Book dossier

French Colonial Soldiers in German Captivity During World War II

by Raffael Scheck

This book discusses the experience of nearly 100,000 French colonial prisoners of war captured by Nazi Germany during World War II. Raffael Scheck shows that the German treatment of French colonial soldiers improved dramatically after initial abuses, leading the French authorities in 1845 to believe that there was a possible German plot to instigate a rebellion in the French empire. Scheck illustrates that the colonial prisoner's contradictory experiences with French authorities, French civilians, and German guards created strong demands for equal rights at the end of the war, leading to clashes with a colonial administration eager to reintegrate them into a discriminatory routine.