Jewish WWI veterans did not receive special treatment?

[Felix C]

I have watched the History Channel docus on the Third Reich lately and recall a piece were a train full of decorated WW1 Jewish veterans bound for Theresienstadt were inadvertently sent to an extermination camp and all onboard killed. Was there consideration for veterans or decorated veterans at the beginning of the Jewish elimination/resettlement campaign? If so did it remain so?

I also recall the scene where Berlin non-Jewish wives successfully demonstrated to have their Jewish husbands released when they, the husbands, were rounded up pending deportation to a camp. I take it his group was the last to be collected? How about Jewish wives with non-Jewish husbands.

[pugsville]

In theory initially "front line" veterans were entitled to better treatment under the race laws, (though this may changed latter). In Victor Klemperer dairies (published 3 volumes "I shall bear witness") he is unable to obtain the required certificate of front line service in ww1 though he is entitled he had to apply to the Bureaucracy , which just failed to do the right thing. The Nazified Bureaucracy was hardly friendly and efficient in processing Jewish veterans requests. The Dairies are very interesting as he relates the various measures as the come into force. Often townsfolk break the laws and treat him better than they are legally allowed (rations etc). Klemperer was eventually going to be sent to the camps, but quite later in the war and being in Dresden he just joins the mass of refugees without papers. He survives the war and remains in Germany after the war.

[Felix C]

Thanks Pugs,

Amazing he survived the Nazis. I looked up his dates and he was mid-30s in WW1! The Internet indicates he was decorated. I wonder what he served as.

[Poot]

I forget which one, but either Christopher Brown ('Ordinary Men') or Daniel Goldhagen ('Hitler's Willing Executioners') mentioned an extermination squad that encountered an older man who claimed to be a WWI German Jewish combat vet. He received treatment that was no different than any of their other victims, and was murdered shortly afterward.
Pat

[Skyderick]

I personally know the daughter of one German Jewish-born (parents converted when he was a baby) WWI veteran. He was decorated with 1st and 2nd class Iron Cross and Verwundetenabzeichen, and was married to a non-Jewish German woman. After paying Reichsfluchtsteuer and giving up all their valuables, he and his family managed to make their way to England and later Norway. There he was arrested at his home after the German invasion, imprisoned shortly and sent among the first Jewish deportees to Poland in 1942. His wife pleaded with the authorities but to no avail. He was assigned to forced labor in Auschwitz and died in the so called hospital three weeks after arrival, 50 year old.

[wenty]

I seem to vaguely remember a story about Hitler having an officer in World War I who was Jewish, to whom he later gave slightly more preferential treatment. Perhaps somebody else knows more about this?

Cheers,
Adam.

[uberjude]

Veterans were given preferential treatment early on in the regime, but by the time the Nazis embraced extermination, that wasn't so helpful anymore. Klemperer, if memory serves, was not merely a veteran, but a convert married to an Aryan, which helps explain his survival. The officer in question was Hugo Guttman. Although Jews weren't allowed to be officers in the Imperial German Army, per se, they could be officers in the Bavarian Army (which, in wartime, merged with the German Army). guttman was arrested, but as the theory goes, was released when whichever police agency it was realized his connection to Hitler, and he emigrated to the US. Incidentally, Hitler (or at leas this office) seemed to personally intervene when the Austrian Jewish physician who had treated his mother asked for help; the doctor was unmolested, and I believe allowed to leave with more than usually allowed.

[wenty]

Yes, that sounds familiar. Thanks for that, Uberjude.

Cheers,
Adam.

[PF]

For german Jewish WWI Veterans under the Third Reich
http://ldn-knigi.lib.ru/JUDAICA/Flieger/Jued_Flieg1.htm
http://www.theaerodrome.com/forum/peopl ... s-air.html