Majubs Reise—From Colony to Concentration Camp. A New Approach at Narrating Germany’s Colonial Past? Joachim Warmbold Tel Aviv University Abstract: In her documentary film Majubs Reise , released in 2013, Eva Knopf offers a glimpse at a little-known chapter in German history: the fate of an African actor in Nazi-Era Germany. By painstakingly reconstructing Majub’s life with the help of historical documents, photographs and film clips, Eva Knopf succeeds in providing a compelling case for linking Germany’s colonial and Nazi past to the present. Her documentary can be seen as an important contribution to German postcolonial discourse. There is, however, also room for criticism. Despite its obvious qualities Majubs Reise suffers from a number of shortcomings which should neither be overlooked nor dismissed as minor flaws. Keywords: History-Germany-Africans, Germany-Africans-Film, Nazi Germany-Afro-Germans, Postcolonial Discourse-Germany, Majubs Reise We all know from experience that sometimes even the most carefully prepared lesson can take a totally unexpected turn. While teaching a seminar on German colonialism at Tel Aviv University during the 2015 spring semester, I included a discussion of the German colonial film industry, in particular the infamous 1941 anti-British propaganda film Carl Peters , starring Hans Albers as “Eroberer von Deutsch-Ostafrika.” 1 Young German filmmaker Eva Knopf ’s freshly released documentary Majubs Reise , which explores the life of Majub bin Adam Mohamed Hussein a. k. a. Mohamed Husen, an African-German actor who played the part of Carl Peters’ guide and servant Ramasan, seemed like the perfect addition—if not counterpoint—to the original Nazi production. And yet my students’ reaction to the Knopf documentary was radically different from what I had anticipated. What, then, had gone wrong? I shall return to my students and their comments and criticism in coming sections, and will begin with a short 160 Joachim Warmbold synopsis of the film as well as a closer look at the motivation and intentions of its director. At first sight, Majubs Reise comes across as a meticulously researched biopic carefully reconstructing the life of the aforementioned Majub bin Adam Mohamed Hussein. His Reise , or journey, covers exactly forty years; it begins in 1904, the year of his birth, in the former German protectorate Deutsch-Ostafrika , and ends in 1944 in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. In 1914 Majub, together with his father, joined General Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck’s Schutztruppe , the German colonial militia, and thus became a Kindersoldat fighting the invading British forces. His father died in battle, but Majub was lucky enough to survive, and in the late 1920s found employment as a steward with the Deutsche Ost-Afrika-Linie. In 1929 he decided to stay in Germany; he changed his name to Mohamed Husen and settled in Berlin, having also lived in Hamburg for a time. His demands for financial compensation for his and his late father’s army service were rejected by the German authorities. Similarly, his request for the Frontkämpfer-Abzeichen was declined as well. In order to make a living he worked as a Swahili instructor at the Seminar für Orientalische Sprachen at the Friedrichs-Wilhelm-Universität , Berlin. He also joined, in the role of the treue Askari , the Deutsche Afrika-Schau and other procolonial events as well as a number of variety shows, and also began to work as an ’exotic’ extra in the film industry. Alongside well-known stars like Zarah Leander, Heinz Rühmann and the aforementioned Hans Albers, he appeared in numerous productions, including propaganda films championing the return of Germany’s former overseas protectorates. In 1932, Husen met Maria Schwandner, a young German woman who had moved from Bohemia to Berlin, and in January 1933, the two were married. Husen and Schwandner had three children all of whom died very young; Heinz Bodo, born by Marta Lotta Holzkamp, with whom Husen had entertained a love affair while already enganged to Schwandner, was eventually adopted and raised in lieu of the deceased children. In 1941, apparently because of an affair with a German woman who was also working as an extra on the set for the Carl Peters film, Husen fell foul of the Nazi race laws and was sent to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp where he died in 1944. Majubs Reise is Eva Knopf ’s debut documentary; she presented the biopic for her final exam at Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg , Ludwigsburg, in 2013. In an interview with David Denk in the Berlin daily taz published on 14 September 2013, she admits that “in Detektivarbeit die Spuren dieses Lebens wie ein Puzzle zusammenzusetzen” presented a formidable challenge. “Dass es bis auf einen unbeschriebenen Briefbogen keine persönlichen Hinterlassenschaften gibt” forced her “die wenigen Spuren, die Majub hinterlassen hat, immer wieder zu drehen und zu wenden, um mir einen Reim auf sein Leben mit all seinen Majubs Reise —From Colony to Concentration Camp 161 Brüchen und Widersprüchen zu machen” (Denk). Sukhdev Sandhu, in his review of Majubs Reise in The Guardian , confirms that “Husen’s life is rich in mystery. No diaries, correspondence or personal photographs appear to have survived.” Sandhu goes as far as calling Husen “a ghost” and Knopf “a kind of surveillance operative” determined “to liberate Husen from anonymity.” He acknowledges the effort Knopf undertook to piece Husen’s life together and states: “Other film-makers might have portrayed Husen as a pioneer or hero, a symbol of Germany’s far-from-glorious relationship with people of African descent. Knopf ’s screenplay is spare and ruminative, as keen to point out how little is—and could be—known about him as it is to celebrate his life” (Sandhu). The lack of traces left by Husen apparently inspired Knopf to add a second narrative to her documentary. “Weil es Knopf an Bildern für ihren Film mangelte,” writes ZEIT critic Anke Schwarzer, “verfiel die Filmemacherin auf ausrangierte Plastiken aus einem Schuppen der Hamburger Sternwarte: einen erlegten Löwen aus Bronze. Den Kolonialgouverneur Hermann von Wissmann. Einen Askari zu seinen Füßen.” With the help of these “Assistenzfiguren” (Schwarzer) Knopf not only manages to bolster her screenplay with more Bilder and thus substance, but also provides an additional narrative focusing on the history of the so-called Wissmann-Denkmal . Originally inaugurated in Dar es Salam on 3 April 1909, in honor of the former governor of German East Africa, Hermann von Wissmann, the statue and its three components—governor, Askari and lion—provide Knopf with ample opportunities to reflect on German colonialism in general and its aftermath in particular. Repeated shots of the statue and references to its history, including its final demolition in front of Hamburg University by students in 1968, become intertwined with Husen’s personal history and clearly add an explicitly critical anti-colonial twist to the documentary. Sandhu quotes Knopf in his review as follows: “I didn’t know much about Africans in Germany during the 1930s and 1940s […]. It seems like German people’s awareness of colonialism was washed away because of the second world war [sic] and the Holocaust. We lost our colonies after the first world war [sic], so we felt we didn’t have to deal with them any more. Our history with them didn’t reach into the 1950s and 1960s like it did in many other European countries.” Statements like these make abundantly clear that Knopf means well and, in addition to recreating a lost life, wishes to contribute to a better understanding of Germany’s colonial past. Yet she was also wise enough not to turn Husen into a kind of personal hero. “I don’t know if I liked him,” she tells Sandhu, “he wasn’t what the Nazis wanted him to be—a proper Askari. But nor was he what we want him to be—an anti-colonial freedom fighter or anti-fascist. Indeed, by the mid-1930s, he was dressing up in military gear and appearing at rallies in 162 Joachim Warmbold front of banners bearing the slogan Germany needs colonies . He went his own way. He doesn’t fit any clear-cut patterns of how we might think about history” (Sandhu). Knopf ’s endeavors to liberate Husen from anonymity, making his “ghost” appear again, and thus adding him and his world to “all these histories and tragedies and lost voices and souls that also shape the way that our world is today” (Sandhu), yet at the same time her decision not to hide her very personal ambivalence vis-a-vis Majub and his actions make Knopf ’s documentary an impressive multi-layered achievement indeed, and no doubt a worthwhile contribution to the German post-colonial discourse. Unsurprisingly, Knopf managed to secure the support of prestigious institutions like the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung and the Goethe-Institut, the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg and the SWR Südwestrundfunk Baden-Baden , and equally unsurprisingly, her documentary has won critical acclaim at various national and international festivals, e. g., the Deutscher Nachwuchsfilmpreis FIRST STEPS Award and the Japan Media Arts Festival Jury Selection , both in 2013, in Ludwigsburg and Tokyo respectively. The story about “Mohamed Husen: the black immigrant actor who carved out a career in 1930s German cinema” (Sandhu) has been screened in cinemas, on television, and during special events like the 11 . Jahrestag der Stiftung Erinnerung Ulm whose organizers chose the film as a basis for a public discussion on the discrimination experienced by Africans in contemporary Germany, and who advertised the screening on their information flyer as follows: “Der Film bietet vielfältige Denk- und Gesprächsimpulse in historischer, filmdokumentarischer und gegenwartsbezogener Hinsicht. Er berührt grundlegende Fragen zum Rassismus in der deutschen Gesellschaft und zur Identität und Situation von Afrikanern in Deutschland / Ulm—auch heute” (Stiftung). Since 2014, Majubs Reise is also available on DVD , with subtitles in English, French, Spanish and Portuguese, and with worldwide distribution via the Goethe-Institut � Let us return now for a moment to my seminar and the reaction of my students after their viewing of Majubs Reise. All of my students conceded that Majubs Reise offered highly useful information in addition to the Carl Peters film. They praised the choice of subject, the plot of the documentary. They commended the choice of archival material, the historical film clips, the documents and photographs, the music, and they were clearly impressed by the wealth of information assembled by Knopf. Favorable comments like these were expected. I was, however, quite unprepared for a much longer list of critical and negative reactions which contrasted sharply with the overwhelmingly positive reviews offered by professional critics. Most of my students found the extra story line—the history of the Wissmann statue—superfluous, distractive and even confusing. Several of them voiced mild, and others strong objections to the way Majubs Reise —From Colony to Concentration Camp 163 Knopf created—or rather re-created—Husen’s life solely on the basis of secondary sources, assumptions and speculations often based merely on his roles and presence on screen; they ridiculed the abundant use of the adverb “vielleicht” by the voice-over commentator and described the use of stills and photographs in cases where they clearly show an individual other than Husen, but are used by Knopf to narrate a certain event in Husen’s life or support a certain interpretation of hers as deceptive or, worse, as deliberately misleading. Some questioned the use of the term Reise in the film title and asked why Knopf does not call her protagonist Mohamed, or Husen, but rather Majub. Yet, much to my surprise the most scathing form of criticism was reserved for Knopf ’s uneasiness regarding Husen’s engagement for the Nazi propaganda machinery. Why, my students asked, does Knopf not even attempt to go beyond the obvious and ask for possible motives of her protagonist’s behavior? Perhaps as “schwarzer Lieblingskomparse der Nazis” (Denk) Husen did not have any other choice? What about his family life? What is known about his wife? Was he perhaps part of a larger community of African émigrés, and if so, what was their fate in Nazi Germany? Why was Husen sent to Sachenhausen because of an affair with a girl on the set while, at the same time, he was married to a German woman and nobody seemed to bother? Many more questions were raised, but answers seemed elusive. As for myself, I was of course simultaneously thrilled with the interest and lively discussion that the Knopf documentary had evoked, and at the same time somewhat at a loss as how to proceed. Very clearly Majubs Reise was deserving of more time, more attention, and a decidedly more critical approach than the first impression—and the hitherto published critiques—might suggest. The most valuable source for additional information about Knopf ’s protagonist and his life and times is undoubtedly Marianne Bechhaus-Gerst’s biography of Mohamed Husen entitled Treu bis in den Tod. Von Deutsch-Ostafrika nach Sachsenhausen—Eine Lebensgeschichte , published in 2007. Knopf does in fact mention this publication in the Abspann , i. e., the credits of her film, and also acknowledges the book as a source of inspiration in the taz interview. It seems somewhat odd, though, that Bechhaus-Gerst, a professor of African Studies at the University of Cologne, and her work on Husen do not feature more prominently in Knopf ’s documentary and do not receive more credit, since quite positively all of the material Knopf claims to have painstakingly researched and collected—and actually a plethora of additional facts and figures—can be found in Bechhaus-Gerst’s excellent Lebensgeschichte , the only exception being, understandably, the film clips. Equally peculiar seems Knopf ’s tendency to oversimplify when dealing with issues that clearly require a more complex focus. And worse: in some instances a comparison between the book and the film gives rise to the suspicion that Knopf did not hesitate to bend the facts. 164 Joachim Warmbold Evidence to support these allegations can be found in abundance. The following examples, in no particular order, may suffice for clarification. According to Knopf, Husen’s decision to leave his homeland and move to Germany was a straightforward move. “Irgendwann,” she informs her audience, “muss Majub die folgende scheinbar gute Idee gehabt haben, wie er an etwas Geld herankommen kann” ( MR 11: 07). 2 She continues: “Er heuert als Steward auf einem Schiff an und fährt von Ostafrika bis nach Hamburg” ( MR 11: 15), and only “wenige Tage später,” Knopf states, “klopft er in Berlin beim Auswärtigen Amt an die Tür und verlangt seinen ausstehenden Sold” ( MR 11: 20). With a clear reference to the situation in present-day Germany, Knopf ends her sequence saying: “Und wie das in Geschichten so ist, in denen ein Afrikaner ohne Papiere beschließt, nach Europa zu reisen, wird er wieder zurück nach Afrika geschickt” ( MR 11: 50). Bechhaus-Gerst offers a rather different account of the events. She informs her readers that Husen’s decision to seek employment with the Deutsche Ost-Afrika-Linie as a steward “ist nachvollziehbar,” as “im Gegensatz zum Maschinenpersonal erging es vor allem den Kellnern und Stewards auf den Schiffen deutscher Reedereien nicht schlecht” ( BG 53). 3 In addition to a regular monthly salary, stewards could “mit Trinkgeldern durch die Passagiere rechnen” (BG 53). Not “irgendwann,” as Knopf states, but very likely as early as in 1925, Husen began working on the Hamburg-East Africa route, which included services to Durban and Cape Town in South Africa, and regularly visited Germany “bei Landgängen” ( BG 53). As Bechhaus-Gerst rightly points out, Husen arrived “in einer Zeit des wirtschaftlichen Niedergangs” ( BG 53) with hardly any prospect of finding work in Germany proper. At the end of 1929 he tried his luck at the Foreign Office in Berlin, and although there was an attempt to send Husen back, Bechhaus-Gerst clearly contradicts Knopf by stating: “Er ließ sich nicht abschieben, sondern blieb in Berlin” (BG 57). Only in the summer of 1934, while the first German colonial propaganda film entitled Die Reiter von Deutsch-Ostafrika was being filmed with Husen playing the part of Signalschüler Mustapha , “kehrte er vermutlich noch einmal für kurze Zeit in seine Heimat zurück” ( BG 111), since part of the shooting took place in British Tanganyika, as the former German colony was then called. 4 “Ohne Papiere,” as Knopf claims, this would have been nearly impossible. As Bechhaus-Gerst explains, most of the Africans from former German territories possessed “deutsche Ausweise, in denen jedoch der Zusatz ’Unmittelbarer Reichsangehöriger’ oder ’Deutscher Schutzbefohlener’ zu finden war” ( BG 67). Husen actually claimed to have had a German passport until 1933, “eine Behauptung,” as Bechhaus-Gerst emphasizes, “die das Auswärtige Amt widerspruchslos akzeptierte” ( BG 78). Even if one takes into account that Africans, beginning from the mid-1930s, did have their original travel and identification documents confiscated and replaced by so-called Fremdenpässe , Husen was clearly not “ohne Papiere” and, although eventually staatenlos , hardly at risk of being deported. With regard to background information about Husen, there is in fact much more available than Knopf in her various interviews with the media—and, consequently, the critics as well—seems to suggest. Bechhaus-Gerst describes in detail the recruiting campaign undertaken by Governor Hermann von Wissmann, who preferred “Landfremde” for his “Söldnertruppe” ( BG 19) and—with the help of the German consulate in Cairo—conscripted the first six-hundred men, most of them Sudanese and Ethiopians, in the Egyptian capital. According to Bechhaus-Gerst, Husen’s father, Adam Mohamed, was among these recruits. Equally enlightening are her accounts of the training and deployment of Kindersoldaten in the German colony, Husen’s attempts at finding employment after the war, and his travels to the island of Zanzibar, where he hoped to find work as a teacher. With the help of the International Red Cross, Bechhaus-Gerst even succeeded in establishing contact with Husen’s Tanzanian nephew Omary Hassan, whose memory, as the author ascertains, “funktioniert auch in seinem 87. Lebensjahr immer noch ausgezeichnet” ( BG 164) and who, in a series of personal interviews, provided highly valuable information about his uncle and his African family. Perhaps Knopf considered such particulars superfluous from a cinematographic-artistic point of view and therefore decided to ignore them. But why then does she declare in her documentary: “Spuren von Majub haben wir hier [in Tanzania] nicht gefunden” ( MR 10: 36)? As for Husen’s detention by the Nazis during the shooting of the Carl Peters film and his subsequent incarceration, Knopf simply informs her audience: “Während der Dreharbeiten beginnt er eine Affäre mit einer jungen Deutschen. Er wird daraufhin aufgrund von sogenannter Rassenschande angezeigt und schließlich im Konzentrationslager Sachsenhausen inhaftiert” ( MR 39: 57). As to be expected at this point, in this context Bachhaus-Gerst’s research provides a far more nuanced and complex picture. The “junge[.] Deutsche[.]” was no other than “eine Münchener BDM -Maid” according to one of the witnesses quoted by Bechhaus-Gerst, and another “Zeitzeuge berichtet, dass aus dieser Beziehung wieder ein Kind hervorging” ( BG 137). Although Husen was indeed denounced on the basis of Rassenschande , Bechhaus-Gerst insists that “keine Grundlage für ein Verfahren wegen ’Rassenschande’ vorhanden war” ( BG 141). She explains: “Es gab zwar das Eheverbot, das nicht nur Juden, sondern auch Afrikaner betraf. Vom Sexualverbot waren diese aber ausgeschlossen.” And she continues: “Warum im Gesetz diese ’Lücke’ gelassen wurde, lässt sich nicht erklären. Aus den begleitenden Kommentierungen wird aber deutlich, dass es sich nicht um ein versehentliches ’Vergessen’ der Einbeziehung von Afrikanern gehandelt ha- Majubs Reise —From Colony to Concentration Camp 165 166 Joachim Warmbold ben kann” ( BG 141). Further important details are provided by Bechhaus-Gerst. Husen spent the first two months after his arrest, i. e., August and September 1941, “im berüchtigten Gestapo-Gefängnis am Alexanderplatz” and was only saved from prolonged imprisonment in this horrendous jail precisely because of any “fehlende rechtliche Grundlage für eine Anklage wegen Rassenschande” (BG 142). In a letter from the Gestapo dated 15 October 1941, Husen’s former employer at the university was informed: “Gegen Husen konnte ein Strafverfahren wegen Rassenschande nicht eingeleitet werden. Er wurde am 27. 9. 1941 dem Konzentrationslager Sachsenhausen überstellt. Der Zeitpunkt seiner Entlassung ist unbestimmt” ( BG 142). As Bechhaus-Gerst correctly points out: “Die Einweisung in ein Konzentrationslager ohne formelle Anklageerhebung stellte zu diesem Zeitpunkt keine Ausnahme dar—im Gegenteil” ( BG 143), since in cases when the legal basis for prolonged incarceration was lacking, Nazi law offered a highly convenient alternative, the so-called Schutzhaft . This notorious legal construct allowed for “eine Einweisung ins Konzentrationslager auf unbestimmte Zeit” ( BG 143), often under the pretext “die Häftlinge würden vor dem ’Volkszorn’ oder gar vor sich selbst ’geschützt’” ( BG 143). One can easily imagine how tempting the concept of Schutzhaft must have been, first and foremost among informers, and therefore it comes as no surprise that Bechhaus-Gerst muses extensively about possible initiators and their reasons for denouncing and eliminating Husen. She identifies three highly likely main sources, namely Husen’s wife, art dealer and journalist Hans von Hellfeld, and Professor Martin Heepe. “Gerüchteweise hieß es in der Nachbarschaft […], seine eigene Ehefrau hätte ihn bei der Gestapo angezeigt” ( BG 137), writes Bechhaus-Gerst; Maria Husen had no doubt found out about her husband’s affair with the girl on the set and might have simply decided to put an end to her marriage. Her decision to file for divorce just two weeks after her husband’s arrest appears as “logische Konsequenz” ( BG 151), so Bechhaus-Gerst. Hellfeld, on the other hand, found himself in professional conflict with Husen. Eager to improve his income, in 1941 the latter published an advertisement offering his services as a casting agent and boasting about a complete list of all “Afrikanern und Afrikanerinnen in Großdeutschland” ( BG 138). Hellfeld, keen on obtaining a license for “Arbeitsvermittlung für Exoten” ( MG 138) and achieving a good profit, obviously regarded Husen as a rival, and therefore it cannot be ruled out, argues Bechhaus-Gerst, “dass Hellfeld durch eine Anzeige den missliebigen Konkurrenten ausschalten wollte” ( BG 138). The third candidate with a convincing—in this case personal—reason for denouncing Husen was Heepe, his superior at the university, an active member of the SA and NSDAP , who out of sheer malice interfered in every attempt by Husen to earn extra money outside the language institute. In April 1941 Husen resigned from his job at the university, accusing Heepe of serious injustices in his letter of resignation to the dean. “Möglich scheint es also durchaus, dass es Heepe war, der [Husen] bei der Gestapo denunzierte und sich so für dessen Beschwerde beim Dekan grausam rächen wollte” ( BG 140), concludes Bechhaus-Gerst. Of course, nobody would expect Majubs Reise to match Bechhaus-Gerst’s exquisitely researched book. After all, the film does not pretend to be a scholarly work; one certainly must not forget that it is the graduation project of a young filmmaker, aimed at a wide audience with presumably hardly any previous knowledge about the subject. Neither should one overlook all the positive elements of the documentary. And yet, one cannot help but wonder why Knopf vigorously promoted effect over substance. “Ich will ihm posthum seine erste Hauptrolle geben,” Knopf proudly proclaims in her taz interview. But why then spend so much time on the Wissmann statue, ponder the fate of the lion, the pose of the governor, the gaze of the Askari, or mull over a fainted soldier during a military parade in present-day Tanzania? Although Husen undoubtedly deserves playing, at least, the main part, Knopf conveniently conceals the fact that her protagonist was by no means the only African actor who made a living from joining the Nazi film industry. Nor was he the sole African Swahili instructor at the Orient Institut. Like Husen, thousands of Africans were living in Germany, many of them married to German spouses, most of them victims of “everyday racism and abuse, ever-narrower opportunities to earn a living, and physical terror in the face of threat of sterilization and the prospect of arbitrary internment and forced labor” ( AR 20), 5 as Robbie Aitken and Eve Rosenhaft assert in their outstanding research on Black Germany. The Making and Unmaking of a Diaspora Community, 1884 — 1960 , published by Cambridge University Press in 2013. Unfortunately, Majubs Reise does not even hint at these themes. Only once, while presenting a scene from the Carl Peters film involving a great number of African warriors approaching the German expedition, Knopf explains that these half naked, spear wielding extras had been recruited from the pool of French-Togolese POWs, that they were suffering from cold, undernourishment and maltreatment, and that Husen and others tried to help them by collecting money, food and cigarettes from colleagues on the set. Knopf thus confirms, albeit unknowingly it seems, the widely held notion that the film set “provided a temporary safe haven and occasions for solidarity” ( AR 258). Aitken and Rosenhaft quote Dorothea Diek, a young Cameroonian-German actress, with the following statement: It was cosy on the film set. In the breaks the Africans would often get out their drums and we’d sing in front of the studios. People from all the other productions would come running … We earned good money, had fun, and didn’t think twice about it … Majubs Reise —From Colony to Concentration Camp 167 168 Joachim Warmbold It was cheerful and cosy; no politics, no Nazis, just happy people. We were all together—young and old Africans. ( AR 258—59) Werner Egiomue, another German-African extra, even went so far as to claim: “In the studio you were safe … outside of the door you could be arrested but inside you were as safe as in a bank” ( AR 259). Hence the film studio resembles, in more than one aspect, a Third Space as defined by Homi Bhabha, a safe environment where a black actor could dare start an affair with a German BDM girl, where oppressed and oppressor could interact freely without fear of possible repercussions. That the films produced in theses studios were mostly propaganda films, that African actors consequently became part of the Nazi propaganda machinery although they were actually victims of the regime, only reinforces the notion of the hybrid character of such places. It seems unfortunate that Majubs Reise does not include the testimony of Husen’s colleagues from the UFA studios. The film could have profited substantially by widening its focus, albeit not by rearranging the fragments of the Wissmann statue but by comparing Husen’s fate to the hardship and suffering of other German-Africans. After all, Knopf was not dealing with a hitherto totally unknown subject. Even if she personally “did not know much about Africans in Germany during the 1930s and 1940s,” as she confesses in her interview with Sandhu in The Guardian , she did know—and was, in her own words, inspired by—Bechhaus-Gerst’s publication. Why Knopf chose to disregard the extensive bibliography in this work, why she refrained from quoting Husen’s biography or any other readily available publications on the subject of Black German actors and cinema, why she promotes the—clearly false—impression that Majubs Reise is the result of her own meticulous archival research, remains an open question which only Knopf herself will be able to answer. My students were quite unforgiving in their final judgment about Majubs Reise . All of them—even those who had initially voiced more praise than criticism for the film—gave Knopf ’s documentary two thumbs down. This might seem rather unfair, especially in view of the many favorable reviews in the media and the various awards. However, I would agree with my students that the film is perhaps best shown as a ’starter,’ e. g., with the specific aim of initiating a discussion like the one organized by Stiftung Erinnerung Ulm , or, of course, within the framework of a seminar or workshop, and in this case definitely not without additional source material. 6 I would argue, from a teacher’s point of view, that not least because of its obvious flaws and the irritations it evokes among a critical audience, Majubs Reise is actually an extremely useful teaching tool. My students would have hardly invested so much time and thought into the subject of Africans in German cinema if Knopf ’s film had satisfied their curiosity and earned their unconditional approval. It remains to be seen if colleagues and students in other locations share these impressions and conclusions or whether Majubs Reise is perceived—and received—rather differently. Notes 1 Directed by Herbert Selpin. The German premiere was on 21 March 1941. For more information on Peters see, for example, Baer and Schröter 89—92. 2 MR — Majubs Reise ; the figures stand for minutes and seconds on the DVD � 3 BG —Bechhaus-Gerst. 4 Directed by Herbert Selpin, starring Sepp Rist and Ilse Stobrawa. Die Reiter von Deutsch-Ostafrika was Selpin’s first colonial propaganda film, financed by the Reichskolonialbund . The German premiere was on 2 November 1934. Ironically, “the film was banned by the Nazi government in December of 1939 as pacifist, and by the Allies after the war as military propaganda” (Hull 59). 5 AR —Aitken and Rosenhaft. 6 My students also found Theodor Michael’s autobiography entitled Deutsch sein und schwarz dazu higly informative and useful in connection with their discussions on Majubs Reise. Works Cited Aitken, Robbie, and Eve Rosenhaft. Black Germany. The Making and Unmaking of a Diaspora Community, 1884—1960 . New York: Cambridge UP , 2013. Baer, Martin, and Olaf Schröter. Eine Kopfjagd. Deutsche in Ostafrika . Berlin: Ch. Links Verlag, 2001. Bechhaus-Gerst, Marianne. Treu bis in den Tod. Von Deutsch-Ostafrika nach Sachsenhausen—Eine Lebensgeschichte . Berlin: Ch. Links Verlag, 2007. Denk, David. “’Ich wollte ihm posthum seine erste Hauptrolle geben.’” taz. die tageszeitung 14 Sept. 2013. Web. 2 Sept. 2016. Hull, David Steward. Film in the Third Reich. A Study of the German Cinema 1933—1945 . Berkeley / Los Angeles: U of California P, 1969. Majubs Reise. Dir. Eva Knopf. Goethe-Institut Munich, 2014. Video. Michael, Theodor. Deutsch sein und schwarz dazu. Erinnerungen eines Afro-Deutschen � Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 2014. Sandhu, Sukhdev. “Mohamed Husen: the black immigrant actor who carved out a career in 1930s German cinema.” The Guardian 13 Nov. 2014. Web. 2 Sept. 2016. Schwarzer, Anke. “Mehr als ein Statist.” Zeit Online 12 Apr. 2014. Web. 2 Sept. 2016. “Stiftungsjahrestag 2014.” Stiftung Erinnerung Ulm 14 Feb. 2014. Web. 2 Sept. 2016. 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