Panel focuses on Black Panthers in Germany

The Black Panthers are remembered as some of the most iconic, passionate and controversial social revolutionaries in American history. But, in a panel held on Monday, Nov. 15 in Rockefeller Hall, the focus was the influence that the Black Power movement exerted abroad, specifically in West Germany in the early 1970s.

The panel, titled "A Breath of Freedom; Black Panther Activism in Germany," included Senior Lecturer in African American Studies at Yale University Katherine Cleaver and Barbara Cox Easley, two former members of the Panthers who worked to spread their message to African American GIs stationed in Germany during the Vietnam War. Also part of the discussion was noted historian Martin Klimpke of the German Historical Institute, who has recently written a book, A Breath of Freedom: The Civil Rights Struggle, African-American GIs and Germany, about the Panthers in Germany with Professor of History Maria Höhn. Assistant Professor of English Tyrone Simpson II and Assistant Professor of Religion Jonathon S. Khan moderated the discussion, and Höhn introduced all the participants.

Klimpke noted that the Panthers were actively involved in protest movements in the United States—namely civil rights and anti-Vietnam agitation—that caused "cracks" in the confidence of West Germans in the perfection of American democracy. Many young people in West Germany reacted strongly to the Black Panther rhetoric of "denouncing American imperialism."

"African Americans could be seen as an internal colony of the United States, West Germany could be seen as an external colony of the United States," said Klimpke, suggesting some Germans found the Panthers particularly inspiring because both groups desired self-determination. Klimpke mentioned that many Germans found the Vietnam War to be particularly objectionable given the German history. "Parallelism emerged between the war in Vietnam and the second World War for young people," he said. "The complicity of their parents in not preventing National Socialism became their complicity in not preventing war in South Asia."

Next, Cleaver, a former Communication Secretary of the Black Panther Party, offered personal anecdotes of her work in West Germany, including one in which the West German government refused her entry into the country, and discussed specifically her work in reaching "the approximately 80,000 black GIs in Germany."

Cleaver wanted to make it clear that the Black Panthers' work in Germany was not an aberration, because their concern was never limited to inequality within the United States. She noted the global aspiration of the Panthers was an essential ideal, saying, "We recognized that the goal was liberation for all people." She mentioned international branches of the movement from Algeria to North Korea, citing the way in which the Panthers' message resonated deeply with many cultures, not the least of which was Germany. While the panelists spoke, images of Black Panther activity in Germany flashed above them in Rockefeller Hall 300, as a testament to the emphatic support they received both from GIs and native Germans.

Easley related her experiences as an activist and editor of Voice of the Lumpen, a Black Panther newspaper in Germany. She and Cleaver collected material support from German supporters for the Party, including guns, for which she had no use. "Because we were there to work with them, educate, inform," she explained, "violence was not our role."

She praised the work of Klimpke and Höhn, whose booked she found quite informative. "This is a great book," she said, then added jokingly, "It was great to read it in a historical context so you get a bigger picture than your own selfish world."