During its campaign against France in 1940, the German army massacred several thousand black POWs belonging to units drafted in France's West African colonies. Documenting these war crimes on the basis of extensive research in French and German archives, Raffael Scheck advances a nuanced interpretation of the motivation for the massacres. Reviving traditional images of black soldiers as mutilating savages, a massive Nazi Propaganda offensive approved by Hitler, created their rationale. The treatment of black French POWs remained, however, suprisingly inconsistent, with abuses often triggered by certain combat situations.