Hans Massaquoi
Hans-Jürgen Massaquoi (January 19, 1926 – January 19, 2013) was a German-American journalist and author. He was born in Hamburg, Germany, to a German mother and a Liberian father of Vai ethnicity, the grandson of Momulu Massaquoi, the consul general of Liberia in Germany at the time. He wrote his autobiography Destined to Witness. Growing up Black in Nazi Germany, published in 1999. The German translation of it was published the same year, as Neger, Neger, Schornsteinfeger. Meine Kindheit in Deutschland. The title references a racist rhyme that schoolboys taunted him with in 1932. The German version was adapted as a film and released in 2006. He later published a second autobiography, only in German: Hänschen klein, ging allein … Mein Weg in die Neue Welt (2004). Childhood in Germany In his autobiography, Destined to Witness, Massaquoi describes his childhood and youth in Hamburg during the Nazis' rise to power. His autobiography provides a unique point of view: he was one of the very few German-born children of German and African descent. He was often shunned, but escaped Nazi persecution. This duality remained a key theme throughout his early life until he witnessed racism as practiced in colonial Africa and