African Wearing Luftwaffe Uniform

[AlifRafikKhan]

Does someone knows the story behind this picture? I've never seen blacks wearing Luftwaffe uniform...

Source: http://reibert.info/threads/chej-voenny ... 17/page-21

[nordfriese]

Hi!

Maybe this is a hint...

From the book:
K.-O. Hoffmann - Geschichte der Luftnachrichtentruppe
Band II - Part 1 - P. 201

Olt Rödel (JG 27) told the Author, that the 'Staffeln' had observation-posts against
enemy air-raids. To make life in Afrika a bit "easier", the posts had some "boys" (he
discribed them as 'eager Negroarabs').

After a while these 'boys' found out, what the job of their 'masters' was, so they
were very eager to do their job as 'Luftspäher' and 'Flugmelder' (air-observation).
After a while the Germans found out, that these volunteer air-scouts had better
eyes and ears than themself and that they were able to identify incoming aircrafts
much earlier by shouting and waving with their hands in their direction.

Maybe they wore this "kind of uniform"...

Best wishes to Indonesia
Rolf

[Urmel]

The building doesn't look like North Africa though.

[AlifRafikKhan]

Hi Rolf, thank you for the explanation. Maybe this could be the answer. I remember one of the kind (in fact, the most famous) of Hans-Joachim Marseille's black servant, Mathew "Mathias" Letulu, also from JG 27...

Best wishes from Indonesia

Urmel: Maybe the blacks were then taken to the continent? Looks like some ceremony or something (he's holding a flower)...

[GregSingh]

Looks like a hoax to me. Picture is probably Photoshopped...

[Webdragon2013]

It's pretty well known that the Wehrmacht in African campaign relied on local auxiliaries for various tasks.
In fact they did this everywhere they went (eastern front), no matter the race of the person involved.

This is just a guess, but you can see the uniform is atypical. It's not a "full uniform", which is typical when you quickly give an auxiliary a German vest and trousers, so that militarily at least he can be identified as being part of the German camp (otherwise would be illegal under laws of war).

The hat also looks like nothing I've seen in the German military. Looks like a local hat on which the Luftwaffe Symbol has been put.

[Maxschnauzer]

It's pretty well known that the Wehrmacht in African campaign relied on local auxiliaries for various tasks.
In fact they did this everywhere they went (eastern front), no matter the race of the person involved.

This is just a guess, but you can see the uniform is atypical. It's not a "full uniform", which is typical when you quickly give an auxiliary a German vest and trousers, so that militarily at least he can be identified as being part of the German camp (otherwise would be illegal under laws of war).

The hat also looks like nothing I've seen in the German military. Looks like a local hat on which the Luftwaffe Symbol has been put.

I'm also wondering about his "rank" insignia which looks like a feldwebel with a stabsfeldwebel's pip (or something) underneath..

[clement]

Hi Rolf, thank you for the explanation. Maybe this could be the answer. I remember one of the kind (in fact, the most famous) of Hans-Joachim Marseille's black servant, Mathew "Mathias" Letulu, also from JG 27...

I agree with AlifRafikKhan ,just a servant