Hitler's Jewish Soldiers Price Documentary

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.