Recasting Race After World War II: Germans and African Americans in American-occupied Germany

320 Pages·2007·25.257 MB·English

by  Timothy L. Schroer

Historian Timothy L. Schroer's
Recasting Race after World War II
explores the renegotiation of race
by Germans and African American
GIs in post-World War II Germany.
Schroer dissects the ways in which
notions of blackness and whiteness
became especially problematic in
interactions between Germans and
American soldiers serving as part of
the victorious occupying army at the
end of the war.
The segregation of U.S. Army
forces fed a growing debate in America
about whether a Jim Crow army could
truly be a democratizing force in
postwar Germany. Schroer follows the
evolution of that debate and examines
the ways in which postwar conditions
necessitated reexamination of race
relations. He reveals how anxiety
about interracial relationships between
African American men and German
women united white American soldiers
and the German populace, and he
traces the importation and influence
of African American jazz music in
Germany, illuminating the subtle
ways in which occupied Germany
represented a crucible in which to
recast the meaning of race in a post-
Holocaust world.
Recasting Race after World War II
will appeal to historians and scholars
of American, African American, and
German studies.
Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2019 with funding from
The Arcadia Fund
https://archive.org/details/recastingraceaftOOtimo

Recasting Race
AFTER WDRLD WAR II

Germans and African Americans in American-Occupied Germany
University Press of Colorado
© 2007 by the University Press of Colorado
Published by the University Press of Colorado
5589 Arapahoe Avenue, Suite 206C
Boulder, Colorado 80303
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
The University Press of Colorado is a proud member of
the Association of American University Presses.
The University Press of Colorado is a cooperative publishing enterprise supported,
in part, by Adams State College, Colorado State University, Fort Lewis College,
Mesa State College, Metropolitan State College of Denver, University of Colorado,
University of Northern Colorado, and Western State College of Colorado.
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the
American National Standard for Information Sciences — Permanence of Paper for
Printed Library Materials. ANSI Z39.48-1992
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Schroer, Timothy L., 1966-
Recasting race after World War II: Germans and African Americans in American-
occupied Germany / Timothy L. Schroer.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-87081-869-1 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Reconstruction (1939-1951) —
Germany. 2. African Americans — Relations with Germans. 3. African American
soldiers — Germany — History — 20th century. 4. Germany — Race relations — History —
20th century. I. Title.
D829.G3S316 2007
940.5314408996073043 - dc22
2007009968
Design by Daniel Pratt
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