WW1 IMPERIAL GERMAN BLACK SHAME MEDAL KARL GOETZ

The history of the French occupation of the Rhineland is replete with horrific stories of cruelty and wanton murder of the German population. But by far the most-often-repeated crimes of those savages was rape. French use of Black Troops was nothing short of a national insult cast at a nation that the French hated with a passion. Rage was so rampant that it seemed to influence the NS initiative to at least sterilize the Black children of the Rhineland occupation. France recruited 190,000 African Negroes before and during WWI. As for the Rhineland occupation, if only white French troops had advanced into the Rhineland in 1918 and 1919, the effect would have been to increase the proportion of Black Forces in the French homeland behind the French Frontier. But the main motivation in using Black Troops in the occupation was France’s belief in the strategic psychological effect that these troops would have on their military adversaries. It has been admitted the French were engaged in a blatant and obvious kind of psychological warfare against the Germans. They knew well that this would be viewed by the hated Germans as the basis of a radicalized insult to what the Teutons perceived as Germanic culture and civilization. To the Germans, these African “soldiers” were symbols of barbarous savagery as this was Germany’s first domestic encounter with Negroids within its national boundaries. In the summer of 1920, German officials estimated the number at thirty and forty thousand. These Black Troops were mustered from France’s colonial holdings in Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Madagascar, and Senegal. The post-WWI military occupation of Germany lasted from 1919 to 1930, but Negroid troops were left there longer to shame the German people. Black occupation troops became the focus of international attention in 1920 when, in Frankfurt, Black French Moroccan soldiers fired upon civilians, killing several, and wounding many more. After this, the London Daily Herald published an article entitled “The Black Scourge in Europe: Sexual Horror Let Loose by France on the Rhine,” which marked the beginning of an international outcry against the sexual misconduct of Negroid troops in Germany. This new emphasis on the sexual element set off a chain reaction of outrage and condemnation among press people and various international actors who invoked themselves. In fact, six parliamentary delegations petitioned the British and German governments for investigation and inquiry into rapes and assaults by Black Soldiers on civilians in the occupied territory. The cry was “our youth in danger, and the Rhineland was being disgraced and polluted;” the dignity of the Germans and the white race was implied. This sexual misconduct that had reached huge proportions must be contained, and the Negroids must be sent back to “La Belle France.” The uncontained sexual proclivities of the savages was doing irreversible damages to the German woman victims, but no thoughts of miscegenation is hardly imaginable. When German arms crushed the British Expeditionary forces at Dunkirk, then French forces also surrendered there at Dunkirk, and other French geographical locations overrun by the Wehrmacht and several German newsreels showed the Negroid troops being run out of the villages. As the prisoners are lined up, you can see the faces of these former jungle and desert dwelling savages. They even consent to doing an African war dance for the amused German soldiers with all the drum sets and bone practicing to the sound of Uhg’s and Boo-Boo’s. These white French soldiers asked the German officers if they would be so kind as to shoot the tribesmen so the French soldiers would not have to share the POW quarters with them. In some cases, where interrogation brought out that some of the Negroids were in the Rhineland occupation, the wishes of the French soldiers were granted summarily! The medal is called The Black Watch on the Rhine (Die Schwarze Wacht am Rhine). It was struck by the great medalist Karl Goetz as a protest to the sending of the Black Colonial Troops to occupy the Rhine territory, and the sexual depravity. The inscription on the obverse is ‘Liberty, Fraternity, Equality 1920.’ This is a tongue-in-cheek reference to the French national motto. On the back is a description of a nude female figure tied to a phallus that has a French helmet at its tip. The all-seeing eye of French masonry within the triangle seems to overlook and direct the savage scene. The initials for Karl Goetz are seen at the bottom. The words around the edge are Die Schwarze Schande (The Black Shame!). The Negroid soldier on the front looks much like the ones lined up as prisoners in the German WWII film. This is a great metallic piece from the historic epoch of the turbulent century.