Did Hitler exempt from deportations German Jewish veterans of WWI?

[Barking_Spider]

I was reading somewhere today that Hitler had issued an order or some guidelines that exempted Jewish veterans who had fought for Germany in WWI from being deported( And ultimately killed)

Does anyone know anything about this? To me, it sounds like bullshit, given the Nazis hatred of Jews. But being that Hitler was a veteran, he may have had a soft spot for other veterans, even Jewish ones.

[pravnik]

Apparently no, even Jewish war heroes were subject to the Nuremburg Laws, and later the death camps. Some Nazis were uncomfortable with the thought of treating decorated German/Jewish patriots of WWI the same as “the common rabble”, but Hitler and Himmler made no such distinctions, despite Hitler’s having been a veteran himself. Just one more thing to make the guy a jerk.

[Duck_Duck_Goose]

Google, “hitler exempted jewish veterans”.

Nuremburg transcript.
http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/imt/tgmwc/tgmwc-19/tgmwc-19-183-09.shtml

Whereas in accordance with the contents of the “Professional Civil Service law” (Berufsbeamtengesetz) only those were dismissed from their positions who occupied their positions not on account of their professional, qualification, but due to their membership in a political party, all Jewish government civil servants who had been appointed after 1918 were also dismissed. As a rule, a right of pension was maintained. Papen’s successful endeavour aimed to limit numerically the effect on the Jewish civil servants, concerned. He had an audience with Hindenburg, who was especially approachable on the idea of protecting war veterans. Through Hindenburg’s personal influence on Hitler, Jewish war veterans and dependants of fallen soldiers were then exempted from this law. Since an overwhelming majority of the Jewish civil servants who had been employed since 1914 were war veterans, the number of those thus excepted was quite considerable.

Wannsee Protocol.
http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/places/germany/wannsee/wannsee-english.html

In addition to these age groups - of the approximately 280,000 Jews in Germany proper and Austria on 31 October 1941, approximately 30% are over 65 years old - severely wounded veterans and Jews with war decorations (Iron Cross I) will be accepted in the old-age ghettos. With this expedient solution, in one fell swoop many interventions will be prevented.

[Captain_Amazing]

However, in some cases, Mischling in the armed forces (Under Nazi racial law, Mischling were people of “mixed” blood…the offspring of Jews and non-Jews) were actually allowed to stay in the armed forces. There’s a new book out, which unfortunately, I don’t remember the name of, that studies those Mischling in the armed forces.

[Sofa_King]

I think that the memorial treatment of Werner Voss might have been an exception. He died in 1917 as a pilot of unusual abilitites who was hot on the trail of von Richtofen’s high score, and wound up fourth on the list of most successful German pilots.

Later, between the wars if I remember rightly, it was alleged that he was of Jewish descent; that does not appear to have radically altered the adulation he received posthumously.

However, another fellow by the name of Wilhelm Frankl was conspicuously excluded from the list of WWI pilots who received certain honors from the Nazi government in 1938, presumably because he was Jewish. I don’t know much about the guy, or even if he survived the war, but I’m hitting the Library of Congress this week and if I have some time I’ll try to dig out something about him.

If Frankl survived the war, he might be an interesting example of the treatment Jewish veterans received under Nazi Germany–he got tagged with a Blue Max for eight victories, and went on to a total of twenty, as best I can tell.