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

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. Documenting these war crimes on the basis of extensive research in French and German archives, Raffael Scheck advances a nuanced interpretation of the motivation for the massacres. Reviving traditional images of black soldiers as mutilating savages, a massive Nazi Propaganda offensive approved by Hitler, created their rationale. The treatment of black French POWs remained, however, suprisingly inconsistent, with abuses often triggered by certain combat situations.

An examination of the German army massacres of thousands of black POWs.

This book documents the German army massacres of thousands of black POWs belonging to units drafted in France's colonies.

Raffael Scheck is Associate Professor for Modern European History at Colby College, where he has been teaching since 1994. He received his Ph.D. from Brandeis University in 1993. He is the author of two other books, Alfred von Tirpitz and German Right-Wing Politics, 1914-1930 (1998) and Mothers of the Nation: Right-Wing Women in Weimar Germany (2004). Professor Scheck has published over a dozen articles on German right-wing politics, Swiss funding for Hitler, and the history of childhood.