Jewish Journal

The Nazi Who Saved the Rebbe

by Gaby Wenig

Posted on Mar. 3, 2005 at 7:00 pm


"Rescued From The Reich: How One of Hitler's Soldiers Saved the Lubavitcher Rebbe," by Bryan Mark Rigg, Yale University Press, 2004.


But maybe they should not have been so afraid of Ernst Bloch, the German officer whose many contradictions defined a life that was, ultimately, lived in service to both the hunter and the hunted. Despite his handsome, Germanic profile -- if one overlooked the disfiguring scar on his bottom lip -- and the many military awards he sported on his Wermacht army uniform, Bloch was a Jew. And despite his proud devotion to the Fatherland, when Bloch eventually found the rebbe, he lied to other SS guards, concealing the rebbe from them, and then escorted Schneersohn to Latvia (instead of a concentration camp), where the rebbe and his entourage awaited safe passage to the United States.

Historian Bryan Mark Rigg tells the unlikely story of how a Jewish Nazi risked his life and career to save the Lubavitcher rebbe in the fascinating book, "Rescued from the Reich: How One of Hitler's Soldiers Saved the Lubavitcher Rebbe."

Rigg is a Cambridge University graduate and former marine who now teaches history at the American Military University and Southern Methodist University. He came to prominence a few years ago with the publication of "Hitler's Jewish Soldiers: The Untold Story of Nazi Racial Laws and Men of Jewish Descent in the German Military" (University Press of Kansas, 1997), a book which documented the fate of partial Jews, or "mischlinges."


In "Rescued From the Reich" the paradoxical nature of Bloch's career, which culminates in his spectacular rescue of the rebbe, echoes the also contradictory larger story of the German-American cooperation needed to facilitate the rescue, and raises many questions about just how much could have been done to save more Jews in Europe.



So why did these men -- both the Americans and the Germans -- extend so much effort to get the rebbe out of Poland? Both groups acted not out of altruism but expediency. For the Americans, the rebbe was a significant enough Jewish leader that by rescuing him, as Rigg writes, "They could proudly illustrate their contribution to world Jewry, prove their humanitarian concern for the European Jews under Hitler and gain the support of a large group of voting Lubavitchers." For the Germans involved, responding to the request from America (which had not yet entered the war) to rescue the rebbe was a chance "to restore a modicum of goodwill between the two nations."

The Germans involved were also opposed to Hitler's megalomania and racial policies.

"Governments in general are amoral," said Rigg in a phone interview with The Journal from Texas. "They don't act for humanitarian reasons. Most of the time governments only act because they are pushed. At the time, Roosevelt was the darling of the Jewish community and people couldn't fathom that if he knew all about [what was happening to Jews in Europe] he wouldn't do anything about it."

Ultimately, the book, which also explores the more troubling aspects of Schneersohn's leadership in the United States, such as his opposition to political efforts to save the Jews in Europe, is a clarion call for the efficacy of political action. The Schneersohn visa file at the State Department, Rigg said, was more than 200 pages thick. The files of thousands of other European Jews who applied for visas were only three pages long, as if their relatives wrote one letter, received one negative reply and then gave up the fight. The story of Schneersohn's rescue demonstrates that anything is possible with a little effort -- even Nazis working with Americans to save Jews.

"This is what we see with the rebbe," Rigg said. "There are a lot of opportunities that come along our way -- do we have the self-awareness to seize them?"


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