After the loss of the First World War a third of the former territory of the Reich had to be ceded to neighboring powers, and Germany also lost its colonies. But that wasn't of much concern to the “protected subjects” from those lost colonies who were stuck in Germany. Not only my father, but other Cameroonians had founded families with German women. Unless they were citizens of one of the twenty-five federal states, they now had the status of “subjects of the former protectorates”. In legal terms nothing changed for them at first. People were still assuming the colonies would be returned. There was a big parliamentary and public lobby for that. Former colonial subjects still had passports from the German Reich and could travel freely inside Germany as they had before the war. They could also travel abroad, but there was one thing they couldn't do: vote. It had been the same before the war, under the Empire; the colonies did not have the status of federal states, and accordingly they had no franchise.

Apart from that, some things did change. Nationalist parties and media and right-wing groups carried on a propaganda campaign against the stationing of African troops (mainly North Africans) in the French-occupied Rhineland. A general mood of hostility to Africans developed, and it affected German Africans and their families too. Of course the propaganda was directed primarily against France, the arch-enemy, but to get at the master they were kicking the dog. If they had had regular employment, Africans now lost their jobs (“He's taking work away from one of us.”). Under these circumstances it was very difficult to find work. Especially since there were now millions of unemployed “Germans”. And beyond that, they just weren't welcome anymore, the Africans who up to now had been officially known as the Germans’ African compatriots. “They should go back where they came from!” was the general opinion.

My father didn't pay much attention to that kind of talk. After all, he had four children to feed. And so he and his family found a home in the Völkerschau – human menagerie – of the Holzmüller Circus, which rattled across Germany with a colorful troupe of exotic-looking musicians, dancers and performers.