Butzbach
Nazis Violated Geneva Convention by Imprisoning and Killing Black Soldiers
Black prisoners of war faced illegal incarceration and mistreatment at the hands of the Nazis, who did not uphold the regulations imposed by the Geneva Convention (an international agreement on the conduct of war and the treatment of wounded and captured soldiers). For instance, Lt. Darwin Nichols, an African-American pilot, was incarcerated in a Gestapo prison in Butzbach. The Holocaust Memorial Museum said Black soldiers of the American, French and British armies were worked to death on construction projects or died as a result of mistreatment in concentration or prisoner-of-war camps. Others were never even incarcerated but were instead immediately killed by the SS or Gestapo.
Rhineland
The Growth of Anti-Black Racism in Germany
Following World War I and the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, Rhineland in western Germany was occupied by the victorious Allies, which included Black soldiers as part of the French colonial troops. Racist propaganda against these Black soldiers depicted them as rapists of German women and carriers of venereal and other diseases, according to the Holocaust Encyclopedia. Separation of whites and Blacks was mandated by the Reichstag (German parliament), which enacted a law against mixed marriages in the African colonies.
