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Honorary Aryans? Japanese German Mischlinge and the Negotiation of Identity in Nazi Germany

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 July 2023

Sarah Panzer Open the ORCID record for Sarah Panzer [Opens in a new window]
Sarah Panzer*
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Department of History, Missouri State University, Springfield, MO, United States
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spanzer@missouristate.edu
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Abstract

Race is the black box at the centre of the German–Japanese alliance during the Second World War. Early Nazi racial legislation provoked speculation regarding its potential impact on Japanese German Mischlinge (individuals of mixed race), and the regime's reluctance to define its position helped to spread the rumour that they had been recognised as ‘honorary Aryans’. Although this was never more than a rumour, the ambiguous racialisation of the Japanese historically seemingly legitimised demands by Japanese Germans that the regime should recognise their rights as members of the Nazi Volksgemeinschaft (national community). This article traces how the Japanese Germans were able to negotiate concessions enabling them to function as a protected minority, albeit in contingent and arbitrarily defined ways. In effect, the Japanese Germans were able to exploit the ambiguities of Nazi racial thinking in order to carve out a place for themselves within the margins of the racial state.

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Contemporary European History , First View , pp. 1 - 15
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Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press

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References

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34 Memorandum by Bernhard Wilhelm von Bülow, 11.10.33. PA AA R29452.

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38 Paul Behncke to Wilhelm Frick, 26.10.34, BArch R 64IV/31, 38–42.

39 In 1945, Leers escaped to Italy and from there to Argentina. He moved to Egypt in the mid-1950s, where he converted to Islam and adopted the name Omar Amin von Leers. His unrepentant antisemitism and enthusiasm for Arab nationalism earned him a position as a propagandist in Gamel Abdel Nasser's government, which he held until his death in 1965. Robert S. Wistrich, Who's Who in Nazi Germany, 3rd edn (Hoboken, NJ: Routledge, 2013), 126.

40 ‘Denkschrift der Deutsch-Japanischen Gesellschaft zur Frage der Anwendung der Rassen-Gesetzgebung auf die Abkömmlinge aus deutsch-japanischen Mischehen’, signed by Admiral Paul Behncke, 24.10.34, BArch R 64IV/31, 28.

41 ‘Denkschrift der DJG’, BArch R 64IV/31, 31.

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51 Benjamin Frommer, ‘Honorary Czechs and Germans: Petitions for Aryan Status in the Nazi Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia’, in Kaplan and Gruner, eds., Resisting Persecution, 87.

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54 Wilhelm Hillenbrand to Reichsleitung der NSDAP, 28.4.34, BArch R 64IV/31, 181.

55 Auswärtiges Amt (hereafter AA) to DJG, 31.12.35, BArch R 64IV/31, 171.

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57 N. A. Wierl to DJG, 18.11.35, BArch R 64IV/31, 268.

58 N. A. Wierl to Reichsministerium des Innern, 27.12.35, BArch R 64IV/31, 262.

59 N. A. Wierl to DJG, 11.5.36, BArch R 64IV/31, 256.

60 Heinz Schoeler to DJG, 25.3.35, BArch R 64IV/31, 239–42.

61 Heinz Schoeler to DJG, 10.11.35, BArch R 64IV/31, 229.

62 Dienststeller des Beauftragten für außenpolitischen Fragen der NSDAP im Stabe des Stellvertreters des Führers to Foerster (DJG), 13.5.38, BArch R 64IV/31, 213–14.

63 Ludwig Domnick to Johann von Leers, 24.2.35, BArch R 64IV/31, 141.

64 Ibid.

65 AA to DJG, 4.5.35, BArch R 64IV/31, 137.

66 See George Steinmetz, The Devil's Handwriting: Precoloniality and the German Colonial State in Qingdao, Samoa, and Southwest Africa (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2007), Chapter 5.

67 Solf to Ludwig Domnick, 30.11.34, BArch NL Solf/93, 136.

68 Ernst Thiele to AA, 17.10.35, BArch R 64IV/31, 125–7.

69 DJG to Ernst Thiele, 4.3.35, BArch R 64IV/31, 131.

70 DJG to H. W. Rohde (AA), 26.2.35, BArch R 64IV/31, 132; DJG to H. W. Rohde (AA), 6.3.35, BArch R 64IV/31, 130; DJG to H. W. Rohde (AA), 19.10.35, BArch R 64IV/31, 124.

71 Reichsleitung der NSDAP to DJG, 15.3.35, BArch R 64IV/31, 129.

72 DJG to Ernst Thiele, 18.3.35, BArch R 64IV/31, 128.

73 Heide Opry to DJG, 5.1.36, BArch R 64IV/31, 112–14.

74 Heide Opry to DJG, 5.1.36, BArch R 64IV/31, 112.

75 Geheran, Michael, Comrades Betrayed: Jewish German World War I Veterans under Hitler (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2020)Google Scholar. See also Huebel, Sebastian, Fighter, Worker, and Family Man: German-Jewish Men and their Gendered Experiences in Nazi Germany, 1933–1941 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2022)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. Chapter 1.

76 Heide Opry to DJG, 5.1.36, BArch R 64IV/31, 113.

77 Ibid.

78 Hatsuko Fischer to Foerster (DJG). Undated, BArch R 64IV/31, 305.

79 G. Fischer to Foerster (DJG), 2.7.37, BArch R 64IV/31, 303.

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81 See Kater, Michael, Different Drummers: Jazz in the Culture of Nazi Germany (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

82 A law prohibiting marriage between Germans and ‘non-Aryans’ was drafted but never codified. The regime did, however, devise a number of unofficial ways of discouraging such matches. See Furuya, ‘Nazi Racism Toward the Japanese’, 36–41.

83 Karl Glatzer to Johann von Leers, 7.9.37, BArch R 64IV/31, 294.

84 Karl Glatzer to Minister des Innern, 12.5.37, BArch R 64IV/31, 295–6.

85 Rudolf v. Strobl, BArch R 64IV/31, 289.

86 Hans-Eckart von Koslowski to Werner (DJG), 10.7.39, BArch R 64IV/31, 279, emphasis in original.

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88 Hans-Eckart von Koslowski to DJG, 12.7.39, BArch R 64IV/31, 278.

89 Wilhelm Hillenbrand to DJG, 26.5.41, BArch R 64IV/31, 161.

90 Hans Lammers Abschrift, 21.9.40, BArch R 43II/1456a.

91 Law, Transnational Nazism, 284.

92 ‘Durchdruck als Konzept’, Referat D III, signed Von Hahn, 26.2.43. ‘Eheschließung zwischen Deutschen und fremdrassigen Ausländern’, PA AA R99176.

93 ‘Honorary Aryan’, Wikipedia. Available at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honorary_Aryan (last accessed 11 May 2023). The Wikipedia Talk thread on the term is a fascinating microcosm of this debate in miniature. ‘Talk: Honorary Aryan’, Wikipedia. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk%3AHonorary_Aryan (last accessed 30 Nov. 2022).

94 Audrea Lim, ‘The Alt-Right's Asian Fetish’, The New York Times (6 Jan. 2018).