Up to 150,000 men of Jewish ancestry (60,000 "half-Jews" and 90,000 "quarter-Jews") served in the Wehrmacht during World War II, despite the openly anti-semitic policies of Nazi Germany. Among the Wehrmacht personnel of World War II of Jewish ancestry were Generalfeldmarschalls, admirals, and generals. Around 20 soldiers of Jewish ancestry received the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross.
The Wehrmacht purged "full-blooded" Jews from its ranks in 1934; an estimated 70 personnel were dismissed. On May 21, 1935, a law was passed banning Jewish officers from the Wehrmacht. Under a conscription law introduced in 1936, "Mischlinge" ("half-Jews" and "quarter-Jews": German citizens with a Jewish parent or grandparent) were entitled to, and required to, serve in the Wehrmacht. "Half-Jews", however, were prohibited from being promoted to non-commissioned officers. In late-1935, Bernhard Lösener of the Reich Ministry of the Interior estimated that there were 45,000 "half-Jews" of military age in Germany; it has been suggested that "the existence of this relatively substantial pool of potential soldiers may well have been one of the factors motivating the Nazi leadership to create a special category for half-Jews, thus preserving them for future use as soldiers." An exception was the Schutzstaffel, which required all officers to prove racial purity back to 1750. In 1935, Emil Maurice - an early member of the National Socialist German Workers' Party and a founding member of the Schutzstaffel - was found to have one-eighth Jewish ancestry. Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler recommended that Maurice and his relatives be expelled on the basis that they were a security risk, but was overruled by Führer Adolf Hitler, who wrote to Himmler on 31 August 1935 compelling him to make an exception for Maurice and his brothers and informally declare them "Honorary Aryans".
Soldiers of Jewish descent took part in the German invasion of Poland in September 1939. During the invasion, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, found himself trapped in Warsaw. Following a lobbying campaign by Max Rhoade, the German diplomat Helmut Wohlthat agreed to arrange for Schneersohn to be evacuated from Poland in an attempt to maintain good relations with the United States. Wohlthat approached Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, who instructed Major Ernst Bloch to rescue Schneersohn. Bloch, a veteran of World War I, was the son of a Jewish father who had converted to Christianity and an Aryan mother who was described as an "assimilated half-Jew". In November 1939, Bloch located Schneersohn and dispatched him and his family on a train to Berlin under the pretence of being prisoners. Schneersohn in turn travelled to Latvia and then to the United States. In 1944, Bloch (by then holding the rank of Oberst) was forced out of the Abwehr following the 20 July plot, dying the next year in the Battle of Berlin.
On 8 April 1940, Hitler issued a secret directive to the Wehrmacht instructing it to immediately purge all "half-Jews" and soldiers married to "half-Jews" other than in special cases. "Quarter-Jews" were permitted to remain. Some personnel duly turned themselves in; on one occasion, a commanding officer summarily executed a Jewish soldier, "infuriated at having his ranks sullied". Some commanding officers ignored the directive. Some personnel of Jewish descent falsified papers and concealed their circumcisions. In September 1940, the Oberkommando des Heeres (OKH) stated that "again and again cases have come to the attention of the OKH in which Jewish Mischlinge of the first degree (50%) or soldiers married to such Jewish Mischlinge are still in active military service in violation of the order" and insisted that all active personnel sign a declaration relating to their racial status. It is estimated that tens of thousands of personnel of Jewish descent remained in the Wehrmacht following the directive.
Some men of Jewish descent who served in the Wehrmacht were unaware of their ancestry and did not consider themselves Jewish. Others concealed their Jewish descent in order to join the Wehrmacht for reasons such as avoiding starvation; service in the Wehrmacht was described as "the safest place for a Jew in Hitler's Germany". Some men of Jewish descent viewed serving in the Wehrmacht as a means of protecting their families. Some were passionately German and sought to prove their identity and patriotism via military service. Jakob Benecke states, "The security the service, and especially exemplary dedication in the Wehrmacht [...] offered to 'Mischlinge' could range from protection from anti-Semitic discrimination through the [Nazi] state to the sheer securing of survival [...] In addition, such commitment for the 'national community' could have relieving or lifesaving effects on close relatives of 'Mischlinge'."
Some "well-placed" persons of mixed "Aryan" and non-Aryan descent, such as Field Marshal Erhard Milch and General Helmuth Wilberg, were granted German Blood Certificates. Referring to Milch, Chief of the Luftwaffe High Command Hermann Göring reportedly stated, "I decide who is a Jew in the Luftwaffe". In July 1941, Hitler introduced a policy that allowed "half-Jew" Wehrmacht veterans dismissed as a result of the April 1940 directive to apply to re-join the Wehrmacht if they had previously won an Iron Cross or campaign citation, subject to Hitler's personal approval.
In September 1942, the OKH against called for the dismissal of all "half-Jews" remaining in the Wehrmacht.
In 1944, Hitler signed declarations for 77 high-ranking Wehrmacht officers who were "of mixed Jewish race or married to a Jew" asserting that they were of German blood. The 77 officers were discharged from the Wehrmacht later that year following the 20 July plot. In November 1944, the OKH ordered that any "half-Jews" still in the Wehrmacht were to be expelled and arrangements made for their arrest by the Gestapo.
In 1945, the rabbi Simon Gossel, who had spent two years in Auschwitz concentration camp, served in the Wehrmacht.
Beyond Jewish people serving in the Wehrmacht, Jewish slave labour was utilised extensively to support the German war effort, with captive Jews forced to perform tasks such as digging anti-tank ditches, repairing vehicles, demining, digging underground tunnels, and manufacturing equipment such as uniforms, artillery shells, and V-2 rockets. Beginning in autumn 1944, between 10,000 and 20,000 "half-Jews" and persons related to Jews by "mixed marriage" were recruited into special units of the Organisation Todt, a civil and military-based engineering programme that utilised forced labour to deliver large-scaled constructional projects throughout Germany and German-occupied Europe.
Following the end of the war, some veterans of Jewish descent were ostracised by other Jews. The matter of soldiers of partial Jewish descent was considered a "somewhat taboo" subject.
In 2002, the historian Bryan Mark Rigg published Hitler's Jewish Soldiers: The Untold Story of Nazi Racial Laws and Men of Jewish Descent in the German Military.
A documentary by Larry Price about soldiers of Jewish ancestry under Nazi Germany, Hitler's Jewish Soldiers, premiered on 24 April 2006 on Channel 1. The documentary featured interviews with five soldiers of Jewish ancestry who served in the German military during World War II.
Notable German Jewish military personnel of World War II, sorted by surname in alphabetical order:
| Name | Born | Died | Branch | Rank | Service | Notes |
| 1919 | 2004 | Schütze | 1938-1940 | His photograph appeared in the Berliner Tageblatt as "The Ideal German Soldier", and was used in Wehrmacht recruitment posters and propaganda. Expelled from the Army following the 8 April 1940 directive. | ||
| 1897 | 1972 | Schutzstaffel/Luftwaffe | Oberführer | 1919-1945 | Declared an Honorary Aryan. | |
| 1892 | 1972 | Luftwaffe | Generalfeldmarschall | 1933-1945 | Granted a German Blood Certificate. | |
| 1899 | 1982 | Kriegsmarine | Vizeadmiral | 1915–1945 | N/A. | |
| 1918 | 2015 | Luftwaffe | Oberleutnant | 1937-1945 | N/A. | |
| 1903 | 1945 | Luftwaffe | Flugkapitän (honorary) | 1939-1945 | N/A. | |
| 1880 | 1941 | Luftwaffe | General der Flieger | 1899–1941 | Reclassified as Aryan by Hermann Göring. | |