Honorary Aryan

Nazi-era classification of people

Honorary Aryan (‹See Tfd›German: Ehrenarier^[1]) was a semi-official category and expression used in Nazi Germany to justify the exceptional awarding of Aryan certificates to some regime-favoured Mischlinge who according to Nuremberg Laws standards would not have been recognized as belonging to the Aryan race, but whom German officials nevertheless chose to spare persecution.^[2]

The bestowal of the status of "honorary Aryan" upon certain "non-Aryan" people or peoples was typically not well-documented, due to the semi-official nature of the category. Rationales included the services of those individuals or peoples who were deemed valuable to the German economy or war effort, political considerations, and propaganda value.^[3]

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

Individuals

• Helmuth Wilberg, a Luftwaffe general and 1st-degree Mischling,^[a] was declared to be Aryan in 1935 by Hitler at the instigation of Hermann Göring.^[5]
• Amin al-Husseini, a Palestinian and the Mufti of the British Mandate of Palestine, "was granted the status of honorary Aryan" by the Nazis. Hitler said about Amin Al-Husseini: with his blonde hair and blue eyes, he gives the impression, despite his thin face, of a man whose ancestors were more likely to have been Aryans, and who perhaps is descended from the best Roman blood...In sheer intelligence he almost comes close to the Japanese.
• Stephanie von Hohenlohe, a Jewish-Austrian princess by marriage and a spy for Nazi Germany, was declared an honorary Aryan by Heinrich Himmler.^[6]
• 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. Maurice's great-grandfather was Jewish, and Himmler considered him a security-risk. He tried to have him thrown out of the SS, but Hitler stood by his old friend and, in a secret letter dated 31 August 1935, required Himmler to allow Maurice and his brothers to remain in the organization. They were to be considered "Honorary Aryans".^[7]
• Sophie Lehár (née Paschal), 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,^[8] Mrs. Lehár was given in 1938 the status of "honorary Aryan" by marriage.^[9] At least one attempt was made to have her deported, thwarted by her special status.
• Helene Mayer, a German-born fencer who had been 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, an aeronautical engineer and test-pilot whose father had been born Jewish, was given honorary Aryan status.

Demographics

• Hitler eventually declared the Japanese people honorary Aryans.^{[10][11][12][13][14]} There had been 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.^[15][16]
• The Nazis believed Turks to be a pure European Volk related to Hungarians and Finns,^[17][18] referring to them as "kindred" people.^[19] Nazis also conferred on Turks the title 'carriers of culture' (Kulturträger), which was "almost synonymous with Aryan".^[20]

See also

• Anti-Comintern Pact
• Eduard Bloch, who Hitler referred to as a noble Jew (‹See Tfd›German: Edeljude)
• Germany–Japan industrial co-operation before World War II
• German–Japanese relations
• Honorary whites
• Presidential exemption (Slovak State)
• Racial policy of Nazi Germany
• Tripartite Pact
• Gunther Burstyn

References

Books

• Ihrig, Stefan (20 November 2014). Atatürk in the Nazi Imagination. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. p. 129. ISBN 9780674368378.

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) (1st 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. 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
6. Jim Wilson (2011) Nazi Princess: Hitler, Lord Rothermere and Princess Stephanie von Hohenlohe ISBN 978-0-7524-6114-4.
7. 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
8. 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.
9. Frey (1999), pp. 338f.
10. 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.
11. 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.
12. Delgado, Richard; Stefancic, Jean (1997). Critical White Studies: Looking Behind the Mirror. Temple University Press. p. 53. ISBN 9781439901519. Retrieved 30 July 2018.
13. 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.
14. Snyder (1976). Encyclopedia of the Third Reich, p. 170.
15. Griffith, Ike (1999). Germans and Chinese. Cal University Press.
16. Kirby, William (1984). Germany and Republican China. Stanford University Press. ISBN 0-8047-1209-3.
17. Ihrig 2014, pp. 2–3, 129.
18. Baer, Marc David (February 2018). "Mistaken for Jews: Turkish PhD Students in Nazi Germany". German Studies Review. 1 (1). Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press: 2–3. doi:10.1353/gsr.2018.0001.
19. Motadel, David (30 November 2014). Islam and Nazi Germany's War. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. p. 57. ISBN 9780674724600.
20. Ihrig 2014, p. 186.