Germany's Black Holocaust_1890-1945 Read online

  Germany’s Black

  Holocaust:

  1890-1945

  Firpo Carr

  Germany’s Black Holocaust: 1890 – 1945

  (Revised June 2012)

  Copyright © 2003 Firpo Wycoff Carr

  www.firpocarr.com

  All Rights Reserved

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, except in the case of reviews, without the express written permission of the publisher.

  ISBN-13: 978-1477599181

  ISBN-10: 1477599185

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2003108006

  First printing—June 2003

  Second printing—August 2003

  Third printing (revised)—October 2011

  Fourth printing (revised)—June 2012

  Contents

  Introduction

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter One

  Germany’s First Concentration Camps—in Africa!

  European Powers in Africa

  Namibia Becomes a German Colony

  Blacks Revolt!

  Selective African Genocide

  African Concentration Camps

  How Apartheid Got Started

  Chapter Two

  Enemy Black Soldiers Occupy Germany—Twice!

  The Jew Hitler Admired, the Black Hitler Devoured!

  “Soldiers of Color”—On Opposing Sides?

  Nazi Horrors Against African American Soldiers During World War II

  The Hypocrisy of Hitler and His Henchmen

  Hitler’s “Intellectual” Assessment of Blacks—Out of His Own Mouth

  Chapter Three

  Black War Victories Over Nazi German!

  The Tuskegee Airmen: Sky Masters Extraordinaire

  America’s Shameful Mistreat- ment of Her “Soldiers of Color”

  Chapter Four

  Nazi Horrors Against Defenseless Black German Citizens

  Did Hitler See Blacks As Citizens?

  What Was Germany’s Black Population?

  The Black Resistance

  Chapter Five

  The “Rhineland Bastards”— Germany’s Black Children

  The Meaning Behind “Mulatto”

  The “Good” Race

  Forbidden “Mixed Marriages”

  The Hated Jews—and French—For Their Roles in the Rhineland

  Like Germany, Like America—Again?

  Blacks and Hitler—the Final Solution

  “Brown Babies”—the Next Generation of “Rhineland Bastards”?

  Chapter Six

  White Imprisoned Germans: Treated Like Blacks?

  Parallels Between Jehovah’s Witnesses and African Americans

  Witnesses’ Civil Rights Violated

  ‘Of All Groups, Witnesses Treated Worst’

  Manhunt: The Gestapo’s Most Wanted

  Reparations for Black German Victims of the Holocaust?

  Black African Witness Victims of Attempted Genocide?

  Witness Omission?

  Neo-Nazis and a Witness Family: A Contemporary Tragedy

  Chapter Seven

  Black Separatists, White Supremacists, and Other Strange Bedfellows

  Marcus Mosiah Garvey and the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan

  The Nation of Islam and the American Nazi Party

  The Nation of Islam and Other White Supremacists

  Jews Who Became Nazis

  An African American Who Became a Neo-Nazi

  The Nazis and the Boy Scouts of America?

  A Jewish Hate Group and A Black Hate Group—The Same but Only Different?

  Neo-Nazis and Muslims— A Growing Attraction?

  Final Thoughts

  Appendix A

  Shocking Revelations: Part I

  Weimar and Nazi Colonial Aspirations

  Nazi Racial Laws and Policies

  Appendix B

  Shocking Revelations: Part II

  A “Master Race” for a Demoralized Nation

  African Germans and the “Rhineland Mulattoes”

  The Plan for “Mittelafrika”

  Blacks and Nazi Racial Ideology

  Mulattoes, African Germans and other Civilians

  American Nationals and Allied POWs

  Appendix C

  Correspondence Between Scholars Regarding Blacks and the Holocaust

  Appendix D

  A Black Female Holocaust Survivor Finally Speaks Out

  Appendix E

  A Retired Black Liberator- Commander Finally Speaks Out

  Execution of Nazi Officers

  Encounter With Black

  Survivors at Dachau

  Appendix F

  A Black Former Medic Finally Speaks Out

  Introduction

  Both Colonial Germany and Nazi Germany committed unspeakable assaults on Black men, women, and children. The cover of this book is a snapshot of Blacks who were being starved in a German concentration camp in Africa.

  It was taken well over a hundred years ago, long before such atrocities were heaped upon Jews and others, and is but a small, tragic representation of the horrors committed.

  It should be noted, though, that some Germans—a few soldiers and politicians among them—were aghast at what was taking place. Disappointingly, it was all to no avail. The indescribable brutality continued unabated.

  Upon receiving a large poster of the book cover one Africa American bookstore in Oakland, California refused to display it because the photo was deemed to be too graphic. This was disconcerting.

  I was taken aback, but had no clever response to the objection at the time. It only later occurred to me that perhaps I should have said, “Too graphic? I can only try and imagine how the defenseless subjects felt!”

  After gazing at the picture in stunning disbelief, the question that ultimately arises is, “What sparked the idea in you to write the book?” A fair question indeed.

  It started in part nearly four decades ago (1973) when I read the gut-wrenching history of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Nazi Germany in the 1974 Yearbook of Jehovah’s Witnesses.

  Hitler hated the Witnesses. They rejected National Socialism along with all its racist policies. Blonde-haired blue-eyed German Witnesses saw God’s kingdom—not the Third Reich—as the panacea for the ills of all mankind.

  They paid with their lives for this choice, dying horrible deaths with dignity and the serenity of having done God’s will. (See Chapter Six.) Since the Nazis were racists, I figured they had to have hated Black people too. Only a long, comprehensive search would quell a sustained curiosity.

   Acknowledgements

  I would like to thank Mike Garcia, the president of the book division of Scholar Technological Institute of Research, Inc. His love and quest for truth sets him apart. Aside from being a thinking man, he is the most awarded landscaper in the history of the State of California—maybe even America. As an unpaid volunteer he has, yet again, gone above and beyond the call of duty. I am indebted to him.

  Thanks too, to Jeffrey Elam for his overall contribution to this project. He, along with Byron Gist, has lent his moral support and encouragement.

  A thank you is in order to Professor Tina Campt as well. She has been at the forefront of this study Blacks in Nazi Germany. It seems that the path to any serious research on the subject will inevitably run through her office.

  I owe a long overdue thank you to Ralph Drew, the Los Angeles Times research archivist extraordinaire. He has made invaluable contributions to my research efforts in this and other books I have written. My work would not have had quit
e the same depth without Ralph’s contributions.

  Although a college class I took in 1973 initially sparked my interest in the Holocaust, a book I read that same year left an indelible impression on me. By 1974, I had started gathering material on the Holocaust, only giving fleeting thought to whether or not Black people played a part in it.

  I traveled to Germany, France, Belgium, and Luxembourg. I then went on to what was then Soviet Baltic States, as well as to the Soviet Union itself (where I was an honored guest of the government), in search of, among other things, material and documentation on the Holocaust. It was both a fruitful and fascinating quest.

  In visits to the Museum of Tolerance and the Simon Wiesenthal Center, both in Los Angeles, I was able to gleam much valuable information from their artifacts, archives, and library.

  And in trips to Israel in 1987 and 2005 I visited and studied invaluable documents and artifacts at both the original Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial, and the incomparable newly-built high-tech version. I am indebted to the staff at that facility.

  Finally, I spent countless hours in the archival section of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C. There I scoured through volumes of hardcopy files and computer data in an effort to get a clear and complete picture of the Black experience during and before the years of the raise of National Socialism.

  I experienced what can only be described as a paper blizzard as my wiry but critical eyes plowed through what seemed to be a plethora of U.S. Army documents, some of which probably should have been marked classified.

  Conducting all this study and research was an inescapable, grueling task, and being constrained, on a daily basis, by Museum hours made the task even more difficult.

  Regrettably, even with countless hours of research and traveling extensively at my own expense I fear that I may not have been up to the challenge of putting all of the puzzle pieces together. But then again, there is a remote possibility that I uncovered more than I realized. Ultimately, you, the reader, will have to make the final decision.

  There is so much more to be written on this subject and it is encouraging to see that there is a modest amount of material in assorted media that is already in existence and is beginning to slowly but surely mushroom into a substantive corpus of information.

  I sincerely hope that others will continue to track down data, locate even more information, and document credible sources on the Black experience during the German-inspired holocausts first in Africa and later in Germany.

  To be sure, more light needs to be shed on the untold atrocities committed against Blacks by both Colonial Germany and Nazi Germany. For a certainty, it is a collective story begging to be told.

  

  Chapter One

  Germany’s First Concentration

  Camps—in Africa!

  “The German government was to deport and destroy the Nama. Until mid-1906, the Witboois and

  Bethanie people were held in concentration

  camps at Windhoek and Karibib.”[1]

  —Anonymous Researcher, courtesy of the

  U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.[*]

  “Jews, Nazi Germany, concentration camps, and the Holocaust, yes, I know about these things. But I have never before heard that Africans had anything to do whatsoever with the Holocaust! I never read about any of this in history class. Is there a connection with Blacks and the Holocaust?”

  Yes, there is. But, let us first consider this: Yellow ribbons have hugged trees that line neighborhoods across America in hopes of a safe return when it came to a group of predominantly White Americans on a dangerous mission.

  If these hopes were not realized, a nation would weep. Monuments would be erected. To further honor them, flags would be flown at half-staff. A nation would mourn.

  If they were surviving Jews, they would be granted special hearings and court cases that would identify the culprits and single them out for punishment, irrespective of their advanced age or to what country they may have fled to seeking refuge. Reparations would be granted.

  But the anonymous people we are about to discuss are not Jews. Nor are they potentially White heroic American soldiers. No tribunals assigning blame. No parades snaking their way through winding city streets.

  No, as far as some were concerned at the time, they are just plain old faceless, nameless, primitive Black African savages who copulate and roam the jungles in search of food.

  A harsh commentary, to be sure. An unkind assessment, no less. But even if this were a mischaracterization, has history taken note? “Taken note of what?” one might ask.

  Taken note of the fact that these Africans were the victims of one of the worse atrocities ever committed in human history. And, in answer to the question, sadly and simply, no, recorded history has relegated it all to a footnote—if that.

  Incredibly, our subjects were the very first victims of German concentration camps. Where? Southwest Africa. Yes, this unimaginable mayhem happened in what is for many the most sacred of abodes for literally hundreds of thousands of Africans—home itself.

  When did this all take place?

  It was the late 1800s and early 1900s when colonial Germany heaped unspeakable atrocities on defenseless, helpless Africans, the details of which would challenge the strongest of constitutions.[†]

  Has anything been done to memorialize this shocking event that opened the 20th century in dramatic fashion?

  Unfortunately, the answer, again, is no. American history—nay—world history, has been for the most part completely, yes, eerily silent for over 100 years on the subject!

  That is to say, if one were to seek out this information in traditional American history books, his search would be hopelessly in vain, yes, an exercise in futility.

  According to these textbooks, “Concentration camps” and “Blacks,” like oil and water, simply do not mix. They do not fit in the same sentence.

  The term “Concentration camps” is almost exclusively associated with the Jews, while the expressions “slavery,” “inner-city,” “riots,” or “violence” are almost always associated with “Blacks.”

  But, when we take a step back, a full panoramic view of a montage of unimaginable pain emerges, and we find, within the collage itself, that the terms “Blacks” and “Concentration camps” are not mutually exclusive.

  History beckons us to soberly consider all the facts in our discussion as we carefully turn back the pages of time to the late 19th and early-to-mid 20th centuries, as noted above.

  How Black Africans came to be in German concentration camps is a gripping story that has yet to be told—especially sandwiched between the front and back covers of any book or volume. There are compelling reasons to do so now.[‡]

  European Powers in Africa

  Actually, the Germans were not the first Europeans in the southwest part of Africa, the specific geographic area that will be the subject of our discussion.

  The Portuguese lay claim to that distinction. In a display of their devotion to the Church of Rome, Portuguese sailors erected a stone cross on the coast of the region that came to be known as Namibia as far back as 1484.

  Over 150 years later, in the 1650s, the Dutch conducted a brief exploration further inland.

  A natural deterrent known as the Skeleton Coast slowed further European intrusion into the African mainland. This rough, inaccessible coastline was responsible for a number of shipwrecks on the jagged barrier of rocks.

  Decades later, American, British, and French whaling and sealing ships frequented the Namibian coast in the 1700s. Few Whites actually settled there although some traders took up residence.

  The newly arrived European residents traded firearms for ivory with the indigenous Ovambo and Herero Black African peoples. This trading, as has so often been the case during colonial expansionism, proved ominous for the Africans.

  Although they had local skirmishes among themselves, these and other indigenous African ethnic groups quickly saw the need to fo
rm a loose confederation to protect their land and culture from a growing European threat. Africa was becoming Europe, and the locals were not amused.

  As it turned out, war with Whites was just over the horizon. But, there would be another page to consider in history before that inevitability. How Namibia came to be a German colony comes next.

  Namibia Becomes a German Colony

  The Ovambo leaders, in an effort to stem the European intrusion, cleverly pitted the European powers against each other. These leaders exploited tensions between the British, German, and Portuguese, using the commercial interest of each power as a tool of divisiveness.

  Not to be outwitted, however, the European powers responded by joining forces themselves and convened at the Berlin Conference of 1884-1885.

  With Germany taking the lead, the Europeans haphazardly penciled in the present-day borders of Namibia and subsequently declared it a German colony.

  German East Africa (Tanzania), and the west African countries of Togo and Cameroon[§], were also part of the unilateral arrangement wherein Africans had no say so in the matter. As it was in actual practice, for years Germany had already taken control of the Namibian coast.

  As one source from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington (USHMM), D.C. puts it:

  Germany controlled a large part of the African continent before World War I. This included territories in South West Africa, East Africa, and the territories of Togoland and Cameroon. … The German Empire had expansionist plans in Africa during the beginning of the century. Documents discovered in 1918 showed plans for all African territories south of the equator as a greater German Empire. Germany lost its empire to Great Britain, France and the Union of South Africa following the 1918 Peace Treaty.[2]

  This treaty, and how it factored largely into the entire scenario, is discussed in greater detail further throughout this book. In the meantime, Namibia’s envelopment progressed. Says the World Book Encyclopedia: