THE NAZI MASSACRE OF AFRICAN SOLDIERS IN FRENCH ARMY.

THE NAZI MASSACRE OF AFRICAN SOLDIERS IN FRENCH ARMY.

 The Nazi massacre of African soldiers in French army, 80 years on

As France crumbled under the Nazi invasion in June 1940, the German army engaged in a series of massacres against African soldiers in the Lyon region, in the southeast of the country. After shining a light on these atrocities thanks to the discovery of new photos, historian Julien Fargettas discussed them with FRANCE 24.

A photo shows the fear on the faces of the Senegalese riflemen fighting for the French army, as German soldiers lead them into a field. One of eight hitherto unpublished images depicting the Chasselay massacre, it shows some of a group of 40 soldiers who only had minutes to live, killed by machine-gun fire from Panzers positioned along a road.

These photos are at the centre of Julien Fargettas’ new work Juin 1940, combats et massacres en Lyonnais (“June 1940, battles and massacres in the Lyon region”, not translated into English). They were discovered in an old album bought by a young private collector, Baptiste Garin. “What these pictures reveal is that the perpetrators really thought this mass execution through,” said Fargettas. “It’s really disturbing. And when we look at the attitude of the German soldiers, we see that they’re showing no emotion.”

This was not the first time Nazis massacred African soldiers. “It started at the end of May 1940, in the Somme region,” Fargettas explained. “There was no order from high up saying that colonial prisoners of war should be killed or even ill-treated. It was impulsive, but the German military hierarchy did nothing to even try to stop it.”

A history of propaganda

This hatred of black soldiers goes back to the First World War, Fargettas continued: “The Germans used them to accuse the Allies of savagery on the battlefield. The German army had itself been rightly accused of atrocities against civilians, especially in Belgium. Consequently, in response they used the image of the African sharpshooter as a propaganda weapon.”

The peace settlement adumbrated in the Treaty of Versailles meant that the Ruhr and Rhineland, along Germany’s western border, were occupied by France. Many troops from French colonies were stationed there. “In Germany there was a very intensive, mendacious propaganda campaign accusing African soldiers of mass rape and kidnapping. This is what the Germans called the “black horror on the Rhine”; slander which the Nazis would reuse.”

When many Wehrmacht soldiers entered France in May 1940, they had memories of this propaganda. African soldiers were abused by the invaders throughout the country. “These troops often fought very well, while of course the Germans sustained many losses despite their success in the Battle of France, so that produced anger which added to all the resentment already stored up,” said Fargettas.