Did you see the documentary Breath of Freedom about civil rights for black people in the US?
Asked by
JLeslie (
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March 29th, 2014
What did you think about it regarding black American soldiers and their experience in Germany?
I saw it on the Smithsonian channel. A good amount of time was spent on black soldiers in the US military who served in WWII and several years later, and one thing that gave me pause was how the black soldiers spoke of how they were treated well by the Germans while America still had so many racist policies. Colin Powell is interviewed in the documentary and he recalls being a young soldier in Germany hoping that the southern states (I think he mentioned Alabama) will be like Germany within a few years.
My brain was in an unexpected twist with mixed feelings. In the film it talked about how the Germans had empathy for the blacks because the Germans were a defeated people at the time.
The irony that the Germans (not all Germans I know) who had been homocidal “racists” were now scene by the US black military population as treating them better than their own country, I just didn’t know what to do with that information.
The documentary also talked about black soldiers helping, participating, in the fight for civil rights in America partly because they had experienced equality while in Europe.
What did you think as you watched the film? Being Jewish the whole German thing was interesting and a little mind boggling.
The documentary had much more regarding civil rights in America. It was very informative, I recommend it if you have not seen it.
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I just finished watching this documentary. some of it was informative and entertaining and some of it was very disturbing and brought tears to my eyes.
I haven’t seen it, though it sounds interesting. I’ll try to find it.
Re “The Germans had empathy for the blacks because the Germans were a defeated people at the time.”:
I think that might not be the whole story. I’m German, so I speak from experience… We are actively discouraged from racist ideas at a very young age. Teachers of eight-year-olds talk about the Holocaust, in some areas. I think I’ve heard the German national anthem about five times, at the most. Germany messed up, and they’re still busy trying to convince the world that they’ll play nice.
@longgone This was during the 1950’s and 60’s. I don’t know if Germany already had completely flipped how they teach their children and think about the world. I’m sure many Germans weren’t racist, this documentary shows that, but as far as the government actually changing policies in schools, I have no idea. I know our southern states weren’t happy with black people being freed after the civil war, they still did what they could to keep white people and black people separate in more ways then one. Eventually, trying to keep them separate was made illegal, but still in many parts of the south it took years for things to really change.
@JLeslie Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying children at that time were taught as they are today. I do think a change of mind happened pretty soon, though. I imagine the entire country was just shook up from trauma.
I wonder if the attitudes towards Jews changed very quickly after the war? So many Jews fled Germany. I assume black people were a new thing to Germans. American military were probably some of the first black people many Germans had ever seen. I remember a story I saw told by a former solider. He had been there as concentration camps were being freed, he said the first time he ever felt American, and not characterized as a black American was when a Jewish prisoner of the camps asked him, “are you the Americans? We have been waiting for you.”
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