The forgotten black soldiers of WWII

This is an important concern that I encounter with the required respect. Black people actually suffered during the Holocaust. However, there is an important aspect: they are often not taken into account in the common stories over this time, which is why their story remained in the shadow for a long time.

Something must be specified here. The National Socialists did not conduct a targeted extermination campaign against whole "black peoples" - just as they did against Jews or Roma. Nevertheless, certain groups of people of African origin were exposed to severe discrimination and persecution. I would distinguish two main categories here: African-German. These are people of African origin born in Germany and lived there. The National Socialist Racial Icrumbles stimulated blacks as "racially inferior". First of all, civil rights were deprived; In addition, they were restricted in their career choices and their social development opportunities. Later, especially after the beginning of the war, politics were tightened: instead of a deportation (which proved difficult with German citizens), some affected people were forcibly sterilized, in individual cases, it even came to their physical annihilation. Prisoner of war of African origin. During the Second World War, soldiers from the colonial units of the Allies (such as French African associations) in German captivity. They too became the target: they were often exposed to brutal maltreatment and forced labor; Many came in the camps due to unbearable living conditions, famines and diseases. The exact number of black and African-born people who were murdered under National Socialism or came to life can not be specified statistically exactly. Historians, however, estimate that the total number of deaths goes to the thousands. The historical main groups and estimates are that the African prisoners of war were murdered about 1,500 to 3,000. During the Westfeldzug in 1940, tens of thousands of soldiers from African colonies (u. A. Tirilleurs Sénégalais from Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso or Morocco) served in the French armed forces. After the capitulation of France, weir power and SS committed targeted racial massacles to prisoners of African soldiers. Historical estimates expire from 1,500 to 3,000 directly executed African prisoners of war. Further died under extreme conditions in work and prisoners of war (frontalags). The Afro-German and black civilian in Europe lived in 1933 an estimated 20,000 to 25,000 black people in Germany, including immigrants from the former German colonies such as Cameroon or Togo and their descendants. There was no central, systematic destruction plan for the deportation of all black people (like the final solution for the Jewish population). The persecution instead was decentralized by withdrawal of civil rights, labor bans, forced sterilizations (at least 385-400 adolescents, etc. a. The so-called "Rhinelandkinder") and arbitrariness. Hundreds of thousands of black people were harassed; Several of them were deported under the preamit walls such as "as sociality", political opposition, race shame in concentration camps such as beech forest, Ravensbrück, Neuengamme or Dachau and died there for forced labor, malnutrition or medical attempts. There was also Jewish victims from North Africa. As part of the Holocaust in the narrower sense of destruction of European Judaism, Jewish communities were also affected in North Africa, Tunisia, Libya, Algeria, Morocco. In Tunisia, several thousand Jews in the labor camp were locked under German occupation, where hundreds died of the contestment. In the index cards of the concentration camps, black prisoners usually not recorded according to their skin color or origin, but as "political prisoners", "asocials" or about their citizenship (eg French, British). Many documents on forced sterilizations and executions at the front were destroyed against the end of the war. It is important not to confuse this with another tragic event that is sometimes mentioned in this context: the genocide of the Herero and Nama in German-Southwest Africa (today's Namibia) in the years 1904-1908. At that time, the Nazi regime did not exist yet - this crime was committed by the imperial Germany. Historians point out that the methods and the rhetoric of the time already showed approaches that later formed the basis of national socialist racial policies. So if one speaks specifically from the time of National Socialism (1933-1945), it is not about a plan to destroy "black nations" as such, but systematic discrimination and violence against concrete people of African origin, which came under the rule of the Third Reich. The fact is that the National Socialists did not pursue a uniform, centralized program, which exclusively aimed at the destruction of all black people. Nevertheless, they were actively pursued by the regime because of his racist ideology - the National Socialists considered black people as "racially inferior". This led to severe tragedies. This program expressed itself in different forms: Immediately after the power of power of the National Socialists in 1933, black people in Germany faced confronted with restrictions: they lost their jobs, they were denied opportunities, and they were exposed to aggression in everyday life. The campaign was particularly cruelly against the so-called "Rhinelandbastards" - children who had emerged after the First World War from compounds between French colonial soldiers, many of which were of which African origin had emerged and German women. In 1937, about 385 of these children were forcibly sterilized; The National Socialists wanted to prevent a "racial mix". Many were arrested - often under advanced reasons, for example because of "asocial behavior". She made her ethnicity particularly vulnerable, she was stronger in the focus of the police, and after a arrest, they came rarely released again. Some were instructed in prisons, labor camps or psychiatric clinics, others are trailed in concentration camps. There are documented cases: Martha Ndumb, born in Berlin, her dad came from Cameroon, was detained in the Ravensbrück concentration camp and came there in 1945 to life; Ferdinand Allen, son of a black British and a German who suffered from epilepsy, fell victim to the Euthanasia program "Action T4" and was murdered in 1941 in the psychiatric Anstalt Bernburg; Bayume Mohamed Husen died in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, Gert Schramm at the Buchenwald concentration camp. Black Soldiers from the Armies of the Allies (USA, France, the United Kingdom), which in captivity, were also exposed to brutal maltreatment. They were forced to exhaustive forced labor, they were withheld adequate diet, and some were killed immediately after their capture. Why is more rarer about it? One reason for this is that in the post-war period and in the historical memory of the focus on the systematic destruction of the Jewish people. In addition, many documents were destroyed by the National Socialists, which makes the collection of precise data difficult. In recent years, there are aspirations to correct this imbalance: in Germany, memorial boards (including "stumbling blocks") for black victims are laid; In addition, scientific studies and documentary films appear on this topic. So you can not say that black people would not have experienced any suffering during this time - their tragedy remained for a long time on the edge of historical research and commemoration. Black soldiers who survived the Nazi terror, prisoner of war or stored were usually received as a survivor in their African branch companies, but often with great relief, but not necessarily with public honor. The reaction depends heavily on whether they had fought for a colonial power and as the independence policies were on site. For relatives, the return after years of war, captivity and uncertainty was often a reason to the delight and religious or family welcome. At the same time, many veterans brought trauma, diseases, lost years and experiences of racist humiliation home. In many cases, however, they were also seen as humans who experienced the European colonial hostels "naked": sick, injured and dying. This strengthened in some a new political self-confidence and the desire for equality and independence. The official recognition usually fell out thin. More than a million Africans served in the Second World War in colonial armies, but often received little thanks, worse references as white soldiers and hardly adequate pensions. A Congolese veteran, for example, described that despite his service for Belgium, he got a very small rural pension. This shows: The reception by the state was often rather influenced by unequal treatment than her appreciation. Not all veterans were fully accepted by independence activists. Some liberation fighters criticized them because they had served in the armies of the colonial oppressors. At the same time, many former African soldiers followed the independence movements after their return, because their war experience had shaken the myth of European superiority. Strictly speaking, most black African soldiers were not "Holocaust survivors" in the narrower sense, but survivors of warfonds, forced labor, maltreatment or massacres through the Wehrmacht and Ss. Black prisoners and Prisoners of war were treated particularly cruelly in the Nazi system; Many were shot dead or died of forced labor and malnutrition. Personally, often welcomed as a returnee, politically and government but often forgotten, disadvantaged or critically considered. @https: //encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/african-americans-in-nazi-germany @https: //ahrp.org/germanys-colonial-genocide-in-namibia/ @ Http: //www.nytimes.com/2016/12/29/world/AFRICA/Germany-genocide-namibia-holocaust.html? Ysclid = mvwkaeqiv963627742 lo