Conference held at the University of Leipzig, Germany, July 5-8, 2000. Sponsored by the GHI and the Fritz Thyssen Foundation. Conveners: Hartmut Keil (University of Leipzig) and Vera Lind (GHI). Presenters: Britta Behmer (University of Munich), Robin Blackburn (University of Essex), Carol Blackshire-Belay (Indiana State University), Benjamin Braude (Boston College), Annette Brauerhoch (Columbia University), George M. Fredrickson (Stanford University), Maria Hoehn (Vassar College), Russell Kazal (Beaver College), Egbert Klautke (Centre Marc Bloch, Berlin), Andrea Mehrlaender (Stiftung Leucorea, Wittenberg), Martin Oefele (University of Leipzig), Heike Paul (University of Leipzig), Matthias Reiss (University of the Bundeswehr, Hamburg), Jeffrey L. Sammons (Yale University), Jeffrey T. Sammons (New York University), Timothy Schroer (University of Virginia), Jon F. Sensbach (University of Florida).
Growing interest in and new research on the relationships between Germans, German-Americans, and African Americans prompted the conveners to invite to Leipzig a distinguished group of scholars from Germany and the United States. In Germany today the debate over naturalization and citizenship reflects an increased awareness not only of ethnic diversity in contemporary German society but also of the historical developments of ethnocentrism, anti-Semitism, and racism. In the United States historians have stressed the issue of race relations in their research for well over a generation. In recent years many immigrant, labor, and cultural historians have attempted to overcome the limited perspective of concentrating on one ethnic group. They have instead looked at the importance of ethnicity and racism as general factors leading toward integration as well as separation in the creation of an ethnic American identity.
In his keynote address George M. Fredrickson portrayed racism as a relatively modern construct, with Jews and blacks as the principle victims. He argued for studying the two groups comparatively. Tracing the origins of anti-Semitism back to the fourteenth century and drawing comparisons between the exclusion of Jews with the enslavement of Africans, Fredrickson showed how white supremacy slowly developed as a dominating culture. He also stressed the close connection between civic/ethnic rationalism, democracy, and the cultural achievements of society, on the one hand, and the development of hierarchical rankings and white supremacy, on the other.
Russell Kazal opened the first session with a case study of the changing identities of German Catholic immigrants in Philadelphia in the nineteenth century. His paper looked at the connection of this process to the migration of blacks into the same neighborhoods. His microhistorical approach showed how the development of an American identity greatly depended on racial prejudice. In this process, ethnic categories changed to race categories, which allowed the integration of other white immigrant groups, but drew a heavy color line and excluded blacks. This development can be traced back to the early nineteenth century and to the other side of the Atlantic: Egbert Klautke pointed out the absence of references toward race in German Amerikabücher, information books on the New World. Like Americans, many Germans excluded blacks because they did not fit into their picture of this country as the center of modernity. Focusing on the view of a different social group of German immigrants toward African Americans, Hartmut Keil portrayed the antislavery efforts of many intellectual German immigrants of 1848 in the pre-Civil War era. From their most important communication medium, the Allgemeine Zeitung, it is clear, that they drew a distinction between slavery and race questions, which led to their active support of abolitionism but reluctance to guarantee slaves civil rights.
Session Two again dealt with German immigrants and race issues but on a more individual level: Britta Behmer pointed out the contradictions in Ottilie Assing's newspaper articles against slavery, her relationship to Frederick Douglass, and her views on other social problems. Assing's abolitionist views were accompanied by harsh words for the suffrage movement and racism toward Douglass's wife. Martin Oefele analyzed the wartime diaries of two German officers serving in African-American units during the Civil War. These officers had empathy for the soldiers and tried to educate them, but they also complained about disciplinary and performance problems. Most notable is the absence of any reflection on the perspective of the black soldiers in the diaries. Andrea Mehrlaender was able to trace the view of an aristocratic female German immigrant toward race through family correspondence. For over a decade Louise von Seibold, who owned a plantation and slaves in the Mississippi Delta, completely adopted Southern stereotypes of blacks.
Session Three focused on images of blacks in nineteenth-century German popular literature. Heike Paul analyzed travel literature and showed that the discussion of general cultural contact rather than race dominated the narrative. This literature included criticism of slavery but also accepted it as part of the cultural landscape of the United States. Nineteenth-century German novels voiced a more diverse view: As Jeffrey L. Sammons pointed out, from Friedrich Gerstäcker to Karl May, these texts include utopian and Rousseauian views of blacks and antislavery remarks, as well as typical racist comments of the day.
Session Four examined modern perceptions of blacks. Benjamin Braude traced the Biblical story of the curse of Ham through its depiction over several centuries. Though the story was used early on to justify slavery, racial depictions of Ham are not to be found until the seventeenth century, and it is not until the middle of the the nineteenth century that Ham finally became black. Two papers focused on eighteenth-century German attitudes toward Africans on each side of the Atlantic. Vera Lind explored the topic of African Americans and Africans who served in the German military or worked as servants for the aristocracy. These blacks achieved a relatively high status and integration into German society, with baptism as the key "rite of passage" necessary for acceptance. But despite this acceptance, they could never escape the dependency on their sponsor's good will in this hierarchical society. Jon F. Sensbach concentrated on the attitude of early German immigrants in America toward slavery and pointed out their flexible, sometimes overlapping perception. Protests against slavery were followed by enslaving blacks, due to a shortage of German servants after the Seven Years' War. A significant influence on German immigrant attitudes toward blacks until the nineteenth century was the German-Moravian church, which attempted to Christianize blacks in North America. On a more general level, Robin Blackburn argued for a comparative study of slavery in the Americas focusing on the enslavement of indigenous people by the Spanish in South America and Africans in North America.
Session Five included papers about black athletes at the 1936 Berlin Olympics and the search for identity of Afro-Germans today. Jeffrey T. Sammons stressed the important role African American participation in the Olympics played in equality and citizenship within American society. He focused on the famous myth that Hitler refused to shake Jesse Owens's hand after Owens had won his four gold medals. In fact, Hitler had simply gone home by the time Owens had won his events. The story did not put the Nazi side of the event into focus but instead served as a powerful myth of black performance and achievements. Carol Blackshire-Belay analyzed the living conditions of the 500,000 Afro-Germans in Germany and their quest for reclaiming their history and identity as black Germans. The lack of awareness among Germans of several generations of Afro-Germans has re-enforced stereotypes and racism among white Germans and confounded an already difficult struggle for identity among black Germans. The Initiative Schwarzer Deutscher, founded in 1986, is making an effort to change the situation, however.
In Session Six, Maria Hoehn showed what the factor "race" meant for the experience of the 30,000 black GIs, who served in Germany in the 1950s. From interviews she conducted with the ex-soldiers, an extremely positive image of their time in Germany emerged, dominated by experiences of liberation and more racial equality. Nonetheless, outbreaks of racial violence, in which German and American racism interacted, occurred and were regularly covered up by the U.S. military. Giving the German perspective from the other side of the Atlantic, Matthias Reiss concentrated on the complicated relationship between German prisoners of war and blacks in the segregated American South during World War II. Despite little contact between the two groups, German POWs noted the kind behavior of blacks toward them (quite contrary to Nazi propaganda), and how blacks viewed them as equals, since they were prisoners and did the work in the fields usually reserved for blacks. Germans also observed racism in American society, for example, when the U.S. Army decided not to use blacks as guards for POWs, and noted how this contradicted what the Americans taught them in their re-education program.
The last session brought up the topic of sex and race: The many relationships between German women and black American soldiers after World War II rarely received coverage by the German media, as Annette Brauerhoch pointed out. Moreover, on the rare occasion when these relationships were discussed, journalists and film makers relied on sexist and racist portrayals of these involved. Timothy Schroer analyzed the rhetoric of a conflict between German police and American military police in Bavaria involving the relationships of German women and black soldiers. He concluded that interracial sex was viewed as something dangerous and fearful for German society.
The conference ended with a roundtable discussion on the general concept of terms like "race" and "racism." It was proposed that scholars should drop the term "race" from the research agenda, because it describes something that does not exist, and tends to separate rather than include groups of people. On the concept of "race" describing something physical opposed to "ethnicity" as a cultural concept, comparisons were drawn to the distinction between "sex" and "gender", in which "sex" is equally questioned as non-existent in reality. But the participants agreed on the importance of the term "racism," because it does describe reality in many societies. The importance of the interrelation between "racism" and "nationalism" was stressed, as well as the need for further research on the topic.
All in all, the conference brought together many scholars who are engaged in new, original research on blacks and Germans. The focus was therefore on discussing research results and the emergence of fascinating new details on encounters between Germans, Americans, Africans, and African Americans, rather than the evaluation of theoretical concepts. The papers cohered nicely, which allowed participants to refer repeatedly to the presentations of others. This stimulated thought-provoking and far-reaching discussions in this fairly new field of historical and literary inquiry. Leipzig, the beautifully restored eastern German city, added to the enjoyable atmosphere of the conference.
Vera Lind