Mischling - Jewish Identity

Jewish Identity

Soon after 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" had to be defined in a way compatible with Nazi ideology. Four days after the passing of this act, under the so-called "First Racial Definition" supplementary decree of 11 April, that was issued to clarify portions of the 7 April law, a "non-Aryan" (e.g. a Jew) was defined as one who had at least one Jewish parent or grandparent. Later some of these German citizens, those with only one Jewish grandparent, were defined by the Nuremberg Decrees 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 kept with non-German citizens.

According to the philosophy of Nazi antisemitism, Jewry was considered as being a group of people bound by close, so-called genetic (blood) ties who formed an ethnic unit which 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. Hitler was convinced that the Nordic Race/Culture constitutes a superior branch of Humanity, and viewed International Jewry as a parasitic and inferior race, that was determined to corrupt and exterminate the Nordic peoples and their culture through Racial Pollution and Cultural Corruption. Another important factor in Nazi antisemitism was the growing presence of Marxism/Bolshevism in Europe, but particularly in Germany. Hitler declared that Marxism was constructed by International Jewry, with the aim of Bolshevising the earth, which would then allow Jewry to dominate/exterminate the Aryan race. With this in mind, Hitler viewed Russia as a nation of Untermenschen, who were dominated by their Judaic masters, and which posed the gravest threat to Germany and the whole of Europe.

The Nazis defined Jewishness in part genetically, but did not always use formal genetic tests or physiognomic features to determine one's status (although the Nazis talked a lot about physiognomy as a racial characteristic). In practice records on the religious affiliation(s) of one's grandparents were often the deciding factor (mostly christening records and membership registers of Jewish congregations).

However, while the grandparents had been able to choose their religion, their grandchildren in the Nazi era were compulsorily classified as Jews and thus non-Aryans if at least three grandparents had been enrolled as members of a Jewish congregation (regardless whether the persecuted themselves were Jews). According to Orthodox Jewish Halachah, one is Jewish by birth from a Jewish mother or by conversion. Thus Jews who had converted to Christianity could be regarded as especially deceitful and subversive, while Gentiles who had converted to Judaism were perceived as traitors to the "Aryan race" and were among the first to be persecuted and killed.