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People with African roots living or born in Germany
Ethnic group
Afro-Germans, player of the German national football team
Over 1,000,000[1] Germany (Berlin, Cologne, Stuttgart, Bremen, Hanover, Frankfurt, Düsseldorf, Munich, Braunschweig, Nuremberg, Hamburg) German, English, French, African languages Islam, Lutheranism, Roman CatholicismAfro-Germans (German: Afrodeutsche) or Black Germans (German: schwarze Deutsche) are German Citizens of Sub-Saharan African descent.
Cities such as Hamburg and Frankfurt, which were formerly centres of occupation forces following World War II and more recent immigration, have substantial Afro-German communities. With modern trade and migration, communities such as Frankfurt, Berlin, Munich, and Cologne have an increasing number of Afro-Germans. As of 2020[update], in a country with a population of 83,000,000, there were over 1,000,000 Afro-Germans. (The German census does not use race as a category).[2] The number of persons "having an extended migrant background" (mit Migrationshintergrund im weiteren Sinn, meaning having at least one grandparent born outside Germany), is given as over 1,000,000 [1] The Initiative Schwarzer Deutscher ("Black German Initiative") estimates the total of Black Germans to be over 1,000,000 persons.[1]
Number City Number(total) 2 largest nationalities from Africa 1 Berlin 115,000 Nigeria and Ghana 2 Hamburg 55,500 Ghana and Nigeria 3 Cologne 30,000 Morocco and Nigeria 4 Munich 26,500 Nigeria and Ethiopia 5 Frankfurt am Main 23,100 Morocco and Eritrea 6 Bremen 20,500 Ghana and Nigeria 7 Düsseldorf 19,200 Morocco and Nigeria 8 Hanover 18,700 Ghana and Nigeria 9 Stuttgart 18,400 Nigeria and Egypt 10 Dortmund 17,900 Morocco and Ghana 11 Essen 17,300 Cameroon and Nigeria 12 Nuremberg 16,800 Ethiopia and Eritrea 13 Braunschweig 15,300 Tunisia and Cameroon 14 Mannheim 15,200 Eritrea and Morocco 15 Duisburg 14,700 Nigeria and Eritrea 16 Bonn 14,500 Morocco and Tunisia 17 Karlsruhe 13,600 Eritrea and Morocco 18 Kiel 13,400 Ghana and Nigeria 19 Bochum 13,400 Ghana and Cameroon 20 Wiesbaden 12,800 Morocco and Eritrea 21 Aachen 12,200 Morocco and Nigeria Africans in Germany African-German interaction from 1600 to late 1800s[edit]During the 1720s, Ghana-born Anton Wilhelm Amo was sponsored by a German duke to become the first African to attend a European university; after completing his studies, he taught and wrote in philosophy.[3] Later, Africans were brought as slaves from the western coast of Africa where a number of German estates were established, primarily on the Gold Coast. After King Friedrich Wilhelm I of Prussia sold his Ghana Groß Friedrichsburg estates in Africa in 1717, from which up to 30,000 people had been sold to the Dutch East India Company, the new owners were bound by contract to "send 12 negro boys, six of them decorated with golden chains," to the king. The enslaved children were brought to Potsdam and Berlin.[4]
Africans and German interaction between 1884 and 1945[edit] Paul Friedrich Meyerheim: In der Tierbude (In the menagerie), Berlin, 1894At the 1884 Berlin Congo conference, attended by all major powers of the day, European states divided Africa into areas of influence which they would control. Germany controlled colonies in the African Great Lakes region and West Africa, from which numerous Africans migrated to Germany for the first time. Germany appointed indigenous specialists for the colonial administration and economy, and many young Africans went to Germany to be educated. Some received higher education at German schools and universities, but the majority were trained at mission training and colonial training centers as officers or domestic mission teachers. Africans frequently served as interpreters for African languages at German-Africa research centers, and with the colonial administration. Others migrated to Germany as former members of the German protection troops, the Askari.[citation needed]
The Afrikanisches Viertel in Berlin is also a legacy of the colonial period, with a number of streets and squares named after countries and locations tied to the German colonial empire. It is now home to a substantial portion of Berlin's residents of African heritage.
Interracial couples in the colonies were subjected to strong pressure in a campaign against miscegenation, which included invalidation of marriages, declaring the mixed-race children illegitimate, and stripping them of German citizenship.[5] During extermination of the Nama people in 1907 by Germany, the German director for colonial affairs, Bernhard Dernburg, stated that "some native tribes, just like some animals, must be destroyed".[6]
Map of Africa in 1914 with regions colonized by Germany shown in yellow.In the course of World War I, the Belgians, British and French took control of Germany's colonies in Africa. The situation for the African colonials in Germany changed in various ways. For example, Africans who possessed a colonial German identification card had a status entitling them to treatment as "members of the former protectorates". After the Treaty of Versailles (1919), the Africans were encouraged to become citizens of their respective mandate countries, but most preferred to stay where they were. In numerous petitions (well documented for German Togoland by P. Sebald and for Cameroon by A. Rüger), they tried to inform the German public about the conditions in the colonies, and continued to request German help and support.[citation needed]
Africans founded the bilingual periodical that was published in German and Duala: Elolombe ya Cameroon (Sun of Cameroon). A political group of Black Germans established the German branch of the Paris-based human-rights organization, Ligue de défense de la race nègre (Eng: League for the Defense of the Negro Race) as the Liga zur Verteidigung der Negerrasse, on September 17, 1929.[7]
Young Rhinelander who was classified as a bastard and hereditarily unfit under the Nazi regimeThe conditions for Afro-Germans in Germany grew worse during the Nazi period. Naturalized Afro-Germans lost their passports. Working conditions and travel were made extremely difficult for Afro-German musicians, variety, circus or film professionals. Because of Nazi policies, employers were unable to retain or hire Afro-German employees.[8][9]
Afro-Germans in Germany were socially isolated and forbidden to have sexual relations and marriages with Aryans by the Nuremberg Laws.[10][11] In continued discrimination directed at the so-called Rhineland bastards, Nazi officials subjected some 500 Afro-German children in the Rhineland to forced sterilization.[12] Afro-Germans were considered "enemies of the race-based state", along with Jews and Roma.[13] The Nazis originally sought to rid the German state of Jews and Romani by means of deportation (and later extermination), while Afro-Germans were to be segregated and eventually exterminated through compulsory sterilization.[13]
Some Black Germans who lived through this period later wrote about their experiences. In 1999 Hans Massaquoi published Destined to Witness about his life in Germany under Nazi rule, and in 2013 Theodor Wonja Michael, who was also the main witness in the documentary film Pages in the Factory of Dreams, published his autobiography, Deutsch Sein und Schwarz dazu.[14][15]
Steffi Jones, President of the Organizing Committee of the 2011 FIFA Women's World Cup and head coach of the Germany women's national football team from 2016 to 2018The end of World War II brought Allied occupation forces into Germany. American, British and French forces included numerous soldiers of African American, Afro-Caribbean or African descent, and some of them fathered children with ethnic German women. At the time, these armed forces generally maintained non-fraternization rules and discouraged civilian-soldier marriages. Around 5,000 of these biracial Afro-German children were born after the war by 1955.[16] Most single ethnic German mothers kept their "brown babies", but thousands were adopted by American families and grew up in the United States. Often they did not learn their full ancestry until reaching adulthood.
Until the end of the Cold War, the United States kept more than 100,000 U.S. soldiers stationed on German soil. During their stay, these men established their lives in Germany. They often brought families with them or founded new ones with ethnic German wives and children. The federal government of West Germany pursued a policy of isolating or removing from Germany those children that it described as "mixed-race negro children".[17]
Audre Lorde, Black American writer and activist, spent the years from 1984 to 1992 teaching at the Free University of Berlin. During her time in Germany, often called "The Berlin Years," she helped push the coining of the term "Afro-German" into a movement that addressed the intersectionality of race, gender, and sexual orientation. She encouraged Black German women such as May Ayim and Ika Hügel-Marshall to write and publish poems and autobiographies as a means of gaining visibility. She pursued intersectional global feminism and acted as an advocate for that movement in Germany.[citation needed]
Since 1981, Germany has seen immigration from African countries, mostly Nigeria, Eritrea and Ghana, who were seeking political asylum, work or studies in German universities.
Below are the largest (Sub-Saharan) African groups in Germany.[citation needed]
Country of birth Immigrants in Germany (2021 Census) Nigeria 83,000 Eritrea 75,000 Ghana 66,000 Cameroon 41,000 South Africa 34,000 Somalia 30,000 Ethiopia 27,000 Kenya 22,000 Togo 20,000 Gambia 16,000 Angola 15,000 Guinea 17,000 Senegal 15,000 Congo-Kinshasa 14,000 Congo-Brazzaville 10,000 Uganda 6,500 Ivory Coast 6,000 Sudan 5,000 Rwanda 5,000 Sierra Leone 4,000 Tanzania 4,100 Mali 4,000 Zimbabwe 3,715 Benin 3,000 Liberia 2,000 Burkina Faso 2,100 Mozambique 2,100 Burundi 1,000 Zambia 1,000 Racism and social status[edit]According to a survey conducted by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, which asked over 16.000 immigrants, including over 6.700 people born in sub-Saharan Africa, the highest rate of reported discrimination in the last years, was in German-Speaking Europe, particularly Germany with 54% reporting having experienced racist harassment, well above the EU average of 30%.[18]
Afro-Germans in literature[edit] Coat of arms of Coburg, 1493, depicting Saint MauriceThe cultural life of Afro-Germans is marked by great variety and complexity. With the emergence of MTV and Viva, the popularity of American pop culture promoted Afro-German representation in German media and culture.
May Ayim (1960-1996), was an Afro-German poet, educator and activist. She was co-editor of the book Farbe bekennen,[20] whose English translation was published as Showing Our Colors: Afro-German Women Speak Out.
Notable Afro-German musicians include:
Film and television[edit] Logo of SFD - Schwarze Filmschaffende in DeutschlandSFD - Schwarze Filmschaffende in Deutschland (Black Filmmakers in Germany) is a professional association based in Berlin for film directors, producers, screenwriters, and actors who are Afro-Germans or of Black African origin and living in Germany. They have organized the "New Perspectives" series at the Berlin International Film Festival.[21]
Notable Afro-Germans in film and television include:
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