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Many Chinese people, including nationals or citizens, who stayed in Nazi Germany are prosecuted, especially in the war.
Almost 3000 Chinese persons lived in Germany when Hitler seized power in 1933. [1] There was no a reliable source to prove the accurate number of Chinese. [2] They were minority in population of 63.3 million of Germans (stat. of Weimar government in 1925). [3]
Many Chinese moved to Germany for education. Some came at the behest of their political party (KMT or CCP), while some came for learning science. The approximate no. would be 200; or even 500. [4] Some worked as businesspersons. Their income was low. Many news reports focused only on crimes by Chinese. [2] Since 1920, "Incident of Chinatown" drawn attention by c. 200 traders who lived near Schlesischer Bahnhof. [2]
Starting in the 1920s, university graduates of Chinese origin emerged in Berlin, and most of them adhered to a radical left-wing ideology. Zhu De, Liao Chengzhi and Zhou Enlai and others later became prominent leaders of the Chinese Communist Party. Others joined the Communist Party of Germany, and founded a saloon called "Circle for the Chinese language". [5]
Initially the everyday life of Chinese people in Germany was unaffected by the Nazi government.
Later, Chinese people in Germany, some of whom adhered to a right-wing ideology, were targeted for persecution. Although most were not politically active, the government surveilled them. Under these circumstances, life became increasingly difficult for Chinese civilians in Germany. Beginning in 1936, Gestapo, local police and custom officers enforced regulations in Hamburg's Chinatown. On January 25, 1938, the Center for Chinese (Zentralstelle für Chinesen) was founded under the control of Reinhard Heydrich. It was dedicated to controlling the size of the Chinese population. [6]
Many Chinese nationals were forced to leave Nazi Germany due to increased government surveillance and coercion. Most members of Germany's Chinese population chose to return to mainland China, but some chose to fight in the Spanish Civil War. According to a report by the Overseas Community Affairs Council, the Chinese population in Germany was reduced to 1,938 before the beginning of the Second World War. [5] After the start of World War II and the subsequent collapse of Sino-German cooperation, the Gestapo launched mass arrests of Chinese Germans and Chinese nationals across Germany and sent many of them to labor camps. One Chinese person was sent to Auschwitz. [7]
After the Chinese government declared war on Nazi Germany following the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the Gestapo launched mass arrests of Chinese nationals across Germany, [8] concentrating them in the Arbeitserziehungslager Langer Morgen (Langer Morgen Labor Camp) in Wilhelmsburg, Hamburg, and used them as forced labourers; 17 died in the process. [9] In 1944, there were 165 Chinese arrested by Gestapo. [10]
By the end of World War II, every Chinese restaurant in Hamburg had closed. [11]
By the time the Republican government began housing German Chinese survivors, only 148 could be identified; most chose to return to mainland China, and only a few remained in Germany. Certain survivors applied for compensation from the authorities, but were denied, as the persecution was not a part of the Holocaust, per se.
In 2009, four students from the University of Konstanz produced a documentary, "A Strange Hometown", that tells the story of Hamburg's Chinatown. It screened at the 2010 Shanghai World Expo.