Mischling - Organisations of Mischlinge

Organisations of Mischlinge

On 20 July 1933 - initiated by the actor Gustav Friedrich - Christian Germans of Jewish descent founded a self-help organisation, first named Reich Federation of Christian German Citizens of non-Aryan or not purely Aryan descent (German: Reichsbund christlich-deutscher Staatsbürger nichtarischer oder nicht rein arischer Abstammung e.V.). The federation first counted only 4,500 members. In October 1934 the name was shortened to Reich association of non-Aryan Christians (German: Reichsverband der nichtarischen Christen). In 1935 the members of the federation elected the known literary historian Heinrich Spiero their new president and under his auspices the federation's journal was improved and the number of members rose to 80,000 by 1936. In September 1936 the federation renamed into the more confident St Paul's Covenant Union of non-Aryan Christians (German: Paulus-Bund Vereinigung nichtarischer Christen e.V.) after the famous Jewish convert to Christianity Paul of Tarsus (Sha'ul).

In January 1937 the Nazi government forbade that organisation, allowing a new successor organisation named 1937 Association of Provisional Reich Citizens of not purely German-blooded Descent (German: Vereinigung 1937 vorläufiger Reichsbürger nicht rein deutschblütiger Abstammung). This name cited the insecure legal status of Mischlinge, who had been assigned the revocable status of preliminary Reich's citizens by the Nuremberg Laws, while Jewish-classified Germans had become second-class state citizens (Staatsbürger) by these laws. The 1937 Association was prohibited to accept state citizens as members – like Spiero – with three or four grandparents, who had been enrolled with a Jewish congregation. Thus that new association had lost its most prominent leaders and faded, having become an organisation solely for Mischlinge. The 1937 Association was compulsorily dissolved in 1939.

Pastor Heinrich Grüber and some enthusiasts started a new effort in 1936 to found an organisation to help Protestants of Jewish descent (Mischlinge and their (grand)parents, of whom at least one was classified as non-Aryan), completely neglected by the then official Protestant church bodies in Germany (see The Forsaken Children of the Church – Protestants of Jewish Descent).

After the war some Mischlinge founded the still-existing Notgemeinschaft der durch die Nürnberger Gesetze Betroffenen (English: Emergency association of the aggrieved by the Nuremberg Laws).

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