Rhineland Bastards
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Rhineland Bastard (german: Rheinlandbastard) was a derogatory term used in
Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
to describe
Afro-Germans Afro-Germans (german: Afrodeutsche) or Black Germans (german: schwarze Deutsche) are people of Sub-Saharan African descent who are citizens or residents of Germany. Cities such as Hamburg and Frankfurt, which were formerly centres of occupation ...
, believed fathered by French Army personnel of African descent who were stationed in the
Rhineland The Rhineland (german: Rheinland; french: Rhénanie; nl, Rijnland; ksh, Rhingland; Latinised name: ''Rhenania'') is a loosely defined area of Western Germany along the Rhine, chiefly its middle section. Term Historically, the Rhinelands ...
during its occupation by France after
World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
. There is evidence that other Afro-Germans, born from unions between German men and African women in former German colonies in Africa, were also referred to as ''Rheinlandbastarde''. After 1933, under
Nazi racial theories The Nazi Party adopted and developed several pseudoscientific racial classifications as part of its ideology (Nazism) in order to justify the genocide of groups of people which it deemed racially inferior. The Nazis considered the putative " ...
, Afro-Germans deemed to be ''Rheinlandbastarde'' were persecuted. They were rounded up in a campaign of
compulsory sterilization Compulsory sterilization, also known as forced or coerced sterilization, is a government-mandated program to involuntarily sterilize a specific group of people. Sterilization removes a person's capacity to reproduce, and is usually done throug ...
.


History

The term "Rhineland Bastard" can be traced to 1919, just after World War I, when Entente troops, most of them French, occupied the
Rhineland The Rhineland (german: Rheinland; french: Rhénanie; nl, Rijnland; ksh, Rhingland; Latinised name: ''Rhenania'') is a loosely defined area of Western Germany along the Rhine, chiefly its middle section. Term Historically, the Rhinelands ...
. The British historian Richard J. Evans suggests the number of
mixed-race Mixed race people are people of more than one race or ethnicity. A variety of terms have been used both historically and presently for mixed race people in a variety of contexts, including ''multiethnic'', ''polyethnic'', occasionally ''bi-eth ...
children among them was not more than five or six hundred. All World War I belligerents with colonial possessions went to great lengths to recruit soldiers from their colonies. Germany was the only one of the
Central Powers The Central Powers, also known as the Central Empires,german: Mittelmächte; hu, Központi hatalmak; tr, İttifak Devletleri / ; bg, Централни сили, translit=Tsentralni sili was one of the two main coalitions that fought in ...
with substantial overseas possessions; it used numerous non-white troops to defend its colonies. Regardless of German attitudes toward the indigenous inhabitants of German colonies, Germany's lack of control of the sea lanes would have made it nearly impossible for the German Army to bring any substantial number of colonial troops to European battlefields. Notwithstanding the exact circumstances, most Germans quickly came to view non-white Allied troops with disdain and were contemptuous of the Allies' willingness to use these troops in Europe. Germans across the political spectrum regarded the occupation as a national disgrace. Many considered all forms of collaboration and
fraternization Fraternization (from Latin ''frater'', brother) is "to become brothers" by conducting social relations with people who are actually unrelated and/or of a different class (especially those with whom one works) as if they were siblings, family memb ...
with the occupiers as immoral (if not illegal)
treason Treason is the crime of attacking a state authority to which one owes allegiance. This typically includes acts such as participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to overthrow its government, spying on its military, its diplo ...
. From the spring of 1920 onward, German newspapers frequently ran hysterical stories about the alleged " Black Horror on the Rhine", accusing Senegalese soldiers of routinely gang-raping thousands of German women and girls on a daily basis. In the popular 1921 novel ''Die Schwarze Schmach: Der Roman des geschändeten Deutschlands'' (''The Black Shame A Novel of Disgraced Germany'') by Guido Kreutzer, he wrote that all mixed race children born in the Rhineland are born "physically and morally degenerate" and are not German at all. Kreutzer also declared that the mothers of these children ceased to be German the moment they had sex with non-white men, and they could never join the ''
Volksgemeinschaft ''Volksgemeinschaft'' () is a German expression meaning "people's community", "folk community", Richard Grunberger, ''A Social History of the Third Reich'', London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1971, p. 44. "national community", or "racial community", ...
''. As Germans considered the occupation to be carried out by "B-grade" troops (a notion that was drawn from colonial and racial stereotypes), their humiliation was heightened, increasing hostility toward the women and children in these unions. In May 1920 the foreign minister of the new German government lodged a protest to his French counterpart stating that "we will accept the inferior discipline amongst your white troops if you will only rid us as fast as possible of this black plague". In the Rhineland itself, local opinion of the troops was very different. The soldiers were described as "courteous and often popular", possibly because French colonial soldiers harbored less ill-will towards Germans than war-weary French occupiers. In his book '' Mein Kampf'',
Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
described children resulting from any kind of relationship to African occupation soldiers as a contamination of the white race "by Negro blood on the Rhine in the heart of Europe." He thought that "Jews were responsible for bringing Negroes into the Rhineland, with the ultimate idea of bastardizing the white race which they hate and thus lowering its cultural and political level so that the Jew might dominate." He also implied that this was a plot on the part of the French, since the population of France was being increasingly "negrified".


Colonial legacy

Most of the tiny multiracial population in Germany at that time were children of German settlers and missionaries in the former
German colonies German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...
in
Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...
and
Melanesia Melanesia (, ) is a subregion of Oceania in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It extends from Indonesia's New Guinea in the west to Fiji in the east, and includes the Arafura Sea. The region includes the four independent countries of Fiji, Va ...
, who had married local women or had children with them
out of wedlock Legitimacy, in traditional Western common law, is the status of a child born to parents who are legally married to each other, and of a child conceived before the parents obtain a legal divorce. Conversely, ''illegitimacy'', also known as ''b ...
. With the loss of the German colonial empire after
World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
, some of these colonists returned to Germany with their mixed-race families.Evans, Richard J
''The Third Reich in Power, 1933-1939.''
London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
:
Penguin Books Penguin Books is a British publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers The Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the following year.archive.org The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...
.'' Retrieved September 30, 2019.
While the black population of
Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
was small20–25,000 in a population of over 65 millionthe Nazis decided to take action against those in the Rhineland. They despised black culture, which they considered inferior, and sought to prohibit "traditionally black" musical genres such as American
jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...
as being "corrupt
negro music African-American music is an umbrella term covering a diverse range of music and musical genres largely developed by African Americans and their culture. Their origins are in musical forms that first came to be due to the condition of slavery ...
". No official laws were enacted against the black population, or against the children of mixed parentage, as they were born from marriages and informal unions that preceded the
Nuremberg laws The Nuremberg Laws (german: link=no, Nürnberger Gesetze, ) were antisemitic and racist laws that were enacted in Nazi Germany on 15 September 1935, at a special meeting of the Reichstag convened during the annual Nuremberg Rally of ...
of September 1935. The latter prohibited "
miscegenation Miscegenation ( ) is the interbreeding of people who are considered to be members of different races. The word, now usually considered pejorative, is derived from a combination of the Latin terms ''miscere'' ("to mix") and ''genus'' ("race") ...
". However, future sexual relations and "mixed marriages", between so-called " Aryans" and "non-Aryans" were banned. In addition, persons of mixed parentage were deprived completely of the right to marry. The government established the ''Sonder Kommission Nr.3'' ("Special Commission 3") and appointed
Eugen Fischer Eugen Fischer (5 July 1874 – 9 July 1967) was a German professor of medicine, anthropology, and eugenics, and a member of the Nazi Party. He served as director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics, ...
, of the
Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics The Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics was founded in 1927 in Berlin, Germany. The Rockefeller Foundation partially funded the actual building of the Institute and helped keep the Institute afloat during the Gr ...
, to head it. He was tasked with preventing procreation and reproduction by "Rhineland Bastards". It was decided that anyone so deemed would be sterilized under the 1933 Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring. The program began in 1937, when local officials were asked to identify all "Rhineland Bastards" under their jurisdiction. All together, some 800 children of mixed parentage were arrested and sterilized. According to Susan Samples, the Nazis went to great lengths to conceal their sterilization and abortion program.Samples, Susan. "African Germans in the Third Reich", in ''The African German Experience'', edited by Carol Aisha Blackshire-Belay (Praeger Publishers, 1996).


Representation in other media

*
Esi Edugyan Esi Edugyan (born 1978) is a Canadian novelist.Donna Bailey Nurse"Writing the blues" ''Quill & Quire'', July 2011. She has twice won the Giller Prize, for her novels '' Half-Blood Blues'' and '' Washington Black''. Biography Esi Edugyan was born ...
's novel, '' Half Blood Blues'' (2011), features an Afro-German jazz trumpet player in Berlin, who plays with African Americans, a German Jew, and a white German. He is swept up by the Nazis as a "Rhineland Bastard". *''
Where Hands Touch ''Where Hands Touch'' is a 2018 romantic war drama film directed and written by Amma Asante and starring Amandla Stenberg, George MacKay, Abbie Cornish, Christopher Eccleston, and Tom Sweet. It was produced by Charlie Hanson, and tells the ...
'' (2018) directed by
Amma Asante Amma Asante (born 13 September 1969) is a British filmmaker, screenwriter, former actress, and Chancellor at Norwich University of the Arts, who was born in London to parents from Ghana. Her love for the film industry started when she receive ...
features protagonist Leyna (portrayed by
Amandla Stenberg Amandla Stenberg (born October 23, 1998) is an American actress. She was included in ''Time''s list of Most Influential Teens in both 2015 and 2016, and has received several accolades, including a Teen Choice Award, an NAACP Image Award, and n ...
) who was conceived in the post-WWI occupation of Germany to a black French soldier and a white German woman. Harris, Hunter, and Haaniyah Angus
"A Short Conversation About What the Hell Is Going on in 'Where Hands Touch.'"
'' www.vulture.com'', January 4, 2019. Retrieved March 20, 2019.


See also

*
Afro-Germans Afro-Germans (german: Afrodeutsche) or Black Germans (german: schwarze Deutsche) are people of Sub-Saharan African descent who are citizens or residents of Germany. Cities such as Hamburg and Frankfurt, which were formerly centres of occupation ...
*
Degenerate music Degenerate music (german: Entartete Musik, link=no, ) was a label applied in the 1930s by the government of Nazi Germany to certain forms of music that it considered harmful or decadent. The Nazi government's concerns about degenerate music were a ...
*
Hans Massaquoi Hans-Jürgen Massaquoi (January 19, 1926 – January 19, 2013) was a German-American journalist and author. He was born in Hamburg, Germany, to a German mother and a Liberian father of Vai ethnicity, the grandson of Momulu Massaquoi, the c ...
* Hans Hauck *
Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics The Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics was founded in 1927 in Berlin, Germany. The Rockefeller Foundation partially funded the actual building of the Institute and helped keep the Institute afloat during the Gr ...
* Mischlingskinder *
Nuremberg Laws The Nuremberg Laws (german: link=no, Nürnberger Gesetze, ) were antisemitic and racist laws that were enacted in Nazi Germany on 15 September 1935, at a special meeting of the Reichstag convened during the annual Nuremberg Rally of ...
*
Nazi eugenics Nazi eugenics refers to the social policies of eugenics in Nazi Germany, composed of various pseudoscientific ideas about genetics. The racial ideology of Nazism placed the biological improvement of the German people by selective breeding of ...
* Nazism and race * Negermusik *
Persecution of black people in Nazi Germany While black people in Nazi Germany were never subject to an organized mass extermination program, as in the cases of Jews, homosexuals, Romani, and Slavs, they were still considered by the Nazis to be an inferior race and along with Romani peop ...


References

{{reflist


External links


The fate of blacks in Nazi Germany
Nazi eugenics Legal history of Germany Former peoples of the African diaspora Multiracial affairs in Europe History of the Rhineland Anti-African and anti-black slurs Anti-black racism in Germany Nazi terminology Occupation of the Rhineland