Afro-Germans

Afro-Germans (German: Afrodeutsche),[2] Black Germans (German: schwarze Deutsche) or during the German Empire Imperial Negroes (German: Reichsneger) are people who are citizens and/or residents of Germany and who are of Sub-Saharan African descent. Afro-Germans are found across Germany, but are mostly situated in larger cities, such as Hamburg, Darmstadt, Frankfurt, Munich, Bremen, Cologne and Berlin.[3]

Afro-Germans
Afrodeutsche
Total population
529,000 [1] (not including those of mixed ethnicity)
Regions with significant populations
Hamburg, Frankfurt, Darmstadt, Munich, Bremen, Berlin, Cologne
Languages
German, French, various African languages
Religion
Islam, Roman Catholicism, Lutheranism, Atheism

Cities such as Hamburg and Frankfurt, which were formerly centres of occupation forces following World War II and more recent immigration, have substantial Afro-German communities. With modern trade and migration, communities such as Frankfurt, Berlin, Munich, and Cologne have an increasing number of Afro-Germans. As of 2020, in a country with a population of 83,000,000 people there were approximately 529,000 Afro-Germans of partial, mixed or full Sub Saharan African descent up to grandparents, there are 988,000 individuals if Egyptians, Moroccans, and North Africans (who are not black) are included.[4] Although the German census does not use race as a category, following the genocides committed during World War II under the "German racial ideology", the number can be easily estimated as the German state's definition of "extended migrant background" (mit Migrationshintergrund im weiteren Sinn) accounts for anyone with one grandparent born in Sub-Saharan Africa, and thus effectively 99% of the full or mixed black people in Germany.[5]

History

African and German interaction 1600 to late 1800s
Inside Brandenburger Gold Coast. View in February 1884.

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. Later, Africans were brought as slaves from the western coast of Africa where a number of German estates were established, primarily on the Gold Coast. After King Friedrich Wilhelm I of Prussia sold his Ghana Groß Friedrichsburg estates in Africa in 1717, from which up to 30,000 people had been sold to the Dutch East India Company, the new owners were bound by contract to "send 12 negro boys, six of them decorated with golden chains," to the king. The enslaved children were brought to Potsdam and Berlin.[6]

Africans and German interaction between 1884 and 1945
See also: German Empire and German colonial empire
Wandermenagerie – Paul Friedrich Meyerheim: In der Tierbude (In the menagerie), Berlin, 1894

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. Germany controlled colonies in the African Great Lakes region and West Africa, from which numerous Africans migrated to Germany for the first time. Germany appointed 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.

The Afrikanisches Viertel in Berlin is also a legacy of the colonial period, with a number of streets and squares named after countries and locations tied to the German colonial empire. It is now home to a substantial portion of Berlin's residents of African heritage.

Interracial couples in the colonies were subjected to strong pressure in a campaign against miscegenation, which included invalidation of marriages, declaring the mixed-race children illegitimate, and stripping them of German citizenship.[7] During extermination of the Nama people in 1907 by Germany, the German director for colonial affairs, Bernhard Dernburg, stated that "some native tribes, just like some animals, must be destroyed".[8]

Afro-German Ignatius Fortuna († 1789), Kammermohr
German colonial adventurer Ernst Henrici, c. 1880
Afro-German Askari, c. 1914

Weimar Republic
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 in Germany changed in various ways. For example, Africans who possessed a colonial German identification card had a status entitling them to 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 German Togoland 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".

Nazi Germany
Main article: Black people in Nazi Germany
Young Rhinelander who was classified as a bastard and hereditarily unfit under the Nazi regime

The conditions for Afro-Germans in Germany grew worse during the Nazi period. Naturalized Afro-Germans lost their passports. Working conditions and travel were made extremely difficult for Afro-German musicians, variety, circus or film professionals. Based on racist propaganda, employers were unable to retain or hire Afro-German employees.

Afro-Germans in Germany were socially isolated and forbidden to have sexual relations and marriages with Aryans by the Nuremberg Laws.[9][10] In continued discrimination directed at the so-called Rhineland bastards, Nazi officials subjected some 500 Afro-German children in the Rhineland to forced sterilization.[11] Blacks were considered "enemies of the race-based state" along with Jews and Roma.[12] The Nazis originally sought to rid the German state of Jews and Romani by means of deportation (and later extermination), while Afro-Germans were to be segregated and eventually exterminated through compulsory sterilization.[12]

For an autobiography of an Afro-German in Germany under Nazi rule see Hans Massaquoi's book Destined to Witness. Theodor Michael, main witness in the documentary Pages in the Factory of Dreams published 2013 his autobiography Deutsch Sein Und Schwarz Dazu.[13][14]

Since 1945
See also: Brown Babies
Steffi Jones, President of the Organizing Committee of the 2011 FIFA Women's World Cup and head coach of the Germany women's national football team from 2016 to 2018

The end of World War II brought Allied occupation forces into Germany. American, British and French forces included numerous soldiers of African American, Afro-Caribbean or African descent, and some of them fathered children with ethnic German women. At the time, these armed forces generally maintained non-fraternization rules and discouraged civilian-soldier marriages. Most single ethnic 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 ethnic German wives and children. The federal government of West Germany pursued a policy of isolating or removing from Germany those children that it described as "mixed-race negro children".[15]

Audre Lorde, Black American writer and activist, spent the years from 1984-1992 teaching at the Free University of Berlin. During her time in Germany, often called "The Berlin Years," she helped push the coining of the term "Afro-German" into a movement that addressed the intersectionality of race, gender, and sexual orientation. She encouraged Black German women such as May Ayim and Ika Hügel-Marshall to write and publish poems and autobiographies as a means of gaining visibility and. She pursued intersectional global feminism and acted as a advocate for that movement in Germany.

Cities with sizeable African and Afro-German communities are Hamburg, Darmstadt, Frankfurt am Main, Bonn, Munich, Berlin and Bremen. Hamburg has the largest absolute number of African-born nationals, whereas Darmstadt and Frankfurt have the highest share of African residents in regard to the population.[16]

Immigration
See also: European migrant crisis and Immigration to Germany

Since 1981, Germany has had immigration from African states, mostly from Nigeria and Ghana, who were seeking work. Some of the Ghanaians also came to study in German universities.

Below are the largest (Sub-sahara) African groups in Germany.

Country of Birth Immigrants in Germany (2015 Census)
 Eritrea 59,800
 Nigeria 50,440
 Somalia 33,900
 Ghana 32,870
 Cameroon 21,610
 Ethiopia 18,425
 Gambia 15,710
 Senegal 12,090
 Guinea 11,955
 Kenya 11,171
 Congo-Kinshasa 10,608
 Togo 10,071
 Congo-Brazzaville 8,891
 Angola 5,611
 Uganda 5,599
 Ivory Coast 5,460
 Sudan 5,400
 South Africa 5,308
 Rwanda 4,888
 Sierra Leone 3,860
 Tanzania 3,688
 Mali 3,475
 Benin 2,865
 Zambia 2,818
 Liberia 2,480
 Burundi 2,119
 Burkina Faso 2,100
 Mozambique 2,075

Afro-Germans in literature
Coat of arms of Coburg, 1493, depicting Saint Maurice
  • Edugyan, Esi (2011). Half Blood Blues. Serpent's Tail. p. 343. Novel about a multiracial jazz group in Nazi Germany. The band's young trumpeter is a Rhineland Bastard who eventually is taken by the Nazis, while other members of the band are African Americans.
  • Jones, Gayl (1998). The Healing. Boston: Beacon Press. ISBN 978-0-8070-6314-9. 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.
  • Ika Hügel-Marshall. (2008) As a Afro-German woman, Marshall wrote an autobiography "Daheim unterwegs: Ein deutsches Leben", the English translation of which is entitled "Invisible Woman: Growing up Black in Germany". She details her life experiences growing up as an "occupation baby" and the struggle to find her identity as she grows up. Marshall details how the society she grew up in taught her to hate her complexion and how meeting her father, a black man, instilled a renewed pride in her heritage. The autobiography culminates in the struggle to find information on her father in the United States and finally getting to meet her American family.

Afro-German Political Groups

Initiative of Black People (Initiative Schwarzer Deutscher)
  • This initiative created a political community that offers support for black people in Germany. Its main goals are to give people a chance to have their voices heard by each other and by those who do not share the same experiences. In the space provided by ISD gatherings, Afro-Germans are able to connect with people who might be in similar situations and who can offer them support.
  • Teachings from the ISD emphasis the role of history in understanding current politics. This is because of the belief that Germany has committed numerous atrocities in the past (notably in South-West Africa), but has no intentions of paying reparations to communities that still suffer today. The ISD notes that the importance of paying these reparations are for the structural changes made to a broken, discriminatory system.
  • The ISD combats discrimination in Germany through active support, campaigning through the media, and outreach to the government.

Notable Afro-Germans in modern Germany

Politics and social life

Art, culture and music

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.

May Opitz, who wrote under the pen name May Ayim, was an Afro-German poet, educator and activist. She was a co-editor of the book Farbe bekennen, whose English translation was published as Showing Our Colors: Afro-German Women Speak Out.

Afro-German musicians include:

Film
Logo of SFD - Schwarze Filmschaffende in Deutschland

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 and television include:

Sport

See also

References
  1. "Initiative Schwarze Menschen in Deutschland".
  2. Wolf, Joerg (2007-02-23). "Black History Month in Germany". Atlantic Review. Archived from the original on 2011-07-18. Retrieved 2009-10-20.
  3. https://www.rki.de/DE/Content/InfAZ/H/HIVAIDS/Studien/MiSSA/Downloads/Pilotstudie_Mapping.pdf?__blob=publicationFile
  4. "Bevölkerung in Privathaushalten nach Migrationshintergrund im weiteren Sinn nach Geburtsstaat in Staatengruppen". Statistisches Bundesamt (in German). Retrieved 2020-06-26.
  5. 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.
  6. Prem Poddar, Rajeev Patke and Lars Jensen, Historical Companion to Postcolonial Literatures--Continental Europe and Its Colonies, Edinburgh University Press, 2008, page 257
  7. Not So Plain as Black and White: Afro-German Culture and History, 1890–2000, Patricia M. Mazón, Reinhild Steingröver, page 18
  8. Ben Kiernan, Blood and Soil: Modern Genocide 1500–2000, p. 417
  10. S. H. Milton (2001). Robert Gellately; Nathan Stoltzfus (eds.). Social Outsiders in Nazi Germany. Princeton University Press. pp. 216, 231. ISBN 9780691086842.
  11. Evans, Richard J. (2005). The Third Reich in Power. Penguin. pp. 526–8. ISBN 1-59420-074-2.
  12. Simone Gigliotti, Berel Lang. The Holocaust: a reader. Malden, Massachusetts, USA; Oxford, England, UK; Carlton, Victoria, Australia: Blackwell Publishing, 2005. Pp. 14.
  13. Deutsch Sein Und Schwarz Dazu. Erinnerungen eines Afro-Deutschen. Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, München October 2013,ISBN 978-3-423-26005-3.
  14. https://www.theafricancourier.de/black-people-in-germany/book-review-memories-of-an-afro-german/
  15. Women in German Yearbook 2005: Feminist Studies in German Literature & Culture, Marjorie Gelus, Helga W. Kraft page 69
  16. https://www.rki.de/DE/Content/InfAZ/H/HIVAIDS/Studien/MiSSA/Downloads/Pilotstudie_Mapping.pdf?__blob=publicationFile
  17. Singh, Rajnish (13 November 2020). "Pierrette Herzberger-Fofana: Standing up for justice". The Parliament Magazine. Retrieved 20 November 2020.

Further reading
  • 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.
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