Women's Rights, Nationalist Anxiety, and the “Moral” Agenda in the Early Weimar Republic: Revisiting the “Black Horror” Campaign against France's African Occupation Troops

Abstract

In the months and years following ratification of the Versailles Treaty, the Allied occupation of the Rhineland became a focal point of German nationalist propaganda. The campaign against the so-called “black shame on the Rhine” (schwarze Schmach am Rhein), a racist slogan referring to the stationing of soldiers from northern Africa, Senegal, and Madagascar in the French zone of occupation, was one of the ugliest outgrowths of German opposition to the peace treaty. Support for the movement against France's African troops was disquietingly broad. An interpellation to the Reich government of May 1920 launched by the Majority Social Democrats (SPD) and endorsed by all parties in the national assembly except the Independent Socialists (USPD) is illustrative of the racist fears motivating “black horror” protests: “Even after the armistice, the French and Belgians continue to use colored troops in the occupied territories. … For German women and children, men and boys, these savages pose a horrifying danger. Their honor, health and life, purity and innocence are being destroyed. … This situation is disgraceful, humiliating, and insufferable!”