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Half Jews, with exactly two Jewish grandparents, could qualify as First Degree Mischlings (mixed bloods), rather than Jews. In order to do so, they had to AVOID doing the following:
1) Being a member of the Jewish religious community.
2) Being married to a full Jew.
3) Being born to either married or unmarried parents, one of whom was Jewish and one not, after certain dates.
This would spare them the death camps, but leave them ineligible for "public" occupations such as teaching, being a government official, or working in the media. After 1942, they could not marry "Aryans," and marrying Jews would make them Jewish, and eligible for death camps.
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My understanding is that it could make a big difference. I think circumstances that weighed in the favor of someone considered to be Jewish weighed more so if the person was half-Jewish. So being a half-Jew plus being a WW1 veteran might mean better treatment than full-Jew and WW1 vet. There were people of known Jewish ancestry in the SS (in rare, perhaps singular cases) but had that person been a full Jew, vs having a single Jewish grandparent, perhaps that person would not have been given special dispensation as he was.