German Colonialism

When we talk about the history of German expansion, we usually focus on the Third Reich and the period leading up to and including World War II. Before that, we talk about border disputes, invasions, and land swaps with other European countries.

But what about expansion outside Europe?

To be honest, the idea had not really occurred to me until I saw an exhibit in Hamburg about German colonialism in East Africa. The ruthlessness of the Dutch and the Portuguese regarding Africans and the slave trade was familiar, but an actual German presence in Africa? I was intrigued.

Because Germany was a collection of independent kingdoms when most countries were conducting their exploits in Africa, it was late to the game. It seems the Brandenburg kingdom engaged in slave trading till around 1700, but until German unification in 1871, the rest of the soon-to-be country lacked the necessary resources.

It was then that Germany established “protectorates” in Togo, Cameroon, German Southwest Africa (Namibia), and German East Africa (Tanzania, Rwanda, and Burundi), up to or partway through World War I.

Many empires sought new lands for natural resources, commercial goods, labor, and/or taxable subjects. The Germans seemed to care only about their infamous Lebensraum. To that end, most sources agree they had little consideration for the people who were native to the lands they took over.

The Hamburg exhibit only touched lightly on these ideas, focusing more on photos of daily life in the colonies and during World War I. There was some mention of unrest and uprisings, but I got the sense that this was a piece of history that was not widely explored in public.

Which is perhaps understandable when during the most famous uprising, the Maji Maji Rebellion of 1904, Germans killed tens of thousands of Herero people, nearly wiping the tribe from existence. Parallels have been drawn between this genocide and the later extermination of Jews in concentration camps.

Colonial atrocities do not receive the same recognition as Nazi atrocities--only a memorial stone in a Berlin cemetery and a statue in Bremen mark the Hereo genocide. But over the past few decades, efforts to rename streets and other urban spaces that honor colonial leaders have met with fair success. (Munich hosted a campaign and series of exhibitions from October 2013 to February 2014 around just that topic.)

In 2011, an international conference was held to discuss the long-term consequences of German colonial rule. Unfortunately, the conference was held in Ghana and only attended by about 50 scholars—seemingly too far removed from the world stage for major impact.

New light may be shining on the past, however. Also in 2011, nearly two dozen skulls—taken as trophies more than a century before—were returned to their homeland. While they may be only a fraction of stolen remains, their return is a (very) small start.

In 2016, the German government finally acknowledged the Namibian genocide (while still stopping short of an apology), and promised recompense in the form of government aid.

And in January 2017, descendants of the Herero and Nama tribes filed a class action lawsuit against Germany in reference to the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2007.

Whether or not the lawsuit is successful, it’s not too difficult to ponder possible next-step scenarios here in Germany. It's a shameful chapter in history that will be categorized and filed, and life will move forward. The real questions are those that inspired that conference in Ghana just 7 years ago.

What are the continued repercussions for a people still rebuilding their population, culture, and economy? What of those colonial descendants, white German-speaking peoples living and prospering on land seized from the ancestors of their black neighbors? 

How do you move on to find a new normal when the past is still so unresolved?