Germanin: Nazi Film Portrayed Britons as Villains

Germanin: The Third Reich film that portrayed the African as a victim of the British Empire

A German scientist, suffering from sleeping sickness and possessing only one dose of a cure, gives it to his British rival in exchange for permission to destroy the tsetse fly breeding ground. The scene belongs to Germanin, a production of Third Reich cinema directed by Max Wilhelm Kimmich—brother-in-law of Joseph Goebbels, the regime’s Minister of Propaganda—and which has reignited an uncomfortable discussion. Those who open the debate argue that Nancy propaganda did not always construct its villain on the skin of the African, and that often it constructed him on that of the Briton.

This premise clashes with the more widely accepted narrative, according to which the regime spread uniform hatred toward Black people. According to this reading, if that narrative were true, such a film should not exist, and its very existence dismantles that supposed uniformity of the official message. One participant responds with a crude but effective counterargument: in propaganda, any argument counts as long as it damages the image of the enemy.

The screen enemy was London, not Africa

In the plot, the German researcher seeks a cure for sleeping sickness on African soil. When World War I breaks out and the Entente prevails, the region falls under British control. Contrary to the supposed humanitarian interest of the scientist, the colonial administration imposes a drug with serious side effects, including blindness, which the local population attributes to the Germans. This idea—that the British stoke African resentment against the Germans—is presented as a recurring theme in the regime’s cinema.

The portrayal of African characters, according to those who dissect the film, is that of a kind and loyal but naive and manipulable population by the English. It is not a friendly portrait. It is paternalistic. And the distinction matters, because it is there that the argument splits in two: one part of the analysis sees proof that Nancy racism toward the African is an invention of the victors; another maintains that condescension is also a form of hierarchy.

Cyclical propaganda or underlying ideology?

The film does not emerge from a vacuum. The production received official recognition within the Reich, and its director is the same firm that shot My Life for Ireland, where Irish patriots embody the ideal of the good patriot. The first film distinguished with the National Film Prize was, according to the analyzed material, a movie dedicated to South African leader Paul Kruger against the English.

A pattern reappears: the hero prioritizes the community over his own life. And the villain, almost always, speaks English. Those who defend this reading add that in much of the period’s productions, those singled out on screen are Britons, not other groups. The nuance, however, does not erase the regime’s racial policy outside of fiction, and several participants recall this: believing in the existence of races and their separation is, in itself, a form of racism, even if presented as preservation of one’s own people.

---

Sport as another showcase for the narrative

The debate leaps from cinema to athletics with the case of fencer Helene Mayer, of Jewish descent, who competed for Germany in full regime and even saluted with her arm raised. It is argued that her situation shows that the official line was not as mechanical as recounted, and that the idea that the regime rejected anyone who did not fit a pattern is poorly sustained by real cases.

The memory of German diplomat John Rabe, a party member, also emerges, who devoted himself to protecting the Chinese civilian population during the Japanese occupation of Nanjing and still receives tributes in Asia. The anecdote serves a broader argument: judging an entire group as intrinsically evil, they argue, is a simplification that does not withstand any concrete case.

Where the discussion stalls

The knot remains untied. One current reads Germanin as proof that the anti-Africanism attributed to the Reich is postwar propaganda; another admits the film’s pro-African tone but reduces it to wartime tactics against London, without this cleaning the regime’s racial policy. Between these two extremes lies uncharted territory: how screen paternalism coexisted with existing racial legislation. The full calculation of that contradiction, scene by scene, remains pending.