Jump to content

Jewish Names in the Wehrmacht


Recommended Posts

I am playing a CMFB Scenario at the moment, commanding a German Panzergrenadier Company and spotted two squad leaders by the name of Nussbaum and Altschuler. Those are Jewish names and everybody in Germany with such a name was in a desperate fight for his life in 1944, but not on the frontlines.

Somehow it saddens me to see, please change with the next patch.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't know about if the names themselves represent a Jew but a quick search on the Volksbund.de:s Gräbersuche-Online show some of the number of fallen German soldiers with the names you mentioned

Nussbaum = 160

Altschuler = 0 (but 697 Schuler)

 

Other Yiddish names

Salomon = 457

Levin = 57

Stern = 614

Just the names doesn't probably tell the whole story...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I dont think thatd be unheard of. Just a name. Maybe they got picked on at school. If their papers were in order there it is, theyre all set.

There are also a few notable and super rare of Jews serving in the Wehrmacht and one the Waffen SS. All did it to survive and explained away jokes about being jews because they were circumcised by stories of an infection as an infant.

Didnt Goering say early on if you see an enemy plane over Berlin you can call me Meyer? Of course maybe Meyer with the first e is the Jewish German version but shoot Egon Mayer was a 100 kill Luftwaffe ace and probably shot more B17s down than anyone else.

 

Also by 1944 1945 there were very very few actual German Jews left in Germany. And if they were they were 'u boats' wandering from cafe to cafe couch to couch waiting for the day. :(

Edited by Sublime
Link to comment
Share on other sites

There were actual Jewish German soldiers serving in the Wehrmacht.  At least the the soldiers considered themselves Jewish.  I seem to recall some personal accounts to that effect.

edited because I'm not sure the Wehrmacht considered the soldiers to be Jewish, but the soldiers certainly considered themselves to be Jewish.

Edited by ASL Veteran
unsure of some info
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Many Jews in Germany had converted to Christianity to assimilate in German society. Fact is most of those the Nazis considered Jews in Germany had long since converted, but then again, logic isn't a recurring theme in National Socialism...

I'd say that's the source of Jewish names of Germans who, at least yet, weren't considered Jews by the regime.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, Big Boss said:

I don't know about if the names themselves represent a Jew but a quick search on the Volksbund.de:s Gräbersuche-Online show some of the number of fallen German soldiers with the names you mentioned

Nussbaum = 160

Altschuler = 0 (but 697 Schuler)

 

Other Yiddish names

Salomon = 457

Levin = 57

Stern = 614

Just the names doesn't probably tell the whole story...

Did you filter for WWII? Because in WWI Jews served and sacrificed for Germany just as everyone else called to arms.

 

 

9 hours ago, ASL Veteran said:

There were actual Jewish German soldiers serving in the Wehrmacht.  At least the the soldiers considered themselves Jewish.  I seem to recall some personal accounts to that effect.

edited because I'm not sure the Wehrmacht considered the soldiers to be Jewish, but the soldiers certainly considered themselves to be Jewish.

True, but these were extremely rare cases with "Special-permission".

 

There are only 100.000 Jews left today in Germany - my bottom line is the Nazis were so thorough in their genocide, I am quite sure there were no jewish names in the Wehrmacht by any practical measures.

 

Can anyone tell me where I can find the files for the names and how to edit them?

 

Morbo

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Again, the idea that everyone in Germany with a typical Jewish name was a Jew is a horribly uninformed belief. German Jews had been converting to Christianity in large numbers since at least the late 18th century to assimilate into society, so no, there'd be plenty of German soldiers with names like e.g. Meyer whom not even the SS considered Jewish.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 hours ago, CMFDR said:

 

@DasMorbo don't let sadness spoil your me time mate, enjoy HistoryLover's CMRT German Soldier Names as it gives the German units the real names of 1149 Ritterkreuztraeger (owners of the Knight‘s Cross) of Heer and Waffen-SS!, and work on CMFB too.

 

You can try the link above, otherwise you would have to edit each scenario by hand. Others may be of better help with this.

Kevin

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, DasMorbo said:

Can anyone tell me where I can find the files for the names and how to edit them?

The file you are looking for is named "soldier names german.txt" (as opening the mod mentioned above taught me). Checking [Ref] Final Blitzkrieg v100 files list tells me that the default one is located in "final blitzkrieg v100a\text\soldier names german.txt". So I go get it by copying (not cutting) "final blitzkrieg v100a.brz" from ".\Battlefront\Combat Mission Final Blitzkrieg\Data" folder to ".\Battlefront\Combat Mission Final Blitzkrieg\Mod Tools\RezExplode\input" folder.

Go back one level up to your ".\Battlefront\Combat Mission Final Blitzkrieg\Mod Tools\RezExplode" folder, then double-click on "RezExplode.exe". Just wait a few moments until an “exploded” folder appears. Inside there you’ll find the contents of the .brz file you just exploded. The files inside the “exploded” folder are the ones you’ll want to consider modding, and later repacking using RezPack. (Reference: CM Engine Manual v3.01.pdf, page 116.) Please note that is not mandatory, brz files are simply loaded last, thus have priority over any file. Unless you have another soldier names mod, don't worry about that right now.

Now copy that extracted to a new folder you would have created first in your "C:\Users\*****\Documents\Battlefront\Combat Mission\Final Blitzkrieg\User Data\Mods" folder. You can name that new folder whatever you want. At that point, you could delete the brz file in your Input folder and the Extracted folder to save some HD space, or keep them here as back up, up to you.

Once your "soldier names german.txt" is in your new folder, unleash your inside modding beast and edit it at will (using any text editor, Notepad, Notepad++, whatever). You can use whatever character you want. Just make sure character encoding is ANSI and that file name stay as per default.

Now launch your game and feast you eyes on your very (first) own mod. Congrats! :)

No need to edit each scenario by hand by the way, unless you want to edit the briefing itself (which would be probably historical anyway), as the name of your men is only randomly picked from the "soldier names" file. As far as I know of course.

Edited by CMFDR
Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 hours ago, DasMorbo said:

Did you filter for WWII? Because in WWI Jews served and sacrificed for Germany just as everyone else called to arms.

No I didn't find a filter function when using surname search but a absolute majority was from later part of ww2 (44-45).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

15 hours ago, Anthony P. said:

Again, the idea that everyone in Germany with a typical Jewish name was a Jew is a horribly uninformed belief. German Jews had been converting to Christianity in large numbers since at least the late 18th century to assimilate into society, so no, there'd be plenty of German soldiers with names like e.g. Meyer whom not even the SS considered Jewish.

Off topic: the horrible thing was that it did not matter to the German government post '33 how much you or your ancestors wanted to assimilate. If your grandparents were Jews, so were you. IIRC from history class Jews volunteered and became casualties more often than the average German male during the Great War. Didn't help them in the slightest.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Why would it have? Any attempt to place logic on that insane govt and dictator is doomed to failure.   This actually was a real problem during the war - people kept acting as if Hitler was a rational sane person when trying to figure out his next move.

Plus a whole part of the party lie, in a host of lies, ( Horst Wessel a hero? Try low level criminal and pimp ) wouldnt be served by the truth about Jewish honor in serving the 2nd Reich.  Kind of pokes a hole in the "stabbed in the back by jews and bolsheviks thats why we lost the war" idea.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 29-5-2016 at 1:03 AM, DasMorbo said:

I am playing a CMFB Scenario at the moment, commanding a German Panzergrenadier Company and spotted two squad leaders by the name of Nussbaum and Altschuler. Those are Jewish names and everybody in Germany with such a name was in a desperate fight for his life in 1944, but not on the frontlines.

Somehow it saddens me to see, please change with the next patch.

O, please....

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, spawncaptain said:

Off topic: the horrible thing was that it did not matter to the German government post '33 how much you or your ancestors wanted to assimilate. If your grandparents were Jews, so were you. IIRC from history class Jews volunteered and became casualties more often than the average German male during the Great War. Didn't help them in the slightest.

The SS demanded that you have "pure" blood 200 years back. There were plenty of people who had Jewish names because e.g. a very remote ancestor had converted in the 17 or 18th centuries, being "pure enough to avoid the Nazis.

Do you think Panzer Meyer's presence in the SS is unhistorical as well? This thread smacks of narrow-mindedness, or at least a striking unwillingness to listen to why "Jewish names" existed in the German armed forces of WW2 to be honest.

Edited by Anthony P.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

As others have noted, due to intermarriage, conversions, name changes and the large jewish population in eastern europe, many family names with Jewish origins spread in Germany.

"Rosen", "Rosenbaum", "Rosenberg", "Rossman", "Roth", "Sachs", "Saar", "Salman", "Schafer" all have German-jewish origins, but you can also find WW2 U-Boat commanders with those names on U-Boat.net.

"Model" as in Field Marshal Walter Model also has jewish origins.

Edited by Sgt Joch
Link to comment
Share on other sites

DasMorbo,

Since I wasn't aware of it, I hadn't thought about the issue you raised. Frankly, I'd be thrilled to be functioning well enough to play, never mind get into deep arcana! But I see the guys are all over it in terms of education on the one hand and providing solutions on the other. There is a way forward for you. Meanwhile, there is a top-rated history on what vexes you. Bryan Rigg personally interviewed 400 mischlinge (half-caste who served in the German military) and family members. These were men of mixed Jewish and non Jewish parentage. One who rose to fame was ex-Luftwaffe member Helmut Schmidt, who went on to become Chancellor of Germany many years later. And who is this Rigg fellow, and what did he conclude?

Rigg, who received a B.A. from Yale in 1996, studied at Cambridge and currently teaches at the online American Military University, estimates their numbers to have been in the range of 150,000.

http://www.amazon.com/Hitlers-Jewish-Soldiers-Military-Paperback/dp/0700613587

Seedorf81,

Doing so would demonstrably be a mistake regarding people with German names in the US military during WW II. I've seen a bunch of such cases in various soldiers stories, and while some of their brethren may've been a bit suspicious initially, their ferocity in battle (driven in  part by how bad the Nazis made the Germans look in Germany and in the US) corrected this quickly, as did the more extreme case of the Nisei in the 442nd RCT. But going back to German surnamed  GIs, consider this direct example from my own family, George Henry Kettler, who served under Patton in Boat Two during WW II. He was full-blooded German (Kettler paternally and Gerber maternally). The Kettler  family got to the States by way of Argentina after fleeing the Franco-Prussian War, though I gather the Gerber side got here in time for one member to be in the ACW.

CMFDR,

I think it's great that soldiers' names can be changed out with a bit of work, but I'll leave such matters in the hands of the professionals!

Regards,

John kettler

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Interesting chap, Milch. Wiki:

Milch.jpg

Erhard Milch was born in Wilhelmshaven, the son of Anton Milch, a Jewish pharmacist[1] who served in theKaiserliche Marine, the Imperial German Navy, and Clara Milch, née Vetter. Due to his Jewish ancestry, according to the Nazi Nuremberg Laws of 1935, he was considered as a "Jewish Mischling of the first degree". At Göring's urging, Adolf Hitler gave Milch a German Blood Certificate and was later reclassified as an "honorary Aryan" and was one of the few officers in the German high command of Jewish ancestry.

Milch joined the Nazi Party (number 123885) on April 1, 1929, but his membership was not officially acknowledged until March 1933, because Hitler deemed it desirable to keep the fact hidden for political reasons.[2]

Following Hitler’s suicide, Milch attempted to flee Germany, but was captured by Allied forces on the Baltic coast on 4 May 1945. On surrendering, he presented his baton to the Commando Brigadier Derek Mills-Roberts, who was so disgusted by what he had seen when liberating the Bergen-Belsen concentration campthat he broke the baton over Milch's head.[7]

In 1947, Milch was tried as a war criminal by a United States Military Tribunal in Nuremberg. He was convicted on two counts:

  1. War crimes, by participating in the ill-treatment and use of the forced labour of prisoners of war(POWs) and the deportation of civilians to the same ends.
  2. Crimes against humanity, by participating in the murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, imprisonment, torture, and the use of slave labour of civilians who came under German control, German nationals and prisoners of war.

Milch was sentenced to life imprisonment at Landsberg prison. His sentence was commuted to 15 years imprisonment in 1951, but he was released in June 1954. He lived out the remainder of his life in Düsseldorf, where he died in 1972.

Edited by Childress
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Unfortunately, your content contains terms that we do not allow. Please edit your content to remove the highlighted words below.
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...