Germans and Slavs intermarriage

[George L Gregory]

Did Nazi propaganda ever discourage Germans from marrying Slavs?

I’ve found a few references of Germans being discouraged from marrying people of specific Slavic ethnic groups in Diemut Majer’s book “Non-Germans” under the Third Reich”:

“a November 1940 decree of the office of Hitler's deputy for party affairs held that no party member, or member of a party organization, could marry a person who had at least two grandparents who were members of the Czech, Polish or Magyar "Volk groups" without permission of the regional party official (Gauleiter).

To "preserve the purity . . . [of their] own racial and ethnic foundations," farmers who were members of the NSDAP were subject to a ban on marriages with Poles and Czechs, in order to "prevent . . . [the latter from] marrying into German farmsteads." Otherwise, all NSDAP members, as well as all members of its various organisations (the SA, the SS, the National Socialist Motor Corps, the Hitler Youth, the German Lecturers' Association, the National Socialist Student League, the Nazi Women's League) required permission from the local Gauleiter if they desired to marry "members of the Czech, Polish, or Magyar ethnic groups." Although marrying without the required permission did not nullify the union (sec. 13 of the Marriage Law and sec. 14 of the First Implementing Decree), it did have disciplinary consequences.”

Page 105.

“As early as November 7, 1939, Reichsstatthalter Greiser had summarily stated in an order of the day that marriages between Poles and marriages between Jews were provisionally banned, that marriages between ethnic Germans must "comply with the Nuremberg Race Laws," and that "if it all possible," there should be no marriages between Germans and Poles.”

Page 247.

But, as far as I know, Slavic people were considered to be of related blood (“artverwandten blutes”) just like any other peoples of Europe like the Celtic people and Romance people.

There can’t have been any serious prohibition between Germans and Slavs marrying each other because so many Germans (who no doubt considered themselves to be ‘ethnic Germans’, that is, Germans in the racial sense) had Slavic ancestry!

The racial anthropologists who studied the German people considered the German people to be just as racially mixed as the Czechs, Poles, Russians and other Slavic people. All of Europe was considered to be racially mixed of people who were Nordic, alpine, East Baltic, etc.

[George L Gregory]

What about the Germans and Czechs and Slovaks who lived in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia? What about the Germans and Poles who lived in Danzig?

I’m curious to know what happened to marriages between Germans and Czechs or Slovaks or Germans and Poles who lived in those territories.

[GregSingh]

I’m curious to know what happened to marriages between [..] Germans and Poles who lived in those territories.

Just look at numbers of those signing up (and being approved) in each category of Volksliste.
It was very easy to get approved to 3rd category in Danzig-Westpreussen and Oberschlesien; not so in Warthegau.
I remember reading somewhere that Greiser complained to AH directly about Forster giving easily German citizenship to unworthy Poles.
His complain was ignored.

As for Protectorate I think I commented on this one already on the Forum a while ago somewhere...
Basically there was a law forbidding Germans to have any sexual intercourse with Czechs, but it wasn't really enforced, with some exeptions, eg. in Waffen-SS.

[George L Gregory]

As for Protectorate I think I commented on this one already on the Forum a while ago somewhere...
Basically there was a law forbidding Germans to have any sexual intercourse with Czechs, but it wasn't really enforced, with some exeptions, eg. in Waffen-SS.

Where did you read that there was a law prohibiting sexual intercourse between Germans and Czechs in the Protectorate? I’ve read the opposite:

“Most disconcerting for Nazi leaders was the "problem" of mixed marriages, which usually meant a loss for Germandom. The Reich Protector’s Office estimated there to be ten thousand mixed Czech-German marriages in the Bohemian lands just before the Munich Agreement. More than one-sixth of the almost three thousand marriages concluded before the German magistrate during the first year of the Protectorate’s existence involved Czech-German couples. (In general, the number of marriages had jumped sharply. More than 78,100 Protectorate inhabitants married in 1939, up from 56,600 the year before.) Intermarriage, of course, doused German (and Czech) nationalism. Members of mixed families were less likely to register as Germans, as were children of Czech-German couples. What bothered Nazi officials more, however, was their inability to control this intermixture. Marriages are among the strongest of social bonds and hence the most difficult to alter after the fact. Marriages were also crucial to the imagined future of the German nation. The marriage question lay at the crossroads of two thrusts of Nazi rule—to establish the primacy of the state over all aspects of daily life and to solve social and culture problems through biological means. In the Protectorate, much of the process lay outside the state’s control. In 1939 Nazi officials did not even legislate against sexual relations between Czechs and Germans. Indeed, while Neurath claimed in summer 1939 that the Nuremberg Laws’ prohibition on German-Jewish marriages was in force, no law prevented Jews from marrying Czechs.”

Chad Carl Bryant, Prague in Black: Nazi Rule and Czech Nationalism, pages 55-56.

[GoeringsPetLion]

§ 6 of the "First Regulation on the Execution of the Law for the Protection of the German Blood and Honour" (Erste Verordnung zur Ausführung des Gesetzes zum Schutze des deutschen Blutes und der deutschen Ehre) of 14 November 1935 says,

A marriage should furthermore not be contracted if one had to expect progeny that would endanger the purity of the German blood.

Wilhelm Frick wrote on 3 January 1936 in a letter to the governments of the German states,

This rule prevents marriages between people of German blood and people who have no Jewish element of blood but are otherwise of alien blood [artfremden Blutes].

Peoples of "related blood" (artverwandten Blutes) were defined as "peoples wholly settled in Europe and their offspring in other parts of the earth outside of Europe that have maintained the purity of their blood".

Hitler said during a table talk on 12 May 1942 that "Slavs" is a "summary term for racially completely different peoples". According to him, the Bulgars are of Turkmen origin, and the Czech descend from "Mongolid tribes", whereas the South Slavs are predominantly Dinarid. He obviously had misconceptions about how the Bulgars and Czech look like.

Sources:
https://de.wikisource.org/wiki/Erste_Ve ... schen_Ehre (German)
https://www.verflechtungen-kolonialismu ... arch=Frick (German)
https://books.google.com/books?id=vF8YB ... rtverwandt (English)
https://ulis-buecherecke.ch/pdf_neben_d ... enfassende (German)

[GregSingh]

Also see document issued by RSHA IVD 1 b - Geschlechtsverkehr zwischen Tchechen und Deutschen. (Sexual intercourse between Czechs and Germans).

Such intercourse was "in principle undesirable for the Protection of German Blood, might cause public concern and a disruption of a work place peace".

Full document is uploaded here: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=220342

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Guys,

That horse had long since bolted.

Hindenburg apparently used to refer to Hitler dismissively as "The Bohemian Corporal".

Himmler commissioned research into Hitler's ancestry in order to present him with his Aryan family tree for one birthday. It was never presented, possibly because Hindenburg had been right!

While there is no hard evidence of Hitler having Slavic ancestry, on the other hand recent DNA results from Austria indicate a much closer match with the Czech Republic than with Germany https://brilliantmaps.com/the-genetic-map-of-europe/

So, if Hitler was a typical Austrian, he would certainly have had some Czech ancestry.

Cheers,

Sid.

[Cekekb]

Hi Guys,

That horse had long since bolted.

Hindenburg apparently used to refer to Hitler dismissively as "The Bohemian Corporal".

Himmler commissioned research into Hitler's ancestry in order to present him with his Aryan family tree for one birthday. It was never presented, possibly because Hindenburg had been right!

While there is no hard evidence of Hitler having Slavic ancestry, on the other hand recent DNA results from Austria indicate a much closer match with the Czech Republic than with Germany https://brilliantmaps.com/the-genetic-map-of-europe/

So, if Hitler was a typical Austrian, he would certainly have had some Czech ancestry.

Cheers,

Sid.

"Bohemian corporal" has reportedly its origin in Hindenburg mixing up Branau am Inn with Braunau/Broumov in eastern Bohemia which he knew from his service in 1866.

[George L Gregory]

Also see document issued by RSHA IVD 1 b - Geschlechtsverkehr zwischen Tchechen und Deutschen. (Sexual intercourse between Czechs and Germans).

Such intercourse was "in principle undesirable for the Protection of German Blood, might cause public concern and a disruption of a work place peace".

Full document is uploaded here: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=220342

Hi Greg,

Is the document referring to the Czechs living inside of the Protectorate? Or, was it simply referring to foreign workers living in the German Reich?

Also, the document itself doesn’t prove that there was a prohibition on sexual relations between Czechs and Germans, but that the Nazis were interested in trying to find Czechs (like other Slavs) who were deemed to be capable of Germanization. In 1940, the Nazis thought about 50% of Czechs were capable of being Germanized.

The RuSHA Case - The Judgment of the Tribunal mentioned:

“During the war hundreds of thousands of workers from foreign countries, particularly from the East, were brought into Germany as forced laborers in factories and agriculture. With this advent of foreigners there naturally followed incidents of sexual intercourse between the foreigners and Germans. The Nazis, in order to meet this situation, began the issuance of numerous decrees concerning the treatment of foreigners who had sexual intercourse with Germans. Foreign nationals, particularly from the East, including Poles, Czechs, and Russians, were subject to these decrees (both civilians and prisoners of war). As early as 7/3/1940 Pancke, then chief of RuSHA, sent a report to the office of Bormann, assistant to Hess, suggesting the issuance of laws to protect German blood.”

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=56438

Are there any examples of Czech men being hanged for having sexual relations with German women? Polish men, Russian (Soviet) men, and others were hanged for having sexual relations with German women.

[George L Gregory]

Hi Guys,

That horse had long since bolted.

Hindenburg apparently used to refer to Hitler dismissively as "The Bohemian Corporal".

Himmler commissioned research into Hitler's ancestry in order to present him with his Aryan family tree for one birthday. It was never presented, possibly because Hindenburg had been right!

While there is no hard evidence of Hitler having Slavic ancestry, on the other hand recent DNA results from Austria indicate a much closer match with the Czech Republic than with Germany https://brilliantmaps.com/the-genetic-map-of-europe/

So, if Hitler was a typical Austrian, he would certainly have had some Czech ancestry.

Cheers,

Sid.

Hindenburg confused Branau am Inn in Austria with Broumov in Czech Republic which is known as ‘Branau’ in German.

The rumour that Hitler had Czech ancestry was refuted by the Nazi Party in 1932 in a short pamphlet titled “ Facts and Lies about Hitler”:

““Hitler — A Czech!”

Hitler was born in Braunau am Inn. Those opponents who spread the lie of a “Czech Hitler” depend on the confusion of Braunau am Inn with the Braunau in Czechoslovakia. Braunau am Inn is on the Bavarian border, with only the Inn River between them. It is over 80 kilometers as the crow flies to the Czech border, twice as much as the distance between Dresden and the Czech border. Up until the second half of the 18th century, Braunau belonged to Bavaria.

Hitler, therefore, was born within Greater Germany. Both parents are of German blood. They could not even speak Czech (and Hitler lived many years of his youth with his parents on Reich German soil, in Passau). Hitler became a German citizen before he became a candidate for Reich President by act of the National Socialist government in Braunschweig. He himself always refused to ask the Reich government to give to him what it gave without hesitation to tens of thousands of Galician Jews, even though he had long-since earned it through four years of service at the front in the German army during the war.”

https://research.calvin.edu/german-prop ... luegen.htm

German historian Brigitte Hamann wrote in Hitler's Vienna: A Portrait of the Tyrant as a Young Man on page 42:

“For centuries the border to Bohemia had been open and the population mixed. Many names of townships and families of Waldviertel are of Slavic origin. That the name Hitler, whose spelling has the variants Hiedler, Hittler, and Hüttler, may come from the Czech, is certainly possible too, but has always been eagerly denied by admirers of Hitler. The most plausible interpretation is that the name comes from "Hütte" (cottage), in other words, that it means "Häusler," which is both an old term for minor and denotes someone who lives in a small house. Thus among Hitler's known ancestors there is no one whose name indicates Czech origin.”

Hitler’s family tree was published during the Third Reich. In 1937 the genealogist Rudolf Koppensteiner published Die Ahnentafel des Fuehrers (“The Pedigree of the Leader") which published Hitler’s family tree for generations.

Alfred Konder published most of Koppensteiner’s material in his pamphlet “Adolf Hitler’s Family Tree - The Untold Story of the Hitler Family”.

What percentage of Austrians do you think have Czech ancestry?

[gebhk]

Hi Sid and George

That's the problem with all this noble ancestry tosh. The further back you go, the more likely it is that you share ancestry with other nations, classes, races until you get to the point where it becomes a virtual certainty.

[GoeringsPetLion]

It is likely that the Czech, Austrians, and Bavarians all descend from the Celtic Boii to a part.

[George L Gregory]

There is no such thing as a ‘pure’ ethnic group of any kind. Also, even defining an ethnic group is problematic and is viewed mostly as a social construct, just like race is these days.

Even when racial science which the Nazis adhered to was fairly popular, anthropologists denied that there was such thing as a pure race and instead referred to groups as being descended from different sub-races like Alpine, Nordic, East Baltic, etc.

Whilst some Nazis did use the term ‘race’ quite loosely and referred to a ‘German race’, anthropologists rejected terms like ‘German race’ and stressed to differentiate between Volk (people), race and nation consistently.

[George L Gregory]

I’ve found an interesting image.

It’s an image of a “Reichsverband der Standesbeamten Deutschlands (RDSD)" Union of Registrars of the Reich in Germany, 31st Edition (with death certificates) by Verlag für Standesamtswesen G.m.b.H. Berlin SW 61”.



https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi ... to-license

The text reads:

“Arischer Abstammung (deutschblütig) ist demnach derjenige Mensch, der frei von einem, vom deutschen Volke aus gesehen, fremdrassigen Blutseinschlage ist. Als fremd gilt hier vor allem das Blut der auch im europäischen Siedlungsraume lebenden Juden und Zigeuner, das der asiatischen und afrikanischen Rassen und der Ureinwohner Australiens und Amerikas (Indianer), während z.B. ein Engländer oder Schwede, ein Franzose oder Tscheche, ein Pole oder Italiener, wenn er selbst frei von solchen, auch ihm fremden Blutseinschlägen ist, als verwandt, also als arisch gelten muß, mag er nun in seiner Heimat oder in Ostasien oder in Amerika wohnen oder mag er Bürger der U.S.A. oder eines südamerikanischen Freistaates sein.”

“Aryan is thus the one man who looked free from, the German people, strange racial impact is blood. Deemed to be a stranger here, especially the blood of the living room and in the European settlement of Jews and Gypsies, the Asian and African breeds, and the aborigines of Australia and America (Indians), while, for example, a Swede or an Englishman, a Frenchman or Czech, a Pole or Italian, if he is free of such, even that is foreign blood strikes, when used, must therefore be considered severally liable, he may now live in his home, in East Asia or in America or he likes a U.S. citizen or a South American Free State be.”

The Ahnenpaß (Ariernachweis) is what every Reich citizen had to obtain during the Third Reich once the Nuremberg Laws were passed in 1935. Czechs and Poles were used as examples of other people besides the Germans who were “Aryans”.

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi GLG,

You ask; "What percentage of Austrians do you think have Czech ancestry?"

Probably virtually all unless (1) they are from recent immigrant stock or (2) from the head of a very obscure Alpine valley consistently more prone down the centuries to emigration rather than immigration. The number of the latter, if they exist at all, must be tiny.

It is estimated that virtually every Briton who is not of recent immigrant stock is descended from King Edward I and everyone of his contemporaries in these isles who has left descendants today. I doubt anywhere, except a few long isolated islands, is much different.

Cheers,

Sid.