German atrocities against "colored" POWs

[formerly known as HETMAN]

I once read an article in the Polish weekly Polityka about this. Apparently, the Germans often just shot POWs of African or Indian descent that served in the French and British forces. In that article there was a story about a couple of French Africans who escaped an execution and were taken in by a Polish family in Silesia. They lived in their cellar until the end of the war. I may have got the details all mixed up, but I'll try and look for the story to check them. Anyone else hear tales like this? What about black Americans who fell into German hands? What happend to them?

[Ovidius]

Apparently, the Germans often just shot POWs of African or Indian descent that served in the French and British forces

Then from where did they took the men to form the Waffen SS Indian Legion?

http://www.wssob.com/000legind.html

~Ovidius

[formerly known as HETMAN]

Having a small unit of Indians, who didn't do much during the war except serve as propaganda puppets, and shooting "colored" POWs are two very different issues. There were Jews who served in the Wehrmacht too, but we all know what the Nazis did to Jews.

[wildboar]

Hello HETMAN ,

There is no record of germans shooting indian pows ,infact when i asked indian veterans of world war ii about treatment of pows by axis nations they told me that worst treatement was given by the japanese ,and the german treatment of pows was much fair & better as compared with the japanese.
Also both Germany and British india were signatory of GENEVA CONVENTION so there is no possibility of such things occuring .

by the way can you provide some detailed tranlation of polish article?


cheers

wildboar

[Scott Smith]

I’m not aware of any atrocities against American Jews or Blacks by the Germans; the USA was a signatory to the Geneva conventions, as Wildboar notes. As far as “colonials,” they were despised as foreign legionnaires by all Europeans of the time, not just the Germans, and it was considered bad form to use colonials in Europe. The British did not use Gurkhas in Europe, IIRC. In WWI, the Algerians fighting for the French in France were especially hated and were alleged to be especially barbaric. However, I can’t think of any atrocities in WWII upon French or English auxiliaries specific to national origin.

[Rob S.]

I don't believe I've ever heard anything against blacks during WW2 excluding American segregation. I've never seen any anti-black propaganda nor have I heard of any quotes against them from a German person. Neo-nazis are the one's who hate them, not the historical ones.

This is a picture of a volunteer Indian infantry group. Notice the turban.

[Scott Smith]

I don't believe I've ever heard anything against blacks during WW2 excluding American segregation. I've never seen any anti-black propaganda nor have I heard of any quotes against them from a German person. Neo-nazis are the one's who hate them, not the historical ones.

I agree, although Hitler notes in Mein Kampf that the Germans did not appreciate French colonial occupation troops in the Rhineland. And of course the Jews were given the blame for thereby bringing negroes into the Rhineland, as per the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion.

Goggi, our past forum member, emeritus, noted that during the 1945 occupation he remembers the black American troops treating the defeated and despised Germans with grace and humanity, which he really appreciated in those sad times. No Morgenthau Plan for them.

[Ovidius]

I don't believe I've ever heard anything against blacks during WW2 excluding American segregation. I've never seen any anti-black propaganda nor have I heard of any quotes against them from a German person. Neo-nazis are the one's who hate them, not the historical ones.

I agree, although Hitler notes in Mein Kampf that the Germans did not appreciate French colonial occupation troops in the Rhineland. And of course the Jews were given the blame for thereby bringing negroes into the Rhineland, as per the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion.

Goggi, our past forum member, emeritus, noted that during the 1945 occupation he remembers the black American troops treating the defeated and despised Germans with grace and humanity, which he really appreciated in those sad times. No Morgenthau Plan for them.

As I've already said in the old forum, Hitler's ranting(shared by many other Germans) against the French Colonial Blacks in Rhineland did not came from their color, but from the fact they were African mercenaries - zouaves - reputedly violent, uneducated and barbaric, who caused a lot of trouble even in France. (A little Off-Topic: when a place in France - such as a tavern - was designated pour les zouaves, it was of the lowest category and most dangerous )

The Germans treated the Blacks in Germany - over 200,000, many former German colonials with German citizenship - rather good, allowing them to serve in the Wehrmacht and to vote. I wonder how many of the Blacks voted in 1932 for the NSDAP

Jesse Owens said he was treated better in Germany that in his own country unlike the legend of Hitler refusing to acknowledge his sucesses, which I had made the stupidity to believe, to the great fun of fellow member Dan

~Ovidius

[mike262752]

Explanation: A tied-up Nazi watches while a Jew reading the Berliner Tageblatt, which the Nazis accused of being a Jewish paper, mistreats a Germany chained to the Treaty of Versailles. The Jew is probably supposed to be a journalist, since he is smearing Gemany with his pen. A Black French colonial soldier and another figure (either a policeman or a soldier) assist.



Caption: "Hey Bimbo, look at the funny factories they have here in Europe!" There was a flurry of cartoons on this theme. The Americans were sending ignorant black soldiers to destroy the cultured lands of Europe (led by Germany). This was a throwback to earlier Nazi propaganda against French colonial troops from Africa which had made up part of the occupation force after World War I.


All the text and pictures above are from http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/index.htm

It has a lot of propaganda.


From what I get out of the above is that blacks were looked on as subhumans but not as any real enemy. I have seen a few pictures of French pows marching into captivity with a few blacks among them. the German soldiers standing around them didnt seem to be paying them any attention.

mike

[James]

Scott:

Regarding German misconduct being selectively directed against Jewish prisoners of war, there are reported instances. The one best known happened to American prisoners at the camp at Berga. One of several sites that discuss it is at

http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/Holocaust/berga.html

[michael mills]

James wrote:

Regarding German misconduct being selectively directed against Jewish prisoners of war, there are reported instances. The one best known happened to American prisoners at the camp at Berga. One of several sites that discuss it is at

The information on the site is interesting, but what struck me was:

1. The US authorities do not seem to believe the story told by the American Jewish POWs;
2. Those POWs did not testify at the trial of the two German officials in charge of the labour camp at Berga;
3. The death sentences of those two officials, perhaps handed down in the immediate post-war hysteria, were later commuted on the grounds that they were not warranted by the evidence.

The above points seem to cast doubt on the claims made by the POWs that they received abnormally bad treatment because of their Jewishness. Perhaps they were not satisfied with having been "just" POWs and wished to share the experience of their fellow Jews if only in retrospect.

Here in Australia we have had a couple of instances of former members of the Australian Armed Forces who were indeed POWs in Germany claiming to have been sent to Auschwitz and/or Theresienstadt. Their claims, although not definitively disproved, have been subjected to criticism. One claimed to have been a stoker in the crematoria at Birkenau.

[kelty90]

Dear Scott Smith.
Assuming Italy is in Europe, then the British used considerable numbers of colonial troops in Europe. There were at least four Indian Infantry divisions alone, with Baluchi, Sikh, Mahratta, and Punjabi soldiers, and a lot of Gurkha Regiments were there.
You will also find large numbers of French North-African units deployed in Italy.The United States of course had ethnic Japanese soldiers.

[Timo]

I’m not aware of any atrocities against American Jews or Blacks by the Germans

On December 17, 1944, 11 African-American soldiers were brutally murdered in the Belgian hamlet of Wereth. The massacre was later investigated as a war crime, but prosecutors did not pursue the case, because they did not think the perpetrators could be identified. It now seems clear that the 11 soldiers were betrayed by a local resident who had befriended them, and that members of either Kampfgruppe Hansen or Kampfgruppe Knittel committed the crime.

The massacre victims were members of the 333rd Field Artillery. Before the US Army was desegregated, the 333rd was made up of black servicemen commanded by white officers. No officers were killed at Wereth and all the murdered artillerymen were members of the battalion's service battery.

They were:
Private Curtis Adams,
Corporal Mager Bradley,
Pfc George Davis,
Staff Sgt. Thomas J. Forte,
Tech 5 Robert L. Green,
Pfc James Leatherwood,
Private Nathaniel Moss,
Pfc George W Moten,
Private William E. Pritchett,
Tech 4 James A. Stewart and
Pfc Due W Turner.

On 16.12.1944, these men were in firing positions east of the Our River. At first light the next day, they were still in place, though German penetrations on either side imperiled their positions. Between 8:30 and 9 a.m. on the 17th, the service battery of the 333rd received orders to move to Schonberg, Belgium, which was the battalion's alternate position. As it was leaving, the battery came under intense mortar and small-arms fire from approaching German infantry. According to the after-action report, the battery commander, Captain Robert C. Murphy, was absent during the attack. So another officer, Captain James A. Edmond- son, ordered the battery's equipment destroyed and its personnel to withdraw on foot. Only Edmondson, 27 enlisted men and a medic succeeded in rejoining the battalion at the rally point.

The 11 members of the 333rd who were massacred must have wandered across the forested terrain of eastern Belgium the rest of the day. At 4 0' clock that afternoon they approached a farmhouse in Wereth owned by Mathias Langer. The 11 men had just two rifles with them and made no effort to use them, Langer later said. They approached with their hands in the air and bearing a white flag. Finding no Germans at the house, the Americans stayed about 45 minutes, eating food given to them by Langer's wife, Maria. Another woman, Maria Mattes, was also present. Presumably, she was visiting the Langers.

What happened next can be ascertained from statements the three Belgians gave U.S. Army officers on February 19, 1945. According to Dessente, the statements suggest that one of the three betrayed the soldiers. "Four or five Germans came...looking for the Negroes," said Langer, "who ran outside and put up their hands. The Germans searched the Negroes, took off their helmets and made them sit on the ground, which was extremely cold and wet, for about an hour until dark. After it became dark, the men were lined up on the street and made to run in I front of the vehicle carrying. The German soldiers. Neither I nor any members of my family ever saw the Negro soldiers alive again." In the early darkness, the Germans, driving an amphibious Schwimmwagen, herded the artillerymen toward a country lane about 75 yards from the main highway, which passed through Wereth on the way to Hallenfeld and larger town of Heppenbach. The nature of the victims' wounds hints at the sequence of events. Perhaps Private Pritchett did not drive fast enough to suit his captors, because when he was found, both his legs were broken as if he had been hit by the Schwimmwagen. He died from a blow to his head made by a blunt instrument, likely a rifle butt. Six others died the same way. Some were shot, and some had bayonet wounds in their heads, arms and hands.

The snow-covered bodies lay in the lane for almost two months. They were discovered by American infantry on February 13, 1945, some weeks after the German offensive had failed. Several officers, including Herbert Peterfund and John Polachek, examined the bodies. The two first lieutenants later took statements from Martesand the Langers, which Dessente believes reveal the identity of the traitor and the German unit responsible for the murders. Dessente, a native of Belgium, notes it is no secret that many of the German-speaking inhabitants of eastern Belgium were German sympathizers during World War II.

He also finds it very strange that the Langers and Mattes were not harmed by German troops for hosting and feeding the 11 Americans. In addition, the Langers had other reasons to be worried about German troops. According to reports from the com- missioner of the ward of Liege, hiding in the hayloft of the Langer barn at the time of the incident were Belgian men trying to evade forced labor in German factories.

This speaks favorably of the Langers and their intentions. Mathias Langer's later actions also indicate he felt shame about the incident with the African-American soldiers. American troops had passed through the area three weeks before the bodies were found, but Langer made no attempt to tell the soldiers what he knew.

It was only after the Americans came looking for witnesses that Langer spoke up. But even then, some of his information was vague. For instance, he was sure the Germans in question were SS troops but merely suggested a unit. "They had SS insignia on their collars and rode in a small amphibian vehicle," he said. "They came from Halenfeld. I believe they were 9th SS Panzer Division "Hohenstauffen" men, but have no recollection of their insignia or otherwise."

Martes, on the other hand, clearly remembered, which troops were in the area. Her statement reads: "They were SS troops. All the above happened on Sunday, 17.12.1944. On Monday, paratroopers came and, on Tuesday, Hohenstauffen men. The first units to come to our vicinity were Panzer units, I believe."
Martes' account is borne out by other sources. German paratroopers, members of the 3rd Parachute Division, were spotted west of Wereth by the 18th U.S. Reconnaissance Squadron on December 17. The 3rd Parachute passed through Wereth on Monday, December 18.

During the afternoon of 17.12, elements of SS-Panzergrenadier-Regiment 1 LSSAH (Kampfgruppe Hansen), rumbled through Wereth. They were followed by the "Spitze" of Kampfgruppe Knittel. They passed Wereth in the afternoon. On 19.12, records show that the 9th SS Panzer Division Hohenstauffen (Sylvester Stadler) went through Wereth. The columns of Kampfgruppe Peiper did not go through Wereth, but along its assigned route a few miles to the north. Since the only German troops in Wereth in the afternoon of 17.12 were those commanded by Knittel and Hansen, it seems clear that some members of their units were responsible for the murder of the members of the 333rd in Wereth.

Martes continued: "1 was present at the home of Mathias Langer when the 11 Negro soldiers came in and were fed. That was the last time I saw them alive. I left soon there- after and was walking down the road when some German soldiers rode up in a vehicle. The leader, a sergeant, accosted me with 'Heil Hitler' and then asked about the American soldiers. I told him the soldiers had gone, which was untrue. The vehicle, , however, continued on its way and the 1 Germans picked up the Americans at the Langer home. The Americans were taken 1 away and found dead the next day." Dessente observes that Martes not only knew in what order the German troops went through Wereth, but she also recognized the rank of the man she talked to. This was something Langer could not do. Dessente also wonders why an SS sergeant would have saluted a Belgian woman with "Heil Hitler," unless he was returning a salute she had made first. According to Martes' statement, the SS already knew about the presence of the American soldiers. But how could they have known before speaking to Martes? She told Peterfreund that she had said the Americans had already left. But the Germans went directly to pick the soldiers up.

Circumstances strongly suggest one of them was a German sympathizer who told about soldiers at the home of the Langers

[Birgitte Heuschkel]

Assuming Italy is in Europe, then the British used considerable numbers of colonial troops in Europe. There were at least four Indian Infantry divisions alone, with Baluchi, Sikh, Mahratta, and Punjabi soldiers, and a lot of Gurkha Regiments were there.

I was going to say, British officer John Masters' autobiography mentions fighting Germans in Europe, in his Gurkha regiment.

[Scott Smith]

Dear Scott Smith.
Assuming Italy is in Europe, then the British used considerable numbers of colonial troops in Europe. There were at least four Indian Infantry divisions alone, with Baluchi, Sikh, Mahratta, and Punjabi soldiers, and a lot of Gurkha Regiments were there.
You will also find large numbers of French North-African units deployed in Italy.The United States of course had ethnic Japanese soldiers.

Kelty and Birgitte, thanks for the information on the Gurkhas. I did not think they actually fought in Europe.

Also, I did not realize that Japanese-American troops were colonial soldiers. Ha Ha.

Best Regards,
Scott