Afro-Germans

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Blacks in Germany
Zeca Schall, Angolan German U-Jean, African-American German Ivy Quainoo, Ghanaian German
Lou Bega, Ugandan German Ayo, Nigerian German Haddaway, Trinidadian German
Jermaine Jones, African-American German Gerald Asamoah, Ghanaian German Patrick Owomoyela, Nigerian German
Total population
Up to 817,150 estimated(2010)[1]
Regions with significant populations
Berlin, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Munich, Cologne
Languages

German, Niger–Congo languages, Nilo-Saharan languages

Afro-Germans (German: Afrodeutsche),[2] African-Germans or Black Germans are defined as members of the Black African community and diaspora in Germany.

Cities such as Hamburg and Berlin, centers of occupation forces in the postwar years as well as more recent immigration, have substantial Black communities, with a high percentage of ethnically mixed families.[citation needed] With modern trade and migration, communities such as Frankfurt, Munich, or Cologne have an increasing number of Afro-Germans. As of 2005, there were approximately 500,000 Afro-Germans in a nation of 80 million. This number is difficult to estimate because the German census does not use race as a category, following the genocide committed during World War II under the "German racial ideology." [3] Up to 70,000 (2% of the population) people of Black African origin live in Berlin.[4]

Contents

History [edit]

Holy Roman Empire [edit]

In 926, the Nubian Saint Maurice was adopted as a patron saint by the Holy Roman Emperors. He has been honored in various sculptures and graphics throughout Germany such as the City of Coburg's Coat of Arms and a sculpture in Magdeburg.

African and German interaction since 1600 [edit]

The first German traders, missionaries and travelers went to Africa around 1600. They brought Africans back to Europe to work as aides for households or labor for businesses.[5] Most were living in situations comparable to their German-born work mates. During the 1720s, Ghana-born Anton Wilhelm Amo was sponsored by a German duke to become the first African to attend a European university; after completing his studies, he taught and wrote in philosophy.

Zeca Schall, black German politician

Africans and German interaction between 1884 and 1945 [edit]

See also: German Empire and German colonies

At the 1884 Berlin Congo conference, attended by all major powers of the day, European states "divided" Africa into areas of influence which they would control. The creation of the African German colonies set the stage for a larger number of Africans to migrate to Germany for the first time. Managing the German colonies required indigenous specialists for the colonial administration and economy, and many young Africans went to Germany to be educated. Some received higher education at German schools and universities, but the majority were trained at mission training and colonial training centers as officers or domestic mission teachers. Africans frequently served as interpreters for African languages at German-Africa research centers, and with the colonial administration. Others migrated to Germany as former members of the German protection troops, the Askari.

Rhineland bastards [edit]

Main article: Rhineland Bastards

During the tempestuous years following World War I, the French Army occupied the Rhineland, where their forces included soldiers from their African colonies. They fathered children with German women, and the mixed-race children were later called "Rhineland bastards". As the derogatory name suggests, the children were subject to discrimination.

Weimar Republic [edit]

Map of Africa in 1914 with regions colonized by Germany shown in yellow.

In the course of World War I the Belgians, British and French took control of Germany's colonies in Africa. The situation for the African colonials changed in various ways. For example, these Africans had possessed a colonial German identification card, and this became a status which allowed for treatment as "members of the former protectorates". After the Treaty of Versailles (1919), the Africans were encouraged to become citizens of their respective mandate countries, but most preferred to stay where they were. In numerous petitions (well documented for Togo by P. Sebald and for Cameroon by A. Rüger), they tried to inform the German public about the conditions in the colonies and continued to request German help and support.

Africans founded the bilingual periodical that was published in German and Duala: Elolombe ya Cameroon (Sun of Cameroon). A political group of Africans established the German branch of a Paris-based human-rights organization: "the German section of the League to the Defense of the Negro Race".[citation needed]

Many of the Africans endured the Great Depression in Germany without being able to gain unemployment compensation, as this depended on German citizenship.[citation needed] Some Africans were supported through a small budget from the German Foreign Office.[citation needed]

Nazi Germany [edit]

The conditions for Africans in Germany grew worse during the Nazi period. Naturalized Afro-Germans lost their passports. Working conditions and travel were made extremely difficult for Black musicians, variety, circus or film professionals. Based on racist propaganda, even willing employers were unable to retain or hire black employees. To become invisible with the evident visibility and compulsion had become less a life condition than an act of balance.

The Nazis speculated about gaining the support of Africans from former German colonies for pro-German colonial propaganda. They planned an "African colonial empire under German predominance".[citation needed] The legislation for a planned, apartheid-like system already existed in design in 1940, including laws for slaves and an African passport design.[citation needed] Nazi Germany never approached the realization of its colonial dreams.

Africans in Germany were socially isolated by the racial laws.[citation needed] Some became subject to compulsory sterilization, or rendition to concentration camps.[citation needed]

For more information see Rhineland Bastard
For the biography of a black African in Germany under Nazi rule see also Hans Massaquoi's Destined to Witness.

Afro-Germans in Germany since 1945 [edit]

See also: Brown Babies

The end of World War II brought Allied occupation forces into Germany. United States, British and French forces included numerous soldiers of African American, Afro-Caribbean or African descent, and some of them fathered children with German women. At the time, the armed forces and Germany generally had non-fraternization rules and discouraged interracial marriages. Most single German mothers kept their "brown babies", but thousands were adopted by American families and grew up in the United States. Often they did not learn their full ancestry until reaching adulthood.

Until the end of the Cold War, the United States kept more than 100,000 U.S. soldiers stationed on German soil. These men established their lives in Germany. They often brought families with them or founded new ones with German wives and children.

Cities with considerable population of Black African descent:[6][7][8]

City Number
Berlin 2% (70,000)
Hamburg 3% (54,000)
Frankfurt 2% (14,000)
Munich 1% (14,000)
Dortmund 2% (12,000)
Cologne 1% (11,000)
Bremen 1.5% (9,000)
Stuttgart 1.3% (8,000)

Immigration and asylum [edit]

Since 1981 and onwards, Germany had waves of immigration by political asylum seekers and immigrants from African states mostly from Nigeria and Ghana who were seeking work. Some of the Ghanaians also came to study in German Universities.

For more information see Immigration to Germany.

Afro-Germans in literature [edit]

  • Jones, Gayl (1998). The Healing. Boston: Beacon Press. ISBN 0-8070-6314-2.  Novel about a faith healer and rock band manager, featuring an Afro-German character, Josef Ehelich von Fremd, an affluent fellow who works in arbitrage and owns fine racehorses.

Notable Black Africans in modern Germany [edit]

Politics and social life [edit]

  • Hans Massaquoi, journalist, wrote about his childhood in Nazi Germany.
  • Zeca Schall, Afro German politician.
  • John Ehret, Germany's first black mayor.

Art, culture, and music [edit]

The cultural life of Afro-Germans has great variety and complexity. With the emergence of MTV and Viva, the popularity of American pop culture promoted Afro-German representation in German media and culture.

Afro-German musicians include:

Film [edit]

The SFD - Schwarze Filmschaffende in Deutschland (Black Artists in German Film, literally Black Filmmakers in Germany) is a professional association based in Berlin for directors, producers, screenwriters, and actors who are Afro-Germans or of Black African origin and living in Germany. They have organized the "New Perspectives" series at the Berlinale film festival.[2]

Afro-Germans in film include:

Sport [edit]

References [edit]

  1. ^ Smith, David G. (2008-06-05). "German Newspaper Slammed for Racist Cover". Spiegel Online. Retrieved 2008-06-18. 
  2. ^ a b Wolf, Joerg (2007-02-23). "Black History Month in Germany". Atlantic Review. Retrieved 2009-10-20. 
  3. ^ Mazon, Patricia (2005). Not So Plain as Black and White: Afro-German Culture and History, 1890-2000. Rochester: University of Rochester Press. pp. 2–3. ISBN 1-58046-183-2. 
  4. ^ http://www.isdonline.de/
  5. ^ "Black Germans", in Prem Poddar, Rajeev Patke and Lars Jensen, Historical Companion to Postcolonial Literatures--Continental Europe and Its Colonies, Edinburgh University Press, 2008
  6. ^ http://www.statistik-berlin-brandenburg.de/statis/login.do?guest=guest&db=EWRBEE
  7. ^ http://isdonline.de/
  8. ^ http://www.bpb.de/nachschlagen/zahlen-und-fakten/soziale-situation-in-deutschland/61646/migrationshintergrund-i

Further reading [edit]

Ayim, May, Katharina Oguntoye, and Dagmar Schultz. Showing Our Colors: Afro-German Women Speak Out (1986). Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1992.

Campt, Tina. Other Germans Black Germans and the Politics of Race, Gender, and Memory in the Third Reich. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 2004.

El-Tayeb, Fatima. European Others: Queering Ethnicity in Postnational Europe. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2011.

Hine, Darlene Clark, Trica Danielle Keaton, and Stephen Small, eds. Black Europe and the African Diaspora. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2009.

American Institute for Contemporary German Studies. Who Is a German?: Historical and Modern Perspectives on Africans in Germany. Ed. Leroy Hopkins. Washington, D.C: American Institute for Contemporary German Studies, the Johns Hopkins University, 1999.

Lemke Muniz de Faria, Yara-Colette. “‘Germany’s “Brown Babies” Must Be Helped! Will You?’: U.S. Adoption Plans for Afro-German Children, 1950-1955.” Callaloo 26.2 (2003): 342–362.

Mazón, Patricia M., and Reinhild Steingröver, eds. Not so Plain as Black and White: Afro-German Culture and History, 1890-2000. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2005.

Weheliye, Alexander G. Phonographies: Grooves in Sonic Afro-Modernity. Duke University Press, 2005.

External links [edit]

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