Honorary Aryan

Honorary Aryan (German: Ehrenarier or Edeljude[1]) was an expression used in Nazi Germany to describe the formal or unofficial status of persons, including some Mischlinge, who were not recognized as belonging to the Aryan race, according to Nazi standards, but treated as if considered to be part of it.[2]

Not to be confused with Honorary whites during Apartheid in South Africa.
Japanese women doing a revue during a visit by the Hitler Youth and Nazi officials
Wang Jingwei of the Japanese-puppet government in Nanking of China with German diplomats in 1941

The prevalent explanation as to why the status of "honorary Aryan" was bestowed by the Nazis upon other non-Aryan race peoples, is relatively vague but was mostly explained that the services of those peoples were deemed "valuable" to the German economy or war effort, or simply for other purely political or propaganda reasons.[3] This attribution could be awarded through Frontgemeinschaft, which is essentially loyalty to Nazi Germany.

In the Independent State of Croatia, a Nazi client state, this term was used by Ante Pavelić to protect some Jews from persecution who had been useful to the state.[4]

Notable inclusions
  • Hitler declared that the Japanese peoples were honorary Aryans.[5][6][7][8][9] There was extensive cooperation between China and Germany from 1926, but this became untenable when the Second Sino-Japanese War broke out and Japan insisted on a cessation. Germany signed the Tripartite Pact, along with Japan and Italy, at the end of 1940. In July 1941, Hitler officially recognized Wang Jingwei's puppet government in Nanking. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, China formally joined the Allies and declared war on Nazi Germany on December 9, 1941. In retaliation, the Nazis persecuted ethnic Chinese in Nazi Germany.[10][11]
  • Helmuth Wilberg, Luftwaffengeneral and 1st-degree Mischling[lower-alpha 1] was declared to be Aryan in 1935 by Hitler at the instigation of Hermann Göring.[12]
  • Amin al-Husseini, a Palestinian and the Mufti of the British Mandate of Palestine, "was granted the status of honorary Aryan" by the Nazis.[13][14] Despite this, Hitler reportedly considered Arabs and people of the Far East as "half-monkeys" in a document labelled "L-3",[15][16][17] although this document was not used in the Nuremberg trials because of its doubtful origin.[18]
  • Stephanie von Hohenlohe, a Jewish-Austrian princess by marriage and a spy for Nazi Germany, was declared an honorary Aryan by Heinrich Himmler.[19]
  • Emil Maurice, Hitler's first personal chauffeur and a very early member of the Nazi-Party, was a member of the SS, but ran afoul of Heinrich Himmler's rules, which required SS men to have deep Aryan ancestry, since Maurice's great-grandfather was Jewish. Himmler considered him a security-risk, and he tried to have him thrown out, but Hitler stood by his old friend and, in a secret letter dated 31 August 1935, he required Himmler to allow Maurice and his brothers to remain in the SS. They were considered to be "Honorary Aryans".[20]
  • Sophie Lehár (née Paschkis), the wife of the composer Franz Lehár, had been Jewish before her conversion to Catholicism upon her marriage. Hitler enjoyed Lehár's music and the Nazis made some propaganda use of it. After Joseph Goebbels intervened on Lehár's behalf,[21] Mrs. Lehár was given in 1938 the status of "honorary Aryan" by marriage.[22] This certainly saved her life; during the war, attempts were made at least once to have her deported, which was stopped only due to her status.
  • Helene Mayer, a German-born fencer being forced to leave Germany in 1935 and resettle in the United States because she was Jewish, took part as an "honorary Aryan" at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, where she won the silver medal for Germany.
  • Melitta Schenk Gräfin von Stauffenberg, aeronautical engineer and test-pilot whose father had been born Jewish, was given honorary Aryan status.

See also

References

Informational notes

  1. A 1st-degree Mischling was someone classified as having two Jewish grandparents

Citations

  1. HITLER: El Hombre detras del Monstruo (in Spanish) (1nd ed.). Spain: Edimat. 2017. p. 26. ISBN 978-84-9794-380-2.
  2. Steiner, John; Freiherr von Cornberg, Jobst (1998). Willkür in der Willkür : Befreiungen von den antisemitischen Nürnberger Gesetzen [Arbitrariness in arbitrariness:Exemptions from the anti-Semitic Nuremberg Laws] (PDF) (in German). Institut fûr Zeitgeschichte. Den Begriff „Ehrenarier" gab es offiziell nicht, nur in der Umgangssprache. Er bedeutete wohl, daß ein jüdischer Mischling auf Grund seiner Stellung und Verdienste im Reich wie ein Arier angesehen wurde und keinerlei Anstalten machen mußte, eine Besserstellung oder Gleichstellung durch Hitler zu erreichen.
  3. "In the Wind", The Nation Vol. 147, Issue 7. August 13, 1938
  4. Rees, Laurence (2017). The Holocaust: A New History. PublicAffairs. ISBN 9781610398459.
  5. Farrell, Joseph P. (2004). Reich of the Black Sun: Nazi Secret Weapons & the Cold War Allied Legend (illustrated ed.). Adventures Unlimited Press. p. 117. ISBN 9781931882392. Retrieved 30 July 2018.
  6. Adams, James Truslow (1933). History of the United States: Cumulative (loose-leaf) history of the United States. C. Scribner's sons. pp. 260, 436. Retrieved 30 July 2018.
  7. Delgado, Richard; Stefancic, Jean (1997). Critical White Studies: Looking Behind the Mirror. Temple University Press. p. 53. ISBN 9781439901519. Retrieved 30 July 2018.
  8. Narula, Uma; Pearce, W. Barnett (2012). Cultures, Politics, and Research Programs: An International Assessment of Practical Problems in Field Research. Routledge. p. 105. ISBN 9781136462689. Retrieved 30 July 2018.
  9. Snyder (1976). Encyclopedia of the Third Reich, p. 170.
  10. Griffith, Ike (1999). Germans and Chinese. Cal University Press.
  11. Kirby, William (1984). Germany and Republican China. Stanford University Press. ISBN 0-8047-1209-3.
  12. Corum, James (1997) The Luftwaffe: Creating the Operational Air War, 1918–1940. Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas. p.127 ISBN 978-0-7006-0836-2
  13. Dalin David G. and Rothman, John F. (2009) Icon of Evil: Hitler's Mufti and the Rise of Radical Islam, Transaction Publishers. p.47 ISBN 978-1-4128-1077-7.
  14. Rigg, Bryan Mark (2002) Hitler's Jewish soldiers: the untold story of Nazi racial laws and men of Jewish descent in the German military. Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas. ISBN 978-0-7006-1178-2
  15. Ahmed, Akbar (2018). Journey into Europe: Islam, Immigration, and Identity. Brookings Institution Press. p. 380. ISBN 9780815727590. Retrieved 23 March 2020. Hitler's contempt for non-Aryan peoples, however, was difficult to contain: He is on record as referring to Arabs as "half-monkeys."
  16. Stefan Wild (1985). "National Socialism in the Arab near East between 1933 and 1939". Die Welt des Islams. New Series. 25 (1/4): 126–173. doi:10.2307/1571079. JSTOR 1571079. Wir werden weiterhin die Unruhe in Fernost und in Arabien schüren. Denken wir als Herren und sehen in diesen Völkern bestenfalls lackierte Halbaffen, die die Knute spüren wollen. (We will continue to stir up unrest in the Far East and in Arabia. Let us think as Men and at best we will see lacquered half-monkeys in these peoples who want to feel the whip.)
  17. Al-Hamarneh, Ala and Thielmann, Jorn (2008) Islam and Muslims in Germany. Brill. ISBN 9789004158665 p.203,n.49
  18. "The trial of German major war criminals : proceedings of the International Military Tribunal sitting at Nuremberg Germany". avalon.law.yale.edu. Retrieved 2023-10-08. Mr. Dodd treated the three documents concerned in quite the same way, whereas Mr. Alderman on Page 188 of the record (Volume II, Page 286), states that one of these three documents, L-3, was evidently not in order because of its doubtful origin. And therefore he withdrew the document.
  19. Jim Wilson (2011) Nazi Princess: Hitler, Lord Rothermere and Princess Stephanie von Hohenlohe ISBN 978-0-7524-6114-4.
  20. Hoffmann, Peter (2000) [1979]. Hitler's Personal Security: Protecting the Führer 1921–1945. New York: Da Capo Press. pp.50-51 ISBN 978-0-30680-947-7
  21. Elke Froehlich (Hrsg.): Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels. Teil I Aufzeichnungen 1923–1945 Band 5. Dez 1937 – Juli 1938. K.G. Saur, München 2000, S. 313.
  22. Frey (1999), pp. 338f.
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