Jean “Black Jack” Schramme was not your typical soldier of fortune. A Belgian plantation owner turned mercenary commander, Schramme rose to infamy during the Congo Crisis of the 1960s, where he led European mercenaries and Katangese fighters in a failed attempt to reassert control over a crumbling post-colonial state.
His exploits captured headlines in both Africa and across Europe, where he was viewed as a heroic folk hero by some and a symbol of neo-colonial violence by others. His story is one of resistance to decolonization, shifting loyalties, and a readiness to restore order through armed force.
Early Life
Jean Schramme was born in 1929 in Bruges, Belgium, into an upper-middle-class family. His father was a well-regarded lawyer, his mother a secondary-school headmistress, and his older brother a diocesan priest. Their influence instilled a strong sense of structure and discipline in Schramme as a boy.
He came of age during the German occupation of Belgium from 1940 to 1944. Growing up amid wartime disruption, authoritarian rule, and the breakdown of traditional social structures undoubtedly contributed to Schramme’s worldview and helped shape his decisions later in life.
Colonial Roots
In 1947, enticed by promises of opportunity and authority, Schramme emigrated to the Belgian Congo at the age of 18. He apprenticed on a plantation near Bafwasende in the northeast and by age 22, had established his own estate in the Kivu region, where he integrated into the European settler community.
Schramme grew increasingly involved in local colonial politics. Like many settlers, he believed that Belgian presence in the Congo was not only beneficial but necessary, seeing it as their duty to maintain order and develop the region.
When independence movements began to gain traction in the late 1950s, Schramme was among those who accurately warned that the withdrawal of colonial authority would lead to mass bloodshed.
His political engagement soon gave way to preparation. Anticipating violence, he began amassing weapons, arming his plantation staff, and converting trucks into improvised armored vehicles, all in an effort not just to defend his estate but to survive the collapse he believed was coming.
Congo’s Collapse
When the Congo gained independence in 1960, the country quickly descended into chaos. Within days, the Congolese army mutinied against the fledgling national government. Belgian commanders were expelled or killed, infrastructure crumbled, and violence spread rapidly across the country.
In the weeks that followed, central authority disintegrated. Native Congolese mobs seized white-owned estates, dragged families from their homes, and unleashed unrestrained racial violence. White men, women, and children were hunted, brutalized, and slaughtered in a wave of terror that swept across the country.
White settlers were stripped naked and paraded through the streets. Women, including nuns and missionaries, and children of both sexes were brutally raped. Men were tortured, beaten with clubs and rifle butts, and in many cases forced to watch as their families were violated or killed. Entire households were executed or left to die after prolonged abuse. The violence was deliberate and targeted – racial, intimate, and carried out with calculated cruelty.
As the country descended into chaos, Schramme chose not to protect his own estate, but to help others instead. He used his weapons and improvised armored vehicles to evacuate fellow settlers. As the violence spread, he organized armed convoys to reach European settlers trapped on remote plantations, mission compounds, and in towns overrun by looters. Drawing on his knowledge of the region and the terrain, he helped evacuate numerous people across the border into neighboring Rwanda.
While Schramme worked to evacuate fellow settlers, looters overran his estate and stripped it bare. By the time he returned home, there was nothing left to defend. With no property, no protection, and no reason to stay, he crossed into Rwanda.
Fighting for Katanga
In July 1960, just weeks after Congo’s independence, Moïse Tshombe, a businessman and politician from the mineral-rich Katanga province, declared Katanga’s secession from the central government in Léopoldville.
Backed by Belgian mining interests and tacit Western support, Tshombe presented himself as the last line of defense against instability and communist expansion in the region. His breakaway regime offered sanctuary to disillusioned settlers and a paycheck to anyone willing to fight under its banner.
Schramme joined the Katangan gendarmerie and quickly stood out, despite lacking formal military training. His discipline, presence, and local knowledge earned him the respect of both Katangan troops and European mercenaries, many of whom were veterans of Algeria, Indochina, or World War II. Unlike many mercenary officers who kept their distance, Schramme fought shoulder to shoulder with his African troops, earning their respect through shared hardship and mutual trust.
Over the next three years, Schramme led composite units of Katangan fighters and foreign mercenaries in engagements against Congolese government forces and United Nations (UN) peacekeepers. The fighting was often brutal, chaotic, and fragmented, with multiple factions pursuing conflicting agendas. What began as a regional secession soon drew in Cold War powers, foreign intelligence services, and international media.
The conflict reached its climax in late 1962 when the UN launched Operation Grand Slam, a full-scale offensive aimed at ending Katanga’s rebellion. UN forces, backed by aircraft and armored vehicles, overwhelmed Katangan positions. The final battles in Élisabethville broke the back of Katangan resistance.
By early 1963, Tshombe had fled into exile, and Katanga was forcibly reintegrated into the Congo. Facing arrest or assassination by Congolese forces, Schramme slipped across the border into Angola, where many former Katangan fighters had regrouped under Portuguese protection.
The Simba Rebellion
In 1964, Schramme watched from exile as Congo once again unraveled. A leftist uprising known as the Simba Rebellion swept through the country’s eastern provinces. Supported by Communist China and the Soviet Union, Simba rebels seized towns, executed officials, and threatened to bring down the central government. The Congolese army, underpaid and poorly trained, was disintegrating in the face of the assault.
Congo’s de facto ruler, Joseph Mobutu, was out of options. With his army collapsing, he turned to his former adversaries – men like Jean Schramme who just a year earlier had fought against Congolese government forces during the Katangan secession.
Mobutu brought back European mercenaries and ex-Katangan fighters, offering pay, amnesty, and the freedom to conduct operations on their own terms. The move was openly supported and financed by Western governments, which viewed the conflict through a Cold War lens and sought to block a communist foothold in central Africa.
Operating out of bases in northeastern Congo, Schramme played a central role in retaking rebel-held towns. Working in coordination with other mercenary leaders like “Mad Mike” Hoare and Bob Denard, he led composite units of European fighters, ex-Katangan gendarmes, and loyalist Congolese troops. Backed by Belgian paratroopers and CIA-linked pilots, these forces broke Simba strongholds, reopened supply lines, and recaptured key towns in a campaign marked by heavy casualties and acts of brutality by all factions.
Mobutu’s Betrayal
By 1965, the Simba Rebellion was crushed. With the threat eliminated, Mobutu seized full control. He declared himself president and tightened his grip on the country’s military and political institutions.
As part of that effort, Mobutu expelled many of the mercenaries he had relied on, withholding their pay and reneging on promises to integrate them into the country’s postwar security forces. For Schramme and others who had helped turn the tide of the conflict, it was a cold and calculated betrayal.
The move ignited unrest. Several mercenary units mutinied, while individual fighters who remained in Congo were treated as potential rivals and faced arrest or violent retribution.
Angry and unwilling to let Mobutu’s betrayal go unanswered, Schramme left Congo and began preparing for the confrontation that would define his legacy.
The 1967 Mercenary Revolt
In early August 1967, Schramme launched what would become one of the most infamous mercenary uprisings in post-colonial Africa. Operating out of neighboring Rwanda, he assembled a force of roughly 100 European mercenaries and 1,000 Katangan gendarmes. Their objective was to reignite the Katangan secession and carve out an independent or autonomous state, free from Mobutu’s central authority.
The force crossed the Ruzizi River in a dawn move and quickly seized Bukavu, the capital of South Kivu province, a region Schramme had once called home. They overran local garrisons, seized stockpiles of arms, and fortified key intersections within hours, before Mobutu’s forces could react.
The initial success was short-lived. Mobutu responded with overwhelming force, deploying more than 10,000 troops to encircle the city. Despite being heavily outnumbered, Schramme’s men were determined to hold Bukavu.
They turned colonial-era buildings into strongpoints, converted trucks into improvised armored cars, and used captured mortars to break up massed assaults. Over the next two months, Schramme’s force inflicted disproportionate casualties on government forces through ambushes and delaying tactics. Streets became littered with burned-out vehicles, and sniper fire made daylight movement dangerous as the siege dragged on.
As weeks passed, the fighting came at a high cost to civilians. Food shortages, shelling, and intimidation drove many into UN compounds or across the border into Rwanda, creating a humanitarian crisis that attracted international attention. Journalists smuggled out photos and reports, fueling global outrage. The same Western governments that had once backed Schramme during the Simba campaign were now wary of political fallout and quietly terminated their unofficial support.
Bob Denard, a fellow mercenary leader who had fought alongside Schramme during the Simba rebellion, attempted to reach Bukavu with a small, bicycle-mounted relief force but was intercepted by government troops and wounded in the fighting. With Denard unable to break through, and no other prospect of outside support, it was only a matter of time before the siege broke Schramme’s force.
The Breakout
By late October 1967, Schramme’s force was down to about 700 men. Their food was gone, their ammunition nearly spent, and Mobutu’s troops were tightening the cordon around Bukavu. With no hope of relief, Schramme gathered his officers and gave the only viable order left: break through the government lines and make for Rwanda.
The plan was straightforward, relying on the fundamentals of the offense: surprise, concentration, tempo, and above all, audacity. Lacking enough vehicles to carry his entire force, Schramme divided it into mounted and dismounted elements. The heavily armed mounted element, consisting of a few dozen cargo trucks, improvised armored cars, jeeps, and other commandeered vehicles outfitted with machine guns, would strike a weak point in the government’s cordon, using concentrated fire to punch a hole. Dismounted troops would follow close behind, exploiting the breach before the government could react. Once clear of the cordon, the mounted column would speed down the road to the border while the dismounted troops would split into smaller elements and navigate cross-country through the jungle to evade pursuit.
Just after midnight on October 30, Schramme gave the order. Without hesitation, the mounted column barreled toward a weak point in the government lines. The vehicles’ machine gunners hammered Congolese positions while the lead drivers smashed through roadblocks, splintering timber and scattering defenders. The Congolese soldiers, surprised and overwhelmed, withdrew in disarray.
The mounted element held the breach point while Schramme’s dismounted troops pushed through and melted away into the jungle. Once the last dismounts were through, the motorized column made a mad dash for the border, roughly twelve kilometers away by road.
The mounted element faced sporadic gunfire and hasty roadblocks from Congolese pickets and patrols. A handful of vehicles were disabled or broke down along the way, forcing their occupants to evade the rest of the way on foot.
By first light, the lead trucks rolled across the border into Cyangugu, Rwanda. Rwandan troops, alerted in advance, were prepared to receive Schramme’s mercenary force. As his mounted and dismounted elements converged at their rendezvous point, Rwandan soldiers promptly disarmed and detained them. Schramme’s men offered no resistance in what appeared to be an arrangement brokered in advance by Rwandan authorities and Belgian intermediaries.
Exile, Death, and Legacy
Following his escape from Bukavu, Schramme was briefly imprisoned in Rwanda before being released, likely under diplomatic pressure from European contacts. He resurfaced in Brazil, where he lived in relative obscurity, far removed from African conflict but still tied to its legacy.
In exile, he kept in contact with former mercenary comrades and continued to defend his actions in the Congo, insisting he had acted to preserve order and resist communist influence. He rejected the mercenary label, framing his involvement as principled rather than profit-driven.
Schramme died in Brazil in 1988, far from the battlefields that had largely defined his life.
To this day, his legacy remains contested. To supporters, Schramme was a man of conviction who sought to restore order as Congo descended into chaos. To critics, he symbolized colonial arrogance, unwilling to accept the end of European dominance in Africa. Both views place Schramme at the center of the blood-soaked struggle for power in post-colonial Congo.