title: Lives of Hitler's Jewish Soldiers: Untold Tales of Men of Jewish Descent Who Fought for the Third Reich (Modern War Studies)
author: Bryan Mark RIgg
description: Several thousand Jews and over 100,000 others of Jewish descent served in the Wehrmacht from 1939 to 1945. Rigg dips into material he mined for <i>Hitler's Jewish Soldiers</i> to present a selection of personal histories. Many enlisted to protect their families, often in vain; Rigg tells heartrending stories of soldiers risking their lives in battle as relatives disappeared into extermination camps. When police grew suspicious of his forged papers, Karl-Heinz Lwy enlisted in the elite Waffen-SS, apparently its only Jewish member, and fought heroically. Helmut Krger and Karl-Heinz Schleffler were serving faithfully when Hitler ordered all half-Jews discharged in 1940. Although they and the others discharged spent much of the war in dreadful labor camps, far more of them survived than thousands who appealed successfully to remain in service. Readers expecting expressions of shame will be surprisedmost felt proud of their wartime experiences. Few admitted knowing of the Holocaust, but all knew Jews were being mistreated and felt helpless to change matters. As Rigg compellingly shows, these were men dealing with crushingly stressful circumstances as best they could. 64 photos. <i>(Mar. 3)</i> <br />Copyright  Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
zlib_text: Lives	of	Hitler’s	Jewish	Soldiers
  Untold	Tales	of	Men	of	Jewish	Descent
  Who	Fought	for	the	Third	Reich
  Bryan	Mark	Rigg
  university	press	of	kansas
  
  ©	2009	by	the	University	Press	of	Kansas
  All	rights	reserved	Unless	otherwise	noted,	all	photographs	and	documents	are	from	the	Bryan	Mark
  Rigg	Collection,	German	National	Archives	(Bundesarchiv).
  Published	by	the	University	Press	of	Kansas	(Lawrence,	Kansas	66045),	which	was	organized	by	the
  Kansas	Board	of	Regents	and	is	operated	and	funded	by	Emporia	State	University,	Fort	Hays	State
  University,	Kansas	State	University,	Pittsburg	State	University,	the	University	of	Kansas,	and	Wichita
  State	University.
  Library	of	Congress	Cataloging-in-Publication	Data	Rigg,	Bryan	Mark,	1971–	Lives	of	Hitler's
  Jewish	soldiers	:	untold	tales	of	men	of	Jewish	descent	who	fought	for	the	Third	Reich	/	Bryan	Mark
  Rigg.
  p.	cm.	—	(Modern	war	studies)	Includes	bibliographical	references	and	index.
  ISBN	978-0-7006-2340-2	(pbk.	:	alk.	paper)	ISBN	978-0-70062341-9	(