Mixed Blessings: An Almost Ordinary Life in Hitler's Germany

by Heinz R. Kuehn

The author, son of a Jewish mother and a Catholic father, recounts his experiences growing up in Nazi Germany

224 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 1988

Reviews

[Meaghan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The memoir of a half-Jew (or mischling as the Nazis called them) who, born in 1919, was a teenager in Germany during the early Nazi years and a young adult during the war. Heinz's life was indeed "almost ordinary." His parents divorced when he was a young child. His thrice-married father was a deeply religious Catholic who eventually went to live a simple life in a priory (though without taking vows). Most of his Jewish relatives, including his mother, left the country before deportations began. Heinz had to be quite circumspect about who he talked to and who his friends were (and indeed, most people didn't want to associate with him anyway, either from anti-Semitism or just fear). His sister Annemarie fell in love with and married an Aryan man, but the marriage had to be secret, because it was against the law for Aryans to marry mischling. But Heinz and Annemarie were spared the kind of harassment, arbitrary arrests, and later deportations and murder that regular Jews got, and their peculiar status was a blessing in some other ways. Mischling could not serve in the military, for example. Two anecdotes from the book to show just how wonderful that particular restriction was for Heinz:

Anecdote #1: One brief job Heinz had during the war was sorting through used German military uniforms to see which ones were completely ruined and which ones might be salvageable. Those that might be still good, he put aside to be repaired and presumably sent back to the front. Those were very few. The vast majority of the uniforms were shredded or worn beyond use for anything, some of them freckled with bullet holes, some of them so soaked in blood that the cloth was stiff as a board. (Aside: Sometimes Heinz found medals, even very prestigious ones, attached to the uniforms. Those, he stole and sold on the black market later. He was paid very poorly, and a man has to eat. But what would the Nazis do to you if they caught you wearing an Iron Cross that wasn't yours?) Anecdote #2: Shortly after the war was over, Heinz visited a school he'd attended when he was about fourteen but had had to withdraw from when it was turned into an elite Nazi military academy. He learned that of the approximately 40 boys in what would have been his graduating class in 1938, no more than 5, and maybe as few as 3, were still alive. No prizes for guessing what happened to the others.

I think Heinz talked waaaaaaay too much about his Catholic faith and all the religious and philosophical books he read. Like most people who are intensely interested in a certain topic, he tended to forget that the rest of the world was not so fascinated by it as he was. A lot of that stuff should have been cut out. But to those who want to learn about the lives of mischling in Nazi Germany, this, this book provides a wealth of details.

Try Lili Hahn's White Flags of Surrender for another perspective on being a mischling.

[John Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fortunately, I read this book immediately after Peter Gay’s My German Question. It was a welcome antidote. Both are memoirs of a boyhood and young adulthood in Germany from the 1920s through the 1930s, and both were written by men who had one (Kuehn) or two (Gay) parents who were Jewish. Both continue their memoirs into their new lives in America. Otherwise they are very different. Gay is prickly and resentful from the start, and his vexations and resentments only increase as he grows older. He was, he informs us, a perfect child, loved by all, but loving few. Kuehn was not embraced by either parent, neither as he was growing up nor as an adult. However, he sought and found deep affection with many others. His is a humble story, full of fine, humanistic incidents and events. His life, and his book are uplifting. This is a short book, and I recommend it very highly.