Luftwaffe Reaction re: African American Pilots?

[Glimspur]

Hi Folks,

This is actually a serious question. I know that downed Black American pilots were treated pretty much the same as their White counterparts in Luftwaffe POW camps. I also know that on a few occasions Luftwaffe fighter pilots mis-identified their adversaries as being Black (due to the black oxygen masks and helmuts). But I've never read anything in any Luftwaffe pilot's memoirs that touches on the subject of how they felt flying in combat against African-Americans. I assume they had more important things to worry about.
Still, given the official Nazi line about Black soldiers, I can't help but feel that the idea of fighting African-American pilots created a barracks room stir of some sort.
Does anyone have any documented insight into this matter?

Thanks,
Glimspur

[Glimspur]

Hi Fellas, I posted this just after the Board was set up. I really would appreciate any help on this subject. I know it is a rather unusual issue, but please post if you can.

Thanks
Glimspur

[mkb42h]

I have an anecdote passed down by a friend whose stepfather was in the luftwaffe: he was flying his messerschmidt in combat and suddenly found he was flying alongside a 'schwarze' he had never seen a 'schwarze' before and says they made eyecontact and each peeled off in opposite directions!
take it for what it's worth.

[Franek Grabowski]

I doubt anybody cared as it was highly unusual to meet a negro in the air, not even to mention it is virtually impossible to recognise colour of a skin in the air.

[brewerjerry]

Hi
slightly O/T,
but in my local library,they have a 70's book on luftwaffe aces, in it is a picture of a coloured african and it is captioned as 'the batman of the marseille'
it doesn't say if he was a civilian or a member of the luftwaffe
cheers
Jerry

[Ruy Horta]

He was a POW from South Africa, who was later executed by French resistence fighters.

At least according to Paul Carell.

[Graham Boak]

There were some black Germans, in one sense at least. JG27's badge of a negro head on a map of Africa referred to Germany's experience as a colonial power, in South-West Africa, now Namibia I believe. Some of the matters arising appear in Thomas Pynchon's novel, V.

[Brian]

Hi guys

Interestingly, I have just purchased an excellent book written by Cy Grant (one the first black TV entertainers in Britain back in the late 1950s), a former RAF navigator who was shot down and made POW in 1943. The title of the book is an echo of the caption to his photograph that appeared in a German newspaper - "A member of the RAF of Indeterminate Race."

Cheers
Brian

[Tony Jones]

Hi

Theree is an intercept for 2/44I found in PRO HW 5 last week that noted that an all Negro USAF fighter Squadorn was now in action on the Italian front. It detailed the Squadron and a/c type but I haven't looked for this in the pics I took

Tony

[Swiper]

"The Batman of Marseilles" would seem to refer to the Batman of Me109 fighter ace Hans-Joachim Marseilles who was eventually killed in North Africa, the batman being the personnal "servant" - each pilot of a specific rank had one.