>>17716342I'm not German/European and I don't want to be their inferior cannon fodder.
>"I always wanted to be [Aryan]," Hans Hauck, an Afro-German who came of age in Nazi Germany, recalled. "I always wanted blue eyes and blond hair.">Born in Frankfurt in 1920 to a German mother and an Algerian father, Hans faced discrimination from a young age>“The kids were so nasty because of my color," he said. "It made my mother cry when I complained about it.”>In an effort to fit in with his peers, Hans joined the Hitler Youth in 1933>“At 13, you don’t think about politics. But the games and the marching and playing soldier, that was fun.”>The Nazis viewed Afro-Germans as a threat to the purity of the Germanic race. Despite his involvement in Hitler Youth, he was forcibly sterilized as part of a secret Gestapo program. The Nazi regime sterilized at least 385 Afro-German children and teenagers>"They examined us and measured our skulls. It's hard to explain this to ordinary people. They measured our eyebrows, eye color, nose widths, etcetera... We had to sign a paper saying we agreed not to marry people with German or related blood. And that we wouldn't have have sexual relations with Germans... It was depressing and offensive. I felt only half-human.”>Afro-Germans, including Hans, were marginalized in German society under the Nazi regime, isolated socially and economically, and not allowed to hold certain jobs or attend university. With few other options, Hans enlisted and went on to fight in the German army before being captured by the Soviets in 1945. He was a POW for four years>"I was treated more humanely by the Russians than I ever was by my own countrymen," he said of being POW. "I was treated just like the other Germans. Just they didn't make any distinctions. My own Fatherland didn’t do that. It discriminated against me.” 