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wehrmacht

Jews in the Nazis’ Ranks

\”Hitler\’s Jewish Soldiers: The Untold Story of Nazi Racial Laws and the Men of Jewish Descent in the German Military\” by Bryan Mark Rigg (University Press of Kansas, $29.95).

Bryan Mark Rigg\’s most controversial assertion is \”Hitler\’s Jewish Soldiers\’\” least relevant matter. In a complicated opening chapter, he claims that 150,000 individuals (almost exclusively male) served in the German military who were, by Nazi racial standards and laws, Jews of some quantity. By his calculations, perhaps as many as 6,000 \”full\” Jews (with four Jewish grandparents) were in the Wehrmacht — but the greater number comes, of course, from the highly assimilated, aggressively nationalistic, and thoroughly acculturated \”quarter\” and \”half\” Jews, those with one or two Jewish grandparents, respectively. (The mathematics is darkly amusing: two half-Jewish parents make up one half-Jewish child.)

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