Mischling
Mischlinge[1]) 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.
Within the amendment the Law for the Defense of German Blood and Honor took effect, defining various forbidden marriage scenarios for Mischling specifically.
[12] 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.
[13] 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.
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.
[15] 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.
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.
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.
[18] Paternity suits aiming for reclassification (German: Abstammungsverfahren) appeared mostly with deceased, divorced, or illegitimate (grand)fathers.
Likely alternative fathers were often named, who either appeared themselves in court confirming their likely fatherhood, or who were already dead but were known as good friends, neighbors, or subtenants of the (grand)mother.
If the doubted (grand)father was already dead, emigrated, or deported (as after 1941), the examination searched for these supposedly "Jewish" features in the physiognomy of the descendant (child).
In order to join, a candidate had to prove (presumably through baptismal records) that all direct ancestors born since 1750 were not Jewish, or they would have to apply for a German Blood Certificate instead.
Therefore, about 80% of the Gentile Germans persecuted as Jews according to the Nuremberg Laws were affiliated with one of the 28 regionally-delineated Protestant church bodies.
This is due to the annexation of several areas in 1938, including Vienna and Prague, both of which have relatively large and well-established Catholic populations of Jewish descent.
On 20 July 1933, initiated by the actor Gustav Friedrich, Christian Germans of Jewish descent founded a self-help organisation, initially named Reich Federation of Christian-German Citizens of non-Aryan or not of purely Aryan descent (German: Reichsbund christlich-deutscher Staatsbürger nichtarischer oder nicht rein arischer Abstammung e.V.).
[25] In October 1934, the name was shortened to Reich association of non-Aryan Christians (German: Reichsverband der nichtarischen Christen).
[27] In September 1936, the federation was renamed the more confident St Paul's Covenant Union of non-Aryan Christians (German: Paulus-Bund Vereinigung nichtarischer Christen e.V.)
After the war some Mischlinge founded the still-existing Notgemeinschaft der durch die Nürnberger Gesetze Betroffenen (Emergency association of those affected by the Nuremberg Laws).
Beginning in the autumn of 1944, between 10,000 and 20,000 half-Jews (Mischlinge) and persons related to Jews by a so-called mixed marriage were recruited into special units of the Organisation Todt.
