Hitler's African Victims: The German Army Massacres of Black French Soldiers in 1940

by Raffael Scheck

• ISBN13: 9780521730617
• ISBN10: 0521730619
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-05-05
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

During its campaign against France in 1940, the German army massacred several thousand black POWs belonging to units drafted in France's West African colonies. This book for the first time documents these war crimes on the basis of extensive research in French and German archives. A massive Nazi propaganda offensive approved by Hitler, reviving traditional images of black soldiers as mutilating savages, formed the background for the massacres. The book shows, however, that the treatment of black French POWs was highly inconsistent and that abuses were often triggered by certain combat situations. It connects the massacres of black French soldiers to the debates on the Nazification of the German army during World War II and places them in the context of the treatment of non-white 'illegitimate combatants' in colonial wars.

Table of Contents

List of Figures	p. vii
Preface	p. ix
Abbreviations	p. xiii
Introduction	p. 1
The Fate of Black French Soldiers in 1940	p. 17
From the "Phony War" to the "Sickle Cut"	p. 17
The Battles on the Somme	p. 23
The Destruction of the 4th Colonial Infantry Division in the Oise	p. 28
Massacres in the Pursuit of French Forces	p. 33
After the Battles	p. 41
The Problems of Counting the Victims	p. 53
The Question of Authorization	p. 60
German Justifications	p. 67
The Origin and Evolution of the Prejudice	p. 81
The Colonial Wars	p. 81
The Fear of Franc-tireurs	p. 85
The Debate on the Use of Black Troops in European Wars	p. 88
The Deployment of Tirailleurs Senegalais in the First World War	p. 93
The "Black Horror" on the Rhine	p. 98
The Nazi Propaganda Offensive against France	p. 101
The Effects of Antiblack Propaganda on the Army	p. 112
Ideological and Situational Factors	p. 118
German Inconsistencies	p. 118
The Role of Nazi Ideology	p. 121
The Mutilation Charge	p. 126
Close Combat and Hedgehog Positions	p. 131
The Tenacity of Tirailleurs Senegalais	p. 134
Unexpected Resistance	p. 137
Assessing Situational Factors versus Racial Prejudice	p. 142
Implications	p. 145
The Third Reich and Black Africans	p. 145
The Nazification and Barbarization of the Wehrmacht	p. 149
The Responsibility of the French Military Leadership	p. 157
Memory	p. 161
Conclusion	p. 165
Sources	p. 167
Archival Sources	p. 167
Periodicals	p. 170
Published Primary Sources, Memoirs, Contemporary Works	p. 170
Secondary Sources	p. 175
Index	p. 199
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