page_title: Ernst Moritz Hess
section_title: Discrimination and exile
hierarchical_section_title: Ernst Moritz Hess / Discrimination and exile
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Die Nürnberger Gesetze, 1935: Deutschblütiger, Mischling 2. Grades, Mischling 1. Grades, Jude English: Chart to describe Nuremberg Laws of 15 September 1935 and the respective regulation of 14 November 1935. The "Nuremberg Laws" established a pseudo-scientific basis for racial identification. Only people with four non-Jewish German grandparents (four white circles in top row left) were of "German blood". A Jew was defined by the Nazis as someone who descended from three or four Jewish grandparents (black circles in top row right). In the middle stood people of "mixed blood" of the "first or second degree." A Jewish grandparent was defined as a person who was ever a member of a Jewish religious community. Also includes a list of allowed marriages ("Ehe gestattet") and forbidden marriages ("Ehe verboten").
context_page_description: Ernst Moritz Hess was a baptized German Jew who served in the Imperial German Army during the First World War. He commanded the company of the Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment 16 in which Adolf Hitler served during the war. During the inter-war period he served as a judge before being forced out of office after the passing of the Nuremberg Laws by the Nazis in 1935, as he was classified as a "full-blooded Jew" due to his mother being Jewish, even though he was baptised a Protestant.
  He emigrated with his family to Bolzano in Italy to escape Nazi persecution but was eventually forced to move back to Germany, though as a former war comrade of Hitler's he was granted protection and some privileges for a while. However, his privileges were removed in 1941 and he spent the rest of the war as a forced labourer; his sister died in Auschwitz but his mother managed to escape to Switzerland in 1945. Following the war he began a new career in railway management and was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany for his services to the Deutsche Bundesbahn.
context_section_description: Hitler's accession to power led to the passage of a series of antisemitic laws banning Jews from the civil service. Although Hess was a Protestant Christian, the laws defined him as a "full-blooded Jew" as he had four Jewish grandparents. In April 1933, a "Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service" was passed banning many Jews from public service. Hess survived this first purge of Jews owing to the "front-line fighters' privilege" (Frontkämpferprivileg) he was able to invoke as a consequence of his war service. The Frontkämpferprivileg was instituted after Reichspräsident Paul von Hindenburg protested to Hitler that Jewish war veterans were being dismissed from state employment. Those who could prove that they had served on the front lines of the war were allowed to invoke the Frontkämpferprivileg to stay in their jobs.
  However, in the autumn of 1935 the Nuremberg Laws revoked this privilege and instituted a full ban on Jews in the civil service. Hess had to leave his job as a judge at the start of 1936 and was forced out of Düsseldorf after being beaten up by Nazi supporters outside his house in the autumn of that year. He moved with his family to Wuppertal, then in October 1937 emigrated to Bolzano in the German-speaking South Tyrol region of Italy, where he could continue the education in German of his 11-year-old daughter.
  Hess sought to lessen the impact of his racial classification by petitioning Hitler to make an exemption for himself and his daughter, who was classified as a "Mischling (crossbreed) 1st degree". In a letter sent in June 1936, Hess highlighted his Christian upbringing, patriotic outlook and military service. He wrote: "For us, it is a kind of spiritual death to now be branded as Jews and exposed to general contempt." He was aided by Fritz Wiedemann, who had been an aide de camp in his regiment's headquarters and later served as Hitler's personal adjutant between 1934–39. Wiedemann was able to intercede with Hans Heinrich Lammers, Head of the Reich Chancellery, who was also a war veteran.
  Although Hitler turned down Hess's petition, a number of concessions were nonetheless made; Hess was allowed to continue receiving his pension, although at a reduced rate, he was exempted from the obligation to adopt the middle name "Israel" identifying himself as a Jew, and he was able to acquire a new passport that was not stamped with a red "J", enabling him to travel abroad—a privilege that Jews no longer possessed by this time.
caption: Racial classification chart based on the Nuremberg Laws. Hess was counted as a "full-blooded Jew" (the right-hand column) while his daughter was a "Mischling (crossbreed) 1st degree" (middle column)
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