The treatment of blacks in Nazi Germany was generally indifferent. The main reason for this was the fluid, non-straightforward racial policies of the Nazis, which were influenced by daily politics, leading to complex and sometimes contradicting policies. The Nazi racial agenda considered blacks inferior to the Aryan race, but in reality they were often overlooked due to their low numbers when it came to actual implementation of government action and policies towards them. As result, blacks were generally far better treated than Jews or Gypsies, and could live mostly normal lives, including attending school and working.[1]
On the other hand, despite the absence of an official systematic government stance, there were numerous instances of discrimination, crimes and murder against black people on a local level, influenced by the racial perceptions of the Nazis which were spread among the people and the general disregard of blacks over the whole Western world.[1]
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While black people in Nazi Germany and German-occupied territories were not subject to systematic elimination, they were victimized in diverse ways.[2] Anti-black racism existed in Germany prior to the rise of the Nazi government, with mixed race children facing social and economic discrimination, and blacks became a target of Nazi eugenics by 1937, with many facing compulsory sterilization. Others became the victims of human experimentation, assassination, or false imprisonment (including American citizens Valaida Snow and Josef Nassy), and some simply vanished. Black prisoners of war were sometimes killed outright or through the poor treatment they received in Nazi concentration or prisoner-of-war camps, while others were worked to death.
The treatment of blacks in Nazi Germany was generally indifferent. The black race was deemed inferior to the Aryan race, but there was no official government policy implemented towards blacks, unlike against, for example, Jews. The same was true for encounters with or against blacks by the Wehrmacht. When engaging blacks in a larger number for the first time, the German soldiers perceived them as extremely foreign. German propaganda depicted black soldiers as animal savages, leading to extreme prejudices against them by German soldiers. German commanders in higher ranks did not implement or ordered any special treatment for them, but spoiled by the concepts of the "race war", several massacres occurred against black POW's, especially in the 1940 campaign in France. This happened especially to the darker people of Equatorial Africa, while the people from North-Africa with a ligher skin tone were more likley to be spared or treated as normal POWs.[3]
On the other hand, a number of blacks served in the Wehrmacht. The number of German blacks was low, but there were some instances of them beeing enlisted within Nazi organisations like the Hitlerjugend and later the Wehrmacht.[4] In addition, there was an influx of volunteers during the African or Caucasian campaign, which led to the existence of a number of blacks in the Wehrmacht and SS in such units as the Free Arabian Legion.