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Abstract
Accounts detailing the atrocities committed by the Nazi party too often overlook their persecution of the Black German community. Even less often is the course of anti-Black racism in Germany detailed from its origins in the German Empire’s colonial endeavors through the Third Reich. In this thesis, I draw widely on the work of scholars like Tina Campt, Iris Wigger, Fatima El-Tayeb, Kathleen Reich, and Clarence Lusane to add to the academic discourse regarding Blackness in Germany. I contribute to the dialogue by adding an element of my own: I seek to evaluate the parallels between America and Germany’s quests to contain Blackness, and specifically Black male sexuality. Incorporating scientific rhetoric put forth by anti-abolitionists and eugenicists, I analyze the ways in which the moral panic surrounding the presence of Black communities in Germany and America alike invoked “medical” and “anthropological” discourses of race, racial difference, miscegenation, and freedom. In putting forth scientific arguments, both the United States and Germany sought to dehumanize and “other” Black communities.
