Selling the mission : the German Catholic elite and the educational migration of African youngsters to Europe

In the aftermath of the Kulturkampf, involvement in the German colonial project provided an opportunity for German Catholics to demonstrate their patriotism. In particular, German Catholic missions sought to carve out a role for themselves in the education of African youngsters not just in the new overseas territories in Africa, but also in Germany itself. Prior to the First World War, a handful of youngsters, primarily from Cameroon, were thus educated by the Pallottine Mission at Limburg an der Lahn and by the Benedictine Mission at St Ottilien, near Munich. This article looks at the ways in which these African students were soon used both publicly and privately to promote Catholic missionary work at home in order to secure support from amongst the Catholic elite of Europe, both financial and political, for ventures abroad. This allows for an analysis of domestic missionary promotional practices as well as of evolving representations of colonial Africans during the Imperial period. The article considers public religious ceremonies (primarily baptisms), mission newspaper reports and fundraising tours in order to demonstrate that these African youngsters came to personify an image of the civilized African, who was devout, intellectually capable and hard-working; an image which offered a counterpoint to the more prevalent negative representations of blacks

Embracing Germany: interwar German society and Black Germans through the eyes of African-American reporters

This article looks at the published reports on visits made to inter-war Germany by prominent black journalists Robert S. Abbot, J.A. Rogers and Lewis K. McMillan. Drawing on their own experiences as well as their engagement with German-based Blacks the reporters contrasted the oppressive conditions black people faced in the US with the apparent lack of colour prejudice in Germany. Their coverage serves as a critique of race relations in the US, while also providing snapshots into the conditions under which Black Germans lived as well as an insight into the writers' own perceptions of a broader Black Diaspora in development

A transient presence: black visitors and sojourners in Imperial Germany, 1884-1914

The onset of German colonial rule in Africa brought increasing numbers of Black men and women to Germany. Pre-1914 the vast majority of these Africans can best be described as visitors or sojourners and the Black population as a whole was a transient one. This makes recovering their presence in the archival record exceptionally difficult and it is not surprising that the existing historiography almost exclusively focuses on individual biographies of well documented lives. Through utilising a number of newly digitised archival materials, particularly the Hamburg Passenger Lists, this article draws upon a database with information on 1092 individuals from sub-Saharan Africa who spent time in Germany over the period 1884-1914 in order to add considerable bread and depth to our understanding of the Black presence as a whole. It provides increasing empirical detail about the make-up and character of this fluid population - where visitors came from, why they came to Germany, their age on arrival - as well as more accurate detail on the temporal and, to a lesser extent, spatial distribution of visitors

Mortality and pulmonary complications in patients undergoing surgery with perioperative SARS-CoV-2 infection: an international cohort study

Background: The impact of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) on postoperative recovery needs to be understood to inform clinical decision making during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. This study reports 30-day mortality and pulmonary complication rates in patients with perioperative SARS-CoV-2 infection. Methods: This international, multicentre, cohort study at 235 hospitals in 24 countries included all patients undergoing surgery who had SARS-CoV-2 infection confirmed within 7 days before or 30 days after surgery. The primary outcome measure was 30-day postoperative mortality and was assessed in all enrolled patients. The main secondary outcome measure was pulmonary complications, defined as pneumonia, acute respiratory distress syndrome, or unexpected postoperative ventilation. Findings: This analysis includes 1128 patients who had surgery between Jan 1 and March 31, 2020, of whom 835 (74·0%) had emergency surgery and 280 (24·8%) had elective surgery. SARS-CoV-2 infection was confirmed preoperatively in 294 (26·1%) patients. 30-day mortality was 23·8% (268 of 1128). Pulmonary complications occurred in 577 (51·2%) of 1128 patients; 30-day mortality in these patients was 38·0% (219 of 577), accounting for 81·7% (219 of 268) of all deaths. In adjusted analyses, 30-day mortality was associated with male sex (odds ratio 1·75 [95% CI 1·28–2·40], p\textless0·0001), age 70 years or older versus younger than 70 years (2·30 [1·65–3·22], p\textless0·0001), American Society of Anesthesiologists grades 3–5 versus grades 1–2 (2·35 [1·57–3·53], p\textless0·0001), malignant versus benign or obstetric diagnosis (1·55 [1·01–2·39], p=0·046), emergency versus elective surgery (1·67 [1·06–2·63], p=0·026), and major versus minor surgery (1·52 [1·01–2·31], p=0·047). Interpretation: Postoperative pulmonary complications occur in half of patients with perioperative SARS-CoV-2 infection and are associated with high mortality. Thresholds for surgery during the COVID-19 pandemic should be higher than during normal practice, particularly in men aged 70 years and older. Consideration should be given for postponing non-urgent procedures and promoting non-operative treatment to delay or avoid the need for surgery. Funding: National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), Association of Coloproctology of Great Britain and Ireland, Bowel and Cancer Research, Bowel Disease Research Foundation, Association of Upper Gastrointestinal Surgeons, British Association of Surgical Oncology, British Gynaecological Cancer Society, European Society of Coloproctology, NIHR Academy, Sarcoma UK, Vascular Society for Great Britain and Ireland, and Yorkshire Cancer Research

Surviving in the metropole: the struggle for work and belonging amongst African colonial migrants in Weimar Germany

This paper looks at the fate of the Africans in Germany during the Weimar Republic in terms of their search for belonging and struggle to find work. In doing so it allows for a discussion of the day-to-day experiences and survival strategies of Germany's African Diaspora, their struggle for political recognition and self-definition as well as economic survival. Their presence was tolerated by German officials only as long as it served the purpose of a German colonial propaganda which sought to regain the lost colonies. In the wider context of economic hardship in Germany and rising racial prejudice, particularly in the late 1920s, many of these migrants faced a continual struggle for economic survival. Increasingly, one of the means of carving out an existence remaining for members of the African Diaspora was to turn to the stage. Here they were asked to ‘perform’ their blackness – to take on roles of a constrictive nature, reflecting and reinforcing stereotypes of the Black as primitive or exotic

Exclusion and inclusion Gradations of whiteness and socio-economic engineering in a settler society : German Southwest Africa, 1884-1914

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