A Berlin exhibition highlights the overlooked role of African soldiers in the World Wars
African tirailleurs were largely erased from both art and historical narratives despite their contributions
The exhibition explores the lasting legacy of colonialism, from forced recruitment to ongoing demands for recognition
An international exhibition on the role of African soldiers in the World Wars is on display at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW) in Berlin through Sunday, June 14. Titled “Tirailleurs: Trials and Tribulations From Cannon Fodder to Avant-Garde—The Forgotten Soldiers Who Freed Europe,” the exhibition has been running since March 2026.
The exhibition brings together more than 30 internationally recognized artists, including Kader Attia, Barthélémy Toguo, Pascale Marthine Tayou, El Hadji Sy, Binta Diaw and Josèfa Ntjam. It features 14 works commissioned specifically for the exhibition, alongside a collection of archives and historical documents on the African tirailleurs. The program also includes screenings of films by leading figures of African cinema, including Ousmane Sembène, Rachid Bouchareb and Idrissou Mora-Kpa.
Black soldiers invisible in avant-garde art
Although they fought on the front lines of the major conflicts of the modern era, African tirailleurs long remained absent from avant-garde artistic representation — or were reduced to racist stereotypes propagated by colonial authorities. Their absence exposes the limitations of that artistic model, despite a few notable exceptions such as Félix Vallotton and Othon Friesz, described by HKW on its website as “two modernist European painters who depicted the Tirailleurs as human beings.”
At the very moment these soldiers were fighting in Europe, modernist artists were drawing inspiration from African masks and sculptures while stripping them of their creators and cultural contexts. What was celebrated as formal innovation was, in reality, a process of cultural appropriation and extraction.
“As the internal Resistance joined the ranks of the regular army, the high command took the opportunity to ‘whiten the troops’ starting in September 1944: between 15,000 and 20,000 soldiers from sub-Saharan Africa were pulled from the front and replaced by young resistance fighters who were far less experienced militarily,” France 24 wrote in a November 2024 article marking the 80th anniversary of the Provence landings. The article also notes that the tirailleurs who were demobilized in this way were excluded from the final stages of the Allied victory. Several historians believe that decision contributed to the erasure of African soldiers’ role in the liberation of France.
Who are the “Senegalese tirailleurs”?
The term “tirailleurs” first appeared in Saint-Louis, Senegal, in 1857 before quickly expanding to refer to soldiers recruited from France’s African, Asian, Caribbean and Pacific colonies. The exhibition does not treat the term as a fixed category but rather as a critical lens through which to examine common experiences: forced recruitment, coerced labor, transnational displacement and the emergence of a political consciousness that fueled anticolonial, antifascist and pan-African movements.
The exhibition also highlights the often-overlooked role of women — known as the “Mesdames Tirailleurs” — who sustained families and took on a wide range of essential responsibilities. Forced recruitment was a defining feature of colonial empires, as illustrated by the Askari (the Arabic word for soldier) of German East Africa, Nigerians sent to Burma, Moroccan goumiers and African-American soldiers subjected to segregation.
The legacy of these practices continues in other forms, reflected in unequal pensions, the marginalization of historical memory and ongoing demands for reparations. The 1944 Thiaroye massacre remains the most brutal example.
Ubrick F. Quenum