From child soldier to lecturer: Bayume Mohamed Husen served Germany – until his country committed him to a concentration camp

Bayume Mohamed Husen fights as a child soldier for the Germans in Africa, acts in two dozen propaganda films – and dies miserably in Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Thomas Roebke

“Mustapha not stay with the English!” That’s the first sentence Bayume Mohamed Husen says on screen. That’s in 1934, in the film “The Riders of German East Africa”. By 1941, Husen, born Mahjub bin Adam Mohamed in Dar es Salaam (now Tanzania), would appear in 23 films. Sometimes in small speaking roles, sometimes just as an extra, the last time in an important supporting role. As a rule, there are strips that glorify the German colonial past and are intended to make you want to resume the colonial adventure that was abruptly ended by the Versailles Treaty.