Racism : Germany and the world, 1933-1939.

[Hektor]

Nice anectode Luda, but do you have a source for this ?
Given that Weimar issued FIAT money for pensions the available of funds shouldn't been a problem - not at all.

[PotPie]

The "racism" thing gets way too much airplay. The world was coined only in the 1930s by a Marxist and now everyone's in such a hysteric witch-hunt mode over it, so paranoid to be called a "racist" that they're willing to do almost anything to avoid it. One of the things they do is attack revisionists!

[MrNobody]

While more background on the pictures is interesting (What troops they were), I used them to demonstrate something that can obviously seen on them without further special knowledge.

1.) There are swastika flags hanging all over the place. So the pictures must have been from the time between 1933 - 1945.
2.) All people on the picture including the negro wear swastika batches.
3.) It seems that the fotos have been taken on some kind of veteran meeting to which the Negro was invited as well.

The pictures prove beyond reasonable doubt that the belief that the National Socialists were hostile against people of other race then German/Aryan is a false one.

The picture also implies that Negroes that served in the German Protectorates were actually even welcome as visitors in the Germany ruled by the National Socialists.

Let's not get carried away.

The Negro was an Officer with the generic rank of "Effendi", which was neither here nor there in the German rank system, it served more as a title of respect for Askari troops. ( He wears an Askari Officer's "Tarbush" or Fez)

There were only 2 Effendi in the entire German East Africa campaign

As for National Socialist feelings towards Negroes one only has to look at the vitriolic verbal abuses meted out to French Colonial troops & their offspring from mixed relationships in the Ruhr, Alsace-Lorianne etc.

The reason I harp on about photos is precisely because the details are there if only one is willing to look, Otherwise we end up with nondescript photos of 3 unknown gentleman standing beside a destroyed gravel crusher in an unknown location being passed off as "Sonderkomando" operating "Bone Crushing machines" at Belzac or where ever the hell!

As they say, a photo is worth a thousand words.

[MrNobody]

Nice anectode Luda, but do you have a source for this ?

I own a copy of Duel for Kilimanjaro by Leonard Mosley first Published in 1963 which confirms this, Only the former "Askari" were given Broom handles in lieu of Rifles with the German Commands for Order Arms, Present Arms etc shouted at them.

[Barrington James]

I think the Nazis were more distrustful and fearful of the Jews than they were out and out racists towards them. There is no denying that Hitler had a racist point of view towards the Slavs, for example. His opinion of slaves is well known is it not? “Teach them to count to 10 and read road signs”. It was ironic and just that this caused him to lose the war as much as anything. If he could have used the captured Russians troops to fight Stalin, as many of them wanted to do, rather than put them in camps, he might have been able to win the war. But I digress.

Whereas nobody, including Hitler, could have anything but respect for what a tiny group of Jews had been able to do to Germany. The Jews, who were less than 1% of the population, had control of show business, education, law, medicine, much of Germany industry and ,at one time, two of the largest politician parties in Germany. ( sound familiar?)

Unfortunately for the vast majority of Jews living in Germany as loyal citizens their success in so much of Germany, plus the fact that some Jews were the vectors of the Bolshevik revolution which had murdered tens of millions of farmers and landowners throughout Eastern Europe and Russia and , if we can believe Benjamin Freedman, a tiny number of Jews, the Zionists, were the final straw so to speak that got American into the war against Germay in 1917, had caused a fear and hatred of all Jews that led straight to Bergen-Belsen and Auschwitz.

They were not hated for what they were as much as much as for what a few of them had done and threatened to do.

[Arrow Of Truth]

I think the point we can extract from this is not that Hitler wasn't "racist" but that while the Nuremberg laws where to a certain degree an innovation, Hitler's "racism" wasn't the violent departure from Western norms that it was purported to be. Not by a long shot. I've read some pretty vulgar and violent language from Churchill and Montgomerie regarding blacks that I've never heard Hitler use.

As for Hitler slamming the negro population. He did so because they where occupying the Ruhr -- an affront to even a moderate nationalist sensibilities -- and wouldn't have done so had the negroes not been used in such a fashion.

In fact what's notable is that it's actually very difficult to find any reference to blacks at all by the NS government, critical or otherwise.

They simply didn't share that obsession that has become so inextricably linked with their modern imitators.

[Lupa]

The funeral for von Lettow , march 1964.

The german minister of defense , Kai Uwe von Hassel speaking.

You see also some Askaris at the funeral.

http://es.youtube.com/watch?v=JXXT4PO7v_c

[Goethe]

As for Hitler slamming the negro population. He did so because they where occupying the Ruhr -- an affront to even a moderate nationalist sensibilities -- and wouldn't have done so had the negroes not been used in such a fashion.

Exactly. They were placed there by the victors of WWI as a result of the hateful Versaille Treaty. Imagine if the Germans had brought in Askaris to occupy parts of defeated France during WWII.

[KostasL]

Well, another History Channel documentary :

"HONOUR DEFERRED : This is the real story of seven men who deserved the highest military award, the Medal of Honor, for their valour during World War II, but only received their medals within the last decade. Six of them had already died. All of them were Black. This special explores the reasons behind this inexcusable delay."


Afroamerican soldiers, according to this documentary, served during WW2 in a racist US Army.

Same goes for U.S.Navy and U.S.Air Force.


Let's also not forget that Martin Luther King was assassinated on April 4, 1968, 23 years after the end of ww2 in Europe.

That is enough to make us think a lot about the racism issues in Nazi Germany.
Nazi Germany was clearly not a racist country in a non-racist or anti-racist world. It was a racist country in a racist world. Neither special nor unique.

[KostasL]

The 1936 Berlin Olympics and Jesse Owens, are very often mentioned to speak of Hitler's and Germany's racism.

I quote from Wikipedia :

James Cleveland Owens was born in Lawrence County, Alabama. Owens was the grandson of a slave and the son of a sharecropper.

So he was grandson of a slave. He could hear interesting first hand stories from his grandpa.

Life in the ghetto was not prosperous for the family. Owens had taken different jobs in his spare time: He delivered groceries, loaded freight cars...

Ghetto ? I thought Ghettos were invented by Germans in Poland.

However, while Owens was enjoying athletic success, he had to live off-campus with other African-American athletes. When he traveled with the team, Owens could either order carry out or eat at "black-only" restaurants. Likewise, he slept in "black-only" hotels. Owens was never awarded a scholarship, so he continued to work part-time jobs to pay for school.

No comments.

Berlin Olympics
Just before the competitions Owens was visited in the Olympic village by Adi Dassler, the founder of Adidas, who had brought a suitcase full of spikes. He persuaded Owens to use them and so was the first sponsorship for an African-American athlete made.

So, for the first time in his life he slept in-campus with all other white athletes. And this happened in Berlin. Strange... isn't it ?

What's more, a German sponsored him ? Unbelievable. And this was the first ever sponsorship for an African-American athlete ?

The long jump victory is documented, along with many other 1936 events, in the 1938 film Olympia by Leni Riefenstahl.

Didn't the Nazis send Leni Riefenstahl in Dachau for this ?

On the first day, Hitler shook hands only with the German victors and then left the stadium. Olympic committee officials then insisted Hitler greet each and every medalist or none at all. Hitler opted for the latter and skipped all further medal presentations.

So, Hitler opted not greet any victor. Be it white or be it black or be it green...Be it German, American or Eskimo...

On reports that Hitler had deliberately avoided acknowledging his victories, and had refused to shake his hand, Owens recounted:

Jesse Owens on the podium after winning the long jump at the 1936 Summer Olympics“ When I passed the Chancellor he arose, waved his hand at me, and I waved back at him. I think the writers showed bad taste in criticizing the man of the hour in Germany. ”

He also stated: "Hitler didn't snub me—it was FDR who snubbed me. The president didn't even send me a telegram." Jesse Owens was never invited to the White House nor bestowed any honors by Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) or Harry S. Truman during their terms.

What ??? Jesse Owens told that Hitler didn't snub him and that Hitler arose and waved his hand at him while Owens waved back. Jesse Owens thought that the writers showed bad taste in criticizing Hitler.
At the same time Roosevelt snubbed his own country's champion. And that is what Owens told.

Jesse Owens a Nazi, Hitler apologist and anti-semite !

Owens was cheered enthusiastically by 110,000 people in Berlin's Olympic Stadium and later ordinary Germans sought his autograph when they saw him in the streets. Owens was allowed to travel with and stay in the same hotels as whites, an irony at the time given that blacks in the United States were denied equal rights.

What ??? Owens was cheered enthusiastically by 110,000 people in Berlin's Olympic Stadium and later ordinary Germans sought his autograph when they saw him in the streets.
Were these people, who cheered enthusiastically and later sought his autograph in the streets, Germans ? Unbelievable.

At first he would think that these were ordinary white people lynching mobs but soon he realized with great relief that they were chasing him for an autograph.

He was allowed to travel with and stay in the same hotels as whites.

The poor guy should think he was on another planet after all these things happening to him for the first time.

an irony at the time given that blacks in the United States were denied equal rights.

Not an irony but a harsh reality it was. A fact. History must come in accord with facts at last.

After a New York ticker-tape parade in his honor, Owens had to ride the freight elevator to attend his own reception at the Waldorf-Astoria.

Yes, on the freight elevator you Niger! You are not in Berlin anymore.