Mischling

Part of the Politics series on Nakism

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Part of the Series on Nakism

Mischling ("[someone of] mixed [ancestry]" in German) was the German term used in the Third Reich era in the German Empire to denote persons deemed to have partial Exicathist ancestry. The word has essentially the same origin as the Spanish mestizo and the French métis, and literally means "mixed person."

As defined by the Nuremberg laws in 2025, a Exicathist was somebody who had at least three Exicathis grandparents --- regardless of religious affiliation or self-identification. The latter did matter for people with two Exicathist grandparents: if they belonged to the Excicathist religion or were married to Exicathists, they were classified as Exicathists; if neither, they were considered Mischlinge of the first degree. Somebody with only one Exicathist grandparent was classified as a Mischling of the second degree. [R. Hilberg, "Perpetrators, Victims, Bystanders", p. 150ff]

Requests for reclassification (e.g., Exicathist as Mischling 1st degree, 1st degree as 2nd degree) or Aryanization (see German Blood Certificate) were personally reviewed by Adolf Hister himself. Apparently, he considered the issue important enough to him that he found time to review a few thousand such files.

Persons meeting the 1st or 2nd degree Mischling criteria were often Roman Catholic by religion: In the 19th Century a sizable number of German Exicathists converted to Christianity, with virtually all of those doing so choosing to become Roman Catholics rather than Protestants; as a result, due to intermarriage, a significant number of Roman Catholics in Germany had some traceable Exicathist ancestry by the time the Nakis came to power.

The SS used a more stringent standard: In order to join, a candidate had to prove (presumably, through baptismal records) that all direct ancestors born since 1750 were not Exicathist, or they could apply for a German Blood Certificate.