Nazi prejudice and propaganda – the racist crimes against the "children of shame" | DW Documentary

[Music] it was the nist i didn't know much about him just that he could play the violin really well i know he lived at his grandmother's house and i also found out he was in an orphanage sometime before that [Music] normal impression there didn't seem to be anything unusual to begin with i never thought there was something different about him [Music] [Music] i knew his father was a vietnamese soldier in the french army of the rhine that i did know but i just accepted it it was what it was he was an illegitimate child there were a few of those they always said he suspected something of course because sterilizations were always carried out under the semblance of some sort of examination i can still see him beaming with joy and holding his call-up papers i'm being drafted he did it you can see from the pictures that he did but only for 14 days after he finished training then [Music] he died serving in the german army somewhere in northern italy in 1944 there's not much left of him except for a few fading memories a handful of photographs and some dry vital statistics that was no accident the german state had decided that people like willie bart would not be allowed to reproduce he and any memories of him were supposed to disappear along with him the same applied to others who shared his fate he was forcibly sterilized in the summer of 1937 before he had even turned 14. villi was one of several hundred children who had a german mother and a father who was a soldier from the french colonies a whole world collapsed in november 1918 prussia's might and glory were no more it was all over for kaiser god and fatherland after four years of slaughter 10 million soldiers lay dead on the battlefields and as many people died on the home front as well both in europe and beyond the moment of the victors had come on june 28 1919 the allies received a small delegation of diplomats from germany the representatives of the german government signed an accord under protest because it was largely imposed without any input from them in particular the french government led by georges clemenceau remained staunchly unbending never again was germany to pose a threat to france the treaty put all german territory west of the rhine under allied occupation for 15 years allied forces moved into the area stretching along the river from the city of kale to cologne in january 1920 of the 100 000 troops in the french army of occupation more than a fifth came from the french colonies algeria morocco tunisia senegal madagascar or vietnam german troops had encountered them on the battlefields near eep and in the trenches of verdan horror stories about the african soldiers savagery made the rounds on the home front as a result the germans were awaiting their french occupiers with no little trepidation during these days many germans saw people of color for the first time in their lives until just before world war one there was no question of deploying black soldiers in europe then an officer named charlemagne wrote a successful and controversial book in 1910 called la force noir the black force where he said the senegalese riflemen are good soldiers they've proven themselves in africa why shouldn't we deploy them in a war in france it was clear that france was afraid of germany in 1914 germany was a stable rich powerful country with a population of 65 million and there were only 39 million french to stand against them it was a foregone conclusion that the relationship was completely lopsided and that france was doomed to defeat militarily so they needed to find soldiers and charlemagne proposed that they rely on an immense reservoir of african troops [Music] during the war they were already publishing propaganda warning that the french colonial troops would cut off the ears of german soldiers and wear them on strings around their necks that they were barbaric and acted like animals and were being ordered to do so by their french superiors stories like this and all these fears were already being whipped up anyway now their focus was simply redirected onto these colonial troops in the rhineland and then of course there was also deep-seated racism that wasn't just confined to the germans the idea that troops from north africa senegal and vietnam were now in a position of power over the german civilian population well that was a reversal of the established colonial hierarchy wasn't it that these colonial subjects could now exercise authority over europeans who had once been colonial masters themselves was perceived as extreme the abdication of kaiser wilhelm ii whom the conservatives revered as a symbol of national identification on november 9 1918 merely compounded the sense of crisis philip scheidermann one of the social democrats leaders rushed to declare the end of the old order [Music] but the fledgling republic was in danger from the outset because what was old and rotten hadn't really disappeared in fact quite the contrary the guardians of the old order became the foes of the new democracy they rejected the idea of the weimar republic and above all repudiated what they called the shameful versailles treaty and those who in their opinion were responsible for it the german social democrats who signed it in march 1920 general walter von lutwitz led the army in an unsuccessful push to overthrow the democratically elected government of chancellor gustav bauer in response french troops then occupied cities east of the rhine as well moroccan regiments marched into frankfurt a mine on april 6 1920. there were clashes with demonstrators and the moroccans opened fire killing nine people and wounding many more the incident in frankfurt was exploited as a welcome opportunity to ignite the smoldering german rage against the french occupiers from spring 1920 onwards nationalists revolutionists and racists used every available means of propaganda and disinformation to orchestrate a campaign against what they dubbed black shame none of the slogans or images used back then could be called innocent the toxins spewed in this campaign continue to poison our lives until today old delusions in new geysers that eat into the heart of our society it started out with fake news reports like this at around 4 p.m on sunday december 7th 1919 a colored french colonial soldier attacked sixteen-year-old factory worker gertrude m from oys kirschen as she was crossing the durham oys cushion railway line on her way home the soldier grabbed the frightened girl by her hands threw her in the ditch and held her mouth closed to prevent her screaming [Music] when i fought back he bit my finger and wouldn't let go [Music] he bit into the flesh right down to the bone sucking the blood out so that it ran down from his mouth [Music] in the spring of 1920 it seemed as if overnight an army of african rapists and paedophiles had set out to systematically defile and dishonor german women girls and boys the outrage over the allegedly barbaric conduct of the french colonial troops on german soil boiled over into bizarre and festering images here we can see an african with deformed lips who almost looks like an ape beneath a french helmet and when you turn the coin over you see a german woman bound to a martyr's steak and that is the erect penis of a black man topped by a military helmet these were the sexual obsessions of the black shame campaign this piece is a typical example of black shame propaganda which was very we can't imagine how powerful this propaganda was today but enormous amounts of money were invested in it brochures were translated from english dutch swedish french spanish and american english and so on there were postcards illustrations posters medallions and plays they even made films about it [Music] when we consider the role of women and women's bodies in this campaign then it's important to understand that most women were not really victims of men black men who were colonial soldiers but the promoters of the campaign in many cases men consciously stylize them into victims white european men did this they were the authors of brochures the writers of novellas and books who subjected women to their own male fantasies of violent brutal bestial sexual compulsion those weren't the lusts of these black soldiers they were the violent sexual fantasies of the men who made up these stories [Music] of course some colonial soldiers did carry out isolated attacks but these assaults had nothing to do with skin color nor were they a problem confined to the colonial troops but it was depicted that way many europeans already had the concept of black shame in their minds before the first colonial soldiers ever set foot in the rhineland the idea that black men are a threat to white women that their sex drive is stronger that they're unable to control their desires and that they come from primitive races those ideas were already widespread the protests against the presence of colonial troops on german soil didn't just come from nationalistic or racist circles high-ranking politicians supported that opposition too [Music] [Music] you can view this campaign from two perspectives one is a propaganda campaign directed by the state the attempt to overturn the conditions of the versailles peace and influence the setting of further post-war conditions it was aiming to re-establish international solidarity with germany germany wasn't in the league of nations at this point that on the one hand would be a classical political historical standpoint but on the other hand the question is why this campaign spread and appeal to so many other people the wartime defeat was viewed as a failure of the military leadership and the monarchy but also a failure of german soldiers although this was not recognized openly the black shame campaign didn't want to admit that so the blame for the defeat was projected onto the participation of african soldiers it's a classic case of transmission if you wish the leaders of the campaign wanted to publicize reports of mass rapes of german women internationally a few days after the clashes in frankfurt in april 1920 an article appeared in england denouncing the presence of french colonial troops on german soil the author of the article was the english journalist and labour member of parliament edmund dean morell morel for child indies in his article morale condemned the french occupation on the rhine and its use of black troops which he described as a horror a terrible situation he was already in contact with german officials and was getting [Music] as far as influencing british public opinion about the occupation of the rhineland using black soldiers is concerned a number of english politicians and journalists staying in berlin in the last few months have been granted access to a large number of documents pertaining to the conduct of black troops in the occupied region morel has used the material he was given to publish a brochure the horror on the rhine which he has written to great effect it was quite apparent that the horror on the rhine awoke feelings of physical and psychological disgust in everyone [Music] the foreign ministry was always behind the scenes inviting visitors from abroad to come to the rhineland and then go back home and report how horrible things were there among the foreigners the german government recruited to support the campaign was ray beveridge from the united states beverage was raised in the white american upper class she became one of the most aggressive agitators spreading the tales of so-called black shame have the men leading our countries lost their minds they are blindly throwing our white race our white women into the abyss i appeal to all of the world's women i appeal to all men still worthy of the name help white women white girls and white boys are in danger every day and every hour and this threat will continue as long as a black man is entitled to exercise power over whites in america they hang each and every black man who molests a white woman these racist ideas were widely shared they came from the centers of international and european science and research people went to conferences swedish german italian french and british scientists met at congresses to discuss these issues and the european population were aware of the importance of being white and staying white yet the nationalists revolutionists and racists were unable to prevent one thing after the war people along the rhine found love the men came from africa the philippines and vietnam the women from germany [Music] [Music] between 1919 and 1928 several hundred children fathered by colonial soldiers were born to german women in the german regions along the rhine the precise number isn't known but it could be anywhere from four hundred to a thousand these children and their mothers and their families were socially ostracized from the start friedrich zitzler a senior civil servant wrote unfortunately some of the female population did not know how to defend their morals or uphold the honor of their position and national dignity they engaged in relations with occupation troops in a disgusting way this fraternization was of course not without consequences in many cases [Music] a physician franz rosenberger went even further should we silently tolerate this fact that instead of the light songs of white beautiful well-bred intellectually superior lively young germans on the banks of the rhine we will hear the cawing sound of dappled gray low-brow wide-nosed coarse half-animal syphilitic mulattos [Music] when they speak of melanization they're presuming that a lot of women from the rhine region had voluntary relations with colonial troops and also bore them children and many nationalist propagandists campaigned against what they called so that's a very misogynistic anti-woman version that says it's bad enough that the french have brought these black soldiers into the country now we've also got all these german women with no sense of honor or patriotism lining up on mass to have sexual relations with these colonial soldiers the exclusion touched on there of the white woman from the collective of the german nation is of course racist the concept is that the german population the body of the people regenerates from within and that anyone involved in racial defilement must be excluded from the body of the german people there's naturally also an assumption that if someone has a darker skin color he or she can't really be german there you see a deep-rooted belief that being german means having a specific ethnic identity identity so you're german if your skin's the right color but what about those who have african or asian fathers but at first sight don't look like it for example willie bard from oyskershin the eindhoven the impression of him being alien or different that was basically purely abstract he spoke a broad ripwarrian dialect so that really like i said nobody in eustin could clearly work out his origins from his speech his language defined him as a long-established local and that was always what mattered for us in 1920 children used to sing who's afraid of the black man and answer themselves nobody but it wasn't the same for adults these are deutsche kinder the indians the afro-german children born from these relationships were in a tough position they were a reminder of the defeat in the war they were a reminder of the french occupation force and they reminded people of the inability of german men to protect their women from alleged rapists that means that the authorities already had these children in their sights by the mid-1920s they were perceived as a potential threat one local politician had a radical solution the maturing of half-breeds who will soon be capable of reproducing is causing great concern in the falls so i'm asking you to listen to what's being said at the rhine ministry and the national health authorities to see if we can't do something to ensure the race remains pure from coloured blood in the occupied territories the privy councilor dr dudamie has indicated that the sterilization of mixed-race children could be carried out in an entirely painless procedure it is clear that such a procedure would be inadmissible under current law there isn't confliction in that side this conflict goes back to before world war one the question was what is the status of legitimate so-called mixed-race children in the colonies did they inherit their father's german citizenship the racists naturally didn't want that initially this approach didn't take hold but i think there was a point when the nazis broke through for example and very clearly made citizenship a matter of race for the so-called rhineland bastards it had a huge impact on their lives and physical safety you have to see the modern weimar republic and an obsession with race going hand in hand at the same time josephine baker was wowing berlin audiences with her banana dance in 1926 others in germany were worrying about the purity of the german race some authorities went as far as to consider forcibly sterilizing the children of the occupation only a few biographies of occupation children are still known today one of them is about gregor bartz who was born at the edge of the eiffel region in 1921. gregor's father was an american infantryman stationed in the rhineland not a french colonial soldier he came from the philippines [Music] gregor was the son of my eldest aunt who was born in 1906. at the time my cousin was born my aunt was 14 years old if you think about it even today that would be rather scandalous but imagine what it was like in 1921 in a staunchly catholic society where religion was dominant then it was far more shocking here he is this is katarina cryer gregor's mother this is amelia kaya my mother she was born in 1914 and i think was about 11 or 12 in this picture and that's anakaya those were the three sisters that's my grandfather joseph kaya and here we have katarina cryer my grandmother and this is gregor like i said it was a scandal normally it would have meant total ostracism from the village community but it never came to that because of my grandfather and our family my grandfather was one of the founders of the social democratic party here and he was a really strong individual he didn't usually do other people's bidding that also played a role in the village eventually accepting him she made sure she got away from my grandfather the minute she legally became an adult the family and village community protected gregor as long as they could but they couldn't shield him from all injustice and persecution gregor survived the war and was accepted in the community as an adult but he would never have his own family [Music] adolf hitler had personally made sure of that when the national socialists seized power a sea change in german demographic policy brought people like gregor baths under increased scrutiny the nazis relied on concepts of racial anthropology that had emerged a long time before to support their position the father of racial anthropology in germany was the zoologist and eugenicist ernst heckel at the end of the 19th century many publications were looking into the exotic and the wild people visited museum collections to see glass cases full of skeletons and skulls and asked themselves are we all really one unified human race how do we differ from each other they had already started cataloging these exhibits and now they began to categorize them the first philogenetic trees that hekel introduced in the 1860s showed an established categorization and hierarchy better worse and that became clear when tabular overviews of categories based on data about skulls hair color and structure and eye color were published for the first time they noted the coarse hair of the papuans or hottentots and ranked them at the lower end of the table then came the mediterraneans the europeans and then later on the caucasians on top the kaiser mediterranean institute for anthropology was founded in berlin darlem in 1927. during the nazi period it became the center for research in eugenics and racial hygiene its director was anthropologist oygen fisher fisher also became the intellectual father of the draft law that the national socialists aimed to use to implement their racial hygiene policies it laid down that anyone posing a threat to the health of the german race should not be permitted to reproduce this is the so-called cassettes this was called the law for the prevention of offspring with hereditary diseases of july 14 1933 published by one of the ss's favorite publishing houses layman's in 1934 it contains the entire legal text and who was responsible for what this inhumane legislation was purely about sterilization and its aim was to legalize and legitimize eugenic forced mass sterilization exhibitions promoted public acceptance of the new law their aim was to familiarize germans with the idea of racial hygiene the need for forced sterilizations was even justified economically but fear for the racial purity of the german people was the main issue surveys were launched in the nazi heartland of tiringia to help set up a comprehensive database of racial biological characteristics covering the entire population it was the third reich's version of big data at the end of july 1933 just a few days after the law for the prevention of offspring with hereditary diseases was passed wolfgang abel a young anthropologist traveled from berlin to the rhineland abel was a member of oygan fisher's staff at the kaiser wilhelm institute the objective of his trip was to gather anthropological data on the so-called rhineland bastards abel measured and photographed 33 children ranging from 5 to 11 years of age he had found the children's personal data in earlier studies from the 1920s [Music] arbel photographed and measured almost all of the children without their consent or that of their parents which is why the images have been made unrecognizable here abel later published the findings of his examinations in a scientific journal the children's privacy was violated for a second time what the national socialists did using no shape and hair and eye color that was pseudoscience race is nothing more than a societal construct it lacks any scientific foundation the division of humanity into races was and is first and foremost a societal and political classification and if skin color is added as a differentiating characteristic then as present-day scientists we must say that skin color is the poorest characteristic you could use to ascertain races new research shows that everyone was dark-skinned until around 8 000 years ago africa is the cradle of humanity for all peoples africa is for all the mention of the main point of this is that the concept of race should never be used again there have never been races these are constructs and it is impossible to create an artificial hierarchy of categories using something like hair skin and eye color and synthetic and zelban herren often adolf hitler mein kampf in april 1937 chancellor adolf hitler personally gave the secret order to forcibly sterilize the rhineland's so-called occupation children a special unit was set up under the nazi secret police the gestapo to carry out the order it was called special commission number three [Music] special commission number three was the body that organized the illegal forced sterilizations all the documents pertaining to the children in question were made available to special commission 3. what's interesting is that the children's data were supplied by the state authorities responsible for hereditary issues as part of the information gathering process they had written to all district commissioners and mayors ahead of time young gregor bartz from plight also fell into the clutches of special commission 3 he was just 16 years old there were already a few fascists here in the community especially in the local police and there was a local propaganda leader who was an absolutely committed nazi i believe they're the ones who reported gregor [Music] they pressured mothers by telling them if you refuse to allow your sons to be sterilized then we're going to have to re-educate them that meant a concentration camp the mothers knew well what that meant concentrated the children would be sent to live in a nazi camp in a fort on the mosel in june 1937 special commission 3 summoned gregor and his mother to cologne gestapo hq cologne after consulting with a senior civil servant mr thorne the next appointment will take place at the protestant hospital cologne viatal on june 3rd at 7 30 am four wards of the health authorities in dusseldorf where they are usually ordered to appear must be picked up and brought to cologne by car if contrary to expectations one or more of them fails to appear before the health authorities at the appointed time then the driver will have to collect them that's what it's called today it's a protestant hospital you know most of the catholic hospitals refused to perform these operations so they went to cologne and i heard in the family that both of them stood on the bridge over the rhine and thought about throwing themselves in yes you cannot emphasize enough what this forced sterilization meant for these underage children above all it destroyed their future prospects in life it meant abdominal pain painful scars and persecution that left them traumatized that was all part of the program and the feelings of these children whose honor had been taken who had been told they were a disgrace or that they were only half human that traumatized them for the rest of their lives i'd say elizabeth hermann wrote about her operation in her book ich disderi at first i heard the rustling of clothing of people hurrying over then i felt a dim ceiling light hit my eyes i tried but failed to get a clear picture what was actually happening fell away again and again and i floated in a fog of nothingness body seemed confined i reached for it carefully i felt the sack of sand weighing down on me and the pads beneath my knees all at once i knew what happened you have to undo it i bellowed into the operating room i was mortally wounded a thousand times i had thought how happy i would be if i got pregnant and what i could wear in order not to give my secret away the nurse's words now you can have intercourse so repelled me i've recorded this because there will be nobody left who knows my true story after i die perhaps it will help someone who had a similar experience maybe i can bring some light into the darkness young villi bart never got to tell his own life story but his boyhood friend rudolf miller preserved some of it for us eighty years ago in december 1940 rudolf and villi performed in a concert held to mark the day of german family music years ago rudolf wrote down his memories of that day came after me in the concert although like i said he wasn't a member of the hitler youth this evening he wore the uniform the brown shirt with the belt and shoulder strap and the black tie he was almost a bit defiant as he entered in the auditorium adjusted the music stand to the correct height and tuned his violin without haste his friend fran schwingler was the same age and was already waiting to accompany him on the piano they performed a piece by bach hardly at all the movements of his upper body were smooth and as the piece ended on a long note he looked over to his partner on the piano who nodded in approval then when the audience began to applaud loudly he had first looked helplessly to the side and then left in a sudden panic fled the stage with big rushing steps as if he were running away from something but franz who had hurried off after him forced him back on stage only then did billy look at the audience and see all the friendly faces and sense the wave of support that was washing over him in free he took a deep breath with an awkward little movement it wasn't until he heard the bravos of some of the girls that the tension drained from him and he felt himself beginning to look forward to a life that offered him more opportunities than he had previously hoped for [Music] you

Channel: DW Documentary

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Keywords: Documentary, Documentaries, documentaries, DW documentary, full documentary, DW, documentary 2020, documentary, World War I, racism, propaganda, Nazi era, forced sterilization, mixed-race relationships, France, Germany, occupation, history documentary, full documentary history

Id: J26kgGn5TdQ

Length: 42min 25sec (2545 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 10 2021