(; ; ) was a pejorative legal term which was used in Nazi Germany to denote persons of mixed "Aryan" and "non-Aryan", such as Jewish, ancestry as they were classified by the Nuremberg racial laws of 1935. In German, the word has the general connotation of “hybrid”, “mongrel”, or “half-breed”.Messinger, Heinz. Langenscheidts Handwörterbuch Englisch, 2 parts, Teil II: Deutsch-English. Berlin (West) et al.: Langenscheidt, 1959. Outside its use in official Nazi terminology, the term ('mixed children') was later used to refer to war babies born to non-white soldiers and German mothers in the aftermath of World War II.Rudolf Sieg, "Mischlingskinder in Westdeutschland: Eine anthropologishce Stuide an farbigen Kindern", Beitrage zur Anthropologie 4 (1955):9–79.
Nazi definitions of Mischling
Nazis relied on one's ancestors' religious backgrounds to determine whether someone was of "German or related blood" ("Aryan") or a "Jew" ("non-Aryan").Diemut Majer, "Non-Germans" Under the Third Reich, page 40 Thus, the Nuremberg Laws in 1935 defined a "full Jew" (Istjude or Volljude in Nazi terminology) as a person – regardless of religious affiliation or self-identification – who had at least three grandparents who had been enrolled with a Jewish congregation or were married to a Jewish spouse.Cf. §5 (1) "Jude ist, wer von mindestens drei der Rasse nach volljüdischen Großeltern abstammt. § 2 Abs.[atz] 2 Satz 2 findet Anwendung." (translated: A Jew is defined as one who descends from at least three (racially) fully Jewish grandparents. § 2 section 2 sentence 2 is applying.), whereas §2 (2) says: "Jüdischer Mischling ist, wer von einem oder zwei der Rasse nach volljüdischen Großelternteilen abstammt, sofern er nicht nach § 5 Abs.[atz] 2 als Jude gilt. Als volljüdisch gilt ein Großelternteil ohne weiteres, wenn er der jüdischen Religionsgemeinschaft angehört hat." (translated: A Jewish Mischling is defined as one who descends from one or two (racially) fully Jewish grandparents, unless he is considered a Jew in accordance with § 5 (2). A grandparent is offhandedly considered fully Jewish if he has membership with the Jewish religious body.), see: Erste Verordnung zum Reichsbürgergesetz vom 14. November 1935 (First ordinance on the Reich's Citizen Act of 14 November 1935) , retrieved on 23 January 2013. A person with two Jewish grandparents was also legally "Jewish" (so-called Geltungsjude, roughly speaking, in or "to be deemed/reckoned as a Jew") if that person met any of these racial conditions created by Nazis: Was enrolled as a member of a Jewish congregation when the Nuremberg Laws were issued or joined laterA later secession from the Jewish community did not affect the classification as Geltungsjude. Secession from religious Jewish congregations remained possible until July 1939, when the Gestapo transformed them all into its subdivisions, forced to enlist every person discriminated against as Geltungsjude or a Jew according to the Nuremberg Laws. Was married to a "full Jew". Was the offspring from a marriage with a Jew, which was concluded after the 1935 ban on mixed marriages. Was the offspring of an extramarital affair with a Jew, born out of wedlock after 31 July 1936.Cf. §5 (2) d of Erste Verordnung zum Reichsbürgergesetz vom 14. November 1935 (First ordinance on the Reich's Citizen Act of 14 November 1935) , retrieved on 23 January 2013. A person who did not belong to any of these categorical conditions, but had two Jewish grandparents was classified as a Jewish Mischling of the first degree according to the racial constructs implemented by Nazis. A person with only one Jewish grandparent was classified as a Mischling of the second degree.R. Hilberg, Perpetrators, Victims, Bystanders, pp. 150ff.
Following the passage of the Nuremberg Laws, in November 1935, the Citizenship Law gained its first amendment, and it stated that Jews were to be stripped of all of their civil rights, including the right to vote. Within the amendment the Law for the Defense of German Blood and Honor took effect, defining various forbidden marriage scenarios for Mischling specifically. Nazis claimed that it was acceptable for Mischling of the first degree to marry "full Jews" in turn becoming Jewish as well as marry other Mischling. However, this law prohibited Mischling from marrying Germans and thereby mixing "races". Hitler’s goal of this amendment was to have as many Mischling as possible become a "full Jew" through marriage. A month later a second amendment was added to the Citizenship Law on 21 December 1935, which continued the persecution against Jews by removing "full Jews" or Mischling from professions such as those in the education, health, and civic departments.
According to the 1939 Reich census, there were about 72,000 Mischlinge of the 1st degree, ~39,000 of the 2nd degree, and potentially tens of thousands at higher degrees, which went unrecorded as those people were considered Aryans by the Reich.D. Bankier, in Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Volume 3, Number 1 (1988), pp. 1–20.
Military policy toward Jewish Mischlinge changed during the Nazi period. On 8 April 1940, Hitler ordered first-degree Mischlinge serving in the Wehrmacht to be discharged from all branches of the armed forces, although individual exceptions could be granted; second-degree Mischlinge remained in military service.
According to historian Bryan Mark Rigg, up to 160,000 soldiers who were one-quarter, one-half, and even fully Jewish served in the German armed forces during World War II. This included several generals, admirals, and at least one field marshal: Erhard Milch.Bryan Mark Rigg, Hitler's Jewish Soldiers: The Untold Story of Nazi Racial Laws And Men of Jewish Descent in the German Military (Modern War Studies) (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2004), (see also "External links"). On p. 300 Rigg discusses Jewish conversion to Roman Catholicism and to Lutheranism but does not offer a deduction on which of those two largest religious orientations among Germans was more likely to attract the Jewish converts.
Jewish identity in society Soon after the passage of the Enabling Act of 1933, the Nazi government promulgated several antisemitic statutes, including the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service on 7 April 1933. Using this law, the regime aimed to dismiss—along with all politically-suspect persons such as social democrats, socialists, communists, and many liberals of all religions—all "non-Aryans" from all government positions in society, including public educators, and those practicing medicine in state hospitals.
As a result, the term "non-Aryan"The rather awkward term was a circumlocution for "Jew" () and was used in legal parlance until the Nuremberg Laws of September 1935. See Mischling Test. had to be defined in a way that was compatible with Nazi ideology. Under the "First Racial Definition" supplementary decree of 11 April, issued to clarify portions of the act passed four days prior, a "non-Aryan" (e.g., a Jew) was defined as one who had at least one Jewish parent or grandparent. Later, German citizens with only one Jewish grandparent were defined by the Nuremberg Laws as Mischling of the second degree. Their employment restrictions remained, but they were permitted to marry non-Jewish and non-Mischling Germans, and were not imprisoned. This distinction was not applied to non-German citizens.See Mischling Test article for more detail.
According to the philosophy of Nazi antisemitism, Jewry was considered a group of people bound by close, genetic (blood) ties who formed an ethnic unit that one could neither join nor secede from. Early 20th-century books on Nordicism such as Madison Grant's The Passing of the Great Race had a profound effect on Hitler's antisemitism. He was convinced that the Nordic Race/Culture constituted a superior branch of humanity, and viewed International Jewry as a parasitic and inferior race, determined to corrupt and exterminate both Nordic peoples and their culture through Rassenschande ("racial pollution") and cultural corruption.
Hitler declared that Marxism was constructed by International Jewry, with the aim of Bolshevising the earth, ultimately allowing Jewry to dominate/exterminate the Aryan race. With this in mind, Hitler viewed Russia as a nation of Untermenschen ("subhumans" or "Inferiors") dominated by their Judaic masters, which posed the gravest threat to both Germany and Europe as a whole.
The Nazis defined Jewishness as partly genetic, but did not always use formal genetic tests or physiognomic (facial) features to determine one's status (although the Nazis talked a lot about physiognomy as a racial characteristic). In practice, records concerning the religious affiliation(s) of one's grandparents were often the deciding factor (mostly christening records and membership registers of Jewish congregations).Outward features of one's physiognomy could play a role in paternity suits seeking reclassification and/or obtaining/debating Mischling degree.
Reclassification procedures Nonetheless, reclassification procedures of Mischling were conducted within society. These requests for reclassification (e.g., Jew to Mischling of 1st degree, Mischling of 1st degree to 2nd degree, etc.) or Aryanization (see German Blood Certificate) were rarely given, as each had to be personally reviewed and concurred by Adolf Hitler. Once approved by the Nazi party chancellery and Hitler, it was recognized throughout the Nazi community as an act of grace (Gnadenakt). Other de facto reclassifications, lacking any official document, were privileges accorded by high-ranking Nazis to certain artists and other experts by way of special protection.Cf. for reclassifications by way of acts of mercy: Beate Meyer, 'Jüdische Mischlinge' – Rassenpolitik und Verfolgungserfahrung 1933–1945 (11999), Hamburg: Dölling und Galitz, 22002, Studien zur jüdischen Geschichte; vol. 6, simultaneously Hamburg, Univ., Diss., 1998, , especially chapter 'IV. Andere "Ehrenarier"' (Other "honorary Aryans"), pp. 152–160.
The second way of reclassification was through a declaratory judgment in court. Usually, the discriminated person took the action, questioning their descent from the Jewish-classified man until then regarded as their biological (grand)father.One action was recorded where the plaintiff questioned the parentage of his Jewish-classified mother, claiming he had been confused in the maternity clinic for another infant. Paternity suits aiming for reclassification () appeared mostly with deceased, divorced, or illegitimate (grand)fathers. They usually sought to change the discriminated litigant's status from Jewish-classified to Mischling of first degree, or from Mischling of first degree to second degree. The numbers of such suits soared whenever the Nazi government imposed new discriminations and persecutions (such as the Nuremberg Laws in 1935, Kristallnacht in 1938, and the systematic deportations of Jewish Germans and Gentile Germans of Jewish descent to concentration camps in 1941).The "Institute for Genetics and Racial Hygienics" in Frankfurt delivered 448 medical evidences for paternity suits aiming for reclassification in Frankfurt and its environs. In December 1938 the Institute of Racial Biology of the University of Hamburg complained that since the Kristallnacht judges demanded every week 20 more medical pieces of evidence for paternity suits aiming for reclassification in Hamburg. Cf. Beate Meyer, 'Jüdische Mischlinge' – Rassenpolitik und Verfolgungserfahrung 1933–1945 (11999), Hamburg: Dölling und Galitz, 22002, Studien zur jüdischen Geschichte; vol. 6, simultaneously Hamburg, Univ., Diss., 1998, pp. 112seq.