Editing Mischling (section)

===Jewish ''Mischlinge'' as Christian converts===
In the 19th century, many Jewish Germans converted to [[Christianity]]; most of them becoming [[Protestantism|Protestants]] rather than [[Catholic Church|Catholics]].<ref>According to the 1933 census concerning Germany, in an overall population of 62 million, 41 million parishioners enlisted with one of the 28 different [[Lutheranism|Lutheran]], [[Calvinism|Calvinist]] and [[United and uniting churches|United]] Protestant [[Landeskirche|church bodies]], making up 66% of the people; as opposed to 21.1 million Catholics (32,5%). The largest of which, the [[Prussian Union of churches|Evangelical Church of the Old Prussian Union]], comprised 18 million enlisted parishioners. Noteworthy families of Jewish descent who converted to Protestantism included those of [[Karl Marx]] and [[Felix Mendelssohn]]. The borders of Germany changed several times between the [[Napoleonic era]] and the rise of [[Nazi Germany]]. Areas at times under French or Polish political or cultural dominance were overwhelmingly Catholic within the Gentile community.</ref> Two-thirds of the German population were Protestant until 1938, when the [[Anschluss]] annexation of Austria to Germany added six million Catholics. The addition of 3.25 million Catholic Czechoslovaks of German ethnicity ([[Sudetenland|Sudeten]] Germans) increased the percentage of Roman Catholics in Greater Germany to 41% (approximately 32.5 million vs. 45.5 million Protestants or 57%) in a 1939 population estimated at 79 million. One percent of the population was Jewish.

German converts from Judaism typically adopted whichever Christian denomination was most dominant in their community. Therefore, about 80% of the [[Gentile]] Germans persecuted as Jews according to the Nuremberg Laws were affiliated with one of the 28 regionally-delineated Protestant church bodies.<ref>''›Büro Pfarrer Grüber‹ Evangelische Hilfsstelle für ehemals Rasseverfolgte. Geschichte und Wirken heute'', edited by the Evangelische Hilfsstelle für ehemals Rasseverfolgte ("Evangelical Centre to Help the Formerly Racially Persecuted"), Berlin: no publ., 1988, p. 8. No ISBN.</ref> In 1933, approximately 77% of German Gentiles with Jewish ancestry were Protestant. In the 1939 census, however, the percentage dropped to 66%. This is due to the annexation of several areas in 1938, including Vienna and Prague, both of which have relatively large and well-established Catholic populations of Jewish descent.<ref>Ursula Büttner, "Von der Kirche verlassen: Die deutschen Protestanten und die Verfolgung der Juden und Christen jüdischer Herkunft im "Dritten Reich"", In: ''Die verlassenen Kinder der Kirche: Der Umgang mit Christen jüdischer Herkunft im "Dritten Reich"'', Ursula Büttner and Martin Greschat (eds.), Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1998, pp. 15-69, here footnote 20 on pp. 20seq. {{ISBN|3-525-01620-4}}.</ref> Converts to Christianity and their descendants had often married Christians with no recent Jewish ancestry.

As a result, by the time the Nazis came to power, many Protestants and Roman Catholics in Germany had some traceable Jewish ancestry (usually traced back by the Nazi authorities for two generations), so that the majority of 1st- or 2nd-degree ''Mischlinge'' were Protestant, yet many were Catholics. A considerable number of German Gentiles with Jewish ancestry were [[irreligion]]ists.

Lutherans with Jewish ancestry were largely in northwestern and [[northern Germany]], [[Prussian Union of churches|Evangelical Protestants]] of Jewish descent in [[Central Germany (cultural area)|Central Germany]] (Berlin and its southwestern environs) and the [[former eastern territories of Germany|country's east]]. Catholics with Jewish ancestry lived mostly in [[Western Germany|Western]] and [[Southern Germany]], [[Austria]] and what is now the [[Czech Republic]].