http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6655
Above is a link
to a German propaganda pamphlet used during World War One. The pamphlet was
written as an address to African American soldiers, “To the colored soldiers of
the U.S. army”, when they were deployed on the western front in Europe. As
the site states, this pamphlet was designed to decrease morale among Black
troops and was distributed across the front. The pamphlet points out, rather
accurately, that the African Americans are second-class citizens in the United
States. The propaganda also pointed out that African Americans were the victims
of racial violence without any protection from the law.
This propaganda
probably did little to help the awareness of African American troops of the
discrimination that faced in the army – despite the distinction that African
American units fought with during the war (think of the ‘Harlem Hellfighters’
of recent video game fame). But it is important to note that at this moment in
1917, as America entered the European “world” stage as a major political player
for the first time, one of the first things that Germany’s propaganda attacked
was America’s treatment of blacks. I think this really illustrates the ease
with which America’s hypocrisy in democracy can be pointed out by the outside
observer. This has been and will continue to be a strain on America’s
reputation in world diplomacy. Recently the North Korean propaganda machine has
been pointing to police brutality towards African Americans as proof that
America is a flawed democracy.
However, the
Germans were not so innocent as they claimed. A great part of the motivation
for the war in the first place was a German desire to gain a larger colonial
empire. Running this empire meant treading on the rights of Africans and other
people in the colonies, and as we have learned the Germans and other European
nations turned to American segregation and industrial education as a model.
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