Traces of August Sabac el Cher

The Afro-German August Sabac el Cher (1836-1885) was buried on September 24, 1885 in Cemetery I of the Trinity Community in Kreuzberg. [1] Although his grave no longer exists today, he remains a memorable person.

August Sabac el Cher was quite successful professionally by the standards of the time and is one of the few former black valets who have achieved a certain degree of fame today. There is a Wikipedia entry about him and his life as well as some books. [2] Stories like that of Sabac el Cher are often left to be forgotten, although other, often nameless black servants at court are still visible in the background of paintings in Prussian castles today. [3]

Sabac el Cher lived for some time right next to Cemetery I of the Trinity Community in Baruther Straße in Kreuzberg, almost exactly in the middle between today's Hallesches Tor and Mehringdamm underground stations. Shortly before the end of his life, he had already moved to Bergmannstraße at that time, Sabac el Cher became – at least on paper – an equal Prussian. Responsible for the fact that he spent most of his life in Berlin was Prince Albrecht of Prussia (1809-1872), who undertook an expedition to Egypt with Karl Richard Lepsius in the middle of the 19th century.

In the research on August Sabac el Cher's life story, it becomes clear that it only seems to begin with his meeting with Prince Albrecht of Prussia. Historical sources only allow assumptions about the first years of his life and his birthplace. It is only with Prince Albrecht that a pictorial or written, albeit incomplete, documentation of Sabac el Cher's life begins, mainly from white perspectives – for example, from the point of view of Prince Albrecht's companions on the journey to Egypt. From Sabac el Cher's own perspective, there are no reports.

Prince Albrecht's trip came about because he quarreled with his wife Marianne, so that it was decided at court in Berlin that it would be better to withdraw the king's youngest brother from the gossip of the big city for a while. Therefore, Albrecht set off for Egypt in 1843 with Karl Richard Lepsius. Lepsius had been sent by the Prussian King Frederick William IV for research purposes. Albrecht played a supporting role on the trip and there is accordingly only sparse information about the prince's stay in Egypt – the trip is not mentioned in his biography "The Forgotten Prince". However, there is no doubt that the trip took place at a time when there was great interest in Egypt. As a place of early civilization, the country exerted great fascination on Europe. [5] The expedition leader Lepsius had already achieved a certain fame as an Egyptologist at a young age, as he deciphered inscriptions on Egyptian figures and sarcophagi based on Jean-Francois Champollion's work. [6] Now he was to carry out further research on site.

Journeys such as those of Lepsius, Prince Albrecht and the accompanying scientists and artists (usually only men) can be read in a certain tradition of Orientalism. One of the pioneers of postcolonial studies, Edward Said, traces the keynote for the relationship between Europe and North Africa – which was understood as part of the Orient stretching from the Mediterranean to China – to Napoleon's invasion of Egypt in 1798. Over 100 scientists, artists and engineers accompanied Napoleon to explore Egypt. The result, in the form of the collection "Description de l'Egypte", laid the foundation for Egyptology and made the "Orient" an object of Western knowledge. [7]

Shortly after their arrival in Egypt, Lepsius, Prince Albrecht, and fellow travelers met with Mehmed Ali, the ruler of Egypt at the time. The Sabac el Chers family record book states that Mehmed Ali gave Prince Albrecht a black boy from southern Egypt (present-day Sudan) as a "gift." [8] At the time, the slave trade was still practiced in Egypt, and in Europe, the exoticizing practice of employing African servants at court was considered fashionable. Accordingly, it was not uncommon to receive a human "gift" and accept it without worrying about humanity or the wishes of the new servant. In addition, the powerful often gave new names to their new servants or serfs. Thus, Sabac el Cher received its name from Prince Albrecht. His real name is unknown.

First, Sabac el Cher accompanied Lepsius and Prince Albrecht's travel group to Giza and then on to Palestine to places from Bible stories, Beirut and Damascus. While Albrecht did not seem to pursue any specific task, the general goal of the expedition was to collect art objects and papyri. From a Prussian point of view, Lepsius and the draughtsmen, architects and painters who traveled with him were very successful: "1500 ancient Egyptian originals were brought to Berlin, more than 2000 drawings and paper impressions of monuments were made, and around 15,000 plaster casts of architectural parts and sculptures were made." [9] Today, many of these objects can be seen in the Neues Museum in Berlin. An appropriate way to deal with them from a postcolonial perspective is still up for debate.

In 1843, August Sabac el Cher traveled with Prince Albrecht and his travel group via Constantinople, Athens and Vienna to Berlin, the city that would be Sabac el Cher's home for the rest of his life. His migration story was certainly not voluntary, because Sabac el Cher was a boy of about 7 years old and was given to the prince as a serf. [10]

In Berlin, Sabac el Cher first moved into the attic of other domestic servants in the Albrecht-Palais, "the prince's magnificent domicile at Wilhelmstraße 102 to 104". [11] He received German and Christian religious instruction and was obviously a good student. There is still a Bible in the Sabac el Chers family, which the boy received from his teacher, with a dedication to the "attentive pupil Sabac el ]sic.]". [12]

At the age of 15, Sabac el Cher became a lackey, his tasks were cleaning and setting tables.

During this activity, he often had to wear oriental fantasy costumes. The noble gentlemen, such as Gorch Pieken and Cornelia Kruse, determined the accommodation of the black valets, their clothing, their education and their profession. These valets were not allowed to resign or even decide for themselves where and how they wanted to live. [13]

Black servants at the Prussian court, who had abducted white expedition members from Africa, already existed under the so-called Great Elector Friedrich Wilhelm (1620-1688). He was the founder of the Brandenburg-African Company and involved in the transatlantic slave trade. [14] In Prussia, these employees were given the racist designation "Hofm***". The second part of the word, not written out in full so as not to repeat its racist content, "is the oldest German designation with which whites have constructed Black people as different". [15]

It is unclear how Sabac el Cher fared in detail. Legally, he was not considered a slave, enslavement was already forbidden in Germany at the time, but he was not really free either. Joachim Zeller's commentary on another valet, Achmed, servant of Prince Carl, who can be seen in a painting in both Glienicke Palace and the New Palace in Potsdam, offers insights into the not really free living situation of the small group of black people in and around Berlin in the 19th century. Zeller writes in the book "Black Berlin" that their situation was mostly precarious and that these people had few opportunities to choose their living conditions. Their status was determined by the European nobles. In addition, they experienced exoticizing exclusion and racially motivated discrimination. Zeller quotes, among other things, from the German Colonial Newspaper of 1884, which states that "the [...] of Prince Charles, like an animal from the land of fables". Certainly, the situation had already come to a head in 1884, because interest in colonialism had grown strongly by that year, so that Otto von Bismarck invited other European great powers to the so-called Africa Conference in Berlin. Sabac el Cher's involuntary serfdom confirms that as a Black person he was not entirely perceived as a human being by white Berlin society.

In addition to his work as a valet, which he began at the age of 16, Sabac el Cher was baptized in the same year with the name August Albrecht, after Prince Albrecht himself and his godfather August Ferdinand Ströhmer. The historian Stephan Theilig identifies church records and baptismal documents as important traces in tracing Black German history. [16] It was therefore common practice to have employees baptized and to give them German names.

On November 25, 1867, August Sabac el Cher married Anna Maria Jung, a white woman from Berlin. How the two met is uncertain, but the lackey in the Albrecht Palace was considered a good match thanks to his employment. [17] In addition, Anna was already six months pregnant and the marriage was necessary according to the rules of decency of the time. On March 10, 1868, their son Gustav Albrecht was born, followed by their daughter Elise Bertha Charlotte on July 20, 1869.

After Prince Albrecht's death in 1872, his eldest son, also named Albrecht, appointed Sabac el Cher as the silver administrator of the Prinz-Albrecht-Palais the following year, as he was considered very reliable. [18] He was now responsible for valuables such as silver, porcelain, centerpieces and glass. [19] For his new tasks, Sabac el Cher received an annual income of 600 marks, which was considerable for the time. His family therefore had no financial worries. Pieken and Kruse note that in the same year the family was finally able to move into their own apartment, at today's Baruther Straße 11 in Kreuzberg, which was not far on foot from the Albrecht-Palais in Wilhelmstraße . A few years later, in 1876, Sabac el Cher had to resign from his activities. It is speculated that he was already suffering from stomach cancer at that time. During the illness phase, towards the end of his life, in 1882, Sabac el Cher received a naturalization certificate from the Berlin police president. This meant that he and his children were legally considered Prussian citizens and were on an equal footing with all other Prussians, at least on paper. [21] In 1885, Sabac el Cher finally died of stomach cancer, according to the church register of the Trinity parish.

This article is primarily intended to remind us of the life of August Sabac el Cher, which is only incomplete and difficult to reconstruct. It proves how strongly a life could be shaped by white, influential men, who were not least responsible for the migration of a child from Egypt to Berlin-Kreuzberg. These men are still honored in Berlin's cityscape – there is a Lepsiusstraße in Berlin-Steglitz and a Prince Albrecht monument in Charlottenburg's Schloßstraße, whereas not even August Sabac el Cher's grave exists in the cemetery of the Trinity community in Kreuzberg.

However, Sabac el Cher achieved a lot in his life: his comparatively high position and the accompanying financial security allowed him more and more freedom of choice in the course of his life, which is confirmed by the move to his own apartment in Baruthestraße. The fact that he managed to obtain Prussian citizenship can also be considered a success. His son, Gustav Sabac el Cher, continued the successes and became Kapellmeister. Today, Gustav can be seen together with his white wife in a painting entitled "Prussian Happiness in Love" in the German Historical Museum. At later times – with the Berlin Conference, the "Scramble for Africa", the First World War and, at the latest, with the Nazi regime – more and more obstacles were systematically put in the way of Black people.