SS in the Congo

January 1941 - The first SS Units arrive in Germany's African colonies. Hitler had only seized the Belgian Congo and Tanganyika for prestige, thumbing his nose at yet more untermenschen brought under the rule of the Reich. What the Fuhrer had failed to see, Heydrich and Himmler had seen plain as day. Africa was a gold mine with enough slave labor to make them rich beyond their wildest dreams. Under the guise of instilling order in the Reich's new lands, Himmler quickly enforced his rights to the Dark Continent.Following the surrender of Russia, Himmler appointed Heydrich in charge of a commission to layout SS action in Africa: political, military, and commercial. What Heydrich came up with was ingenious. The SS would create a fully functioning helot state funded by the material wealth of the Congo. Heydrich would set forward a program establishing mines, camps, a transportation infrastructure, and more.

The indigenous population would not reap the benefits of Heydrich's program. Belgian colonists were lucky enough to keep possession of certain properties in the wake of their new superiors. The Kongo, Luba, Mongo, and other native tribesmen, meanwhile, saw their numbers decimated as they were literally worked to death. SS doctors would seize upon those laborers deemed unfit to work and perform numerous experiments on them including sterilization, medical training, weapons research, and more. Many SS men became infamous for keeping the skulls of native africans as trophies. The horrors that would transpire in the jungles of Africa would soon spread to other parts of the Reich.

SOURCE: World Book Encyclopedia