African-Germans During the Holocaust

[Solly Mack]

The Nazis viewed Afro-Germans—children with one African parent and one German parent—as a threat to the purity of the Germanic race. In his 1925 autobiography, Mein Kampf (My Struggle), Adolf Hitler charged that “the Jews had brought the Negroes into the Rhineland with the clear aim of ruining the hated white race by the necessarily-resulting bastardization.”

Once the Nazi regime came to power, Afro-Germans were marginalized in German society, isolated socially and economically, and not allowed to attend university. Racial discrimination prohibited them from seeking most jobs. By the end of 1937, the Gestapo had secretly rounded up and forcibly sterilized many Afro-Germans. Some were subjected to medical experiments; others mysteriously “disappeared.”


Black people fought against Nazi Germany in World War II as members of the Allied militaries. Black prisoners of war faced imprisonment and mistreatment at the hands of the German military, who did not uphold the regulations imposed by the Geneva Convention (international agreement on the conduct of war and the treatment of wounded and captured soldiers). Black soldiers of the American, French, and British armies were worked to death on construction projects or died as a result of mistreatment in concentration or prisoner-of-war camps. Others were never incarcerated but were instead immediately killed by the SS or Gestapo.

Although no exact figures exist, it is known that a significant number of black people were detained in concentration camps and forced labour camps during the Nazi reign, and that many were murdered. Nonetheless, there seems to be little interest in Hitler’s black victims. Their plight is not talked about enough. This is partly because unlike Jews, Roma and Sinti, black people were not marked for destruction. But they were denied their human rights, sterilised, persecuted, experimented upon and murdered in camps.

This racist philosophy underpinned the decision to deny German citizenship to people of African descent, thus complicating their employment prospects and their ability to get by in society. Being born in Germany did not make the slightest difference. Nazi fears of “racial pollution” led to the traumatic break-up of many mixed-race families. The derogatory term Rheinlandbastard (Rhineland bastard) was used to describe children from interracial relationships. They were viewed as symbols of racial “disgrace”, and many were forcibly sterilised to prevent “alien blood” from being passed on.


Nazis were virulent racists. In 1935, after the enactment of the notorious Nuremberg racial laws *, which designated black people as a minority with “alien blood”, many left Germany. Those who remained were isolated and suffered horrendous racial abuse. And while the exclusion of black children from public schools became official policy in 1941, it is a matter of record that they had long suffered racist abuse in their classrooms.

* Nuremberg Laws:

On September 15, 1935, the Nazi regime announced two new laws:

1 - The Reich Citizenship Law
2 - The Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor

Did the Nuremberg Laws apply to other groups?

Yes. While initially focused on Jews, the Nazi government clarified that the Nuremberg Laws also applied to Roma (also called Gypsies), Black people, and their descendants. They could not be full citizens of Germany. Nor could they marry or have sexual relations with “people of German or related blood.”

Oh, and Hitler did not invent highways. Nor did he invent the microphone. Shocker, I know.

[TheBlackAdder]

1. Kind of brings a new dynamic to the role of Sergeant James Kinchloe in Hogan's Heroes.

.

Tatted up Neo-Nazis would have been shot on sight by the Getapo or SS or sent to the Russian Front.

That's the irony.

.

[Solly Mack]

2. Yes. He would have been shot on sight. Or put into a camp where he would have been worked to death.

[malaise]

4. Hitler would have a heart attack if he could see them

in German Town, Westmoreland, JA or Portland, JA

[Solly Mack]

9. Anything that could have given him a massive coronary prior to 1933 would have been great.

[malaise]

10. Those in German Town got here during the war

[Solly Mack]

12. I thought Germans migrated to Jamaica prior to that.

[malaise]

13. You are correct - about 300 came after Emancipation

to the Seaford estate/known as German town, but there are more from WW2

[Solly Mack]

15. Were any of the POWs allowed to stay? I know the US had two POW camps in Jamaica.

[malaise]

18. I was of the view that some did but

I’m double checking that. I know some of them worked in the US to reduce labor shortages. There were quite a few POW camps here.

[Solly Mack]

20. Just curious. Thanks! I'll do some more reading.

I was thinking about responding in one of the threads about Kanye's idiotic rant of ignorance and hate but felt facts would better serve as a rebuttal. Not that facts make a difference to some people. Still.

[FakeNoose]

3. The Nazis kept records of everything - even of the people they killed

They were obsessed with keeping records of all the people they persecuted and killed. So there had to be records of the African-Germans too. If the records can't be found, then it means they were destroyed in the war. A lot of stuffed burned up in the final bombings.

[Solly Mack]

7. I'm sure there are records but even the records we do know of don't tell the complete story.

People disappeared, assumed dead. A record of destroying a village, leaving a mass grave behind doesn't tell you who all died. That takes DNA, eyewitnesses who knew the dead, etc..

The assumption would be everyone living in that village but that doesn't really tell you the names of everyone. Or that all of the dead lived in that village.

People are still uncovering records from that time. More information is still coming out. And, yes, a lot of things did burn up in the bombings.

In France, the NAZIS came to one town, rounded up the adults while the children were in school, then they went to the school. A woman I know was a student at the school, along with her younger brother.

They ran and hid in the woods beside the school. They watched as people were lined up, both children and adults, and then shot.

She and her brother eventually made it to England and then to America and then to the state of Georgia, where I met her through her children.

She told her story. Said they didn't even bury the dead, just moved on to the next town where they continued their butchering.

[SoBlueInFL]

6. Regarding microphones...

Here's a funny anecdote from Cosimo Matassa of J & M Records, New Orleans:

Did you use any old Telefunken mics back in those days?

Yeah. In fact I had a very dear friend who was a member of a conservative Jewish congregation. You know there's kind of a contest between them, who's got the best cantor. Somebody heard, "This is the world's best microphone," so they bought one. Then people in the congregation said, "We don't think we ought to be using the German microphone." My friend said, "I'll take it. I know somebody who could use it." That was the original U-47.

[link:https://tapeop.com/interviews/40/cosimo-matassa/|

I always loved that story!

[Solly Mack]

8. A German-American invented the microphone in 1877, so all microphones are "German", so to speak.

And American.

The story is amusing.

[SoBlueInFL]

16. I think I'd prefer to say that they are American. r/o

But, the Telefunken mics were Nazi preferred. I can only imagine the Rabbi's horror when someone ordered one.

[Solly Mack]

17. I agree, actually. But that he was an immigrant is important, I think.

Immigrants being under attack all the time.

Yes, all things NAZI associated would be horrifying. Even now, it still causes unease though some brands used by the NAZIS remain popular today.

[Coventina]

19. He also wasn't a vegetarian. That's another Nazi lie.

And I'm sick of it being repeated.

Especially when it's intended to imply that vegetarians are evil.

[Solly Mack]

21. Exactly that kind of thing, yes.

As well as he was a socialist. When he murdered and put socialists into camps. Using the name only to attract the working class.

[Coventina]

22. Agreed. The whole socialism thing really irks me too.

He hated the Russians for being communists.
He intentionally targeted their citizens for that.

[Solly Mack]

23. Yep. He wrote about it and said it. Yet idiots still claim otherwise.

[DFW]

28. Goebbels was the big socialist true believer, if somewhat contorted in his interpretations.

"The social is a stopgap. Socialism is the ideology of the future"

"England is a capitalist democracy. Germany is a socialist people's state"

"Capitalism is the immoral distribution of capital"

"Money has made slaves of us… Money is the curse of mankind. It smothers the seed of everything great and good"

"Lenin is the greatest man, second only to Hitler, and that the difference between Communism and the Hitler faith is very slight"

All quotes from Göbbels, not Hitler.

[Solly Mack]

29. Thank you.

[tclambert]

24. I'm sure Republicans will not want this taught in our schools.

Because it might hurt the feelings of one of their major voting blocs--the Nazis.

[Solly Mack]

25. That would be funny if it wasn't true.

White supremacy demands the truth be stifled or rewritten to blame the victims or where white people were somehow the poor, misunderstood hero.

[NickB79]

26. But Kayne said Hitler was a good guy!

Ye wouldn't lie, would he?

[Solly Mack]

27. Ignorance lies. Hate lies. Bigotry lies.

So...

[DFW]

30. There are vestiges of that mentality left, but it is dying out fast.

Many half-African Germans and children of black US soldiers are 100% German citizens and no one even blinks any more. This was not the case even 30 years ago, but times have definitely changed here. There are 100% African homicide detectives in crime series on TV here speaking German with no foreign accent at all. One worker at a friend's firm was the daughter of a German mother and a Nigerian father. One time, a customer remarked on how good her German was, and she said, "well, that's probably because I am German." Of course, that exact same dialogue has occurred with my two daughters when meeting Germans in America, so it isn't limited to mixed background people here. At any rate, that shut him up real fast, and it never came up (as far as she told me, anyway) again from anyone else, either inside or outside the company. Germans with some (or all) African blood are just too numerous to be considered "exotic" any more. Since the (West German) media and the entertainment industry have been fairly inclusive long before the general public was, the general public didn't have to stretch a lot to get to acceptance. If you speak the language fluently, and without an accent, you get accepted pretty quickly here, whether one of your parents was from Bujumbura or Bremen.

[Solly Mack]

31. I found that to be the majority case when I lived in Germany.

Turks and East Germans, on the other hand, my goodness. Folks had a lot to say about both and little of it nice. Though most of it was about the social services they received - a rant on people (immigrants/others) viewed as undeserving getting help from the government is almost never without a degree of obvious bigotry involved. Same as in America.

I lived in Mannheim for several years.