Schmidt was a Michelin of the second degree and became Chancellor of Germany in 1970. His grandfather was a Jew. And Helmut Schmidt served in the German army. He was a member of the NUN-MEM. And this motive never bothered him. One of the most glaring examples was Erhard Milch, who was in charge of all the logistics for the German Air Force. Historians claim that Milch's father was Jewish, but that his mother lied and claimed the man who fathered her six children was an Aryan. This lie helped Milch become one of the most powerful men in Germany. He also helped found Lufthansa Airlines. Hitler later declared Milch a full German Aryan and provided him an official certificate of Aryanization. Theoretically, the Jewish construction is based on Giza. In fact, it is a political construction. It is a social construction. And it depends on the period and on the body. So they were given privileges. Even when the biology says that this man is Jewish, the pragmatic needs can prove that he is not Jewish. And these privileges were given by those who were at the highest levels of the government. By Goebbels, and by Goering, and by Hitler himself. Hitler also turned the Muslim cleric and enthusiastic Nazi, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, into an Aryan. They used him in their anti-British approach in Hitler's table talks. Of course, they asked him how he, with all the Gizan views, could accept as a member of the United States a man like Haj Amin al-Husseini, who is Arab. And Hitler says, when you look at Haj Amin al-Husseini's face, you see that he has blue eyes. Now, from where can an Arab have blue eyes? And of course, he is the son of the Taliban. Only about 2,000 exemptions were issued. Most Mishling didn't receive Aryanization certificates and returned to dangerous and complicated civilian life. In that life, Werner Goldberg had to save his Jewish father from the Gestapo three times. Two SS people took my father on the Trage to the ambulance. It was an SS ambulance. I would like to visit my father. It's impossible. He is prisoner of the Gestapo. On Christmas Eve, when all the guards were at a party, Goldberg rescued his father from the German hospital. And so it was all right. Nobody, also a sister only. And I thought, I'll take my father away. It's impossible. So you will see that. And I took him in a taxi and brought him at home. The annihilation of millions of Jews during the Holocaust was without precedent in modern civilization. The Nazis claimed that the Jewish people were the root cause of all evil in the world and had to be destroyed. But the glaring question is what did the Mischling know about the Holocaust? And when did they know it? On the camp, he didn't know how much he knew about the camp. At the commissary, the shithouse parole was anyway that the Jews came to the concentration camp and were killed. Everyone whispered that. And you could only talk about that with close comrades, openly. And I myself, on the advance, in the northern section, over Lettland, we heard at Dünerburg that, as always, machine guns were used to shoot. And we asked one of them, that was on the advance, and we asked one of them, what's going on there? And he said, I don't even remember if it was a soldier or one of the, how do you call it, the secret police. He just said, oh, a criminal was executed there. And that was all. The soldiers, we knew anyway that there were Jewish prisoners in Auschwitz or Buchenwald. But it was always like that, told among comrades, not publicly. And we also had, I have to say, we also suppressed it. At least I suppressed it. I thought, well, God bless you if they catch you. That was it. Arno Spitz maintained that he never served in areas with a Jewish population. During the war, I never was in areas where there was any Jewish population as in Poland. In this part of Russia, I was not in white Russia, I was south of Leningrad. In this part of Russia and in these swampy districts, there were no Jews. If I had heard about what was going on in concentration camps, I would probably have changed my mind about Germany, about German public, about the line of command, but I probably wouldn't have done anything. Tell me what could I have done or otherwise you are shot. The army couldn't have done anything, anything, actually that much. If I had been put into a position where I had to mistreat miserable people, captive people, I wouldn't have done anything. That's for sure. I'm sure about that. I wouldn't have done anything brutal. That I'm sure. I still believe, I believed and still believe that only a very small part of the German population is involved, had been involved in those crimes. In 1943, the half-Jews were again called back into the service due to the German military's need for manpower. Hansgert Falkenberg was called back and sent to the organization Todt. Todt was a labor battalion made up of prisoners, Mischlings, and other undesirables. The workers were sent to build roads, work on the Atlantic wall project, or build the deadly V-2 rockets. And the V-2s were in a state where every, every fifth or sixth exploded while they were put together. And so, that was more or less a certain death. And while he was working in organization Todt, Falkenberg received a letter from his Jewish grandmother, who was then in a concentration camp. And Falkenberg couldn't do a thing to help her. The last letters, she wrote in French, . . This week, again, 10,000 by gas. In July 42, this was unimaginable. You could only tell yourself, people are becoming crazy there. This cannot be the truth. Falkenberg quickly realized that his grandmother's reports weren't so ridiculous, and that his own life was in serious danger. He and some of his campmates planned an escape. One night, during an air raid, they stole German uniforms and scaled the walls. They found their way to Paris, dressed as German officers. So we lived in Paris, as an OT officer, in a hotel, with all the privileges of the German officers. Getting soap and liquor, and I didn't know what, so I played, I played tennis under the Eiffel Tower. I visited the opera. I visited the Kamerad Comique. And this is my Paris, you know? Dark, coming from the Trocadero, listening to Mengelberg's Eighth Symphony of Beethoven. And then, as a German officer, now, perhaps, being shot down by a resistance man, was a very, very strange situation. In Paris, Falkenberg met a girl at the movie theater. He discovered that she worked for the general in charge of Army service. She forged papers for Falkenberg, releasing him from the organization TOT. And I told her, more or less, who I was, that I had to get rid of this uniform as soon as possible. He went back to her general's office at 12 o'clock in the evening. She typed all the papers I needed to become, to be dismissed from the organization TOT. And at the same time, I went to Berlin and got dismissed the next morning. In April 1943, in celebration of Hitler's birthday, the Nazi leaders decided to give him a present and free Berlin of all Jews. At that time, several thousand Jews married to non-Jews were still in the city. Werner Goldberg's father was arrested yet again and taken to the Jewish Community Center on Rosenstrasse Avenue. Families of those arrested gathered in a park across the street, awaiting the fate of their relatives. This later was known as the first protest ever held against the Nazi regime. In the morning, I stood there and there came an open car from the SS. And in the front, a school comrade of mine sat there. And I went through the police cordon and took them at an arm. Gerhard, deschickt mir der Himmel. Was los. What's the matter? My father is here. Oh, you have luck. I am the chief here. I can't speak to you here. Here is my card. Call me in the evening. I can't leave here. You can leave. Call me in the evening. In the evening, I called him and he told me on the telephone, father comes back at home. And the next morning, he was here. Brian Glaser wore the German uniform for five months before he managed to escape behind the Russian lines. And that's how we stood, dressed and dressed. And he tells me, there was a sergeant there, and he tells us, now I will teach you something important. We have to keep cleanliness, we have to keep silence, and you have to bless everyone you see, from the German army, you have to bless them. And the blessing is Heil Hitler. You have to raise your hands and tell us, do it, now I want to see you how you are blessed. So we made one return, Heil Hitler, and this is how we bless you. Well, we went out to the street, we really found all kinds of people, German standards, around, and until I got to him, we had to get to where we were, this was the place where we went to Lund, and our room. So I had to bless Heil Hitler, everyone I met on the way. I was afraid of death, but what? I was afraid of death even before that. Even when I was in that situation, the fear was already with me, it sat strong with me. The Allied invasion marked the beginning of the end of the Second World War. The Red Army attacked from the East. The forces surrounded Germany. The enemy encircled Arno's Spitz from every side, blocking any chance of escape. And they approached an American jeep, and I jumped off the road and tried to hide myself, but there were no, not touched any leaves at the bushes. So they stopped, tried to follow me, pointed a machine gun at me, and the lieutenant asked me to come up and give him my side gun. He asked me to be seated behind him in his jeep. The jeep turned out. I tipped on his shoulder and said to him, what are you going to do with me? Well, he said, we take you to camp, a prison camp. And I said to him, I tell you, I don't want to be a prisoner. I love my freedom just as much as you do. And my father is an American, Jewish American. This was the first time that my Jewish ancestry came into play. He told the driver stop. He wanted to let me go. The driver did not obey. Arno Spitz was captured, escaped, and was captured again. And this was an American captain. And he said to me, well, why did you want to escape? I said, I don't want to be, I don't want to be a prisoner. I cannot stand being captive. I'm completely free. Just like my father, who is a citizen of the United States. Oh, he said, your father, he said, how can that come? I said, my father is Jewish and has left Germany. Helmut Kopp was captured by Soviet troops and taken to a prisoner of war camp. He was kept prisoner for nearly two years, from 1944 to 1946. And now I thought, I thought, I said, I went under, I falsified my papers. So I falsified my papers. And then she got very angry. And then she said, that cannot be with the German army. July 1944, in Russian captivity, two years. And then after two years I came back with 44 kilos. I weigh 84 today. At that time I weighed 78. And came back and for the first time a quarter of a year nothing at all. So because I looked like a skeleton. And there I lived with friends. And my circle of acquaintances was a Jewish circle of acquaintances. So mixed marriages. But there were no, at the beginning, oh, and then I had then I had a girlfriend. I had a girlfriend before the war. An Aryan. But we were not allowed to marry. We were only allowed so, so secretly. And then we got married. Of the 160,000 Jews living in Berlin in 1933, only 1,500 Jews, counting the Mischlings, survived until the war's end. Except for Werner Goldberg's father, his Jewish family all perished in the Holocaust. After the war, Goldberg tried to help his neighbors as they entered a new period in Germany. He helped rebuild his Berlin neighborhood. He established a soup kitchen with food he scrounged from the Soviet army. And even started a fire department. Later he became active in German politics and the struggle for democracy and minority rights. He became a member of the city council, started his own political party, and was willing to do anything to support the Jewish people. And was one of the leaders in getting legislation passed, granting reparations for Jews and others who'd suffered at Nazi hands. After the war, Arno Spitz joined his Jewish father in Los Angeles and became a successful building contractor. When the Berlin Wall went up dividing Germany in 1961, Spitz felt he needed to return to Germany. He supported the Social Democratic Party. Spitz opened a publishing company that aired pro-democratic views. Spitz lost most of his Jewish relatives in the Holocaust. All of Helmut Kopp's Jewish family were murdered by the Nazis, except those who had escaped to Israel. Kopp and his wife stayed in Berlin where he worked mainly as a truck driver or a chauffeur. After the war, Hansgert Falkenberg learned that he'd lost all of his Jewish relatives, including his grandmother. He finished his education, earning a PhD, and established Input, a foundation dedicated to democracy. Falkenberg was also a well-known German TV producer and television personality. Until his death in 2005, Falkenberg was married to his third wife, an American Jewish academic. They have a son who had celebrated a bar mitzvah. Until his death in 2004, Werner Goldberg worked to advance democracy in Germany. Given all that he accomplished, perhaps he really was the ideal German soldier after all.

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