Die Soldaten Mit Dem Halben Stern Wdr
English Translation

This is the story of German men, who were labeled by the Nazis as racially impure and were declared to be Jewish mixed-race. But nevertheless fought for their fatherland in the Second World War. An unbelievable and until today hardly known process. I wanted to be like the others. Only my mother said, Yingeli, that's not possible. We are different. And if you say something, I'll come to the concentration camp. And I didn't want that. There were certainly moments of self-hatred, very big moments, where I hated my ancestors, my grandparents, my parents, my mother, all of them. Myself, of course, too, because I just suffered a lot from it. I have both my physical abilities, starting with sports, mental abilities, music, theater. I have both my physical abilities, starting with sports, mental abilities, music, theater. I have both my physical abilities, starting with sports, mental abilities, music, theater. I have both my physical abilities, starting with sports, mental abilities, music, theater. I have both my physical abilities, starting with sports, mental abilities, music, theater. I have both my physical abilities, starting with sports, mental abilities, music, theater. I have both my physical abilities, starting with sports, mental abilities, music, theater. I have both my physical abilities, starting with sports, mental abilities, music, theater. I have both my physical abilities, starting with sports, mental abilities, music, theater. I have both my physical abilities, starting with sports, mental abilities, music, theater. I have both my physical abilities, starting with sports, mental abilities, music, theater. I have both my physical abilities, starting with sports, mental abilities, music, theater. I have both my physical abilities, starting with sports, mental abilities, music, theater. I stayed in consciousness and I wanted to show that I'm not lazy. I only took part in it to survive. I said to myself, if you fall here, you won't notice it, as if you were in a concentration camp. This gap that was in me, when I suddenly realized, here you go against people, who are basically your blood. Today I can only thank God that I had a Jewish mother and that I didn't become a Nazi. The fact that the story of these men has become known is related to a young American. In the summer of 1992, the 21-year-old Texan Brian McGrick arrives at a German airport. He studies history in the USA and has just learned from his parents that his maternal ancestors came from Saxony-Anhalt. This makes him curious. First, he decides to learn the language of the foreign country and to research here according to his assumptions. First of all, not more. But the following events will change his life and intensively occupy him for ten years. In his backpack he carries everything he needs to live and work. Since his money is only enough for three months, but he wants to stay for half a year, he has to live very sparingly. The unknown world of his father, his ancestors, fascinates him. He has only just learned that they were German Jews. Brian moves on to Berlin. To improve his German skills, he goes to the cinema. His teacher at the Goethe-Institut has recommended him a film that was discussed a lot at the time, which tells the true story of an extraordinary fate. Hitler's young Solomon. And while Brian is looking for a place in the cinema, something first of all happens every day that will go on in an unusual way. Here comes a Texan to Germany to learn his family history and also to learn the language of his family. And he goes into a film about a person who served in the German Wehrmacht who was a Jew. And suddenly the person next to him is also a Wehrmacht veteran who was partly Jewish. He says this is very unusual. It doesn't happen often. And as if a destiny had chosen me to continue researching these topics. I thought I would know if there is more Shlomo Perel than in the film. Shlomo Perel, the hero of this feature film, is a German-Jewish boy who is captured by German troops in a Russian field train. He denies being Jewish and claims to be a German from Latvia. He sends his company chief to an internat of the Hitler Youth in Germany. Are you ready to swear to our leader Adolf Hitler the oath of loyalty? I am ready. I swear to God this holy oath that I will swear to the leader of the German Reich and people Brian doesn't understand everything but his neighbor speaks good English and always translates for him. The order of the Hitler Youth is to stay obedient and to be ready in every danger to put my life into action. Put my life into action. You can take your arm off again. We welcome our new comrade with a threefold victory Victory! Victory! The young historian from the USA finds the film story rather unbelievable. But the man next to him has a completely different point of view. His name is Peter Milius and he himself has a dramatic story to tell. He and his later brother who fell in front of Leningrad were as sons of a so-called half-Jewish mother soldiers in the Wehrmacht and feared to be discovered all the time. It was a coincidence that Brian had brought Peter together. But now the topic of the soldiers of Jewish origin in the Wehrmacht began to entangle him. Then he decided spontaneously to use his stay in Germany to gain more experience. When I asked him if there were more people like you who had served in the German Wehrmacht he said that there were many others. And then I started to think how was it possible that so many mixed people were there? Later I met a very good comrade of Peter, Nils. And he said, yes, I heard from Helmut Schmidt, the chancellor, that there were many mixed people in the Wehrmacht. Later, when I interviewed Helmut Schmidt, I found out that it was the truth. He had a Jewish grandfather. And then that's just an example of how I came across other people. And that night with Peter I suddenly saw that there was a chapter from the Third Reich and Holocaust that was not written. Brian's research begins. He gives him some names and addresses of other soldiers of Jewish origin. After my conversation with Peter I found out that there were thousands of people who were designated as Jews. Not because they designated themselves as Jewish but because the Nazis designated these people as Jewish. And that was the reality at the time. And that was a big surprise for me. It didn't matter what many people, who had been baptized, did. Suddenly it was the race, not the religion. And it was the blood, as the Nazis said. Suddenly many people were partly Jewish, but before they always thought I am German, I am Christian, I am a patriot, and so on. And suddenly with the Nazis they say, no, no, you are inferior, you are a subhuman, you are a mixed person. In his book Jews were already called to fight. The dog lover was fascinated by the idea of racial purity which he unquestioningly cheated on people. He followed the Mendelian laws and calculated the inheritance by blood. Jews, half-Jews and quarter-Jews came out, also called mixed people. Suddenly thousands of Christian families were also affected. As a little boy, because all classmates were in the Hitler Youth, I also went in there. My parents did not like it. But one day I was excluded and I gradually became aware that something was wrong with my family. We as children, my brother and I, only with the fact that we were Jewish were we able to confront each other after Hitler's fascism took power. I went to my father and asked him what it was. I was allegedly excluded because of racial inferiority complex because I was not allowed to go to the HJ. Then my father said we come from a Jewish family. It is possible at least that you as a non-Aryan have to deal with violations. I am Jewish. I am not Jewish. I am half-Jewish. I am known by laws. They told me everything. Mixed people of the first degree. No, we did not succeed at all. I fell out of all the clouds and for me it was of course a blow because I was like a mother to her son with whom I played football who told me to stop playing with the Jewish boy. That was for me the great story and the terrible experience that I was suddenly called a Jew even though I really was not. Even when I started I thought I did not find anything. But I started to think maybe the story is outside the archives. That's why I went to the people to find the people. Many of the people gave me a sense of how I could get to the documents in the archives. Mr. Meyer, it is a miracle that you still have these documents. In his research you can see how many people are carrying them around. One knows about the other and calls him by name and address. The search for the old documents from the military time over 50 years ago often leads to roof floors and into cellars. Life stories. Packed, suppressed, forgotten. May I? Of course. And when was this taken? In the war. And these two strips here, is that overmat or mat? How could these men get rid of the breaches in their personal development and develop an identity? Well, the development of the identity I don't know. I can't satisfy and answer that. I don't know. I feel as if I was affected by Judaism. Even today it is incomprehensible to me that I was a so-called mixed race. We came from an absolute German family and the religion did not matter to me. It was a religion and nothing else. Somehow there I had to try everything to get away from it. And somehow I felt, of course, as a German and as a German and so on and so forth, of course also connected to this direction. And I didn't feel ashamed that I was. I couldn't do anything about it. But I kept it to myself. I couldn't tell anyone. Always German. Even today. I never felt any other way. And for me it was the worst thing that was done to me when they threw me out of the Wehrmacht. I was in a situation where I was close to being shot. I have to say that. The Germans were like in a mass psychosis. And they became Jews. I was raised by Jews. And I took part in it. Although I should have known that one day it would hit me. A terrible experience. Brian continues to research. What special connection does it have in Germany with the relationship between Jews and the military? His thoughts go back to the beginning of the 19th century. At that time, Jews had no civil rights and duties. Only very few fought in the soldier's uniform when Napoleon defeated the Prussians in 1806. Napoleon's triumph and Prussia's defeat led to a new division of the country under the transformation of social relations in Germany. The Prussian Chancellor of State von Hardenberg wrote the Edict on the Civil Relations of the Jews. It was published in 1812 and explained to the Jews living in some Prussian provinces that the Jews were foreigners and citizens of the Prussian state. But King Frederick III did not want to allow Jews in state offices and in the military. But when the call was made to all children of the country to voluntarily take part in the liberation war against Napoleon, the Jews showed how much they already felt a part of the Prussian state. They reported in large numbers and thus proved their patriotism and willingness to integrate. But even during the liberation wars, resistance against Jewish emancipation was formed in one part of society. He finds a clear expression in the Christian Table Society, a debate club of educated people. They include the philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte, the Prussian general Karl von Clausewitz and the poet Clemens Brentano. In this circle, he describes the Jews as these flies left over from the Egyptian plagues. And Fichte recommends to cut off the heads of all Jews in one night and to set up others in whom there is not a single Jewish idea. Such statements do not remain without effect. Thus, after the Vienna Congress in 1815, the Prussian government makes the Jews' essential rights in various provinces of the country regressive again. The Karlsbad Conference, four years later, continues this path. Only those who turn to Christianity have any chance of becoming a state or an officer. This also applies to Menno Burg, an extraordinary military teacher who has fought for recognition and promotion for almost his whole life. Prime Minister, our most merciful king expects you to advance. However, he assumes that through your education, position and religious conviction, he will probably already feel the same approach to Christianity that would make him, through a formal transition to Christian religion, remove any impetus to his further promotion. It would only be for your own good, my son. I am aware of the honor that our most merciful king will pay attention to my concerns. But just as I serve my fatherland and my king faithfully, I will also remain faithful to my faith. I cannot be baptized. You can become chief of the artillery if you accept Christian faith. You are a good officer. The comrades of your troop appreciate you. I have my Jewish faith. Many years later, Menno Burg achieved what he wanted. On the cemetery at Schönhauser Allee in Berlin, Brian Rigg finds the grave of the only Jewish believer of the only Prussian chief of staff of the Jewish faith in the 19th century. He died as major of the artillery at the age of 64 from cholera. His tombstone bears a German and a Hebrew inscription. But for the majority of the integration-willing Jews, after the liberation wars, almost 60 years pass, in which they take part in all the battles, but do not achieve full equality. Above all, they cannot become active officers. Only in the German-French war of 1870 can Jewish soldiers, through military service, largely unburdened by prejudices and accusations against their Judaism, enter German society. Many of them are awarded and promoted to reserve officers. For a short time, it looks as if their emancipation has finally succeeded. His professors in Yale do not want Brian to believe that he will find more than a few unusual incidents of German Wehrmacht soldiers of Jewish origin. But he continues to research. In his second German stay, in 1994, he interviewed 30 men in the first month. He recorded the conversations with tape and video camera and receives photos, certificates, testimonies, military documents, letters. His certainty of having come across an untold German history grows with every documented case. Helmut Kopp, son of a Jewish mother and a Christian father, was born in 1922 in East Prussia. When his parents married against the will of the Jewish family in 1918, the father was a soldier. The young woman soon fell ill with tuberculosis, but in five months he was able to recover five children. Helmut, the third one, was the only son. The mother died in 1925. He was three and a half years old. Soon the family was divided. The blonde siblings came to the Christian relatives, the dark-haired to the Jewish ones. Helmut was not blonde. And so a long period of suffering began for him. They wanted to circumcise you, but the parents, the father on the Christian side, did not allow it. And there was, from the side of the mother, the grandparents, there was great tension. My grandfather, Louis Kaulbach, he had a, I don't know, at least when he saw me, he got a seven-string. That was a knot with seven, with seven straps and knots at the end. And then he pulled it over my head every time, not over my body, and said, you moron. Rolf von Südow, theater and film director, would probably have become an officer if the Nazis had not labeled him as a mixed second degree and excluded him from this career. He grew up in a cultivated, big-town orphanage and had a particularly close relationship with his mother. But with the Mischlings laws the insecurity also came into his sheltered childhood and youth. Jewish was my mother, a so-called Mischling of the first degree, so half-Jewish, whatever that is, because her grandfather, her father was not Aryan. But of course not Jewish, but he was already like his parents, they have been Christians since 1820. On the paternal side we are, I don't know, up to 1240 we are Aryan or something. And of course I grew up in the tradition of an officer family. All of my ancestors were either officers or they were people in the diplomatic service or they were officers in the army. When I was still a child, I was given an officer uniform. I wore the picket hat of my uncle Walter and had the shoulder pads of a lieutenant and of course I was very proud to wear this uniform. And then when I was 33, they wanted to put me in a home, a Jewish orphanage, but I should have been circumcised beforehand. And then about four months the trouble started with being a Jew or not being a Jew. And the Jewish, the Jewish orphanage, they just wanted to have me circumcised. When it was like that, after four months, after four months of fighting, they agreed. But I finally had the feeling that now I have a home. Werner Goldberg. He came to the world in Berlin in 1919, was baptized and raised as a Protestant. The East Prussian father, who comes from a Jewish family, was converted at the age of 21. The mother came from an evangelical home in Silesia. Werner was an enthusiastic pfadfinder. Since his Jewish grandfather had died early, Werner had hardly any contact with Judaism in his childhood. In 1933, the pfadfinderschaft was then taken up halfway into the HJ. And it was distributed cross-examination signs that were to be attached to the keppis. And that didn't bother me at all. And that didn't bother me at all. And that didn't bother me at all. And then in 1934, And then in 1934, when this transfer into the HJ was to take place, I was asked to end my membership. to end my membership. And I had to do that with a heavy heart. I know that I cried bitter tears I know that I cried bitter tears at the Grunewald train station at the Grunewald train station at the Grunewald train station But nobody could tell me. But nobody could tell me. This transfer into the HJ was a big shock for me. Because at that age you couldn't understand why. I had big problems later because I always watched how far I would look Jewish. There was a confectionery in Wiesbaden and there was a possibility if you walked diagonally across the street you could really see yourself. There were two mirrors that met each other. And I walked diagonally across the street because I wanted to know how I really looked. I entered the young people and was quickly promoted. My home evenings were the best and I was quickly promoted to young train driver because I had discovered it in secret and of course I was excluded. I think that being Jewish made me feel inferior in school. I think that being Jewish made me feel inferior in school. I don't think I look particularly Jewish although I am often called Mr. Einstein and I have a distant resemblance to Albert Einstein but not as a young person. In my behavior I have deliberately taken away both the whining in my speech as well as my physical attitude or maybe there is Jewishness in my expression that I have deliberately taken away. In any case in my memory there is never the question of my descent or my originality. I was bribed and when the time came when as a young man at the age of 18 or 19 I was interested in the other sex or at the beginning and I had a girlfriend I immediately said to this girl you can't go with a Jew and of course that was the beginning of the end. The more I interviewed people the more I found out very soon that I had a great responsibility. When these people opened their souls to me cried with me their deepest feelings things they didn't speak with their wife spoke with me I am obliged to write this story now. Many people have said that maybe they are our chance they are our possibility to bring this to the open. And there we have the whole mess. They are all dead they killed the Nazis except me I'm still alive there I am. Günter Karlauch descendant of a large Jewish family is actually called David Erzmann but hardly anyone else knows that his father was already kidnapped by the Nazis by a Nazi in a concentration camp He doesn't even know him and also doesn't know his real date of birth because the Jewish mother also fled with the little boy to the Upper Lausitz There an evangelical spiritualist exposed the two wrong papers also the date of birth of the son was announced about two years later. In 1937 the youth service law was passed and all the young people had to be married and my mother said of course you can go there she also said you always have to say what the others don't want to hear so I think from today's point of view it was difficult it was difficult because it was indeed a double life it was definitely difficult for me and it costed me a lot of thinking and I was sometimes worried Were you afraid? Yes, unfortunately I'm still afraid today Yes, that's true back then I was afraid of my mother I was afraid of myself It can be the same The first few years of this cause could be called life hadn't been through not convincing I don't care I don't care but I don't care I don't care I don't care I don't care I don't care I don't care Brian drives to Nuremberg, where National Socialism presented itself in its first years as the most threatening. On the former party grounds, which is now used as a stage for pop concerts, the violent demonstrations of a merciless will of power took place. The young Texan stands helplessly in the middle of the monumental buildings. In this city, in 1935, the so-called Nuremberg Laws were also formulated, which were supposed to enforce Hitler's idea of a future German male race. After that, the Reichsbürger was only the member of state of German or relative blood. A Jew could not be a Reichsbürger. After the Law on the Protection of German Blood and German Honor, marriages between Jews and so-called German-blooded persons were also established. Extraordinary love relationships between them were persecuted as racial shame. And the families affected also often refused to react to this. Many of these people, the so-called Jewish twins, went to their Jewish relatives in the 1930s and said, please help, I want to go to the USA or England, but I don't have the money. And the people would say, no, your mother married a Goy, a Christian, we don't want anything to do with you. Then they went to their Christian family, their so-called Aryan family, and said, please, help me. And the Aryan family, so to speak, said, no, your father married a Jew, they are Jewish, leave them alone. And so, this is not the case for every person I have documented, but many have such fates behind them. Many of these people, they were ignored. Where do they fit? Are they dead or are they victims? After 1933, it initially looked like his so-called twins, as well as Jewish front-line fighters from the First World War, were not affected by the discriminations by the Aryan paragraphs. But public hatred soon ensured that between Jews and so-called half- or quarter-Jews there was less and less difference. One must not forget that in the First World War, 100,000 German Jewish soldiers, 12,000 even fell. So these people, they come from a very rich military tradition. And they did not see anything else to serve in the Wehrmacht than what their father and their grandparents and so on did. The merchant Richard Stern also believed in justice when he bravely stood at the door of his shop on April 1, 1933, when he bravely stood at the door of his shop on April 1, 1933, when he bravely stood at the door of his shop on April 1, 1933, when he bravely stood at the door of his shop on April 1, 1933, and breathed his last breath. German front-line comrades, do I have to be publicly insulted? I fought like you, as a good German, for this fatherland. And everyone who is insulted by a front-line soldier in the Third Reich is punished with a prison sentence, said our Reich Chancellor Adolf Hitler. Listen, listen, the Jew wants to be a good German. These Jewish front-line fighters? They are far too cowardly. Come on, let's move on, that's embarrassing. Why is this man so evil? You don't understand that yet. Come on now, I'll explain it to you later. 12,000 German front-line soldiers of Jewish faith have fallen. This action against the entire Jewish community is a defamation of their conscience. Germans, protect your Jewish fellow citizens. But Leo Löwenstein, chief of the reserve and chairman of the Reichsbund of Jewish front-line soldiers, also knew the situation thoroughly. In 1934 he appealed to Hindenburg, not to exclude the patriotic Jewish soldiers from the Reichswehr, but to recognize their unconditional willingness to serve for the new Germany. Without success. Until the first years of the war, Mischlinge I. and II. Grades were able to be simple members of the Hitler Youth, had to serve in the Reichsarbeitsdienst and were allowed to serve in the Wehrmacht. However, they failed at all levels of leadership tasks. Only after 1940, the so-called half-Jews were no longer sent to serve on the front line and were dismissed from the Wehrmacht. Many of them were later sent to the forced labor camps of the organization Todt, where only one part survived. But first everyone followed their own strategy to get through. 1939 was the People's Day and the Nazis wanted to know how many Jews were still there. But we didn't know that at the time, because everyone received something. There was only the Eidelstadt Declaration with the declaration that I had full Aryan grandparents. I also wrote that. The Eidelstadt, Helmut Kopp. Dismissed. I never filled out papers. In retrospect, I had the impression that the Wehrmacht didn't care much about these things. It was only after I was wounded that it became known in the company. Before that, nothing. Otherwise I would have had to be dismissed. After a few days, I got the questionnaire back with a letter from the Wehrmacht that it wasn't fully executed and that I was to complete it. And then I completed this other point that was still open. But this question of whether I had completed it after my departure, I left it open. And I was then, I was then, with all the others, promoted to officer lieutenant, without it ever being discussed again. A year later, on the 40th of August, September, I was given an interrogation order. Then they looked into it. What do you have there? I was the first one. And then I looked down and said, do you mean that? And I pointed to my body. I said I had had phimosis. But they saw it right away, didn't they? And then one of them stood up. He's a doctor. Hm, very well done, he said. And then he stepped back again. And that was all. And I had that all my military time. When we have health waste, yes, then I always have that. So then they made it a role model and said, take a role model on the head of the wounded. He always has a clean line. Yes, he also has a Jewish pimple, they then said. The group always, right? That was the great fear of the interrogation. That my circumcision would come out there, my Jewishness would come out there. But it wasn't like that at all. When I then came to the interrogation department, I of course said, but I was in that and that's the situation, that is, so Jewish mixed first grade, whether you would take me at all. And I still see how these five people are sitting in front of me, holding their hands and saying, well, people with their figure, why, of course, do we take them? That's clear. Well, then I also believed that it was all right. Everyone wanted to be part of it and everyone wanted, wanted to stand out. And of course that was it. I was proud. I am then later as a soldier, when I came back there, I then went with the EK in the black tank uniform and went with my grandfather, who in the meantime already had to wear the Jewish star, but who always kept a book for camouflage in front of him. I went across the streets in Wiesbaden and said, now tell me something, I'll show it to you. So that was, that was very strong. Although that was of course also a matter that my father gave me along the way. He told me, boy, we live under very special conditions and they are very difficult for us and you have to see that you don't get stuck. So do your, fulfill your tasks with the best knowledge and know-how and don't do more than that and don't push yourself forward. I had to promise him when I was a soldier that I would never report to any operation voluntarily. Voluntarily I would never go to the soldiers. But here I didn't have any choice. But I had to see it as a positive thing that they would equalize me with everyone else and that we actually wouldn't be afraid of any difficulties in the Nazi era. We had a firm hope that everything would be cleared up. The encounters with the German soldiers of Jewish origin made the American Brian Rigg considerate. Our idea is very much influenced by the military films and also the historical documentary films. Many times original sources from the Nazi Reich were used. And that's why it shaped us. Many people thought the Germans were big, blonde, they were all Nazis back then. And when I came here and started to get to know Germans also when I saw this film about Shlomo Perel and also from Peter Milius I learned a lot about the Third Reich. I saw that not every German knows that he was a Nazi. And also I started to see that not every person who wore a German uniform with a swastika at that time was an over-the-top natural national socialist person. And so I thought the story is not as black and white as it was told to me or as I thought about it before. Many people want to see their stories as black and white because it's very simple but the story is black and white and there's a lot of gray in it. The so-called Jewish Mischlinge had to take active military service after the Wehrgesetz of 1935 but they couldn't be deposed. Nevertheless many of them volunteered because they hoped to prove their courage and connection with the fatherland in this way and so to escape persecution and discrimination with their relatives. The Führer and the leader of the Wehrmacht Adolf Hitler seemed to be the solution to the racial question even at the height of the war to be more valuable than the military victory. Nevertheless he granted hundreds of Mischling soldiers in high positions exception permits for the stay in the Wehrmacht. Or he arised them by explaining them in bold in German. That may be connected with his own dark identity. Hitler feared that his unknown grandfather on the father's side was a Jew. Although there are no reliable documents about this until today. However it is clear that in Hitler's lifetime the strict ban was given to investigate this assumption. In addition the supreme warlord did not want to give up capable soldiers and loyal party members especially many so-called Mischling soldiers. In addition the supreme warlord did not want to give up capable soldiers and loyal party members because of their allegedly racial inferiority first discovered by the Nuremberg laws and their long-assimilated families mostly incomprehensible and embarrassed reacted to the exclusion. Unimaginably but true. Until the end Hitler's warlords were not allowed to be accepted into the army. Sometimes mothers also became relatives for their sons so the Jews Clara of Mettenheim had good relationships with high-ranking military but only one of her four sons received Hitler's exemption to active service and was not allowed to look Jewish in any case. So it came again to the grotesque decision that brothers or fathers of one family were treated differently. According to Hitler's view in one case the Aryan parents were inherited but in the other case the Jewish family was the only family that was allowed to look Jewish and had the right of a citizen in a National Socialist State. For seven years the half-Jewish Lieutenant Ernst Prager and the half-Jewish Knight of the Cross Walter Holländer were treated like that. Thousands of them were arrested in this way some only after they had fallen in the war. In a so-called list there were few. The most well-known areas were the Luftwaffe General Helmut Wilberg a man who developed the concept of the Luftwaffe for the Blitzkrieg as well as the most successful organization since 1933. Göring could not give up on him the smart and zealous party member. About him whose Jewish descent was known she should have said who is Jewish I decide which I am and I was not born in Germany and I was born in Germany and I was born in France and in Germany and I was born in The officer Emil Lux, a half-Jew, lost an arm at the front and was awarded with the Iron Cross and the silver wounded badge. After that, he was dismissed from the army as incompetent. Hitler, who had almost always defended himself, was seriously confused about the German blemish declaration. Lux pondered whether he should apply for it and hesitated because he had previously concealed his Jewish descent. But then his mother, who had already been baptized at her wedding, was deported. I then went to Berlin in full uniform, with the Iron Cross and so on, to the Gestapo in Berlin and tried to get my mother to come free. That was rejected. My mother told me after the war that there was also a Jew in Berlin. My son was a fighter pilot in Norway. He received the Polar Merit and was declared a German blemish. At the same time, his mother was taken to the concentration camp. It was an incredible thing. For me, the German blemish declaration was probably not possible because my family, especially my father, was very critical of it. I was not the only one who was assigned to the Nazis. That was well known. During my studies in Vienna, I applied for the command of the German military district. It took months and was rejected one day after a conversation with the local party organisation. Helmut Schmöckel was released from the war marine as a clapping mother because of his half-Jewish, but baptized mother. His Aryan father was enough for his wife and son. The passionate Marine soldier Helmut, who was recognized by his comrades, was deeply depressed by what had happened. In 1935, my father was reactivated by Major Adé and became lieutenant colonel. He had to pass on the Aryan proof to a generation earlier. This led to this branch of the family that came from a Jewish family. Hitler decided positively in the case of Helmut Schmöckel. As lieutenant, he was able to resume his service at the war marine, ascended to the U-boat commander, fought until the end of the war and obtained the Iron Cross of both classes. My mother was told that she had been declared German-blooded. For me, that was the end of the episode. I was German. I was a German officer. It was war and all I had to do was to win the war. To do my duty as an officer. And I didn't think of anything else. How I read this in the books and about the German-bloodedness. I would never do it. That's why you sell yourself. You sell your birth. The birth of a half-Jew or a Jew. It doesn't matter what. I wouldn't do anything like that. The young Texan historian Brian Mark Grigg, who coincidentally came across the topic of the Wehrmacht soldiers of Jewish origin, returns to Germany again and again between his studies in Yale and Cambridge to explore this previously unwritten chapter of German history. After five years of research, he has conducted 430 conversations with so-called Mischlings or their relatives and recorded 500 hours of them. A map of the train, whose guard souls sometimes become a bedroom for him, and his bicycle take him to the smallest corners of Germany. Caves replace the bathroom and meadows replace the hotel room. After all, he has collected 30,000 documents and closed many unusual acquaintances. The stories of the veterans don't let him go even in his dreams. Some Jewish family chronicles are enough, Brian has found, to go back far into the 19th century. One of these chronicles describes the fate of the Heidenheim family of manufacturers from Chemnitz. It reports that the great-grandfather, Professor Philip Heidenheim, protected his countrymen already in the Civil War of 1848. The rabbi was awarded with an order and was able to farm. And so the great-grandfather, Gustav Heidenheim, grows up into a German-Jewish patriot in a national conservative orphanage. For the 20-year-old, it is natural to voluntarily join the German-French war in 1870. He fights bravely, holds several orders and is finally severely wounded. A fate that will overshadow his whole future. After his return from the war, he ends his commercial training, moves to Chemnitz and there he establishes a glove factory. As a successful businessman, at the age of 30, he marries the 13-year-old Rosalie from the Jewish entrepreneur family of Oppenheim. They get married in 1883. In the same year, Gustav receives the desired civil rights of the city of Chemnitz. He did it. Rosalie and him get seven children, including five boys, who the father marries into a royal family of patriots. He sends a postcard to his son, Hans, expressing his condolences. There is never talk of any discrimination of the family because of their Judaism. Even Gustav Heidenheim's free death at the age of 49 can only be reduced to the unbearable pain as an ongoing consequence of his war injury. His wife, Rosalie, survives him for 38 years. She is left alone with her seven children, which she continues to raise in the spirit of her father. All five boys are happy to serve in the military, strive for promotion and receive the best judgments of their superiors. But the anti-Semitism in the Wilhelminian society is stronger than political liberalism at the end of the 19th century. And public opinion is increasingly influenced by the writings of the historian Heinrich von Treitschke, who already in 1879 shaped the fatal sentence that the Jews are our misfortune. He is now assisted by the anti-Semitic court preacher Adolf Stöcker with numerous pamphlets in which he announces the fight to the Jews until they have fallen into the dust to which they belong. How humiliating the treatment of Jewish soldiers in the army was at that time also had the knight and later Berlin police vice president Bernhard Weiss. He was personally informed. Have you heard, comrade? Are they Jews? Well, then watch out! In the guard's grave. The enemy attacks. All storm off. Only Cohn the Jew. He goes in the other direction. The lieutenant follows. Puts him down. The enemy is freed up there! Cohn disarmed. Well, you will probably be allowed to take an appropriate approach, won't you? What's going on, Weiss? Don't take it so personally. But then the war breaks out in 1914. Kaiser Wilhelm II needs all capable men and calls his subordinates from the balcony of his residence to the weapons. Every fluctuation, every delay would be a betrayal of the fatherland. I don't know any more parties, only Germans. Probably never before have soldiers and among them 100,000 Jewish citizens so enthusiastically and with national pride entered into a war. In calls and confessions they swear their fatherland's consent. Even in the synagogues people pray for the victory of the German weapons. And the Jewish round table formulates pathetically German Jews, we call you up in the spirit of the old Jewish obligation, with all our heart, all our soul and all our power to give you the service of the fatherland. Just like that, the military service for a century the hope of the German Jews on their social recognition increased, so they also believe now that their patriotism their final integration will work. Still the racial ideology in anti-Semitism of those years hardly a role. But subordinate it is already about properties and externalities. So writes the Rexinger Flight Lieutenant Joseph Zirndorfer in his testament I am as a German pulled into the field to protect my oppressed fatherland. But also as a Jew to the full equality of my brothers of faith to dispute. In 1915 he crashed with his machine. Just as proud as victorious also all five brothers Heidenheim in the war. Bruno, Walter and Werner report 1914 immediately voluntarily. The 25-year-old Walter and the only 21-year-old Werner come into the same company. At the Western Front in Belgium they are feverish their first operation. That we always want to stick together we have praised, notes Walter in his diary. During the beginning of the battle kneel the two brothers behind a bush coincidentally next to the flag. And once again quietly the flag oath. From letters and diary notes which the mother later are handed over almost only sound Patience and confidence. Hopefully we'll get there soon to the enemy and pull in all directions. From the enthusiasm in the whole country you can not imagine you at all. We all have such good courage that we go wrong our fight do not even think. On August 23, 1914 Walter closes shortly before the first operation his diary with the words I stop now if only it would be so far that the fire baptism would have survived. Hours later Werner is already wounded Walter falls who wants to help him through a headshot. Dear comrade we wanted to use the fatherland more now we are after the first battle separated forever. Why did you have to leave me? ends Werner the diary of the brother. Walter is buried in Belgium. The cross stands on a free field in Aulnay-Bailen. Werner returns wounded back to home. But also for him like for his three brothers the war is not over yet and with him the fatherland Reconciliation is not over yet. There it meets like all Jewish soldiers hard. At the end of 1916 as a result of an anti-Semitic Threat campaign the so-called Jewish count the active participation of Jewish soldiers in the frontline questions. But they don't give up. Meanwhile Hans and Karl have also joined. The gas war calls for his next victim. On the morning of July 26, 1918 Karl dies in a gas poisoning in the hospital. The mother is notified with a telegram of the death of his second son. He served until the last breath in faithful duty his fatherland and died as a hero. It says in the ad. Bruno survived the war as a sub-officer and is working on national conservation. On the national-conservative side politically. In 1940 he is pulled by the Nazis to forced labor which he does not survive. Hans represents the family business as a merchant in Düsseldorf marries twice has five children and converted in 1934 to Catholicism. A son dies in Buchenwald. Hans dies in 1949. Werner the youngest of the brothers flees in 1939 to Holland and survives the deportation to Theresienstadt and becomes 88 years old. Brian is in a hurry. The sons of the front fighters of the First World War are old but her memory has not left her. It was a fight against time. I knew that the graves suck these people all in. They were in the late 70s 80s even a few people were in the 90s. And I knew I have to meet these people and interview them before they die in their story in the grave with themselves. Often it happened that I later heard from the children and the wife that what her husband or her father told me was not known to the family. I think many of these men they feel that their life is coming to an end and they want to talk about it. And she starts to talk she can't stop. In his search for former mixed-race soldiers in Hitler he finds the book by Helmut Krüger The Half Star. Here the author tells the story of his family. The father a playwright and actor marries the daughter of a Dutch Jew and a Jewish Hungarian. She is also an actress and is baptized in 1933. The two sons Helmut and Answald are raised as Protestants. They graduate from the Reichsarbeitsdienst and are transferred to the military. So they both believe that everything is fine now. Nothing can happen to their mother. I then registered for 36 years voluntarily. That was possible after the new defense law. That's how the Bushlings became a Reichsbürger in the background. And in that context I was admitted to the German Student Union and got a brown certificate and two exams and then did my exam as a diploma engineer. As a Michelin. That was no problem. I then came to the university as a soldier with the European Council and as a volunteer and obviously a journalist. His Catholic mother Olga Geidner was a nurse. The Jewish father Otto Moses was a journalist. Horst mostly grew up in Berlin. He was first raised by the Jewish faith at the request of his father. But in 1934 he converted to Catholicism because he wanted to protect his family and his family as long as possible. The company had joined the KRE for the morning appeal and the Spies had the officers come to him and read the report. I stood up three steps before him and he said to me quietly the Spies said that they are not Aryan and he took it and in his thick book he said to the officers whether he is Aryan or not. And of course he protected me and the officers in this way. How the others would react was not to be seen. Because he could march very precisely and present for the Reich Marshal Hermann Göring. Geithner did not care about this post. Because my concern was that if something happens to Göring what the gentleman may hide if something happens then one would be the one who would have Göring on his conscience. Geithner was often too close to Göring as a bodyguard. Did he think of using the chance for an attack as a son of a persecuted father? Geithner was a soldier. I was openly a soldier with body and soul. I would have killed anyone who wanted to harm Göring. It was out of question for me. Rudolf Sachs grew up in Protestant faith. His brothers were in sports and musical sports. Like his older brother, he was sent to the Wehrmacht. That he was half-Jew was in the file. His comrades didn't know it. I had to tell him to look at my uniform. I wasn't allowed to. He said he wasn't supposed to take care of it. I didn't have any discrimination. There wasn't any. I received the Iron Cross because they were American tanks. The Russians didn't have any tanks anymore. They had Sherman tanks. I was lucky to shoot them off and saved my commander when we were shot ourselves. I brought him to safety. I was the first to be promoted. They found out that I had kept this a secret. This was the Jewish origin of his baptized mother. I was sentenced to 48 days in a military prison in Mannheim. Despite Hitler's order in April 1940 to release all Jews from the Wehrmacht, it was more important for many company leaders to have good soldiers than to support Hitler's racial policy. That's why thousands of Jewish soldiers left the Wehrmacht to prove they were Germans, patriots, brave soldiers. Many survived because they did more in the war to get an order, to prove that their Jewish origin was not Jewish. And even if most say they had nothing to do in the Wehrmacht with the persecution of Jews, some experienced situations that they were looking for a prisoner. And the convoy had a traffic jam, so we didn't leave. I stayed there for about five to eight minutes and had to experience how SS people, naked people, women, children and old men had to kneel down there. Then they got shot in the grove. And I gave up. I couldn't leave. I had a feeling as if the world was sinking. And I couldn't change that. And somehow the thought came to me, my God, what is that for a prisoner? And then of course there was the second question, how do you get out of there? I couldn't leave. I had the opportunity to desert once. I was cut off and then walked behind the troop for two days. They had two days and then I would have been a war prisoner. Well, there was also propaganda that one was afraid of being imprisoned. That was one. But for me, the thought was that I couldn't desert now. My family, my parents, my father, all my friends, all my neighbors, they were very afraid of me. But I didn't want another war. And I convinced myself that it was enough for my family . Why Jews, and it hurt me so much, and he said, man, you have to whisper a few words to him. And then it was like 50 meters, from here to the next house. And then I say, do you have to beat him there? And then he said in broken German, first of all he was standing tight and made a report. He probably had to do that. And then he said in broken German, I don't know here, the prisoner anyway with seven men, work command. I say, why do you beat your comrades there? Then he says, sir, in totally broken German, sir, we have to do this within so much time. And if we don't do that, then we'll get even stronger blows or something. I say, sir, you don't beat them with me anymore. And then, yes, he said. And then I left, so back again. And my comrades. Yes. To the wagon. And then they say, what did you do with them? I say, I'm sorry that the Jews are beaten like that. He says, what does that concern you? That's what they said. There are only Jews there. So in this word loud. But he didn't beat me anymore, as long as we stood there. Because he thought something after all. Yes, that was. And that was my, again and again, that I became weak. Because I always said, man, there just needs to be one there. Yes, who said, what does that concern you? Or what do you mix in there? But there was no one. Maybe internally they agreed to me. Of course, it was known to me that something had been done to the Jews. But I didn't know the details. I have to lie now. I knew that the Jews, Jews. Jews were partly brought into concentration camps. That was known. But you didn't know anything close to the details. And I have to be honest. You didn't want to know either. And I didn't lose any thoughts about it either. I have to be honest. The misjudgment of many so-called mixers was particularly terrible. That you, as a frontline fighter, your Jewish relatives, could protect you from discrimination and deportation. Sometimes there was a protest of men in uniform. But many people from their families also died in the Holocaust. However, many so-called mixers were as confident as the Sachs brothers. But almost the whole family was murdered. So we already knew what could happen to us. But you have to say that again and again. This Jewish family, who had been in Germany for so long. And one should not forget that a father of mine fell in the First World War for Germany. My father was a soldier in the First World War. So we had no concerns that one would somehow get into trouble with the Nazis. Also Camilla Krüger, born in Davidsson, was deported to Theresienstadt in absence of her sons. According to the customs at that time, I don't know, there were probably no laws at all, my mother would not have had to go to Theresienstadt with her two sons, who were both in the war, both freed, both Iron Cross bearers and my brother even wounded. We were both here in the Reichs-Sicherheits-Aufamt twice. And there we are from SS-Obersturmbannführer Günther in full uniform, captured... Heil Hitler! Heil Hitler! Heil Hitler! What is it? We are asking for the release of our mother. She was sent to Theresienstadt. She is suffering. We fought for Germany at the front. I have been wounded. We both have an award for courage and courage before the enemy. So, so. Jewish heroes have courage, don't they? I want to tell you something. Courage? Every criminal has courage. Heil Hitler! Kamilla Krüger survived Theresienstadt, but she never recovered from it and died after a long victory in 1954. Werner Goldberg found out as a soldier at the front about the urges of his father, a baptized Jew. He turned to his company chief in anger. He raised the complaint further, and all the following executives did the same, up to the highest position. And then I was ordered to the General, from Brockdorf-Ahlefeld. And then I went to the General with a clean hat, boots, boots. And he received me very opposing, I would say. Standing. General, allow me to speak. I am fighting at the front. And my father is not allowed to move freely. He does not get any food. He cannot be treated medically. He is accused of being a Jew. And now, even though he is ill, he is still supposed to work hard. Soldier Goldberg, with this I promote you to freedom. Let yourself immediately take the rank mark. Fasten a pistol, drive to Berlin, and regulate it as it should be for a German soldier. You have 14 days of vacation. If that is not enough, send me a telegram. It will be extended. Yes, General. In this way, Goldberg first reached the employment office, where his father was released from forced labor. Then I went to the 3rd Army Corps here in the Hunzerlander, to talk about the prerequisites for maintaining my family existence, so to speak. There was a commander of the reserve. I later learned that the chairman of the Law Enforcement Chamber of Berlin was there. And as a reserve officer, I was brought in there. He immediately yelled at me, how is it that you, as a half-Jew, have been promoted to be freed? Then I said, you can't order that with me, you have to order that with my general. I was sent here to first of all clarify how it actually works, that my father has no income, that my family cannot pay the rent, that they cannot eat, and that I am a soldier on the front line. He supported me for a moment and then he said, well, you don't have to irritate me anymore. You will be released from the reserve anyway. They have been silent for more than half a century. And hardly anyone has asked them so far, the soldiers with half a star. But their hidden memories have shaped them painfully for a lifetime. Now I have held my head on this land. And now all of a sudden I don't have any more money. It went on like this afterwards. It wasn't like that that...