Question- What potential issues did German have in Africa?
Answer- In comparison with other countries, Germany invested in colonies rather late. Nevertheless, discussions of acquiring colonies had gone on since the 16th century. In fact, from 1683-1717, the region of Brandenburg did maintain the colony Groß-Friedrichsburg, in today’s Ghana. But when it became too expensive it was sold to Holland. For the small German states, the financial risk involved in maintaining colonies was too high. The late start of German colonization has to be seen in relation with the late nation building process which was only came to fruition in 1871. The first German chancellor of the unified empire, Otto von Bismarck, was opposed to having colonies due to the possible financial risk. He concentrated on domestic politics in order to build a strong state. Later, when he changed his attitude, he might have been influenced by popular opinion that conceived of a strong nation state with colonies. Bismarck might also have wanted to shift public attention from domestic to foreign policies. Germany finally attained colonies in two waves. The first was in 1884/1885 after the Berlin Conference when European states divided Africa in a way that can still be seen in the rather straight borders of today’s Africa. Germany then acquired German South-West Africa (today Namibia), Cameroon, Togo, German East Africa (today Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi) and parts of Papua-New Guinea. The second wave of acquisitions took place in 1898/99 after the power shift in 1888 as the more imperialistic Kaiser Wilhelm II took over. At this time, Germany also acquired colonies throughout the Pacific Islands. This paper will focus only on the African colonies, without intending to create a hierarchy of colonial importance. By 1914, the area of the German colonies was four and a half times bigger than Germany. Due to the Versailles Treaty, Germany lost all its colonies after the First World War. Apart from Namibia, where half of the settlers could stay (about 7,000), all Germans had to leave the former colonies.It should be noted that Namibia, or formerly German South-West Africa, has to be seen as an exception to the other German colonies because it was the only African colony where Germans settled in relatively large numbers, totally about 15,000 by 1914. This also happened to a lesser degree in German East Africa. It is mostly due to the fact that West Africa, including Cameroon and Togo, was seen as “white men’s grave” since many Europeans died as a result of the regional diseases and the harsh climate. These colonies were mainly used as plantation colonies and for trade. While there is much more to the details of the history of German colonization that a paper of this length cannot address, the authors find it relevant for the current discussions to include a brief note about the violence, revolts, and otherwise inhumane practices that occurred during this time.
