Author Topic: Black Shame  (Read 2395 times)

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  • Esseö, Elisabeth (Erzsébet) von.  1923. 

    DIE ・ SCHWARZE ・ SCHMACH ・ 1919 -- 1923 ・ (Black Humiliation 1919 - 1923).  Cast bronze, chocolate-brown patina, 73 mm, 101.85 g.  Gußfrisch (as cast).  Very rare.

    Obverse: Full face of African man, eyes half-lidded, lips slightly open, materializing from surface field; below visage two spermatozoa swim up diverging left and right; title legend encircling edge; dates lower center edge. 

    Reverse: Female figure turned slightly to right, clad only in diaphanous palla draped over head, left hand raised to brow; at her feet, left and right, tangles of serpents; artist's monogram encircled, ligatured ƎE in exergue.

    Cf  Huszár, Lajos, and Béla Procopius. 1932. Medaillen- und Plakettenkunst in Ungarn, p. 201: 1952.

    This medal refers to the French occupation of the Rhineland (1919 - 1923), in part by African colonial troops.  Germans considered garrison of these "racially inferior" soldiers a deliberate humiliation, and the press sensationalized and exaggerated incidence of crime, sexual and otherwise, as shaming, especially to German women.  Children born of liaisons, consensual or not, between French-African men and German women were referred to as die Rheinlandbastarden (Rhineland bastards), and many were later sterilized under the Nazi regime.
Black Shame
« on: January 24, 2020, 03:32:57 AM »

Esseö, Elisabeth (Erzsébet) von.  1923. 

DIE ・ SCHWARZE ・ SCHMACH ・ 1919 -- 1923 ・ (Black Humiliation 1919 - 1923).  Cast bronze, chocolate-brown patina, 73 mm, 101.85 g.  Gußfrisch (as cast).  Very rare.

Obverse: Full face of African man, eyes half-lidded, lips slightly open, materializing from surface field; below visage two spermatozoa swim up diverging left and right; title legend encircling edge; dates lower center edge. 

Reverse: Female figure turned slightly to right, clad only in diaphanous palla draped over head, left hand raised to brow; at her feet, left and right, tangles of serpents; artist's monogram encircled, ligatured ƎE in exergue.

Cf  Huszár, Lajos, and Béla Procopius. 1932. Medaillen- und Plakettenkunst in Ungarn, p. 201: 1952.

This medal refers to the French occupation of the Rhineland (1919 - 1923), in part by African colonial troops.  Germans considered garrison of these "racially inferior" soldiers a deliberate humiliation, and the press sensationalized and exaggerated incidence of crime, sexual and otherwise, as shaming, especially to German women.  Children born of liaisons, consensual or not, between French-African men and German women were referred to as die Rheinlandbastarden (Rhineland bastards), and many were later sterilized under the Nazi regime.
« Last Edit: January 25, 2020, 08:32:34 PM by Haarmann »