The Fate of Jewish Veterans during the Third Reich

In 1914, Jews represented only about 1% of Germany’s population of 67 million. Deeply rooted in European Christian consciousness was the idea that Jews, as a people uniquely hateful to God, should not be permitted to possess weapons, or practice the profession of arms. But during the First World War, approximately one hundred thousand Jews served in the Imperial German armed forces. (Many thousands more served in the army of the decrepit Austro-Hungarian empire, much of which was eventually incorporated into the Third Reich.) Eighty thousand fought in the trenches, earning the honored status of Frontkämpfer (“front line fighter.”) Eighteen thousand were awarded the Iron Cross. About twelve thousand were killed in action, and many more were wounded. Despite the fierce anti-Semitism of the Prussian officer class, twenty three thousand were promoted, and two thousand were even commissioned as officers. Eighty one German rabbis volunteered to serve as military chaplains.

The Nazi seizure of power on January 30, 1933 did not immediately change the social, political or economic status of German Jewish veterans, most so highly assimilated into mainstream culture that they thought of themselves as German first. They regarded Nazi propaganda, which demonized Jews as subhuman dirty Bolshevik aliens, as something that pertained only to unwelcome refugee Eastern European Jews who flocked into Germany after WWI.

On September 15, 1935, enactment of the “Nuremberg Laws” stripped German Jews of citizenship, expelling them from the civil service and most professional occupations. In practice, decorated and war-wounded Jewish veterans, those married to “Aryans,” and converts to Christianity were exempted from strict enforcement of some of these restrictions.

The situation worsened sharply after Kristallnacht (the “Night of Broken Glass,”) a carefully orchestrated Nazi attack on Jewish shops, homes and synagogues on November 9-10, 1938. Some 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and sent to concentration camps, many being publicly humiliated and brutally beaten.

Some Jewish veterans were sent to a “privileged” concentration camp at Theresienstadt (now Terezin, Czech Republic) but as the Red Army approached, the SS grew concerned that men with military experience were potential leaders for prisoner revolts, and most were eventually shipped off to Auschwitz for extermination.

A story from 1943 at the Majdanek concentration camp (near Lublin, Poland) epitomizes the attitude of these brave men:

‘As he was led to the gallows, Bauchwitz requested to be shot by firing squad, not hanged, in recognition of his service as an officer at Verdun, where he had received the Iron Cross First Class for bravery. To this, the SS officer replied, “Whether you have the Iron Cross or not, whether you were an officer or not, in my eyes you are a stinking Jew, and you will be hanged.” Before the sentence was carried out, Bauchwitz called on the gathered Jews to say Kaddish (the Jewish prayer for the dead) for him, proclaiming that since he could not die as a German, he would now die as a Jew.’

Comrades Betrayed is an important new study of the experience of Jewish veterans during the years of the Weimar Republic (1918-1933) and the Third Reich (1933-1945). The book is based on extensive archival research, along with diaries, letters, and oral histories of Holocaust victims and survivors. The author, Michael Geheran is Assistant Professor of History and Deputy Director of the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the United States Military Academy at West Point.

Our Reviewer: Mike Markowitz is an historian and wargame designer. He writes a monthly column for CoinWorld and is a member of the ADBC (Association of Dedicated Byzantine Collectors). His previous reviews in modern history include To Train the Fleet for War: The U.S. Navy Fleet Problems, 1923-1940, D-Day Encyclopedia: Everything You Want to Know About the Normandy Invasion, Fighting to the End: The Pakistan Army’s Way of War, Loyal Sons: Jews in the German Army in the Great War, Holocaust versus Wehrmacht: How Hitler’s "Final Solution" Undermined the German War Effort, Governments-in-Exile and the Jews During the Second World War,‘ Admiral Gorshkov, and Rome – City in Terror: The Nazi Occupation 1943–44.

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Note: A volume in “Battlegrounds: Cornell Studies in Military History”, Comrades Betrayed is also available in several e-editions.

StrategyPage reviews are published in cooperation with The New York Military Affairs Symposium