Posts Tagged ‘History’

First Annual BGCS Convention in DC!

Sunday, 06 March 2011 15:53 Written by rosepena 0 Comments

Keynote Speaker: Noah Sow

The Black German Cultural Society, Inc. (BGCS), is excited to announce its 1st Annual Convention to be held from August 19 to 21, 2011, at the German Historical Institute (GHI) in Washington, DC.

With the theme of “Strengthening Transatlantic Connections,” the convention will host guests and presenters from our international community in Germany and the United States.

Our keynote speaker will be Noah Sow, the acclaimed journalist, musician, producer and author of “Germany Black & White” (2008), who will speak about “Geteilte Geschichte: The Black Experience in Germany and the US.”

For More information and to register, please visit our Convention Website!

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Bärbel Kampmann

Monday, 10 January 2011 20:49 Written by rosepena 0 Comments

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Africans Fought for Kaiser and Germany in World War I

Sunday, 02 January 2011 12:22 Written by rosepena 0 Comments

Black Soldier who fought for Germany in WWI

German African askaris served nobly under General von Lettow-Vorbeck in German East Africa during WWI. Africans also served in the Kaiser’s Army in Europe.

The Colonial Army (Schutztruppe) of the German Empire employed native troops–called askaris–led by German officers and NCOs. The highest concentration of such locally recruited troops was in German East Africa (now Tanzania). The first askaris in German East Africa were organized by the German East Africa Company around 1888. It was during the First World War, however, that the Askaris became the pride of the short-lived German empire.

Askaris were harshly disciplined and well paid

Harshly disciplined–as were all German troops of that time–and well paid–askaris received double the pay of their British counterparts in the King’s African Rifles, and received specialized training from German officers who were themselves subject to an extremely rigorous selection process. Before the onset of war in 1914, the basic Schutztruppe unit in Southeast Africa was the feldkompagnie comprised of seven or eight German officers and NCOs with around 160 askaris, including two machine gun teams. Such small independent commands were often supplemented by tribal irregulars or ruga-ruga.

The well-trained askaris in German East Africa commanded by Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck managed to resist numerically superior British, Portuguese and Belgian colonial forces from 1914 until the end of World War I in 1918.

Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck and his askaris‘ exploits in Africa during World War I

General von Lettow-Vorbeck is possibly the most successful guerrilla commander in military history. He and his native askaris are famous for their exploits in German East Africa during World War I. Lettow-Vorbeck was fluent in Swahili, which earned the respect and admiration of his African soldiers. Appointing black officers, he said with conviction, “we are all Africans here.” Lettow-Vorbeck greatly admired his askaris, who displayed a fanatic loyalty in return. He treated them with fairness and shared their hardships.

Read more at Suite101: Africans Fought for Kaiser and Germany in World War I

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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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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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