Born and reared as a Baptist, Rigg studied at Phillips Exeter Academy, graduating in 1991 continued on to Yale University, and received his B.A. in 1996. He received a grant from the Henry Fellowship, to continue his studies in Cambridge University, where Rigg earned his doctorate in 2002. In the summer of 1994 he went to Germany, and met Peter Millies, an elderly man who helped Rigg understand the German in a movie they were watching, Europa Europa, about Shlomo Perl, a full Jew who "hid in plain sight" in the Nazi army, posing as a Volksdeutsche orphan named Josef Peters. Millies later told Rigg that he himself was a part-Jew, and introduced him to the subject which was to become his main research topic for many years. Rigg discovered a large number of "Mischlinge" who were members of the National Socialist German Workers Party and/or served in the German Armed Forces during World War II. In the 1990s, he travelled throughout the world, primarily Austria and Germany, and interviewed hundreds of these men. His assembled documents, videotapes, and wartime memoirs on the subject are presented as the Bryan Mark Rigg Collection at the Military Archives branch of the Federal German Archives in Freiburg, Germany. He has taught as a lecturer at Southern Methodist University and American Military University. He served as a volunteer in the Israel Army and as an officer in the United States Marine Corps. His claims have been used both by Holocaust researchers, as well as Holocaust denial and anti-Zionist groups.
His book Hitler's Jewish Soldiers earned him the Colby Award in 2003. Before his work was published, his research was picked up by several newspapers, most notably the London Telegraph, the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, causing much sensation and generating a lot of criticism from some historians. He has been endorsed by such historians like Michael Berenbaum, Robert Citino, Stephen Fritz, James Corum, Paula Hyman, Nathan Stoltzfus, Norman Naimark, Jonathan Steinberg, Geoffrey P. Megargee, Dennis Showalter and James Tent. He has published several other books since then: Rescued From the Reich, with a foreword by Paula Hyman, Lives of Hitler's Jewish Soldiers and The Rabbi Saved by Hitler's Soldiers, with a foreword by Michael Berenbaum.
Recent activities
According to the German Academic Exchange Service, he worked in the Private Banking Division of Credit Suisse as a Private Wealth Manager from 2006 to 2008. He has set up his own firm called RIGG Wealth Management.
