Hiding in plain sight: An unusual and controversial chapter in Holocaust history

Dateline NBC via MSNBC.com ^ | June 9, 2002 | Josh Mankiewicz

[tet68]

No news to any one who's studied WW.II.

[LarryLied]

At the start of the war you had to prove your lineage sevenor eight generations.

Not the case. Jews were drafted into the Wehrmacht in 1939.

[PsyOp]

I said the SS, not the wermacht. Completely different. When the SS was first formed as Hitler's bodyguard, and for the first year of the war against the Soviets, Racial purity was of the utmost importance as a criteria for acceptance into the SS (that includes the Waffen SS). The Gestapo did extensive background and family purity checks before candidates were approved.

However, SS units suffered massive casualties on the Eastern front and their ranks could not be reconstituted quickly enough using the original criteria, so it was continually lowered throughout the war. Eventually, the SS was even accepting arabs into the ranks as the definition of "aryan" was expanded for this reason as well.

[steamroller]

I bought the book and read it right through.It is well-written and scholarly at the same time.What is particularly interesting and sad is the level of participation by Jews in the armed forces of Germany and Austria-Hungary in World War 1.Rigg documents this at the beginning of the book.Jews served in large numbers and took many casualties in the service of what they believed were their nations.Many rose to high rank.The thanks they got was to be considered non-persons.It illustrates the insanity of calssifying people en masse,instead of letting them rise or fall on their own intrinsic qualities.That is what sets the US apart from most other countries,with maybe a few exceptions like Australia or Canada.

[steamroller]

I bought the book and read it right through.It is well-written and scholarly at the same time.What is particularly interesting and sad is the level of participation by Jews in the armed forces of Germany and Austria-Hungary in World War 1.Rigg documents this at the beginning of the book.Jews served in large numbers and took many casualties in the service of what they believed were their nations.Many rose to high rank.The thanks they got was to be considered non-persons.It illustrates the insanity of calssifying people en masse,instead of letting them rise or fall on their own intrinsic qualities.That is what sets the US apart from most other countries,with maybe a few exceptions like Australia or Canada.

[LarryLied]

I said the SS, not the wermacht.

My mistake. the SS was nuts. Know a Lt who captured a bunch of them and he said they were nuts. Something had to be taken down from a beam a hundred feet up. He sent the SS POWS to do it. They did handstands on the beams. There are eerie resemblences to the German Green party of today and the pseudo-religion the SS developed.

[PsyOp]

SS was nuts.

that's putting it mildly. I've studied the conflict for years including several histories of the SS itself. Essentially they became victims of their own battlefield successes (this applies to the Waffen SS). The Wermacht generally disliked the SS troops because the SS lorded it over everyone, always got the best equippment and the most supplies.

In the attack and defense they were fanatical. Wermacht generals got in the habit of calling the local SS troops in whenever there was a particularly tough objective. They knew that the SS soldiers would rather die than fail or retreat. So the Generals got in the habit of feeding them into the meat grinder whenever possible - in part, I'm convinced, to spare Wermacht troops at the expense of the SS.

Their casualty rates were double or triple the regular army. But it also made them feared where ever they showed up. No one liked to tangle with those nut jobs.

[LarryLied]

I went to HS with the son of an SS Doctor. He did well in America. A Army Vet who lived down the street from him had guarded him in Germany. He had pictures of the guy standing in a rowboat in full SS uniform. Its a weird world.

[PsyOp]

He had pictures of the guy standing in a rowboat in full SS uniform.

LOL! I suppose he was trying to escape to Argentina but couldn't find any privates to row for him.

[Liberty Belle]

Ping

[mountaineer]

Thanks for the comments. I hope to get a copy of the book soon.

[vance]

These people were only "Jews" under Hitler's murderous and twisted race laws.

Why don't you post the part of the Dateline piece where the writer mentions that he would never want to imply that Jews collaborated with Hitler? Any real Jews who served did so in the hope of saving family members or with a gun to the head. Whereas many non-Jewish Germans relished their opportunity to kill and maim innocents.

[LarryLied]

These people were only "Jews" under Hitler's murderous and twisted race laws.

Many of them would be eligible for Israeli citizenship. Be interesting to see if any of them got it or received reparations.