From the London Daily Telegraph, Dec 2, 1996
THE Nazi leadership awarded its highest military decoration, the
Ritterkreuz or Knight's Cross, to soldiers it knew to
be of Jewish parentage.
Major Robert Borchardt won the Knight's Cross while fighting in
Russia but, once he had been captured by the
Allies, was reunited with his Jewish father in England. Borchardt
was discharged from the military in 1934 for being
half-Jewish but was reinstated the same year after receiving
Hitler's German blood declaration and sent to China to
help Chiang Kai-shek's army.
By 1941 he was commanding a tank company and, in August 1941, he
was awarded the Knight's Cross for his
fighting in Russia. He was transferred to Rommel's Afrika Korps
and captured at El Alamein. In late 1944 as a
prisoner of war he was reunited with his Jewish father who had
escaped from Germany before the war. In 1946 he
returned to Germany because, as his wife explained, "somebody had
to come back to rebuild the country".
In 1983, shortly before he died, he told high school pupils in his
home town: "Many German Jews and half-Jews who
fought in the First World War and even in the Second World War
believed that they should honour their fatherland
by serving in the military."
Col Walter Hollaender was awarded the Knight's Cross, equivalent
to the British Victoria Cross, but was denied
promotion because he was a half-Jew. He was deeply disturbed by a
visit to the Warsaw ghetto in 1943 when he
saw evidence of German persecution of the Jews.
Hollaender joined the Reichswehr, the army of the Weimar Republic,
in 1922. His mother was Jewish and his army
personnel file shows that in April 1934 the officer headquarters
in Berlin wrote that he was "non-Aryan" but, in his
favour, he had fought against the Communists in 1923-24.
The personnel office argued that he should remain in the army but
Hollaender's Jewish ancestry caused problems
with his colleagues at the military school where he was posted and
he was transferred to work in China. Hitler
awarded him the honourable service medal in 1936 and then in 1939,
after reviewing photographs of him, his files
and evaluations, gave him the German blood declaration, the
Genehmigung.
Hollaender had a distinguished war service and was awarded the
Iron Cross after commanding a grenade-thrower
company in Poland. He was awarded the Knight's Cross in July 1943
for destroying 21 Russian tanks at the Battle
of Kursk.
But later in 1943, Hollaender's Jewish background prevented his
promotion to general. According to his wife, whom
Mr Rigg has interviewed, later that year Hollaender went on leave
from the Russian front and on his way home
travelled through the Warsaw ghetto.
According to his wife, the ghetto visit "destroyed him mentally".
He returned to his regiment deeply disturbed and his
personnel file records in March 1944 that he was "too independent
and not easily handled". He was taken prisoner
by the Russians in October 1944 and spent 12 years in a Russian
prison.
From the London Daily Telegraph, Dec 2, 1996
BRYAN Rigg's research sheds light on one of the strangest episodes
of 1939: how German soldiers rescued Rebbe
Joseph Schneersohn, the leader of the ultra-orthodox Lubavitcher
Jews, from Warsaw.
The tradition of the Lubavitcher Jews, now a highly influential
political group in Israel and New York, relates that the
Rebbe, their dynastic leader, was rescued by a German Jewish
soldier. But the story seemed too fantastic to be true.
Bryan Rigg has identified the soldier and established his Jewish
background.
When the Nazis invaded Poland in September 1939, Rebbe Joseph
Schneersohn, one of the world's most eminent
Jewish scholars, was trapped in Warsaw. The fate of the Rebbe was
of special significance to thousands of Jews
throughout the world. Hasidic Judaism regards the Rebbe as a human
being endowed with superior spiritual powers
that enable him to serve as an intermediary between God and man.
Some Lubavitcher Jews hold that the seventh Rebbe, Menachem Mendel
Schneersohn, who died in 1994, is the
Messiah and will make a second coming. His grave in New York is
now a place of pilgrimage. The sixth Rebbe,
Joseph Schneersohn, was father-in-law of Mendel, and had succeeded
to the title of Rebbe after the death of his
father in 1920. In September 1939, when Lubavitcher Jews in
America heard that their revered leader was trapped
in Warsaw, they petitioned help from the US Secretary of State,
Cordell Hull.
Hull relayed the appeal to the US consul-general in Berlin, who,
in turn, sought help from Helmut Wohlthat, the chief
administrator of Goering's Four Year Plan. Wohlthat contacted
Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, the head of the Abwehr,
the German military intelligence.
Canaris sent a group of his men to Warsaw. They somehow found the
Rebbe and his followers, who were unlikely
to make themselves known to a group of German soldiers brought
them through Germany and helped them to escape
via Latvia to safety in America. Rabbi Schneersohn's secretary
described the perilous journey from Warsaw:
"German soldiers were bloodthirsty like wild animals to hurt our
group of Jewish men with beards and side-locks as
soon as they saw us.
"A German Jew, who had served in the First World War and wore a
uniform covered with medals, helped the Rebbe
and his family escape this danger. Several times during the
journey, Nazi soldiers threatened us, but this Jew would
yell at these people and tell them that he had special orders to
take these Jews to Berlin."
Until recently, the involvement of a Jewish army officer in the
Rebbe's escape and the preservation of the
Lubavitcher dynasty seemed unbelievable. But Mr Rigg's researches
identify the man as Lt Col Dr Ernst Bloch, one
of the 77 high-ranking officers named in the list of January 1944.
His father, Dr Oscar Bloch, was a Jew. A First
World War veteran, Bloch had joined the infantry at the age of 16.
He fought at Verdun, the Somme, Champagne
and Flanders. His face had been disfigured by a bayonet wound in
the trenches.
Canaris recruited Bloch to the Abwehr in 1935 and gave him the
task of gathering data on the industrial capacity of
other countries. Canaris brought the case of Bloch's Jewish
parentage to Hitler late in 1939. After looking at
photographs of Bloch and at his military file, Hitler signed the
official document reading: "I, Adolf Hitler, leader of the
German Nation, approve Major Ernst Bloch to be of German blood.
However, after the war, Ernst Bloch will be
re-evaluated to see if he is still worthy to have such a title."
On July 1, 1940, Hitler promoted Bloch to lieutenant colonel. He
was awarded the Iron Cross and several service
decorations. But, in September 1944, Heinrich Himmler discovered
his Jewish parentage and requested that the
officer, by now promoted to colonel, be discharged. He was removed
from the army in October 1944 and discharged
officially by Hitler the following February.
Ritterkreuz awards-little known facts
Discussions on the personalities of the Wehrmacht and of the organizations not covered in the other sections. Hosted by askropp and Frech.
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