American historian Bryan Mark Rigg, who works as a history professor at the American Military University in Virginia, says that as many as 150,000 soldiers served in the Nazi army under Adolf Hitler. These soldiers were eligible to join the German army due to a loophole in the Nuremberg Laws of 1935. The law defined a Jew as someone with 3 or 4 Jewish grandparents.
Those soldiers who had only 1 or 2 Jewish grandparents were defined as Mischling, a German word that means mixed race. Those people who were considered to be Mischling were allowed to serve in the Nazi army.
Many of these Jewish Nazi soldiers feared persecution and were reluctant to reveal their Jewish heritage to the public. They were also afraid to be labeled as traitors by their fellow German soldiers. Some of these soldiers even tried to obtain false documents to hide their Jewish identity.
Despite the Nazi regime's belief in the superiority of the Aryan race and the inferiority of Jews, these Jewish soldiers were sent to the front lines to fight for Germany against the Allies. Many of them were honored for their service, and many were killed in battle.
Many Jewish soldiers faced persecution and discrimination by the Allied powers after the war was over. The Allied powers considered them to be traitors for serving in the German military. They faced difficulties in finding employment and reintegrating into society and were often arrested and investigated in camps. Little did the Allied powers know that those Jewish soldiers joined the army only to avoid persecution.
In recent years, the sacrifices of those Jewish soldiers were recognized and their stories have been brought to light. Some of them have been awarded Germany's highest civilian honor, the Federal Cross of Merit, for their service to the country. Their experiences serve as a reminder of the human cost of war and the atrocities of the Holocaust.
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