The representation of biracial occupation children

Ayanbode, Felix

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/129397 Copy

Description

Title

The representation of biracial occupation children

Author(s)

Ayanbode, Felix

Issue Date

2025-04-17

Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)

Hilger, Stephanie

Doctoral Committee Chair(s)

Hilger, Stephanie

Committee Member(s)

• Pinkert, Anke
• Mehta, Rini
• Reynolds, Felisa

Department of Study

Germanic Languages & Lit

Discipline

German

Degree Granting Institution

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Degree Level

Dissertation

Keyword(s)

• race
• racism
• migration
• nazism
• discrimination
• identity
• memory studies
• Afro-Germans

Abstract

The First World War marked a turning point for several European nations that participated in the war. Two of those nations are France and Germany. The events that took place during and after the war were critical to a small community of mixed-race children who were born as a result of relationships between black French soldiers, who were stationed in Germany after Germany lost the First World War, and white German women. These children were perceived as a shame and humiliation to the German nation. While research has been done on the racialized experiences of these children as well as the inhumane treatment they endured in the Third Reich, little research has been done on how these children have been represented in works of literature and how they represented themselves through oral and written histories. My dissertation investigates how these biracial occupation children are represented by others and how they decided to represent themselves to reclaim their agency. My dissertation, The Representation of Biracial Occupation Children, examines how these individuals grappled with matters of representation, nationality, identity, and belonging during the Third Reich. After Germany lost World War I, the Rhineland was occupied by French troops, including Black soldiers from France’s African colonies, primarily from West and North Africa. These soldiers were part of the “tirailleurs sénégalais,” a corps recruited from Senegal and other French colonial territories. Some of these soldiers engaged in relationships with white German women. Children born from these relationships were called “Rhineland Bastards” by the Nazis and suffered immense hardships at their hands, ranging from exclusion from public spaces to forced sterilization. In order not to perpetuate Nazi terminology and ideology, I choose to call them “biracial occupation children.” In four chapters, my dissertation delves into how these biracial children were portrayed by Nazi discourse and how they navigated fluid spaces and embraced multiple identities. Through three texts by and two interviews with surviving biracial occupation children, written in French, German, and English, I examine the relationship between race, space, and place in the Third Reich: Hans Massaquoi’s Destined to Witness (1999), Didier Daeninckx’s Galadio (2010), Esi Edugyan’s Half-Blood Blues (2011), and two interviews, one of Hans Hauck and Fasia Jansen. While Destined to Witness is an autobiographical work, Galadio and Half-Blood Blues are novels. Both types of works try to give a voice to these excluded voices. My project is part of the broader effort to decenter not only German but European studies more broadly. I aim to recenter the experiences of black individuals – those who were biracial occupation children and those who were perceived and treated as such like Hans Massaquoi—by exploring questions of nationality, citizenship, and belonging relevant not only to the Nazi period in Germany but also to the time when and the place where these texts were written, including the US, Canada, France, and Germany. Drawing on postcolonial theory, critical race theory, and memory studies, this dissertation argues that biracial occupation children operated in realms of fluid identities due to the racialization of space and the spatialization of race. This dissertation explores the triangulated and transatlantic nature of their experiences.

Graduation Semester

2025-05

Type of Resource

Thesis

Handle URL

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/129397

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2025 Felix Ayanbode

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