The biographer of General Fritz Bayerlein throughly researched his life and military career. This research was thoroughly conducted at German Bundesarchivs (Freiburg, Aachen, Koblenz and Berlin), the National Archives and Records Administration II in College Park Maryland, and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. There were no instances of any war crimes attributed to his leadership. Bayerlein did not ascribe to National Socialists principles, nor was he a member of the NSDAP (i.e. Nazi Party). Men serving in the German military - the Wehrmacht - were not allowed to be members of the Party, and also were not permitted to vote.

 

Postwar, Bayerlein was subjected to a "Denazification  Trial"  (Spruchkammer) conducted in September 1947. The biographer has a copy of this file and its complete contents are in the process of being translated by co-author Gary Wilkins and  published in Book 3 of the Bayerlein 'saga.'  He was exonerated of any war crimes and National Socialists leanings.

 

The biographer obtained evidence at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA II) that Bayerlein was of "non-Aryan" descent. The reseach in Magedeburg Germany revealed that his mother, Louise Denkmann (maiden name) Bayerlein, was illegitimate and his grandfather was "unknown." According to Bayerlein's testimony, his grandfather was Jewish. As was the custom at the time, children of Protestant mothers and Jewish fathers were raised in the faith of the mother. Bayerlein followed his Catholic father's teachings, and also that of his Protestant mother. Bayerlein did not consider himself a Jew, as he didn't practice the faith; he was of Jewish ancestry, or as he explained post-war 'of non-Aryan descent'. However the National Socialist Party doctrine in the form of the "Nuremberg Law of 1935" labeled him as a "quarter Jew" as he had one Jewish grandparent ("Mischlinge second degree.") Another factor that singled him out for further scrutiny - as well as many others to include Field Marshal Rommel's wife Luci - was black hair and dark brown-black eye color.

 

It is the biographer's belief, and research supports, that Bayerlein put himself and his family at risk in order to protect and stand up for others who were persecuted during this era of the Third Reich. These instances are discussed in his biography and throughly discussed and analyzed in his Denazification Trial, to be published in Book 3.