Kept secret & made forgotten: More soldiers from the so-called Third World fought in the Second World War than from Western Europe – more people died here than in Germany, Italy and Japan combined.

More soldiers from the so-called Third World fought in the Second World War than from Western Europe – more people died here than in Germany, Italy and Japan combined. The fascist Axis powers and the Allies recruited millions of auxiliary troops and labourers in their colonies – often by force. Large parts of the »Third World« served as battlefields and remained devastated after the end of the war.

However, as serious as the consequences of the Second World War were in the »Third World«, they were barely recognised in local historiography for a long time. 

The recherche international e.V. association in Cologne organised a comprehensive exhibition on this topic at the NS-DOK in 2010. It has since been shown at more than 60 locations in Germany, Switzerland, South Africa and Mozambique and will be shown again in an expanded version in Cologne on the 80th anniversary of the end of the war in Europe. For the first time, artistic reflections from Africa, Asia and Oceania on the consequences of the Second World War will also be presented. 

The accompanying programme includes lectures, readings, theatre performances and a film series with international guests as well as a hip-hop dance performance about colonial soldiers from France. You can find the full programme at: www.3www2.de

Colonial Victims: Cologne Exhibition Explores Overlooked World War II Narratives

February 18, 2025

An upcoming exhibition in Cologne is set to shed light on the often overlooked contributions and experiences of countries of the Global South during World War II.

Titled “The Third World in the Second World War” (Die Dritte Welt Im Zweiten Weltkrieg), this expanded showcase will run from  8 March to 1 June 2025 at the NS Documentation Centre of the City of Cologne (NS-DOK). The exhibition aims to highlight the significant yet underrepresented role that nations from Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia and Oceania, played during the global conflict.

In fact, more soldiers from the Global South fought in World War II than those from Western Europe. Both the Axis powers and the Allies recruited troops and labourers from their colonies, often through coercion. Vast regions in these countries served as battlefields, and many remained devastated and littered with landmines long after the war ended.

China alone suffered more casualties than the fascist powers responsible for the war — Germany, Italy and Japan— combined. Hundreds of thousands of women were victims of sexual violence. And during the liberation of the Philippine capital, Manila, in 1944, more people died from bombings than in Dresden, Berlin or Cologne.

Die 3. Welt im 2. Weltkrieg - 3www2

The historical backgroundMost standard history books on World War II contain lists of casualties, which do not include those from Africa, Asia, Latin America and Oceania. Some statistics even fail to mention those millions of people who died in China during World War II.For more than 60 years the number of victims from the Third World that this war caused has nowhere been investigated systematically, the main reason being that most of the countries concerned were then still under European, American, or Japanese tutelage or control. Their casualties were lumped together with the victims of the colonial powers (and thus reduced significantly), or they were simply never counted.This is all the more appalling since World War II was fought in many Third World countries. Many historians at best mention black soldiers in World War II as exotic footnotes – be they „Senegalese bowmen“ from West Africa or Australian Aborigines. Usually, veterans from the colonies are not invited to attend V-Day celebrations. And until today, they normally do not receive veterans‘ pensions, or if they do, they just make up a fraction of „white“ soldiers‘ pensions. The French government still pays the equivalent of ten U.S. dollars per month to an ancien combatants from Dakar, Senegal, who had been fighting for four years in the French army in Europe.

Book for download: 3www2EngA4Brosch#.indd

INTRODUCTION 5 PROLOGUE A Suppressed Chapter of History 8 First, Second and Third World (Explanation of the term “Third World”) 9 Uncounted Victims (The problem of numbers and statistics) CANVAS I: Colonial Powers and Colonies at the Start of World War II 10 VIDEO I: Forgotten Liberators 13 AFRICA Ethiopia 1935: The Outbreak of WWII in Africa 16 TWISTED HISTORY: History Textbook for German Schools on Ethiopia 17 LISTENING STATION 1: Te Mikael Kidanemariam – Ethiopia The Colonial Plans of the Nazis 18 Konrad Adenauer as Deputy Chairman of the German Colonial Association 19 Alternatives to the “final solution” in Madagascar The British Colonial Army in World War II 20 African Combatants from the French Colonies 21 De Gaulle: “Launching Pad Africa” 22 LISTENING STATION 2: Yoro Ba – Senegal Crimes against African Prisoners of War committed by the Wehrmacht 23 LISTENING STATION 3: Mamadou Hady Bah – Guinea 24 The Thiaroye Revolt and the French Reaction VIDEO II: The Colonial Friend, Short film, Rachid Bouchareb, Algeria/France 2004 26 A Day of Liberation in Europe – A Day of Mourning in Algeria (8th of May 1945) 27 Raw Materials for the Weapons Industry 28 Donations for the Allies 29 Supplies for the Nazis Forced Labour for the War of the Colonial Rulers 30 Alms not Pensions for African War Veterans 31 “Apartheid” to the Grave (South African Soldiers in WWII) 32 LISTENING STATION 4: Samuel Masila Mwanthi – Kenya The Portuguese Colonies during the Second World War 33 Mussolini’s Airport in Cape Verde 34 East Timor as a Theatre of War ASIA China 1937: The Outbreak of War in Asia 35 TWISTED HISTORY: “War became a World War at Pearl Harbor 1941“ 36 Korea’s Role in Japanese Warfare 37 The Japanese War Crimes Committed Against Asian Women 38 The Tokyo Women’s Tribunal in 2000 39 LISTENING STATION 5: Hwang Kum-Ju – South Korea CANVAS II: Women’s Portraits: “Abducted and Abused in Japanese Military Brothels“ 40 Japan’s War of Annihilation against China 43 The Massacre of Nanking 1937/38 44 Eyewitness Accounts from Nanking The Consequences of the War on the Malay Peninsula 45 We have a choice (Chin Peng – Malaya) 46 The 1945 Famine in Indochina The Indonesian Islands under Japanese Rule 47 India: The Largest Colonial Army of All Time 48 TWISTED HISTORY: Churchill on Hindustan (India) 49 The 1943/44 Famine in Bengal The Philippines – A Country of Resistance 50 Manila 1945 51 LISTENING STATION 6: Remedios Gomez-Paraiso – Philippines After the War Meant Before the War 52 TABLE OF CONTENTS 4 OCEANIA Nauru 1940: The Outbreak of War in Oceania 53 Hawaii 1941: The Polynesian Victims of Pearl Harbor 54 TWISTED HISTORY: German TV – War in the Pacific fought on “uninhabited islands“ 55 LISTENING STATION 7: Haunani-Kay Trask – Hawaii Deployment Bases for the Allies in the South Pacific 56 New Guinea: Farmers and Fishermen at War 57 TWISTED HISTORY: Yusako Goto, Japanese High Command, on Compensations 58 LISTENING STATION 8: Asina Papau/Ovivi Arau – New Guinea The Revolt of Colonial Soldiers from Papua 59 Scouting for the Allies on the Solomon Islands 60 Jacob Vouza – “National Hero of the Solomons” 61 LISTENING STATION 9: Biuku Gasa – Solomon Islands Australian Aborigines: Soldiers at No Cost 62 Granny Lovett’s Stars (Australia) 63 The Maori-Battalion of New Zealand French Colonies in the Pacific: From the South Seas to North Africa 64 Polynesian Island Chief Warns about Hitler in 1939 65 A Critique of “Modern“ Warfare (Solomon Islands) Atolls between the Fronts: The War in the Central Pacific 66 The 1945 Banaba Massacre 67 Final Battles and War Crimes in Micronesia 68 “Radiant Times” after 1945: The Militarisation of the Pacific 69 For a nuclear-free Pacific! 70 Eyewitness from Palau: “Your next war please not in our part of the world“ From “Million Dollar Point” to “Iron Bottom Sound” 71 SOUTH AMERICA Brazilians in Monte Castello – Mexicans in Manila 72 CARIBBEAN Tens of Thousands of Volunteers against Fascism 73 Surinam’s Resistance Fighter Anton de Kom 74 Martinique’s Anti-Fascist Frantz Fanon PERSECUTION OF JEWS (OUTSIDE OF EUROPE) Anti-Semitic Laws and Labour Camps in North Africa 75 Hitler’s willing Helpers in North Africa 76 LISTENING STATION 10: Alice Cherki – Algeria Nazi Plans for the “Final Solution” in the Middle East 77 Turkey and the Holocaust 78 Nazi Plans for the “Final Solution” in the Far East 79 COLLABORATION Fascist Sympathisers in the Middle East 80 “Celebrating Nazi victories” 81 Arab Saviours (like Khaled Abdelwahhab – Tunisia) Palestine Leader and War Criminal (Hadj Amin el-Husseini) 82 TWISTED HISTORY: “Supporting the Allies” – consensus approach in Palestine 83 The Mufti of Jerusalem and the “Final Solution” 3,500 Indians in the Waffen-SS – 50,000 on the Side of the Japanese 84 Subhas Chandra Bose (India) admires “youthful spirit“ of Fascism 85 The Fascist World Order Fascist Sympathisers in the Far East 86 Jews out – Nazis in. Argentina under Juan Perón 87 The Collaborators’ Victims 88 EPILOGUE The Right to Remembrance (Professor Kum’a Ndumbe, Cameroon) 89 An Exhibition by recherche international (Credits) 90

INTRODUCTION T his brochure catalogues the exhibition ‘The Third World in World War II’, which was curated by journalists and social scientists from the ‘recherche international e.V. ‘ association based in Cologne. T he exhibition was the result of more than ten years of research across 30 countries in Africa, Asia and Oceania, during which the authors worked with local historians and surviving witnesses. In Africa, these included contributors such as Joseph Ki-Zerbo from Ouagadougou who, in 1978, published the first history of Africa from an African perspective, as well as combat veterans from Algeria, Ethiopia, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Morocco, Namibia, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania and Western Sahara. In Manila, we met Ricardo Trota Jose from the University of the Philippines, who has spent many years researching the impact of Japanese occupation. He told us that a shocking 1.1 million people died in his country during the Second World War – one in 16! In Hong Kong, Chinese historian Tim Ko showed us around a museum on the consequences of Japanese occupation in what was then still a British Crown colony. On a research trip that took us to seven Pacific island states, we learnt that in the 1980s historians from the University of the South Pacific in Hawaii held oral history conferences on the islanders’ experiences of the war. T hese are documented in a number of publications in English and Pidgin. On the islands of Vanuatu, local field researchers recorded hundreds of interviews with eyewitnesses on the Second World War. The tape recordings are now archived in the cultural centre in the island nation’s capital, Port Vila, where we were allowed access to them. T he findings from the many years of research were published by ‘Verlag Assoziation A’ (Hamburg/Berlin) in 2005 in a book entitled ‘Our Victims Don’t Count’. Course materials for schools and other educational institutions followed in 2008. Both have since been issued in new editions. A paperback edition of the book is still available from the Federal Agency for Civic Education (bpb) as of 2025

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