German Africa Show

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The German Africa Show was based on the concept of the Völkerschauen and traveled through the German Reich with the support of the National Socialist authorities from 1936 until it was banned in 1940. The company was supposed to offer black people living in Germany an opportunity to earn money while at the same time keeping them under state control. The hiking show promoted the recovery of the former German colonies in the spirit of Nazi propaganda .

The beginnings as a fairground show

The German Africa Show emerged from a fair called "Negerdorf", a largely self-organized company in which black people appeared at fairs and rifle festivals. Director of the show were selected from Togo native German-African Kwassi Bruce , who appeared as an actor, and the white German Adolf Hillerkus. His wife Juliette Tipner, the daughter of a Liberian and an Austrian born in Vienna, was also an actress. While many German national shows showed black people in zoos and thus next to animals, the focus of the Africa show was explicitly on folk festivals.

In 1935, the organizers of the show turned to the Foreign Office to obtain official permission to perform. In February 1936 they were given a “no objection declaration” and the Propaganda Ministry supported the show from then on. After the company got into financial hardship as a result of a transport accident in the summer of 1936, the " German Labor Front " (DAF) took over responsibility for the show, which was now officially called the "German Africa Show".

Coverage by colonial propaganda

In Nazi Germany, blacks were excluded from the German national community and at the same time appropriated for the goals of Nazi colonial policy . The Foreign Office, which advocated the regaining of the German “ protected areas ” that had been lost in 1918, was concerned about the increasing discrimination against blacks in the Nazi state, as this reinforced the view abroad that Germany was unable to administer colonies. The German Africa Show was therefore intended to give the colonial migrants who had been declared stateless and who could barely find work an opportunity to earn a living.

In the last few years of its existence, the German Africa Show has become increasingly colonial and political. At the beginning of 1939 it was incorporated into the "Deutsche Volksbildungswerk" and thus directly into the Nazi propaganda apparatus. The demonstrations were intended to spread the myth of the “loyal Askari ” - the black colonial soldier who had fought loyally on the side of the German Reich in the First World War . This was intended to emphasize the ties of the former wards with the German colonial rulers and, at the same time, their inferiority. For such a staging it was necessary to present the foam members, who were often born in Germany, as “pure-bred natives” whose “customs and traditions” had nothing to do with German culture.

The German Africa Show as a camp

After the German Africa Show was subordinated to the German Labor Front, it was increasingly converted into an instrument of racial control. The operator Hillerkus was instructed to ensure that members of the show did not have sexual intercourse with whites. At the beginning of 1937 the authorities transferred the show to the circus entrepreneur Alfred Schneider, who wanted to unite the members in a "strictly closed community" because of financial problems. At this point, Hillerkus and Bruce left the show, which from now on was under the direct control of the NSDAP and the authorities. Due to his indebtedness, Schneider gave up the management in May 1937, after a break of a few months the businessman Georg Stock took over the company. In the autumn of 1937 he fired an employee after he had molested other foam members - a step that the DAF refused: The man should be "included" again in the show for "racial reasons".

In October 1938 the Nazi authorities were planning to use a special police ordinance to bring together all blacks who came from the former protected areas and were in Germany in the Africa show. A list of 80 names was compiled for this purpose. The project was not implemented because the Federal Foreign Office feared negative effects abroad. In the late 1930s, the German Africa Show increasingly took on the character of a camp for black men. People who did not come from the German colonies should be excluded, as should black women. “Mixed race”, often children of the foam members of German women, were also excluded.

The program between Varieté and Völkerschau

The program of the German Africa Show changed in the course of the takeover by the National Socialist state. In contrast to the classic Völkerschau, the presentation of “natives” in their “natural surroundings” was not in the foreground, even if the division of the performers into a “group of old Africa” and a “group from the South Seas” relates to the former German colonies in Africa and Oceania. In addition to exotic productions such as “spear dances”, acrobatic tricks and a “dance parody” were shown. The show was based on popular entertainment events of the time and was reminiscent of a variety show . Those interested were also able to visit a small “ ethnographic ” exhibition and buy exotic items such as cowries and coffee in stalls.

After the show had been put into the service of colonial propaganda, the performers were supposed to dress in a more “stylish” manner, a slide show reminded of the former German “protected areas”. With the construction of a 900 square meter "native village", the show was adapted to the model of the Völkerschauen.

In 1939 the German Africa Show was completely redesigned: It was removed from the fairground environment and only appeared in rented halls. In order to counter the criticism of the lack of authenticity of the show, artistic numbers disappeared from the program, the show members were only supposed to "demonstrate the customs and traditions of their homeland". White “Africa experts” ensured the supposed authenticity by rehearsing the dances with the foam members. Individual members were presented in military uniforms as "loyal askari".

The foam members and the audience

Colonial revisionism and the Askari myth offered blacks a central strategy to defend themselves against the increasingly violent racism. They presented themselves as "German soldiers" and thus defended themselves against racist devaluation. One participant reported about his son who fought as a Wehrmacht soldier at the front . The Nazi authorities tried to prevent it from becoming known that some of the foam members were married to white women. Statements by foam members, which blurred the line between black performers and white audiences, repeatedly led to complaints. Some actors are said to have addressed the visitors as “compatriots, German national comrades” and compared their dances with the Bavarian Schuhplatteln . Participants in the Africa show told the audience that most of them had never been to the colonies, one was an “American Negro”, and several had “lived in Germany since childhood”.

Little is known about the life of the foam members. Although the working and living conditions deteriorated more and more, their last manager Georg Stock did not prevent them from moving freely around the guest venues. Women, who in 1936 still made up a third of the foam members, were gradually pushed into the background and excluded from the show.

The end of the German Africa Show

The last tour led the German Africa Show in October 1939 through the " Ostmark ". On the instructions of the Reich Propaganda Headquarters of the NSDAP , the show was stopped on June 21, 1940 without prior notice. In the months before, Nazi propaganda had launched a campaign against the use of French colonial troops on the Western Front . The NS authorities justified the shutdown of the show by stating that propaganda against the “ black shame ” could not be made if Africans were put on the stage in Germany. The historian Susann Lewerenz assumes, however, that the black shame campaign was more the occasion than the decisive reason for the closure of the Africa show. In the foreground was the experience that the area of ​​the German Africa Show could not be controlled as desired, it was not possible to "create a clear difference between foam members and audience". In addition, after the beginning of the Second World War, efforts to regain the German colonies had faded into the background. The ban on the appearance of black people in Germany, which had already been decided in November 1939 by the Reich Propaganda Management, sealed the end of the German Africa Show. Efforts for a readmission by the colonial department of the Foreign Office and the "German Society for Native Studies" were unsuccessful.

Little is known about the further fate of the foam members. Some then worked as extras in the film industry, some did not survive the Nazi era. Jonas Alexander N'doki was in 1942 for attempted rape executed Mohamed Husen died in 1944 in Sachsenhausen concentration camp .

literature

  • Bechhaus-Gerst, Marianne / Klein-Arendt, Reinhard (ed.): The (colonial) encounter. Africans in Germany 1880–1945 - Germans in Africa 1880–1918 , Peter Lang Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2006, ISBN 3-631-39175-7 , 332 pp.
  • Dreesbach, Anne: Tamed Wild: the display of “exotic” people in Germany 1870-1940 , Campus-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 3-593-37732-2 , 371 pp.
  • Forgey, Elisa: "The great negro drum of colonial advertising": The German Africa Show 1935–1943 , in: Werkstatt Geschichte, issue 9, 3rd year, December 1994, Hamburg, ISBN 3-87916-210-7 , p. 25-33.
  • Joeden-Forgey, Elisa from: Race Power in Postcolonial Germany: The German Africa Show and the National Socialist State, 1935–1940 , in: Alonzo, Christine / Martin, Peter (eds.): Between Charleston and Goose Step: Blacks in National Socialism, Dölling and Galitz, Hamburg 2004, ISBN 3-935549-84-9 , 790 pp.
  • Lewerenz, Susann: The German Africa Show (1935-1940). Racism, colonial revisionism and post-colonial disputes in National Socialist Germany , Peter Lang Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2006, ISBN 3-631-54869-9 , 174 pp.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Aitken, Robbie / Rosenhaft Eve: Black Germany: The Making and Unmaking of a diaspora community, 1884-1960 , Cambridge University Press, 2013, S. 250th
  2. ↑ Annette von Wangenheim. (2001). Pages in the dream factory - black extras in German feature films  [documentation]. WDR.
  3. ^ Lewerenz, Susann: Die Deutsche Afrika-Schau (1935-1940). Racism, Colonial Revisionism and Post-Colonial Conflicts in National Socialist Germany , Frankfurt am Main 2006, p. 91.
  4. ^ Lewerenz, Susann: Die Deutsche Afrika-Schau (2006), p. 97.
  5. ^ Lewerenz, Susann: Die Deutsche Afrika-Schau (2006), p. 99.
  6. ↑ Forgey, Elisa: "The great Negro drum of colonial Advertising": The German Africa-show 1935-1943 , in: Studio History, Issue 9, Volume 3, December 1994 Hamburg, p. 30
  7. ^ Dreesbach, Anne: Tame Wild: the display of “exotic” people in Germany 1870-1940 , Campus-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2005, p. 309.
  8. ^ Lewerenz, Susann: Die Deutsche Afrika-Schau (2006), p. 104.
  9. ^ Lewerenz, Susann: Die Deutsche Afrika-Schau (2006), p. 115.
  10. ↑ Forgey, Elisa: "The great Negro drum of colonial Advertising": The German Africa-show 1935-1943 , in: Studio History, Issue 9, Volume 3, December 1994 Hamburg, S. 31st
  11. ↑ Sippel, Harald: Colonial Administration without Colonies - The Colonial Political Office of the NSDAP and the planned Reich Colonial Ministry , in: Van der Heyden, Ulrich / Zeller, Joachim (eds.): Colonial metropolis Berlin. A search for clues. Berlin 2002. p. 412.
  12. ^ Lewerenz, Susann: Die Deutsche Afrika-Schau (2006), p. 131.
  13. ^ Lewerenz, Susann: Die Deutsche Afrika-Schau (2006), p. 132.
  14. ↑ Bechhaus-Gerst, Marianne: Treu bis in death. From German East Africa to Sachsenhausen - a life story. Links-Verlag, Berlin 2007, pp. 141–150.