Hans Hauck
*Hans Hauck was born on this date in 1920. He was a Black German soldier who served in the Wehrmacht during the Nazi regime in Germany. He was born in Frankfurt am Main.
Hans Hauck's father, Benmansur Belabissi, was a Black Algerian stationed in the occupied Saarland as a soldier in the French army; his mother was a white German. During the pregnancy, the father was transferred to Frankfurt am Main; the mother followed him and had the child there to avoid the talk in her hometown. Hauck grew up in Dudweiler near Saarbrücken in his mother's family without meeting his father. At school, he was exposed to constant teasing and discrimination, not only because of the color of his skin but also because his father was a soldier in the opposing French army during World War I. Yet, he always felt like a German and wanted to be recognized.
In 1933 Hauck became a member of the Hitler Youth like his schoolmates. He then did an apprenticeship with the Reichsbahn. In 1937, when the skull was measured, he was informed that it would be sterilized. This was also not permitted under the law of the time. The operation was carried out without any anesthesia. Hauck stayed there for a few days and met boys with the same fate for the first time. Then he left the Hitler Youth; his illusion of equal societal treatment was shattered. Since the French border was only three kilometers from his location, his department at the railway was first transferred to Paderborn, then to Schneidemühl, Poland, and finally to Opladen, Germany.
After Hauck had received a summons for pre-military training from the SA in 1941, he tried to kill himself. An acquaintance's father found and saved him. Then Hauck went to pre-military training but felt unsafe there, unlike the Hitler Youth, where everyone knew and accepted him. He always feared the worst for himself and later said he was grateful not to have fallen victim to euthanasia. From 1942 Hauck was a soldier of the Wehrmacht. He made "Private First Class" within five months. He was wounded five times and taken prisoner by the Soviet Army near Warsaw in early 1945.
As he later said, the Russians treated him better than the Germans had ever treated him. After four years of imprisonment near Minsk, Belarus, he was released in 1949. There is almost no information about his future life. He first went to Canada but then returned to Dudweiler, where he spent the rest of his life. Hans Hauck died in October 2003.
