Who did the Nazis consider as Jewish?

[bbb]

I'm in argument on another board.  And, I'm not really coming up with a good answer by googling.............There were Nuremberg Race Laws, etc. but they seem to keep referring to Jewish grandparents and such, but not defining If they mean Jewish nationality vs. somebody practicing Judaism - which is what our argument is about. 

[GG]

From Paul Johnson's History of the Jews

 

Quote

It also ensured that, at one time or another, almost every department of the German government, and large numbers of civilians, were involved in anti-Jewish activities. Hitler’s war against the Jews became a national effort. To carry through the policy, the Jews had first to be identified, then dispossessed, then concentrated. Identification involved both the medical profession and the churches. The Nazis found that in practice it was too difficult to define a Jew by race. They had to fall back on religious criteria. Their basic decree of 11 April 1933, needed to throw Jews out of the civil service, defined a ‘person of non-Aryan descent’ as someone with a parent or grandparent of the Jewish religion. But this led to disagreements. In 1935, a medical conference between Dr Wagner, Chief Medical Officer of the party, Dr Blome, Secretary of the German Medical Association, and Dr Gross, head of the Race Political Office, decided that quarter-Jews were Germans but half-Jews were Jews, since (said Blome) ‘among half-Jews the Jewish genes are notoriously dominant’. But the civil service would not accept this definition. They defined Jews as religious half-Jews or those married to Jews. The civil servants got their way because they actually wrote the detailed legislation, including the Reich Citizenship Law of 14 November 1935. Some twenty-seven race-decrees were written at the Interior Ministry by a former customs official, Dr Bernhard Losener, used to making fine distinctions between dutiable goods. Those applying for a wide range of jobs had to produce positive proof of Aryan descent. An SS officer had to produce proof of descent going back to 1750, but even a junior clerk in a government office needed seven authenticated documents. The churches, who had the only records of birth before 1875-6, were thus drawn in. A new profession of Sippenforscher, family researcher, was created. A third race of part-Jews, the Mischling, came into being, sub-divided into first and second degrees. Demands for reclassification, or ‘liberation’ as it was termed, multiplied, and as in Tsarist Russia the system led rapidly to every kind of nepotism and corruption. An official in Hitler’s Chancellery, whom he liked but who was a second-degree Mischling, received a ‘liberation’ from the Führer, as a personal Christmas present, while he and his family were sitting round the tree on Christmas Eve 1938.

 

Edited May 15, 2019 by GG

[DC Tom]

It was a bit ambiguous.  As I recall, the general rule was 1/4 Jewish, but exceptions could be made either way (particularly since the Nazis didn't really need a reason to gas someone.)  You have to remember, too, that European Jews were generally much more cliquish (much like Orthodox Jewish enclaves in NYC today), so the designation was much more racial and less religious than you'd think by modern standards.

 

I can look it up when I get home.  

 

EDIT: or you can just take GG's post at its word, which is what I recall.

Edited May 15, 2019 by DC Tom

[Wacka]

1 hour ago, DC Tom said:

particularly since the Nazis didn't really need a reason to gas someone

I  know that In Poland helping Jews Jews escape  was punishable by death, no matter what your religion. \

[row_33]

They made up their mind and that was that, you see it was scientific, in the same way the liberal media claims science for all its current superstitions and political lusts

 

 

[Chef Jim]

2 hours ago, DC Tom said:

It was a bit ambiguous. 

 

And now for something completely different.  Just as the Nazis seemed to ambiguous with what makes you Jewish enough to be exterminated what makes someone African enough to get reparations?  

[bbb]

3 hours ago, GG said:

From Paul Johnson's History of the Jews

 

 

 

Thanks.  I wish Paul Johnson believed in paragraphs.  It's always tough for me to read a wall of text.

 

But, it seems like it was more religion than nationality, which I was thinking the other way around.  

[row_33]

41 minutes ago, Chef Jim said:

 

And now for something completely different.  Just as the Nazis seemed to ambiguous with what makes you Jewish enough to be exterminated what makes someone African enough to get reparations?  

 

The first situation was a lot more serious and dire, you couldn’t go anywhere if trapped In Marseille and no passage out.

 

[Chef Jim]

11 minutes ago, row_33 said:

 

The first situation was a lot more serious and dire, you couldn’t go anywhere if trapped In Marseille and no passage out.

 

 

I know very well how dire the situation was then.  My father in law was an actor in Berlin during the 30's. had a death warrant out on him because he refused to perform in Nazi propaganda films.  He ended up fleeing the country to the US and wrote a book about it before he died.  He was considered Jewish because his mother was.  

 

I'm just pointing out that determining someones race or ethnicity.  

[GG]

44 minutes ago, bbb said:

 

Thanks.  I wish Paul Johnson believed in paragraphs.  It's always tough for me to read a wall of text.

 

But, it seems like it was more religion than nationality, which I was thinking the other way around.  

 

You have to look at it in the context of how Europeans looked at Jews over the millennia.   The ordinary Jews were usually highly segregated in the ghettos or villages, with the well-off families sometimes allowed to live among the general population.  But the deciding line was always religion, especially since you couldn't place a distinct nationality around it, based on any normal notion of nationality.    Thus, by default by the time middle ages, Jews acquired a nationality by virtue of being of a Jewish religion, and not coming from a particular nation or region, as they were removed from their native land by some 500 years. 

[row_33]

It was ironic that the Nazis chose to attack their top nuclear physicists, these real scientists  were most welcome in the US and UK

 

 

[bbb]

14 minutes ago, GG said:

 

You have to look at it in the context of how Europeans looked at Jews over the millennia.   The ordinary Jews were usually highly segregated in the ghettos or villages, with the well-off families sometimes allowed to live among the general population.  But the deciding line was always religion, especially since you couldn't place a distinct nationality around it, based on any normal notion of nationality.    Thus, by default by the time middle ages, Jews acquired a nationality by virtue of being of a Jewish religion, and not coming from a particular nation or region, as they were removed from their native land by some 500 years. 

 

That's very interesting.  I need to learn more about the history of the Jews..............By them acquiring a nationality (which I was unaware of how that came about until now), I thought that Hitler and the Nazis didn't really care about the religious part.  I thought I had actually read that he cared more about the nationality part.  

[DC Tom]

1 hour ago, GG said:

 

You have to look at it in the context of how Europeans looked at Jews over the millennia.   The ordinary Jews were usually highly segregated in the ghettos or villages, with the well-off families sometimes allowed to live among the general population.  But the deciding line was always religion, especially since you couldn't place a distinct nationality around it, based on any normal notion of nationality.    Thus, by default by the time middle ages, Jews acquired a nationality by virtue of being of a Jewish religion, and not coming from a particular nation or region, as they were removed from their native land by some 500 years. 

 

It's important to note that the desire for segregation was mutual.  Ashkenazi Jews would tend to segregate themselves into distinct communities, simply through the communal practice and reinforcement of their shared Jewish rites and strong endogamous dictates of the religion.  And the simple nature of society, where you couldn't go anywhere faster than walking speed, so people congregated around common services, which in the case of Jews were much more specific (e.g. kosher butchers) that what was available to the Christian population.  

[GG]

2 hours ago, DC Tom said:

 

It's important to note that the desire for segregation was mutual.  Ashkenazi Jews would tend to segregate themselves into distinct communities, simply through the communal practice and reinforcement of their shared Jewish rites and strong endogamous dictates of the religion.  And the simple nature of society, where you couldn't go anywhere faster than walking speed, so people congregated around common services, which in the case of Jews were much more specific (e.g. kosher butchers) that what was available to the Christian population.  

 

Ashkenazis didn't really exist yet in the period I'm talking about.

 

bbb opened up a discussion that can take a long time to unravel, but would be good education for people spinning conspiracy theories.

[Q-baby!]

5 hours ago, row_33 said:

They made up their mind and that was that, you see it was scientific, in the same way the liberal media claims science for all its current superstitions and political lusts

 

 

STFU 

[Teddy KGB]

53 minutes ago, BigMcD said:

STFU 

 

We know you’re no Jew with that pea sized brain ???

[Q-baby!]

3 minutes ago, Teddy KGB said:

 

We know you’re no Jew with that pea sized brain ???

You are brilliant! 

[Nanker]

Bet McButterpants would have been first in line to get shoved in to a German oven. 

[BeginnersMind]

16 minutes ago, Nanker said:

Bet McButterpants would have been first in line to get shoved in to a German oven. 

 

Stay classy Nanker. 

Edited May 16, 2019 by BeginnersMind

[Tiberius]

15 hours ago, Wacka said:

I  know that In Poland helping Jews Jews escape  was punishable by death, no matter what your religion. \

Same with aiding a slave escape in Kansas in 1850's. The Confederacy was a lot like the Nazis. I mean, aside from both being total losers, both were racist scum.