African prisoners made sound recordings in German camps in WW1: ... Senegalese prisoner Abdoulaye Niang, for example, calls Europe’s battlefields an abattoir for the soldiers from Africa.

Sgt. Henry Johnson of the 369th Infantry Regiment was awarded the French Croix de Guerre for bravery during an outnumbered battle with German soldiers, Feb. 12, 1919.

An alternative history in which Germany won the Second World War and Britain fell under Nazi rule proved to be a rich creative seam for novelists Len Deighton (SS-GB) and Robert Harris (Fatherland).