Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Table of Contents
- Translator's Preface
- Dedication
- Black German
- White Mother, Black Father
- Our Roots in Cameroon
- My Father's Story
- The Human Menagerie
- School
- The Reichstag is Burning
- Circus Child
- The Death of My Father
- Berlin-Karlshorst
- Undesirable
- As an “Ethiopian” in Sweden
- On My Knees in Gratitude
- The Lord is My Shepherd
- The Nuremberg Laws
- War Begins
- Hotel Excelsior
- Munich
- Hotel Alhambra
- Cinecittà
- Münchhausen
- Thoughts Are Free
- Forced Laborer
- New Quarters
- Air Raid
- Fear, Nothing but Fear
- Aryans
- A Miracle
- Liberated! Liberated?
- The Russians
- Dosvidanya
- Victors and Non-Victors
- Mixed Feelings
- Lessons in Democracy
- Displaced Person
- A Fateful Meeting
- An Excursion
- A New Family
- Butzbach
- Disasters Big and Small
- A Job with the US Army
- A Meeting with Some “Countrymen”
- Show Business
- Reunion with My Brother and Sister
- Workless
- Theater
- Radio
- Television
- Hard Times
- In the Sanatorium
- A Poisoned Atmosphere
- An Opportunity at Last
- The Decolonization of Africa
- Studying in Paris
- A New Beginning
- The Afrika-Bulletin
- Terra Incognita
- African Relations
- In My Father's Homeland
- Officer of the Federal Intelligence Service
- A New Afro-German Community
- Experiences
- Light and Dark
- Homestory Deutschland
- A Journey to the (Still) GDR
- Back to the Theater
- Loss and Renewal
- Last Roles
- Reflecting on My Life
- Thanks
- Explanatory Notes
- Chronology of Historical Events
- Further Reading in English
Aryans
from Black German
- Frontmatter
- Table of Contents
- Translator's Preface
- Dedication
- Black German
- White Mother, Black Father
- Our Roots in Cameroon
- My Father's Story
- The Human Menagerie
- School
- The Reichstag is Burning
- Circus Child
- The Death of My Father
- Berlin-Karlshorst
- Undesirable
- As an “Ethiopian” in Sweden
- On My Knees in Gratitude
- The Lord is My Shepherd
- The Nuremberg Laws
- War Begins
- Hotel Excelsior
- Munich
- Hotel Alhambra
- Cinecittà
- Münchhausen
- Thoughts Are Free
- Forced Laborer
- New Quarters
- Air Raid
- Fear, Nothing but Fear
- Aryans
- A Miracle
- Liberated! Liberated?
- The Russians
- Dosvidanya
- Victors and Non-Victors
- Mixed Feelings
- Lessons in Democracy
- Displaced Person
- A Fateful Meeting
- An Excursion
- A New Family
- Butzbach
- Disasters Big and Small
- A Job with the US Army
- A Meeting with Some “Countrymen”
- Show Business
- Reunion with My Brother and Sister
- Workless
- Theater
- Radio
- Television
- Hard Times
- In the Sanatorium
- A Poisoned Atmosphere
- An Opportunity at Last
- The Decolonization of Africa
- Studying in Paris
- A New Beginning
- The Afrika-Bulletin
- Terra Incognita
- African Relations
- In My Father's Homeland
- Officer of the Federal Intelligence Service
- A New Afro-German Community
- Experiences
- Light and Dark
- Homestory Deutschland
- A Journey to the (Still) GDR
- Back to the Theater
- Loss and Renewal
- Last Roles
- Reflecting on My Life
- Thanks
- Explanatory Notes
- Chronology of Historical Events
- Further Reading in English
Summary
There were a lot of newspaper reports in those days about a certain Subhas Chandra Bose, who was trying to organize Indian soldiers from the British army who had been captured in North Africa into a legion to serve the German war effort. At first the Indian Legion was a unit of the Wehrmacht, the German army, but it later became part of the SS. Subhas Chandra Bose, born 1897, was one of the leaders of the Indian independence movement, along with Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru. In 1938 he was elected President of the Indian National Congress (INC). He was Nehru's main rival in the INC leadership. While Bose argued that the best way to achieve independence was to form an alliance with the Axis powers, Nehru took the view that independence could not be achieved against the power of Great Britain but only by working with Britain. Bose died in a plane crash in 1945. (In other versions he died in a submarine.) After the war the British tried several officers of the “Jai Hind” (Bose's movement) before a military tribunal on charges of treason, high treason and desertion. But they were acquitted. Subhas Chandra Bose is still very popular in India. They said that Bose had even been received by Hitler. Pictures of the first “Jai Hind” volunteers were published in the newspapers. Among them were a lot of dark-skinned Indians who hardly looked any different from me.
Now I understood Nazi racial policy even less than I had before. On the one hand non-white people were persecuted, and on the other they were welcomed with open arms if they joined the war on the side of the Germans. What were the selection criteria? Other people were asking the same questions. The commentaries and editorials provided the answer: irrespective of their appearance, Indians belong to the Indo-Germanic race, and their language, Sanskrit, goes back to the language of the Aryans, and so they are Aryans too. Period! By this criterion the Sinti, so-called “Gypsies”, must also be “authentic” descendants of the original “Aryans”. Their language also goes back to Sanskrit.
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- Black GermanAn Afro-German Life in the Twentieth Century By Theodor Michael, pp. 92 - 94Publisher: Liverpool University PressPrint publication year: 2017