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This volume was originally published in German in 2015, commemorating the end of World War II seventy years earlier and acknowledging the contribution of African American soldiers to Germany's liberation from fascist rule. Using an interdisciplinary approach, it collects the voices of some of the descendants of these World War II heroes. In this volume, Black Germans of this post-war generation relate and analyse their experiences from various perspectives. Historical, political and research essays alongside life writing, interviews and literary texts form a kaleidoscope through which a new perspective on an almost forgotten part of German history and US American-German relationships is conveyed. The collection explores causes and consequences of racism in the past and in the present as well as developing strategies for achieving positive changes.
List of contents
CONTENTS: Part I: Black People in Germany - Marion Kraft: Re-presentations and Re-definitions: Black People in Germany in the Past and Present - Part II: Life Writing: Witnessed History - Lita Littles Wimbley: Else Lindenbeck and Leslie Littles: An African American-German Family History - Ruth E. Spencer: A Long Journey Home: From a German Orphanage to the Black Bourgeoisie - and Back - Roy Merz: Unexpected Encounters with the Past - Thomas Usleber: Which Figure Does Not Belong? About the Impossibility of Belonging - Ria Cheatom: Ways Out of Isolation - Mike Reichel: Black Police Officer and Activist - Jasmin Eding: One Family, Two Continents - Ika Hügel-Marshall: Crossing Borders, Overcoming Boundaries - Helga Emde: Bridges - Eleonore Wiedenroth-Coulibaly: Germany: A Springtime Tale - Part III: Change of Perspective - Tracey O. Patton: "Because We're Embarrassed": Memory, Post-memory and Relections on "Race" and Rejection - Rosemarie Peña: Stories Matter: Experiences of Black German Adoptees in the U.S. - Marion Kraft: Searching for Traces: Discontinuity and Identity in African American-German Autobiographies - Bärbel Kampmann: Black Germans: Social Realities and Problems of a Neglected Minority - Judy Gummich: Inclusion: Different Perspectives on a Principle of Human Rights - Marion Kraft: African Diaspora: Critical Relections on a Concept - Part IV: Remembrance of Changes and Breakthroughs - Ika Hügel-Marshall: ADEFRA: How It All Began - a Conversation with Ria Cheatom, Jasmin Eding and Judy Gummich - Marion Kraft: From Champion Boxer and Prison Inmate to Social Worker: A Conversation with Charly Graf - Part V: The Power of Language: Poems - Helga Emde: Changes - Thomas Usleber: The Ballad of Mr. Sample - Thomas Usleber: The Silence - Eleonore Wiedenroth-Coulibaly: The Power of Words - Empowerment - May Ayim: Distant Connections - Audre Lorde: A Litany for Survival
About the author
Marion Kraft is an African American¿German scholar, retired college and university teacher, lecturer, author, editor and translator. She studied German and American literatures at the universities of Cologne and Frankfurt/Main (Germany) and at the Ohio State University (US) and holds a doctorate of philosophy from the University of Osnabrück (Germany). She has published numerous essays on racism, literature, feminism and the Black movement in Germany and has five books to her credit.
Summary
This volume collects the voices of descendents of African American soldiers who liberated Germany from fascist rule. Black German writers here convey their experiences through life writing, interviews and literary works as well as through research essays that illuminate this almost forgotten history of US American-German relations.
Report
«Children of the Liberation is a milestone in the literature on the diverse history of Black Germans which has developed over the past three decades. For the first time, this anthology unites Black voices from both sides of the Atlantic and raises new issues of research on the interrelatedness of racism in Germany and in the U.S. in the years after World War II. The texts are not «human interest stories,» but rather counter-concepts to a historiography dominated by power structures, and thus groundbreaking for a new definition of transnational identities. This book is an important contribution to political education and should be part of every syllabus dealing with German post-war history.» (Leroy T. Hopkins, Jr., Professor of German Studies, Millersville University, PA)
