Africans in GR

[Nicholas Peter Spencer]

Over the last couple of months I've been trying to track down historical 
sources for the presence of transplanted Herero in Nazi Germany - with 
absolutely no luck.  There is a general dearth of writings on the 
treament of blacks by the Germans; some references to the Rhineland 
mulattoes, and the occasional hint that blacks may have been incarcerated 
in concentration camps, but nothing very substantial.  Anybody got any 
info on this?  Was Dora supposed to have black inmates?  Is the presence 
of Hereroes in Nazi Germany a pure invention on Pynchon's part?  If this 
is so, then I think it reinforces the idea that GR is, in part, an 
allegory of racial identity in the USA (which would certainly correlate 
with the idea that the concluding sections on LA's freeways are crucial, 
Watts being passed over and all that).

Nick Spencer