Wehler, Das deutsche Kaiserreich, 1871–1918 (Göttingen, 1973); A. Césaire, Discours sur le colonialisme (Paris, 1955); H. Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York, 1966); R. Gerwarth and S. Malinowski, ‘Hannah Arendt’s Ghost: Reflections on the Disputable Path from Windhoek to Auschwitz’, Central European History, xlii (2009), pp. Germany lost control when World War I began and its colonies were seized by its enemies in the first weeks of the war. "[15], Before this, Germans had traditions of foreign sea-borne trade dating back to the Hanseatic League; a tradition of German emigration that existed (eastward in the direction of Russia and Transylvania and westward to the Americas); and North German merchants and missionaries showed interest in overseas engagements. The most fascinating and analytical chapter, in this reader’s opinion, is Chapter Five, a collective biography of missionary workers in Tanganyika. The final chapter places these biographies within their transnational relationships and networks, through the lens of three transnational ‘spaces’: missionary associations, publications, and the mission-built churches and museum in St Ottilien. Walther, Sex and Control: Venereal Disease, Colonial Physicians, and Indigenous Agency in German Colonialism, 1884–1914 (New York, 2015), p. 2. Bismarck's successor in 1890, Leo von Caprivi, was willing to maintain the colonial burden of what already existed, but opposed new ventures. German South West Africa, German Deutsch-Südwestafrika, a former German colony (1884–1919) that is now the nation of Namibia, in southwestern Africa. These islands were given the status of protectorate.[17]. "[29] However, Togoland saw its own share of bloodshed. Historicus Africanus: "Der 1. To a smaller extent, Germany and Italy had, too. I am no man for colonies"[11] and "remained as contemptuous of all colonial dreams as ever. 4–6) and non-European indigenous actors (chs. [24] The author Charles Miller offers the theory that the Germans had the handicap of trying to colonize African areas inhabited by aggressive tribes,[25] whereas their colonial neighbours had more docile peoples to contend with. Against this backdrop, three recent works have made new forays into our historical understanding of German colonialism. East-West-North-South Africa: The English established her colonies in East, West, North and South Africa. This vast area was both heavily arid with two deserts, the Namib and the Kalahari, as well as being rich in natural resources such as copper, gold, diamonds, uranium and lead. Indeed, perhaps as a counterweight to this statistical evidence, Walther also attempts a more nuanced, post-colonial reading of the archives through attention to ‘indigenous agency’ in the final chapters. For example, during the Boxer War, American officials condemned the conduct of German punitive expeditions, and their own forces refrained from razing villages. These early agreements with local entities later formed the basis for annexation treaties, diplomatic support and military protection by the German government. German Language and Architecture in the Former German Colonies of Sub-Saharan Africa *** Although Germany lost possession of its African colonies in 1918, traces of the German language and architecture remain there to this day. Introduction on German Colonization in South West Africa South Western Africa was a German colony from 1884 until 1915. Indeed, the combination of cultural and military history works particularly well in this analysis to help readers understand the attitudes that soldiers brought with them to the colonial arena. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide, This PDF is available to Subscribers Only. It includes detailed statistical information and further data concerning white Europeans (chs. With the concluding Treaty of Versailles, Article 22, German colonies were transformed into League of Nations mandates and divided between Belgium, the United Kingdom, and certain British Dominions, France and Japan with the determination not to see any of them returned to Germany — a guarantee secured by Article 119. Credo Reference. [5], Until their 1871 unification, the German states had not concentrated on the development of a navy, and this essentially had precluded German participation in earlier imperialist scrambles for remote colonial territory – the so-called "place in the sun". Subsequently, after the defeat of Russia during World War I, Germany acquired vast territories with the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and created several administrative regions like Ober Ost. The missionary-run training colleges were also key entry-points for the Tanganyikan brothers.30 Perhaps surprising to some readers, however, will be the fact that German missionaries also took part in military service. Trench of the British Royal Garrison Artillery. The study, situated both within and outside the German colonial context, traces missionary networks between the St Benediktus missionary society and the former German East Africa (Tanzania), Switzerland and the United States. B. Madley, ‘From Africa to Auschwitz: How German South-West Africa Incubated Ideas and Methods Adopted and Developed by the Nazis in Eastern Europe’, European History Quarterly, xxxiii (2005), pp. As all three authors have attempted to do, incorporating non-European perspectives into this analysis remains one of the most important tasks for historians of German colonialism, both in research and in a wider continuing engagement with the colonial past. Peters’ Society for German Colonization became the German East Africa Company. The Empire's colonies were primarily commercial and plantation regions and did not attract large numbers of German settlers. [13] In the very next year Bismarck shed personal involvement when "he abandoned his colonial drive as suddenly and casually as he had started it" as if he had committed an error in judgment that could confuse the substance of his more significant policies. [40], Dar es Salaam evolved into "the showcase city of all of tropical Africa,"[40] Lomé grew into the "prettiest city in western Africa",[41] and Tsingtao, China was, "in miniature, as German a city as Hamburg or Bremen". Carl Peters was a German explorer, journalist and philosopher, instrumental in the founding of German East Africa and helped create the European "Scramble for Africa". The first Tanganyikans were not taken in until the 1950s.35 Therefore this study only includes eight missionaries who came from the United States and eleven born in Tanganyika. [18] German traders and merchants began to establish themselves in the African Cameroon delta and the mainland coast across from Zanzibar. [9], In 1844 Rhenish aristocrats attempted to set up a German colony in the independent state of Texas with about 7400 settlers involved. 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Fischer's (at the time considered) scientific actions and torment of the children were part of a wider history of abusing Africans for experiments, and echoed earlier actions by German anthropologists who stole skeletons and bodies from African graveyards and took them to Europe for research or sale. The German effort included the first commercial enterprises in the 1850s and 1860s in West Africa, East Africa, the Samoan Islands and the unexplored north-east quarter of New Guinea with adjacent islands. [90], While a minority view during the Kaiserzeit, the idea developed in full swing under Erich Ludendorff and his political activity in the Baltic states, Ukraine, and Poland. The study focuses on the ways in which the German colonial government exerted authority and power through biopolitics rather than, for example, the military or the police, with particular attention to both the extent and the limitations of this power.1 Focusing on the management of venereal disease in the German colonies, Walther shows the ways in which colonial authorities targeted the bodies of German military men and, ultimately, female prostitutes in their attempt to control public health. The Duala leadership in 1884 placed the tribe under German rule. Map of A map showing the European colonization of the African continent before and after the Berlin Conference of 1885, when the most powerful countries in Europe at the time convened to make their territorial claims on Africa and establish their colonial borders at the start of the New Imperialism period. It could usefully have been extended with personal accounts. Heinrich Goering, the father of Hitler's right-hand man, was colonial governor of German South-West Africa. [91] Other scholars, are skeptical and challenge the continuity thesis. The German presence in Africa and the effects of German colonialism on African societies is an area of study that has been neglected by most African and Africanist scholars. He helped England to occupy Rhodesia, Nyasalahd and Cape Colony. Notable, among the factors was the emergence of the industrial revolution which brought about a rapid change in the socio-economic transformation and technology of the European countries. [71], In her African and South Seas colonies, Germany established diverse biological and agricultural stations. "Empire" as a description of foreign policy, This page was last edited on 28 December 2020, at 23:49. [26], In the first years of the 20th-century shipping lines had established scheduled services with refrigerated holds and agricultural products from the colonies, exotic fruits and spices, were sold to the public in Germany. [43], In the years before the outbreak of the World War, British colonial officers viewed the Germans as deficient in "colonial aptitude", but "whose colonial administration was nevertheless superior to those of the other European states". [80] In an interview with Cecil Rhodes in March 1899 he stated the alleged dilemma clearly: "... Germany has begun her colonial enterprise very late, and was, therefore, at the disadvantage of finding all the desirable places already occupied. At that time, the German penchant for giving muscle priority over patience contributed to continued unrest. The author contributes to our understanding of these specific circumstances through a methodical analysis of six factors in each conflict: geophysical conditions; cultural geography (human settlement, infrastructure, economy); indigenous actors as one of the warring parties; German military personnel dispatched on behalf of the German Empire (origins, affiliations, ideological considerations and self-conceptions); external requirements (punishment, retribution, settlement, occupation; funding; legitimisation in parliament and the press); and ‘friction’. One clear theme that emerges from this research is the idea of transnational, or imperial, careering.27 Extending this concept into the missionary world, Egger includes not just ordained priests, but also ‘Brudermissionare’, that is, teachers, craftsmen, mechanics, engineers and doctors, as well as women members of the ‘Frauenmission’ who would help priests in the ‘civilizing mission’.28 Crucially, by placing the main part of her study in the 1920s to the 1960s, the author includes not just American and European, but also Tanganyikan missionary careers. In August 2018, more than one hundred years after the end of German rule over South West Africa, the German Foreign Office oversaw the repatriation of the remains of several Ovaherero/Ovambanderu and Nama to Namibia. In eastern Africa the imperialist and "man-of-action" Karl Peters accumulated vast tracts of land for his colonization group, "emerging from the bush with X-marks [affixed by unlettered tribal chiefs] on documents ... for some 60 thousand square miles of the Zanzibar Sultanate’s mainland property. In October 2011, after 3 years of talks, the first skulls were due to be returned to Namibia for burial. [46] Britain further recognized that Germany really had little of value to offer in territorial transactions; however, advice to Grey and Prime Minister H. H. Asquith hardened by early 1914 "to stop the trend of what the advisers considered Germany’s taking and Britain’s giving. Eugene Fischer, an anthropologist at the University of Freiburg, agreed with that notion saying that they should only be supported as necessary and as they prove to be useful. To varying degrees, they pick up on four broad trends within the burgeoning field of German colonial history: an increasing sensitivity to histories of the colonised; contextualising German colonial history within a wider European imperial framework; sustained attention to the transnational turn; and tracing the impact of empire on the colonial metropole. The next is the 120th anniversary of the 1884 Berlin West Afric… Attention to a possible overlap between discourses which focus on the working class in colony and metropole and on the racial underclass abroad, though briefly mentioned, might have been pursued further. [56] It also meant that British colonies now had colonies of their own — which was very much influenced at the Paris proceedings by W.M. [78] Together with Theodor Mollison he also experimented upon Herero prisoners. Credo Reference. Public opinion eventually arrived at an understanding that prestigious African and Pacific colonies went hand-in-hand with dreams of a High Seas Fleet. As of today, no country outside Europe uses German as an official language, although in Namibia, German is a recognized national language and there are numerous German placenames and architectural structures in the country. Nevertheless, these interjections suggest that German colonial medics did not differ greatly from their British colleagues, further substantiating the validity of considering German colonialism as part of a wider European project.20 Through the discussion, readers also get a glimpse of the international networks that brought prostitutes to the colonies in the first place: brothels were run by French, German, Japanese and Chinese managers and featured women from a variety of backgrounds. Human Rights Review 9.3 (2008): 331-360. The collective biography reveals some unsurprising commonalities in the missionaries’ backgrounds: European missionaries were overwhelmingly from small, rural communities, from large, hard-working agrarian or small trade families, who in turn also learned a trade or received further education in a technical college. Unified in the early 1870s, the chancellor of this time period was Otto von Bismarck. Despite the volume’s almost 400-page expanse, the reader is thus still left with the feeling that the topic has not been exhausted and may offer several valuable leads for further research. [57] The principle of "self-determination" embodied in the League of Nations covenant was not considered to apply to these colonies and was "regarded as meaningless". "[12] However, in 1884 he consented to the acquisition of colonies by the German Empire, in order to protect trade, safeguard raw materials and export markets and take advantage of opportunities for capital investment, among other reasons. Despite the negative effects suffered from colonization, overall African colonies benefited greatly and were positively influenced from German colonization. [55], British placement of surrogate responsibility for former German colonies on white-settler dominions was at the time determined to be the most expedient option for the British government — and an appropriate reward for the Dominions having fulfilled their "great and urgent imperial service" through military intervention at the behest of and for Great Britain. After the conquest of African decentralized and centralized states, the European powers set about establishing colonial state systems. Indeed, it was not until the 1980s that Tanzanian candidates were allowed entry into the convents of Peramiho and Ndanda.34. In 1914, about 25,000 Germans lived in the colonies, slightly less than half of them in German South-West Africa. E-mail Citation » Offers a rare comparative study of three German colonies and argues for the heterogeneity of German colonial practice and policy. Hughes, William Massey, and Louis Botha, the prime ministers of Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. This is not least because of the comparatively large body of data available for Germany’s largest former settler colony. Townsend, Mary (Jun 1938). Carl Peters was a German explorer, journalist and philosopher, instrumental in the founding of German East Africa and helped create the European "Scramble for Africa". Throughout the work, the author also recognises the complicated relationship between missionary and (neo-)colonial ideals. 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