BLACK SHAME/WHITE DISGRACE: “RHINELAND BASTARDS” AND THE NAZI CONSTRUCTION OF BLACK IDENTITY IN HANS MASSAQUOI’S DESTINED TO WITNESS

Abstract

Much has been written on the Holocaust, but the subject of “Rhineland bastards” as Hitler’s black victims of the Holocaust has not received much scholarly attention. They were marginalized and no one paid attention to their stories as victims of the Holocaust until the first study on the “Rhineland Bastards” was published in 1979 by Reiner Pommerin. In the wake of this initial scholarly interest in them, some of the “Rhineland bastards” started sharing their lived experiences through interviews, books, and autobiographies such as Hans Massaquoi’s Destined to Witness (1999). This paper investigates Massaquoi’s attempt to fit into German society. It also traces the process by which the Nazi construction of “Rhineland bastards” was extended to the entire black community in the Third Reich, eventually consolidating racism against blacks in Germany in the aftermath of the Nazi regime.