Category: Black History

Blacks were forerunners of the Holocaust

Thursday, 02 December 2010 20:28 Written by rosepena 0 Comments

Before the Jews, there were the Africans


Hans Jürgen Massaquoi
American Jews tell their story of survival, pain, and tragedy regarding Germany’s horrendous mass genocide known as the Holocaust.  But more often than not, the story of those Black Africans brutalized and experimented on in Nazi Germany fall by the wayside, as if burned to ash in the fires of Hitler’s secret past. Before the German tyrant Adolf Hitler mobilized his deviant and apparently bewitched Nazi soldiers to attempt to exterminate European Jews, records show that he tested his inhumane tactics on Germans of African descent.
Clarence Lusane, author of “Hitler’s Black Victims,” (a historical compilation of the events and philosophies surrounding the Holocaust) suggests African people were used in preparation for the Jewish Holocaust.
From 1904 to 1907, Germany engaged in a war against the Herero people of Southwest Africa. Although the Herero attempted to live peaceably with Germany, which occupied various parts of Southwest Africa, foreign soldiers constantly provoked them by raping their women, and stealing and lynching those who protested against their acts. As a result, a massive Herero revolt took place, initiating a years long war.
Germany sent over one of their most brutal, bloodthirsty war assassins, Lt. Gen. Lother von Trotha. In his attacks, he killed any Herero people in his path and banished the remaining population to the then Omaheke Desert. He also ordered his troops to poison the water supplies to the desert. By the end of the bloodbath, the Herero population had been cut from 80,000 to 15,000.
The remaining Herero who fell into the hands of Germans were then sent off to concentration camps, where they endured barbaric treatment and eventually death. “In the camps, the Herero were subjected to medical experiments including sterilization and injections of smallpox, typhus, and tuberculosis,” Lusane writes. “This type of experimentation can be seen as a testing ground for later medical procedures that would be used against Blacks, Jews, Gypsies, and others during the Nazi Holocaust.”
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AFRO Deutsch; Afro German 4 BEGINNERS

Monday, 22 November 2010 16:52 Written by rosepena 0 Comments


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Thomas Usleber

Monday, 15 November 2010 13:49 Written by rosepena 0 Comments
Portrait von Thomas Usleber

»Kultur darf nicht auf die Sprache oder die Religion reduziert werden, denn dadurch wird nur das Trennende hervorgehoben.«

»Ich bin ein Deutscher. Bin ich es? Woran wird „Deutschsein“ erkennbar? Woran erkennen Menschen, dass ein anderer ein Deutscher ist oder eben keiner? Am Pass? An der Sprache? Am Namen? Am Aussehen?«

Mit seinen autobiografischen Aufzeichnungen »Die Farben unter meiner Haut« meldete sich 2002 erstmals ein schwarzer, deutscher Mann zu Wort. Der 1960 geborene Thomas Usleber erzählt vom Aufwachsen in der westdeutschen Provinz, wo er mit seiner weißen Mutter und einem schwarzen Bruder lebte. Auch wenn Rassismus seine Erfahrung von Ausgrenzung am stärksten prägt, gesellt sich bei ihm noch ein weiterer Aspekt dazu: Die Armut seiner Familie. […] Usleber arrangiert sich damit, als Schwarzer nicht deutsch sein zu können. Um dennoch in einer Gesellschaft (über)leben zu können, die ihn offensichtlich ausgrenzt, wählt er die Strategie der Assimilation, nimmt die Rolle des Vermittlers ein und leistet Bewusstseinsarbeit in der Mehrheitsgesellschaft, um “Toleranz” für nicht-weiße Deutsche oder anderweitig Ausgegrenzte zu schaffen. © Ekpenyong Ani

In seinem Buch zeichnet Usleber die erschütternde Geschichte eines Deutschen auf, der im eigenen Land als Fremder gesehen wird, aber mit Konsequenz und einem unbeirrbaren Glauben dokumentiert, dass nicht die Hautfarbe eines Menschen entscheidend ist, sondern seine Willenskraft und individuelle Persönlichkeit. AUDIO & MEHR….

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I WILL Speak German!

Sunday, 31 October 2010 18:43 Written by rosepena 0 Comments

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Book Review & Synopsis: A Breath of Freedom: The Civil Rights Struggle, African American GIs, and Germany

Monday, 18 October 2010 12:24 Written by rosepena 0 Comments

“By honoring the service of African American soldiers and their families, this powerful and comprehensive book successfully shines a spotlight on the historic intersection between the struggle against Nazism and the emergence of the civil rights movement in the United States. Honest and straightforward in describing the circumstances under which these GIs volunteered to serve, Höhn and Klimke meticulously document their sacrifices and contributions at a pivotal time in history. Acknowledging the present day challenges that remain with respect to racial prejudice and discrimination on both sides of the Atlantic, the book is an important reference and required reading for students, scholars, and the many veterans and families who share their personal experiences.”—Rosemarie Peña, President, Black German Cultural Society.

Synopsis:

Based on the award-winning international research project and photo exhibition “The Civil Rights Struggle, African American GIs, and Germany” (www.aacvr-germany.org), this poignant and beautifully illustrated book examines the experiences of African American GIs in Germany and the unique insights they provide into the civil rights struggle at home and abroad. Thanks in large part to its military occupation of Germany after World War II, America?s unresolved civil rights agenda was exposed to worldwide scrutiny as never before.

At the same time, the ambitious U.S. efforts to democratize German society after the defeat of Nazism meant that West Germany encountered American ideas of freedom and democracy to a much larger degree than many other countries. As African American GIs became increasingly politicized, they took on a particular significance for the Civil Rights Movement in light of Germany?s central role in the Cold War. While the effects of the Civil Rights Movement reverberated across the globe, Germany represents a special case that illuminates a remarkable period in American and world history.

The book is based on a joint research initiative of the German Historical Institute, Vassar College, and the Heidelberg Center for American Studies at the University of Heidelberg, which has been honored by the NAACP in 2009 with the Julius E. Williams Distinguished Community Service Award.

MARIA HÖHN teaches German History at Vassar College, USA and is an established scholar of the American military presence in Germany.

MARTIN KLIMKE is a research fellow at the German Historical Institute (GHI), Washington, DC and the Heidelberg Center for American Studies (HCA) at the University of Heidelberg.

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