Race under Reconstruction in German Cinema: Robert Stemmle's Toxi (German and European Studies)

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Race Under Reconstruction in German Cinema investigates postwar racial formations via a pivotal West German film by one of the most popular and prolific directors of the era. The release of Robert Stemmle's Toxi (1952) coincided with the enrolment in West German schools of the first five hundred Afro-German children fathered by African-American occupation soldiers. The didactic plot traces the ideological conflicts that arise among members of a patrician family when they encounter an Afro-German child seeking adoption, herein broaching issues of integration at a time when the American civil rights movement was gaining momentum and encountering violent resistance.

Perceptions of 'Blackness' in Toxi demonstrate continuities with those prevailing in Wilhelmine Germany, but also signal the influence of American social science discourse and tropes originating in icons of American popular culture, such 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, and 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.

The film Toxi is now available on DVD from the DEFA Film Library.

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Race under Reconstruction in German Cinema: Robert Stemmle's Toxi (German and European Studies) Review

Building on works such as Maria Hoehn's "GIs and Frauleins: The German-American Encounter in 1950s West Germany," and Heide Fehrenbach's "Race after Hitler: Black Occupation Children in Postwar Germany and America," Angelica Fenner's latest work successfully deconstructs notions of race in the immediate post-war West German context through the popular 1952 film "Toxi". Using one film as the major case study, Fenner is able to clearly unpack the film and demonstrate the portrayal of Afro Germans in post-war popular culture.

After the second world war, there was a growing sense of anxiety over the liaisons between African American soldiers and German women. The children born from these unions were the subject of public and private debates in West Germany which questioned the children's citizenship and social integration. Robert Stemmle's "Toxi" was the first film to directly discuss these issues in a different public forum, through the popular medium of film. Fenner dissects the film in order to examine the growing anxieties surrounding these public debates. She is able to clearly situate the film in the larger narrative of Afro German history as well as contextualizing the debates within larger German history. The chapters discussing Toxi's allegorical narrative and "Genealogy, Geography, and the Search for Origins" are particularly insightful as Fenner explores the larger issues of race, gender, and class.

In short, this is an excellent analysis of a much overlooked issue. It is highly useful to students studying 20th century European history, students of cinema studies, women's studies, as well as any member of the general public who wishes to delve into the growing literature on Afro Germans in popular culture and modern German history. Highly recommended.

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