German Colonial Empire

The German colonial empire constituted the overseas colonies, dependencies and territories of Imperial Germany. Unified in the early 1870s, the chancellor of this time period was Otto von Bismarck. Germany built the third-largest colonial empire at the time, after the British and French. The German Colonial Empire encompassed parts of several African countries, including parts of present-day Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Namibia, Cameroon, Gabon, Congo, Central African Republic, Chad, Nigeria, Togo, Ghana, New Guinea, and numerous other West Pacific / Micronesian islands. It was forced to give up its colonies to the Allied powers after World War I.

• Looking beyond Germany and Europe to the wider world, the Reich Chancellors who came into office after Bismarck saw their country as a second-class nation when compared with Britain and France, both of which had major overseas empires that spanned the globe. A latecomer on the scene, Germany had only been able to pick up the scraps and crumbs left by European colonial powers that had enjoyed a head start on them. Tanganyika, Namibia, Togoland, Cameroon, New Guinea, assorted Pacific islands and the Chinese treaty port of Jiaozhou were virtually all the territories that made up Germany's overseas empire on the eve of the First World War. Bismarck had thought of them of little importance and lent his assent to their acquisition with great reluctance. But his successors came to take a different view. Germany's prestige and standing in the world demanded, as Bernhard von Bülow, Foreign Secretary in the late 1890s, then Reich Chancellor until 1909, put it, a 'place in the sun'. A start was made on the construction of a massive battle fleet, whose long-term aim was to win colonial concessions from the British, lords of the world's largest overseas empire, by threatening, or even carrying out, the crippling or destruction of the main force of the British Navy in a titanic confrontation in the North Sea.
  • Richard J. Evans, The Coming of the Third Reich (2004), p. 18

• In Africa, it is true, German forces were able to keep fighting for a surprisingly long time and to inflict real casualties. Total British losses in East Africa were over 100,000 men, the vast majority black troops and porters. But what was the point? The German aim was to tie up colonial soldiers who might otherwise have been deployed in Europe, yet few of those engaged in the African campaigns would have been sent to Europe under any circumstances. In any case, most of the fighting took place in Germany's colonies, particularly in German East Africa (Tanganyika). South-West Africa surrendered to the South Africans as early as July 1915. The others - Togoland and the Cameroons - were in Entente hands long before the end of the war.
  • Niall Ferguson, The War of the World: Twentieth-Century Conflict and the Descent of the West (2006), p. xliii
• Formerly its condition was one of injustice..but now there is peace everywhere.
  • The Case for German Colonialism, By Bruce Gilley, Professor of Political Science, Portland State University Martin Ganisya, a freed slave who rose to become a senior teacher at the Lutheran mission school in Dar es Salaam wrote in 1907 of the pax–Germanica which had finally settled on the area.

• Wherever I went, I heard natives praise the excellent German administration, The frequently made comment about the Germans was that they were very strict, at times harsh, but always just.
  • The Case for German Colonialism, By Bruce Gilley, Professor of Political Science, Portland State University British and French administrations of the region.

• On the basis of its achievement in medicine alone, we are of the opinion that the German presence in Africa seemed more than justified. When Africans strike the balance, they cannot say the German presence did not do them any good.
  • The Case for German Colonialism, By Bruce Gilley, Professor of Political Science, Portland State University Ghanaian scholars Isaac Brako and Seth Peter Frimpong in 2013.

• In brutally suppressing the Maji Maji War in Tanganyika and in attempting genocide against the Herero people of Namibia (South-West Africa), the German ruling class were getting the experience which they later applied against the Jews and against German workers and progressives.
  • Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (1972), p. 200

• The Arabs, who may be regarded as the man-hunting gang, are already weakened by the measures adopted. Recent events in the German possessions on the east coast, will both destroy the Arab prestige and increase our influence in ihe interior... The abolition of the abominable trade in human flesh will be accomplished, provided the necessary means are forthcoming.
  • New Africa; an essay on government civilization in new countries, and on the foundation, organization and administration of the Congo Free State, declaration from the Imperial German Government at the Conference de Bruxelles, 1889-1890, Page 146

• The changed strategy emerged entirely independently of any conscious decision for or against a strategy of concerted racial genocide. Trotha, did not intend to bring about a situation in which the Herero would be subject to a slow death through adverse natural conditions.
  • The Case for Colonialism: A Response to My Critics, Page 17 Kuss, 2017, pp. 74, 47

• Classical trading colony, in which European merchants, protected by a minimal government presence, would trade with indigenous societies or develop extractive industries.
  • The Case for German Colonialism, By Bruce Gilley, Professor of Political Science, Portland State University The American historian Woodruff Smith in 1978

• The oral history of the German occupation, to my initial surprise, indirectly supports the model colony thesis emphasizing what oral historians describe as the "honesty," "order," and "discipline" of the German era. Oral history is shaped by the economic and political realities of its present, and thus, as it transforms over time, is a reflection of the specific era in which it is produced.
  • The Case for German Colonialism, By Bruce Gilley, Professor of Political Science, Portland State University ennis Laumann of the University of Memphis, by his own admission found in his field work.

• The people of Togo were completely disenchanted with the nature of the administration and found it unbearable.
  • The Case for German Colonialism, By Bruce Gilley, Professor of Political Science, Portland State University Togolese historian in 1969.

• In three thousand years, China did not achieve in Qingdao what Germany has done in fifteen years. If every local government in China would send ten people to visit Qingdao and learn about its administrative management, town, streets, wharves, harbours, university, forestation, public works, and government, China would benefit greatly.
  • The Case for German Colonialism, By Bruce Gilley, Professor of Political Science, Portland State University Father of Modern China, Dr. Sun Yat-sen during his visit to Qingdao in 1912.

• For three or four Chinese coppers, I could ride in a rickshaw from my home, in England, to Italy, Germany, Japan, or Belgium. I walked to France for violin lessons; I had to cross the river to get to Russia, and often did, because the Russians had a beautiful wooded park with a lake in it.
  • Hersey, “A reporter at large: homecoming. I: the house on New China Road”, New Yorker, 10 May 1982, 54, cited in Maurizio Marinelli, “Making Concessions in Tianjin: Heterotopia and Italian Colonialism in Mainland China.” Urban History 36, no. 3 (2009): 404

• Germany
• Togoland
• Colonialism

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