The German Census Bureau does not provide the empirical makeup of the population based on race.
Officially, race should never again be a factor in German statistics. But West Germany became wealthy during the following “Wirtschaftswunder” (Economic Miracle) years, rising from the ashes of war. American troops transformed during the “Cold War” from enemies and occupiers to friends and allies against the Soviet Empire. The “Iron Curtain” ran right between West and East Germany, separating NATO from the Warsaw Pact nations. During the 1960s the two Germanys competed for international recognition. The German rivalry was fierce, especially among the newly independent African states, mostly former British or French African colonies.5 Who would support which German state in the United Nations?
Providing scholarships to the upcoming young African elite was deemed a very good way to deepen political and economic ties with the developing world. They came by the thousands to East and West Germany, young and eager to learn and certainly not celibate. Our fathers both came on a scholarship from West Africa to Germany. One was from English speaking Ghana and ended up in West Germany, the other came from French speaking Guinea and landed at Schoenefeld Airport just outside East Berlin, capital of communist East Germany, on a cold February afternoon in 1964.
Our fathers had no choice. Post-colonial, they considered themselves a new African vanguard, ready to learn and become what their newly independent homelands would need: doctors, engineers, economists, only to realize that in Germany, whether East or West, Africans were considered at best some exotic international flavor and, at worst, as savages, directly from the bush. In terms of racial stereotypes, Germany always remained unified across the Iron Curtain.
But mastering a new language, their studies took years. Their African families were counting on them. Quitting was not an option, so most stayed – longer than they originally intended. For quite a few, it turned out that they never helped build a new Africa, but built a family in Germany instead. They had wives and kids and grandchildren.
During the past 50 years, these former African students saw countless Coups d´Etats and unrest on the African continent, only returning “home” for brief visits. And they saw their host country change as well. Communist East Germany had contract laborers from Vietnam, Cuba and socialist Mozambique. Most of those workers lived in isolated dormitories, close to their factories. Fraternization, especially with German females, was a reason to be sent back home. University students like our fathers were lucky. But eventually, the GDR ossified ever more under the economic contradictions of the system.
West Germany meanwhile attracted “guest workers” from southern Europe, Turkey and North Africa. But when the boom went bust, West Germans expected those guest workers to leave, but those guest workers became immigrants - a fact conveniently ignored by successive governments. To this day, Germans are by legal definition6 of German lineage or extraction. A fact, codified by law since 1913, that excluded all others. They were foreigners. They did not belong. That only changed slightly in 2000, when a new progressive government complemented the law and introduced a right for those born in Germany to acquire German citizenship.
The city of Augsburg lies in the German heartland. A picturesque medieval town, rich in history and with old trade connections to the African continent. After all, it was in Augsburg, where the famous old Master of the Renaissance Albrecht Dürer, sketched African merchants from Christian Ethiopia in 1508, presumably while they visited this ancient marketplace for trade.
Today, the city is also the home of the Augsburger Puppenkiste, a well-established puppet theater, with well-known characters. Children love the black character Jim Button and his friend Luke the Engine Driver, created by the author Michael Ende. This past December, one of the most popular Saturday night family shows on German public television was hosted in Augsburg. MC Marcus Lanz encouraged the people of the city to disguise themselves as the famous Jim Button and come in blackface to the studio in droves. Lanz advised his audience to “use black shoe polish or coal.” It never occurred to him, that blackfacing could be offensive to people of color.
December 2013. Saturday night primetime in German Television - Time to make fun of black people. Those responsible for the show, do not see a problem. The resulting protests the following days where brushed aside, even defended by most commentators. But something notable had changed: Civil society just does not take it anymore. Increasingly, people from all communities are speaking up against the ugly face of racism, whether it is blackfacing, ethnic profiling or the derogatory portrayal of black people in popular literature.
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