Bryan Mark Rigg Explained

Bryan Mark Rigg (born March 16, 1971) is an American military historian.

Rigg is the author of several books on World War II history, including Hitler's Jewish Soldiers: The Untold Story of Nazi Racial Laws and Men of Jewish Descent in the German Military and The Rabbi Saved by Hitler's Soldiers: Rebbe Joseph Isaac Schneersohn and His Astonishing Rescue.

In addition to his writing, Rigg has also worked as a professor of history at several universities, including American Military University, Southern Methodist University, and the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. He has been a frequent contributor to various media outlets, including CNN, NPR, and The New York Times.

Biography

Born and reared as a Baptist,[1] Rigg studied at Phillips Exeter Academy, graduating in 1991,[2] then attended Yale University and received his B.A. in 1996.[3] He received a grant from the Henry Fellowship, to continue his studies in Cambridge University, where Rigg earned his doctorate in 2002.[4] [5] In the summer of 1994 he went to Germany, and met Peter Millies, an elderly man who helped Rigg understand the German in a movie they were watching, Europa Europa, about Shlomo Perl, a full Jew who "hid in plain sight" in the Nazi army, posing as a Volksdeutsche orphan named Josef Peters. Millies later told Rigg that he himself was a part-Jew, and introduced him to the subject which was to become his main research topic for many years.[6]

Rigg discovered a large number of "Mischlinge" (part-Jews) who were members of the National Socialist German Workers Party (or "Nazi" Party) and/or served in the German Armed Forces during World War II. In the 1990s, he travelled throughout the world, primarily Austria and Germany, and interviewed hundreds of these men. His assembled documents, videotapes, and wartime memoirs on the subject are presented as the Bryan Mark Rigg Collection at the Military Archives branch of the Federal German Archives (Bundesarchiv) in Freiburg, Germany.[7]

He has taught as a lecturer at Southern Methodist University and American Military University.[8]

His claims have been used both by Holocaust researchers,[9] [10] as well as Holocaust denial and anti-Zionist groups.

His book Hitler's Jewish Soldiers earned him the Colby Award (for first books in military history) in 2003.[11] Before his work was published, his research was picked up by several newspapers, most notably the London Telegraph, the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, causing much sensation and generating a lot of criticism from some historians. He has been endorsed by such historians like Michael Berenbaum,[12] Robert Citino,[13] Stephen Fritz, James Corum, Paula Hyman, Nathan Stoltzfus, Norman Naimark, Jonathan Steinberg, Geoffrey P. Megargee, Dennis Showalter and James Tent.[14] He has published several other books since then: Rescued From the Reich, with a foreword by Paula Hyman (Yale University Press 2004), Lives of Hitler's Jewish Soldiers (Kansas, 2009) and The Rabbi Saved by Hitler's Soldiers, with a foreword by Michael Berenbaum (Kansas, 2016).

Recent activities

According to the German Academic Exchange Service, he worked in the Private Banking Division of Credit Suisse as a Private Wealth Manager from 2006 to 2008. He has since set up his own firm called RIGG Wealth Management.

Criticism

Scholars, like Richard J. Evans, Regius Professor of History at the University of Cambridge, and Omer Bartov, professor of history at Brown University, consider the titles of Rigg's books, such as Hitler's Jewish Soldiers, misleading, because the books are not about Jews as the term is commonly understood, but in almost all cases about Mischlinge ("half-"Jews and "quarter-"Jews) as defined by the Nuremberg laws but not according to Jewish religious law.[15]

Yale professor, Dr Henry Turner said that Rigg was not really an intellectual or Historian and not cut out for academia and refused to recommend him for graduate studies. Nevertheless this same professor is quoted as saying Hitler's Jewish Soldiers is the "basic book on the subject. People will use it with reservations, but they'll have to use it."[16]

Some Historians have accused Rigg's work as being hyperbolic and sensationalist at the expense of historical accuracy.[17] Rigg's research and books have been described as a misnomer and misleading.[18]

Controversies

Court cases

In May 2020 there was a court case between Williams v. Rigg whereby the plaintiff repeatedly claimed that Bryan Mark Rigg's speech is false, defamatory, and presents a risk of harm to Williams' reputation when the two were working together to write a book.[19]

Bryan Mark Rigg and his wife divorced in 2016 and in 2019 his ex-wife sued him for allegedly breaching the divorce agreement.[20]

Bibliography

See also

References

  1. News: Dorie Baker . Yale Bulletin and Calendar . May 3, 2002 . 30 . 28 . Alumnus Bryan Rigg reveals untold story of 'Hitler's Jewish Soldiers' . June 13, 2019. He returned to his family in Texas, where he had grown up as a devout Baptist ....
  2. https://www.exonians.exeter.edu/s/1682/wide.aspx?sid=1682&gid=2&pgid=618 Phillips Exeter Academy - Alumni - U.S. Associations - Texas
  3. http://archives.news.yale.edu/v30.n28/story4.html Yale Bulletin and Calendar - Alumnus Bryan Rigg reveals untold story of 'Hitler's Jewish Soldiers'
  4. Web site: In the Wolf's Mouth . Dallas Observer . June 13, 2019.
  5. Web site: Kansas University Press - Hitler's Jewish Soldiers. The Untold Story of Nazi Racial Laws and Men of Jewish Descent in the German Military . 2019-06-13 . https://web.archive.org/web/20190606135444/https://kansaspress.ku.edu/978-0-7006-1358-8.html . 2019-06-06 . dead .
  6. Web site: In the Wolf's Mouth . Dallas Observer . June 13, 2019.
  7. Web site: German Academic Exchange Service - Dr. Bryan Mark Rigg profile . 2019-06-13 . https://web.archive.org/web/20190609054344/https://www.daad.de/der-daad/unsere-aufgaben/alumniarbeit/alumni-galerie/portraits/en/39334-dr-bryan-mark-rigg/ . 2019-06-09 . dead .
  8. Web site: German Academic Exchange Service - Dr. Bryan Mark Rigg profile . 2019-06-13 . https://web.archive.org/web/20190609054344/https://www.daad.de/der-daad/unsere-aufgaben/alumniarbeit/alumni-galerie/portraits/en/39334-dr-bryan-mark-rigg/ . 2019-06-09 . dead .
  9. Web site: Hitler's Jewish Soldiers . July 25, 2002 . Holocaust Teacher Resource Center . August 25, 2014.
  10. Book: Surrounded: Palestinian Soldiers in the Israeli Military . Rhoda Ann Kanaaneh . 2009 . 9780804758581 . 197.
  11. Web site: Kansas University Press - Hitler's Jewish Soldiers. The Untold Story of Nazi Racial Laws and Men of Jewish Descent in the German Military . 2019-06-13 . https://web.archive.org/web/20190606135444/https://kansaspress.ku.edu/978-0-7006-1358-8.html . 2019-06-06 . dead .
  12. https://www.jta.org/2002/06/04/lifestyle/were-there-jews-in-hitlers-army JTA - Were there Jews in Hitler's army?
  13. https://www.jstor.org/stable/25703928 Citino, Robert M. The International History Review, vol. 32, no. 1, 2010, pp. 173–174
  14. https://phiquyenchinh.org/2017/10/08/hitlers-jewish-soldiers-interview-with-historian-bryan-mark-rigg/ Hitler's Jewish Soldiers—Interview with Historian Bryan Mark Rigg
  15. News: Were there Jews in the Nazi Army . Danny Postel . May 3, 2002 . The Chronicle of Higher Education . August 25, 2014. .
  16. Web site: Whitley . Glenna . In the Wolf's Mouth . 2024-05-02 . Dallas Observer . en.
  17. https://www.chronicle.com/article/were-there-jews-in-the-nazi-army/
  18. Web site: Fine on Rigg, 'Hitler's Jewish Soldiers: The Untold Story of Nazi Racial Laws and Men of Jewish Descent in the German Military' H-Net . 2024-05-13 . networks.h-net.org.
  19. Web site: Williams v. Rigg, 458 F. Supp. 3d 468 Casetext Search + Citator . 2024-02-25 . casetext.com.
  20. Web site: In Re: Bryan Mark Rigg Appeal from 301st Judicial District Court of Dallas County (memorandum opinion) . 2024-06-18 . Justia Law . en.
  21. Schroer . Timothy L. . 2004 . Hitler's Jewish Soldiers: The Untold Story of Nazi Racial Laws and Men of Jewish Descent in the German Military . Canadian Journal of History . 39 . 3 . 606–607. 10.3138/cjh.39.3.606 .
  22. Deák . István . 2002 . Bryan Mark Rigg. Hitler's Jewish Soldiers: The Untold Story of Nazi Racial Laws and Men of Jewish Descent in the German Military. . The American Historical Review . 108 . 5 . 1546–1547 . 10.1086/ahr/108.5.1546.
  23. Herman . Gerald . 2006 . Rescued from the Reich: How One of Hitler's Soldiers Saved the Lubavitcher Rebbe (review) . Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies . 24 . 3 . 168–170 . 10.1353/sho.2006.0058. free .

External links

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