> In fact, many former SS see themselves as victims of the Nazi regime who had little option beside follow orders (and maybe request transfer at their own peril). This is the critical problem with systematic, state sponsored murder...in many ways everyone is responsible and therefore legally its almost as if no one is responsible.

I thought exactly this. As a black man, my thoughts on Germans and Germany were and to a large extent still are fear. I'm not sure if I'd ever go simply because I don't know how I'd be perceived. Then I read Destined to Witness, the story of a biracial kid (White Mother, Black Father), growing up in Nazi fucking Germany. Holy shit that book was an eye-opener. What I took from it:

• Kind of like in North Korea today, a soldier not showing his patriotism during that time was almost signing a death sentence. The most fervent supporters of the Nazi movement were simply trying to outdo everyone else and not be seen as unpatriotic
  
  
• A good many of the Germans hated the whole war and openly attacked (verbally) the soldiers for getting them involved in the war in the first place
  
  
• Most thought Hitler was crazy but everyone knew expressing those opinions too openly was signing a death sentence
  
  
• Even back then, the author was able to attract white women. Love really does conquer all I guess.
  
  At least during early America when whites owned slaves you wouldn't be killed for deciding not to own them. During WWII, if you were a guard/soldier, I guess you had the option of either not following orders and being killed or participating in genocide. It truly is a fucked up position to be in if you think about it.

You'll probably find this book interesting: Destined to Witness, Growing up Black in Nazi Germany, by Hans J. Massaquoi...

https://www.amazon.com/Destined-Witness-Growing-Black-Germany/dp/0060959614

The blurb: "This is a story of the unexpected.In Destined to Witness, Hans Massaquoi has crafted a beautifully rendered memoir -- an astonishing true tale of how he came of age as a black child in Nazi Germany. The son of a prominent African and a German nurse, Hans remained behind with his mother when Hitler came to power, due to concerns about his fragile health, after his father returned to Liberia. Like other German boys, Hans went to school; like other German boys, he swiftly fell under the Fuhrer's spell. So he was crushed to learn that, as a black child, he was ineligible for the Hitler Youth. His path to a secondary education and an eventual profession was blocked. He now lived in fear that, at any moment, he might hear the Gestapo banging on the door -- or Allied bombs falling on his home. Ironic,, moving, and deeply human, Massaquoi's account of this lonely struggle for survival brims with courage and intelligence."

It was a good read! And should answer most of your questions.

I know your comment was sarcastic, but there is a really interesting book about a little black kid who grew up during the WWII under Hitler . It's a truly fascinating perspective.

I highly recommend the book "Destined to Witness" by Hans Massaquoi.

He grew up black in Nazi Germany. In the story, he relates being able to visit the "good" prostitutes in the part of town that was off limits to Germans. Because he was black, the cops assumed he wasn't German.

https://www.amazon.com/Destined-Witness-Growing-Black-Germany/dp/0060959614

Here you go, bud

I've heard only very little about this but, I heard that being black in Nazi Germany wasn't that big of a deal. A fellow wrote a book about being a black child in Germany there: http://www.amazon.com/Destined-Witness-Growing-Black-Germany/dp/0060959614

One of the best books I've ever read. This guy died a couple years ago here in LA.

His dad was an African businessman who worked with the Germany government and they lived in Germany. The whole story is about a black kid growing up in Nazi Germany and being in Hitler Youth. Check out this photo.

Destined to Witness: Growing Up Black in Nazi ... - Amazon

How One Boy Grew Up Black In Nazi Germany — And Survived

I can't believe no one has mentioned this.

There is is a very famous black German, who unfortunately recently died named:

Hans-Jüren Massaquoi, he grew up in Nazi Germany and even wanted to join the HJ Hitlerjugend and the Wehrmacht later on, he was rejected.

This is him:

Hans J. Massaquoi

And this is his book:

Destined To Witness


I can really recommend it with all my heart, if you're into history and maybe a different view on life and that time. It's highly addictive and one of the best books I have read.

LOL...
Thanks for taking the bait... and sorry for the delay.

It does sound highly unlikely.

Things usually are much more complex then people tend to believe and familiarity with anything older then 10 years is regrettably poor - if I may be allowed to whine for a moment. Believe me, you are in very ‘good’ company. Most Germans don’t know it either.

I responded from memory and will admit that allowing the impression to form, ‘blacks in the hitleryouth’ could have been a serious option was likely to be misleading in a double sense as it does not really address the point. I needed some cheep satisfaction due to my frustration with your post.

My only excuse is your foreseeable reaction leading to this ‘exposures’. So there you have it... LOL.

I remembered incorrectly however, that the man in question (Hans Massaquoi) ‘only’ made it into the “Deutsche Jungvolk”, a Nazi youth-organization for everyone rather then the actual “Hitlerjugend” (hitleryouth), which was a Nazi-youth organization and more exclusive as well as prestigious.

While I happily apologize for not checking on the correctness of my memory, I cannot apologize for allowing you to be misled temporarily, also because it is irrelevant for the point I was trying to make, which was: one can be ‘member’ of more then one of those ‘tribes’ with bizarrely conflicting interests, so bad, the resulting cognitive dissonance should be (and invariably eventually is) intolerable.
I was making this point because of what impressed me about your post as vastly overgeneralized and divorced from reality.

Here some links:

http://www.amazon.com/Destined-Witness-Growing-Black-Germany/dp/0060959614

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/9848505/Hans-Massaquoi.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Massaquoi

http://lernen-aus-der-geschichte.de/Lernen-und-Lehren/content/8247


While I was attempting to illustrate the same point with that second example, one can be much less excused to not know about Moslims serving the German Extermination-machinery for several reasons:

a) Black people in Germany at the time where a rarity. Estimates are around 20,000 (out of about 65,000,000). Therefore, most people remain unaware.

b) Although I’m not sure how many ‘homegrown’ Muslims existed in Germany at the time, some significant recruitment's were done within the European (probably also Arabian) Muslim communities and several ten-thousands served in various units within the SS.

See:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/13th_Waffen_Mountain_Division_of_the_SS_Handschar_%281st_Croatian%29

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/21st_Waffen_Mountain_Division_of_the_SS_Skanderbeg_%281st_Albanian%29

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waffen-SS_foreign_volunteers_and_conscripts

This is of course very inconvenient to remember - and the existence of the more active worshipers of the nazi delusions with the Muslim community at the time is usually denied and even more so the

This list is by no means complete and it seems that it was rather successfully exploiting historical differences and animosities. Hitlers machinery had a steady hunger for the gullible willing to do to the dirty work as knowledgeable locals and in a wider sense as tool of the final goal of exterminating what the deluded minds hallucinated to be the root of all evil: Jews and Slavs.

Insofar Muslim were plausible ally's and the then Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Amin al-Husseini [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Amin_al-Husayni] consequently tried to form a more lasting coalition with Hitler. However, not only did the ‘Grandest leader of all times’ in Germany start having more and more troubles on a much grander scale, he also did not like the whole thing so much in the end and the number of volunteers where just not exciting enough.

After the war the ‘favor’ was returned thousandfold by the King of Egypt and later Nassar. (For starters: http://www.expatica.com/nl/news/news_focus/Nile-Nazis_-Egypt-haven-for-German-war-criminals-_49361.html (much more can be told about the involvement of German war criminals in the Egyptian post war weapons production.))

This should suffice as attempt to illustrate that reality is usually much more complex then: “Here in Europe [...]”.

However, for the point I was trying to make that one can be ‘member’ of ‘tribes’ with conflicting ideas, this is all irrelevant.

Cheers, L