Race Under Reconstruction in German Cinema

Race under Reconstruction in German Cinema investigates postwar racial formations through an analysis of a pivotal West German film of that era. The release of Robert Stemmle's Toxi (1952) coincided with the enrolment in West German schools of the first cohort of Afro-German children fathered by African-American occupation soldiers. The plot traces the ideological conflicts that arise among members of a patrician family when they encounter an Afro-German child who is seeking adoption. The film broaches issues of integration at a time when the American rights movement was gaining momentum and encountering violent resistance.

Perceptions of 'Blackness' in Toxi parallel those in Wilhelmine Germany but also signal the influence of such icons of American popular culture as Uncle Tom's Cabin, Birth of a Nation, and several Shirley Temple films. By applying a cultural studies approach to individual film sequences publicity photos, aria press reviews. Angelica Fenner relates West German discourses around race and integration to emerging economic and political anxieties class antagonism, and the reinstatement of conventional gender roles.

Angelica Fenner is an associate professor in the Cinema Studies Institute at Innis College and in the German Department of St Michael's College, University of Toronto.