When Germans Dreamed of Algeria:

 

News surrounding the arrest of Algerian-French author Boualem Sansal in Algeria on November 16, 2024, was met with an outcry internationally as many protested against the detainment of the then-75-year-old writer, who was undergoing treatment for cancer. Controversial media statements made by Sansal led to his arrest in Algeria under charges of “undermining national unity.” Sansal was detained for a year before his release by a presidential pardon issued by Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune in November 2025, after numerous appeals from France and Germany. Though a prominent literary figure in the Francophone cultural scene, Sansal’s name has been deeply entrenched in debates concerning the relationship between France and Algeria for decades. Three months after his release, Sansal revealed in February, during a talk with secondary school students at the Edgar-Quinet High School, that his Algerian nationality had been revoked pending some formalities and that “right now, I am only a French citizen.”

 

Boualem Sansal is a celebrated yet controversial writer, especially in Algeria, where his works have been banned. His troubles in his home country can be traced back to almost two decades prior to the publication of his 2008 book “The German Mujahid” (published in English in 2009) and its subsequent ban in Algeria. The book remains untranslated into Arabic since its ban.

 

In his essay “Boualem Sansal and the German Village,” published in Al-Quds Al-Arabi, Said Khatibi pinpoints the book's publication as a major turning point that has led to the hostility the writer continues to experience today.* “The German Mujahid” was banned in Algeria due to numerous controversial reasons, some of them claiming the work draws parallels between Islamist fundamentalism and Nazism. According to Khatibi, this work turned Sansal’s life “upside down,” making him the target of resentment, increased pressure, and subject to “unbearable abuse,” he writes.

 

“The German Mujahid” (Le village de l'Allemand ou Le journal de frères Schiller, 2008) follows the story of two Algerian brothers, Rachel and Malrich Schiller, born to a German father and an Algerian mother. At a young age, the boys were sent away from Algeria to France to live with an elderly couple. Rachel, an engineer, discovers from a news report that his parents and others living in the Algerian village of Ain Deb were murdered by Islamic fundamentalists. Returning to the village, Rachel uncovers the true identity of his late father: a Nazi SS officer who was active in death camps and escaped to Algeria in hiding, assuming a new identity. Believing it to be his only chance to atone for his father’s sins, Rachel commits suicide, leaving his younger brother Malrich behind to piece together the story. In doing so, Malrich draws connections between Rachel’s findings about Nazism and the behavior of the local Imam and extremist Islamic militants he witnesses.

 

Both the author and his novel became targets of some conservative factions. Much of the backlash against Sansal was driven by political reasons rather than by the literary content of his book. Aside from its comparison of Islamic fundamentalism to Nazism, however, Khatibi explains, “what bothered them most was Sansal’s inclusion of a foreign character in the War of Independence. A single narrative prevailed, claiming that the war was declared and waged by Algerians alone, with no other participation.” Thus, Sansal’s “The German Mujahid” ran counter to the narrative that Algerian independence was achieved by Algerians alone, without outside interference, and its suggestion that a foreigner had participated sparked anger. However, Khatibi points out the flaws in this position — contrary to their claims, Algeria has, in fact, been the home to a few generations of Germans who settled in the country in the mid-19th century.

 

Many German families left their country throughout the 1840s due to the rampant rise in unemployment, hoping to find success and escape poverty in the Americas. They left their home countries for France, where, if all went as planned, they could find passage to their destinations. In France, however, many of these families were scammed by smugglers and left stranded. With nowhere else to go and no desire to return to Germany, they turned their eyes towards Algeria, then under French control. According to Khatibi in his essay “Germans Seeking Paradise in Algeria,” published in Al-Quds Al-Arabi, Algeria rekindled in these German emigrants a hope for success; they hoped that, like with the case of Brazil, which they viewed as a place of paradise, settling in Algeria would similarly help them achieve their dreams.** Algeria was also more appealing than Brazil because of its proximity, a much shorter journey by ship.

 

After arriving in Algeria, these German emigrants settled in the village of Stidia in the province of Mostaganem, which over time grew from a village into a town. The name “Stidia,” coming from “Ain Stidia,” stems from the word ṣadiʾa (rusty), meaning a rusty spring of water. Khatibi cites the existence of Stidia as evidence that debunks the opposition's claims that Germans did not exist in Algeria and could not have participated in the fight for independence.

 

The inhabitants of Stidia have struggled with ambiguous identity, both in language and in citizenship. Second-generation children whose parents were German settlers continued to speak German among themselves and at home, but spoke French at school. At the same time, these German residents were not granted French citizenship and retained their German nationality until 1914, when WWI broke out, and French authorities offered them the opportunity to enlist in the French army in exchange for French citizenship. Even after WWI, however, the town’s character remained German — so much so that the French attempted to change this by renaming it Georges Clemenceau, after the leader who guided France to victory during WWI. Between 1939 and 1962, the town’s population was made up of French settlers, people of German descent, and Algerian natives — though the latter were treated poorly, denied the right to own land, and worked as laborers under European authority, writes Khatibi. After Algeria’s independence in 1962, the town reverted to its original name, Stidia.

 

Khatibi’s essays are less concerned with defending Sansal’s work and more interested in touching on an overlooked part of Algeria’s history. Boualem Sansal’s reputation remains controversial, yet a deeper dive into the criticisms of one of his early works sheds light on a community within Algeria’s demographics that many, even Algerians, may not know about.