Honorary Aryan (German: Ehrenarier[1]) was a semi-official category and expression used in Nazi Germany to justify the exceptional awarding of Aryan certificates to some regime-favoured Mischlinge who according to Nuremberg Laws standards would not have been recognized as belonging to the Aryan race, but whom German officials nevertheless chose to spare persecution.[2]
The bestowal of the status of "honorary Aryan" upon certain "non-Aryan" people or peoples was typically not well-documented, due to the semi-official nature of the category. Rationales included the services of those individuals or peoples who were deemed valuable to the German economy or war effort, political considerations, and propaganda value.[3]
In the Independent State of Croatia, a Nazi client state, this term was used by Ante Pavelić to protect some Jews from persecution who had been useful to the state.[4]
- ^ HITLER: El Hombre detras del Monstruo (in Spanish) (1st ed.). Spain: Edimat. 2017. p. 26. ISBN 978-84-9794-380-2.
- ^ Steiner, John; Freiherr von Cornberg, Jobst (1998). Willkür in der Willkür : Befreiungen von den antisemitischen Nürnberger Gesetzen [Arbitrariness in arbitrariness:Exemptions from the anti-Semitic Nuremberg Laws] (PDF) (in German). Institut fûr Zeitgeschichte.
Den Begriff „Ehrenarier" gab es offiziell nicht, nur in der Umgangssprache. Er bedeutete wohl, daß ein jüdischer Mischling auf Grund seiner Stellung und Verdienste im Reich wie ein Arier angesehen wurde und keinerlei Anstalten machen mußte, eine Besserstellung oder Gleichstellung durch Hitler zu erreichen.
- ^ "In the Wind", The Nation Vol. 147, Issue 7. August 13, 1938
- ^ Rees, Laurence (2017). The Holocaust: A New History. PublicAffairs. ISBN 9781610398459.