Utterly beyond belief the French SS volunteers..madness!

I confirm and this is their unit "Sonderverband 287 was raised from Arabs living in Europe, and was based in Athens, Greece. They fought in the Caucasus in Russia and later in Yugoslavia in anti-partisan operations."

ARABS VOLUNTEERS OF THE WEHRMACHT: THE "KODAT" « War and Game

 

Where there any Arabs,Africans, Indians etc... fighting amongst Native Germans in the Wehrmacht?

Now that you mention it, you can see the guy has Arab influence; though I did thought he was African at first.

 

No , from what I read the Sonderverband 287 was a Lehr Verband (school unit) with native recruits and German officers. I don't think they fought in regular units, because of the language barrier and also because of racial issues.

One should not confuse the Freies Arabien Verband and the Freies Indien one (AZAH HIND) . They were seperate units and they did not mix. The Arab Verband was set in Tunesia just before the collapse of the Afrika Korps and the volunteers were sent to Greece to prevent them from going back home more than send them to war. As you can see on the picture they were unloading soup , so not exactly the glory they could have expected .... I suppose that those being from French colonies spoke some French besides their native language.

 

Well, outside the Reich deviations from the Nazi racial policy were obviously possible. But there is yet another story about the life of a boy born in a mixed marriage between well-to-do African father and German mother. He has grown in the Nazi Germany.

He was always pointed at because of his exotic looks. He just wanted to be like everyone else, like other boys, he wanted nothing more than to join the Hitlerjugend (Hitler Youth Movement). Ofcourse, it was a crushing blow when he learned that the Hitlerjugend as well as the local playground were not open to "non-Aryans."

The name of a boy was Hans Massaquoi, former managing editor of Ebony magazine. He has described his troubles in a book entittled »Growing Up Black in Nazi Germany«.

 

Many French African troops stayed behind In Germany after WWI and married German women.

 

Thanks for posting the article it is very enlightening.

 

Your post reminded me of an exchange student at my High School in S. CA, in the early 60’s.
The kid was from Uganda and just wanted to be a teenager, but the “elites” in our school (which had no black students) used every opportunity to put him on a stage. I’m guessing, due to the racial turmoil of the era, they wanted to prove how “evolved” they were.
I had classes with the kid and he was embarrassed by the whole thing, of course his feelings didn’t stop them.