Hans Massaquoi

Hans -Jürgen Massaquoi ( born January 19, 1926 in Hamburg, † January 19, 2013 in Jacksonville, Florida ) was a German - American journalist and writer German - Liberian origin.

Life and work

Hans -Jürgen Massaquoi was born in 1926 in Hamburg as a son of the German Afro German nurse Bertha Baetz and that coming from Liberia and studying in Dublin Al Haj Massaquoi. His paternal grandfather was Momolu Massaquoi, Consul General of Liberia in Hamburg and first diplomat from an African country in Germany. After living in the villa of his grandfather Massaquoi moved with his mother in a working-class neighborhood to Hamburg - Barmbek -south. Here he learned to speak Missingsch and Platt. His childhood and youth experiences in Hamburg, he describes in his autobiography negro, negro, chimney sweep! , Which was also filmed.

In the era of National Socialism, he had much to suffer from discrimination and prejudice. According to Nazi ideology, he was regarded as non-Aryans and " racially inferior ". With the help of his mother and a few friends, he managed to survive the twelve-year dictatorship.

After the war he lived in Monrovia in 1948, first with his father Al Haj Massaquoi, and later with his aunt Fatima and his half-brother Morris. His Liberian family was involved in political intrigues, why Massaquoi left the country again. He later became an American citizen. His life in the U.S., he describes small in his second book Johnny, walked alone ... In this book he describes, among other things his experiences as a GI in the United States Army.

Hans -Jürgen Massaquoi was after studying for many years editor of the Afro-American magazine Ebony. He interviewed, among others, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Nnamdi Azikiwe, Muhammad Ali (with whom he was a friend ), Jimmy Carter and Walter Scheel.

Massaquoi were occasional readings and talk-show appearances to Germany. With the companions of his youth in Hamburg, the writer Ralph Giordano, he was a friend until his death. In his autobiographical novel The Bertinis it occurs in the figure of Mickey. Its half- aunt was the songwriter and peace activist Fasia Jansen, three years younger than Hans -Jürgen and illegitimate child of grandfather Momolu and a German consular official. Until the death of his aunt in 1997, which occurred with songwriters like Hannes Wader and lived as a publishing company employee in Oberhausen, Massaquoi did not know of their existence - even though they were raised as children only a few meters apart.

He died at his 87th birthday. Massaquoi left two sons.

Works

• Destined to Witness. 1999 - as a German translation: negro, negro, chimney sweep! My childhood in Germany. 1st edition, Fretz and Wasmuth Verlag, Bern 1999, ISBN 3-502-11940-6
• Johnny small, walked alone ... My way to the New World. Joke, Frankfurt am Main 2004, ISBN 3-502-10460-3

In October 2006 the ZDF showed a television adaptation with Luka Kumi, Steve- Marvin Dwumah and Thando Walbaum as Hans -Jürgen in different ages and Veronica Ferres as his mother; see negro, negro, chimney sweep! .

In the U.S., the actress Whoopi Goldberg occurs so far unsuccessfully for a cinema implementation of the book.