Honorary Aryan

Honorary Aryan (German: Ehrenarier) 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.

Not to be confused with honorary whites.
Japanese women doing a revue during a visit by the Hitler Youth and Nazi officials
Wang Jingwei of the Japanese-puppet government in Nanking of China with German diplomats in 1941

As to why the status of "honorary Aryan" was bestowed by Germans upon certain "non-Aryan" people or peoples, this was typically not well-documented, due to the semi-official nature of the category, since generally, lacking the requisite fully "Aryan" genealogy would have still carried a stigma. It might have been that the services of those individuals or peoples were deemed valuable to the German economy or war effort, or simply for other purely political or propaganda reasons. The attribution of "honorary Aryan" could be awarded through Frontgemeinschaft, which was essentially loyalty to Nazi Germany.

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.

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