all 10 comments

[–]Blackbrownfreestuff 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

The best example of blacks in battle during WW2 are the Tuskeegee airman, who performed extremely well. It sounds like you were asking about infantry, but being a pilot, especially a combat pilot, is much more difficult than being an infantryman.

I doubt there is a strong relationship around race or ethnicity and combat effectivness because there are too many other factors.

For example, if you were to take the kenyan jungle militia and put them against a "well trained" unit of American soldiers, and leveled the odds by giving them the same equipment and support, I would put my money on the jungle men. Why? The american soldiers spent the last month sitting through powerpoints on rape and suicide prevention while the kenyans were defending their village from a rival warlord

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

keep in mind that WW2 China actually had a lot of help and training from Germany. Yet in nearly every battle against the Japanese, Chinese soldiers were horribly ineffective.

That page says Germany switched from supporting China to Japan in 1937.

[–]radicalcentristNational Centrism[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Yes, but Japan had already been at war with China since technically 1931, when they first invaded and took over Manchuria.

Regardless, even if Germany did support both sides, shouldn't we have seen a stalemate? China never really put up much resistance and even by 1945, large chunks of the country were still occupied. It was the U.S dropping atomic bombs and the Soviets declaring war that brought Japan to its knees.

http://www.emersonkent.com/map_archive/asia_pacific_august_15_1945.htm

Edit: Also, I believe Germany aiding Japan is overstated. They allied with them, but I don't actually recall Germany being involved with their army or financially uplifting them. There was some attempts at co-operation, but given the great distance between the two nations, they were foiled.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_submarine_U-234

[–]radicalcentristNational Centrism[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (6 children)

So there's one more country I want to include in this research. Brazil is a fairly mixed race nation and you can actually find pictures of their colored soldiers who fought in the war. Yet despite sending a force of around 25,000, they only reported around 948 casualties in total. That's nothing crazy.

Now I'm really curious as to what the German/Japanese reaction was to seeing these guys in uniform. Did they have a heart attack when forced to surrender?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Massarosaw.jpg

Edit: I forgot to point out Ethiopia. Probably the [only] major example of a Black country being invaded by an Axis one? Ethiopia surrendered, but to their credit, they put up a much stronger resistance movement that eventually ended with Italy being expelled from the region.

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

[–]radicalcentristNational Centrism[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

Some of them don't come off as a surprise. The Indian soldiers make sense, because Britain had colonized their country and treated them far worse. Hitler also met with the leader of the Palestinians, and sought an alliance with the Muslims.

But I don't believe Germany had any positive attitudes towards Africans. The ones who were already in Germany were legally classified as inferior, and propaganda was made to dehumanize them.

In Japan's case, they literally saw themselves as a race lead by their god emperor. So I assume both black and white soldiers they came across were frowned upon.

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

The ones who were already in Germany were legally classified as inferior,

They couldn't be citizens, given that they weren't racially German (I'm not sure how the Nuremberg Laws would be applied to mulattoes). But it's not like they were discriminated against, like they would be in America. Jesse Owens wrote about this.

[–]radicalcentristNational Centrism[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

They couldn't be citizens, given that they weren't racially German (I'm not sure how the Nuremberg Laws would be applied to mulattoes). But it's not like they were discriminated against, like they would be in America. Jesse Owens wrote about this.

Arguably, their treatment was the same. Black Germans underwent forced sterilizations or cruel mistreatment. At worst, German society didn't think much of their African populace, but the ones they captured in war were subjected to inhumane conditions compared to Whites.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_prisoners_of_war_in_World_War_II#African_and_Arab_prisoners

Unlike their white compatriots, the colonial prisoners of war were imprisoned in Frontstalags in France rather than being brought to Germany.[9] By keeping colonial soldiers in France on the pretext of preventing the spread of tropical diseases, the Germans also wanted to prevent the "racial defilement" (Rassenschande) of German women outlawed by the Nuremberg Laws of 1935.[31] Black troops were treated worse than their white compatriots, and some of them were used for "degrading" anthropological experiments or subjects of medical testing into diseases.[33] Although the living conditions for black soldiers gradually improved, they were still considerably lower than those of white French soldiers. The mortality rate among black soldiers was also considerably higher.[33]

[–]EuropeanAwakening14 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

He wasn't talking about war prisoners. Nice try, though.

[–]radicalcentristNational Centrism[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

He said,

But it's not like they were discriminated against, like they would be in America.

Treating prisoners different on basis of skin color is still discrimination. It's a fair comparison, especially when we use the reverse examples that happened in the U.S. German prisoners in America actually pointed out they were still treated better than actual Black citizens.

https://time.com/5872361/wwii-german-pows-civil-rights/