Since the Middle Ages, Africans have lived in Germany as slaves and
scholars, guest workers and refugees. After Germany became a unified
nation in 1871, it acquired several African colonies but lost them after
World War I. Children born of German mothers and African fathers during
the French occupation of Germany were persecuted by the Nazis. After
World War II, many children were born to African American GIs stationed
in Germany and German mothers. Todaythere are 500,000 Afro-Germans in
Germany out of a population of 80 million. Nevertheless, German society
still sees them as "foreigners," assuming they are either African or
African American but never German.
In recent years, the subject of Afro-Germans has captured the interest
of scholars across the humanities for several reasons. Looking at
Afro-Germans allows us to see another dimension of the nineteenth- and
early twentieth-century ideas of racethat led to the Holocaust.
Furthermore, the experience of Afro-Germans provides insight into
contemporary Germany's transformation, willing or not, into a
multicultural society. The volume breaks new ground not only by
addressing the topic of Afro-Germans but also by combining scholars from
many disciplines.
Patricia Mazon is Associate Professor in the Department of History at
the State University of New York at Buffalo. Reinhild Steingrover is
Assistant Professor in the Department of Humanities at the Eastman
School of Music at the University of Rochester.
