« Appartenances coloniales ». Les répercussions du traité de Versailles sur le statut juridique des Allemands noirs et de leurs familles entre les deux guerres

Under the Treaty of Versailles the German colonial empire was placed under the mandate system of the League of Nations. France, Britain and South Africa took over legal responsibility for the administration of Germany’s former African territories, whose populations were, in theory, placed under the ‘diplomatic protection’ of the same states. What this amounted to was unspecified, but as this article shows, the willingness of the mandate states to take responsibility for their new charges would be particularly tested in Germany itself. There, to the concern of the German colonial authorities, a small population of African colonial subjects, willingly or otherwise, had set up home and formed families. This article examines the legal and real-life consequences the shift from German colony to Mandate state had during the interwar period for these men, their white, European wives and their German-born children who remained in Germany. At the same time, it highlights public and private initiatives undertaken by German-based Black people to raise attention to their plight and to improve their legal status.