Table Of ContentThe ‘Black Horror
on the Rhine’
Intersections of Race, Nation, Gender
and Class in 1920s Germany
Iris Wigger
The ‘Black Horror on the Rhine’
Iris Wigger
The ‘Black Horror on
the Rhine’
Intersections of Race, Nation, Gender and Class
in 1920s Germany
Iris Wigger
Department of Social Sciences
Loughborough University
Loughborough, UK
ISBN 978-0-230-34361-0 ISBN 978-1-137-31861-9 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-31861-9
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017944091
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For John Mattis–Johnnie, Ken and my whole family in Germany and
England
with all my love
P a
reface and cknowledgements
This is a new, extensively revised, extended, and updated English edi-
tion of my German monograph “Die ‘Schwarze Schmach am Rhein’
Rassistische Diskriminierung zwischen Geschlecht, Klasse, Nation und
Rasse” (2007).
I had planned this English monograph project for a long time fol-
lowing the very positive reception of my German book and a number
of shorter works I have written on the subject. I am very pleased to see
it completed now, after it got sidelined for some time due to some other
crucial commitments.
This book examines the racist logic of the “Black Horror” discourse
in depth and seeks to demonstrate from a historically sensitive perspec-
tive the complex intersecting of the categories of race, gender, nation
and class in the social construction of a “Black Shame on the Rhine.” It
in this way engages with a rich corpus of archival and secondary sources
and reflects on a quickly growing body of research on the subject mat-
ter of colonial troops and their role, reception and representation in
European societies.
I would like to thank many colleagues, friends, my family and a num-
ber of institutions whose support has helped me immensely during this
research.
First and foremost, I would like to thank my colleague and former
Ph.D. supervisor Prof. Wulf D. Hund at the University of Hamburg.
He had the initial idea to investigate the “Black Horror” campaign in
depth from a sociological perspective and “sold” the topic to me as a
vii
viii PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
highly original and complex case study for a Ph.D. in the field of Racism
Analysis. Our creative-critical dialogue about the subject, fuelled by his
enthusiasm for and thorough engagement with my research, has been
inspirational and has helped me to succeed in writing this monograph
and in many other ways.
I would like to thank the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung and the Institut für
Europäische Geschichte (Institute for European History) in Mainz for
supporting my research on the “Black Shame on the Rhine” with Ph.D.
research scholarships.
A warm thank you to all the librarians and Archive personnel of the
archives and libraries I consulted in my data search for their very kind
support of my research and to the editorial team at Palgrave for their
hard work and constant support in the writing and production process of
this book.
The support of my family and friends has helped me greatly to enjoy
and complete this research. I would like to thank my partner Kenneth
Griffiths for his love, support of my work, his patience as well as
many lively debates, and our little son John Mattis (Johnnie) for mak-
ing our lives so happy by just being with us. And a big thank you to my
colleagues and friends at Loughborough University and beyond, for
their help with my research, friendship and good advice, especially to
Line Nyhagen, Karen O’Reilly, Dave Elder-Vass, Karen Lumsden, Emily
Keightley, James Stayner, Maggie O’Neill, John Scott, David E. Herbert
and Alex Yendell. And finally, I thoroughly enjoyed presenting this book
in a keynote at the ‘Power, Intimacy and the State: Mixed Families in
Europe and Beyond’ conference at the University of Amsterdam this
summer and would like to thank Betty de Hart, Lies Wesseling and
Marga Altena and the Loving Day NL initiative for their kind invitation
and my Amsterdam friend Marjolijn Ooms for making my day.
Loughborough, UK Iris Wigger
c
ontents
1 Introduction 1
1.1 An “Outrageous Humiliation and Rape of a Highly
Cultivated White Race by a Still Half-Barbaric Coloured.”
Mapping the “Black Shame” Campaign 1
1.2 A “Propaganda Campaign of Enormous Dimensions”: The
“Black Horror” in Scholarly Debates 12
1.3 A Treachery of the “Women’s World,” “The People” and
“Race”: The “Black Shame” Discourse as a Conglomerate of
Racist Discrimination 24
2 Women’s Bodies, Alien Bodies and the Racial Body of
the German Volk: The Rhetorical Structure of the “Black
Shame” Stereotype 45
2.1 A “Violation of the Laws of European Civilisation”: The
“Black Horror” as International Campaign 45
2.1.1 Edmund D. Morel’s “Black Horror on the Rhine” 46
2.1.2 Francesco S. Nitti’s “Cannibals on Rhine and
Ruhr” 61
2.1.3 Ray Beveridge’s “Black Disgrace” and “White
Shame” 71
2.2 Spreading the “Völkish Spark” of German Solidarity:
The National Dividend of the “Black Horror” 82
ix
x CONTENTS
3 Race, Gender, Nation, Class: The Social Construction
of the ‘Black Shame’ 113
3.1 “Black Shame” and “White Woman”: Women’s Bodies
as Medium of Racist Discrimination 116
3.1.1 The Victimised Woman as Seismograph
of National and Racial Threat 117
3.1.2 Honourless Women as Stigma of Imagined
Collectives 134
3.2 The “Black Shame” as the Decline of the Occident.
The Fiction of a Threatened White Race 151
3.2.1 “Savages” in the Heart of Europe. Race, Culture
and the Legend of White Superiority 152
3.2.2 Miscegenation as Cultural Decline and Biological
Danger: The Perceived Threat of Mulattisation
and Syphilitisation 168
3.2.3 The Mobilisation of the White Community.
The Mediation between Nation and Race 183
3.3 France’s Attack on the Cultured Nations: The
Continuation of War with Racist Means 187
3.3.1 Black Horror—French Shame: France as Target
of Racist Rhetoric 189
3.3.2 French “Negro Domination”: A Stigma
of Cultural and Racial Degeneration 196
3.3.3 Excursus: “Childlike blacks” in the Service
of Civilisation: The French Attempt to Justify
the Deployment of Colonial Troops 206
3.4 For the Sake of the Fatherland: The Reconciliation
of Class Society in the Community of the People 214
3.4.1 “Black Shame” as German Degradation:
The Staged Attack on the Volkskörper 217
3.4.2 Turning Class Enemies into White National
Comarades 223
4 Conclusions 307
Bibliography 331
List of Archival Abbreviations [Siglen] 333
CONTENTS xi
List of Archival Sources/Collections 335
List of Printed Sources, Electronic Sources and Audiovisual
Sources 345
List of Frequent Abbreviations 379
Index 381
