BLACK SOCIAL HISTORY : GERMAN COLONIAL EMPIRE - THE BEHAVIOR OF GERMAN COLONIAL MASTERS AND THE TREATMENT OF HIS BLACK SUBJECTS :

                                 BLACK                 SOCIAL             HISTORY                                                                                                                                                                                                                         The German Colonial Empire was an overseas domain 1884-1914 formed as part of the German Empire. Short-lived colonial efforts byindividual German states had occurred in preceding centuries, but Imperial Germany's colonial efforts began in 1884. Germany's colonies were occupied by its enemies in the first weeks of World War I and the colonial empire officially ended with the effective date of the Treaty of Versailles on 10 January 1920 after its defeat in the war.

German unification

On the other hand, Germans had traditions of foreign sea-borne trade dating back to the Hanseatic League; a tradition existed of German emigration (eastward in the direction of Russia and Transylvania and westward to the Americas); and North German merchants and missionaries showed interest in overseas engagements. Above all the Hanseatic republics of Hamburg and Bremen sent traders across the globe. These trading houses conducted themselves as successful Privatkolonisatoren [independent colonizers] and concluded treaties and land purchases in Africa and the Pacific with chiefs or other tribal leaders. These early agreements with local entities, however, later formed the basis for annexation treaties, diplomatic support and military protection by the German Empire. 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". Germany seemed destined to play catch-up. The German states prior to 1870 had retained separate political structures and goals, and German foreign-policy up to and including the age of Otto von Bismarck concentrated on resolving the "German question" in Europe and securing German interests on the continent.

                                  Scramble for colonies

BLACK  SOCIAL   HISTORY

Many Germans in the late 19th century viewed colonial acquisitions as a true indication of having achieved nationhood. Public opinion eventually arrived at an understanding that prestigious African and Pacific colonies went hand-in-hand with dreams of a High Seas Fleet. Both aspirations would become reality, nurtured by a press replete with Kolonialfreunde [supporters of colonial acquisitions] and by a myriad of geographical associations and colonial societies. Bismarck and many deputies in the Reichstag had no interest in colonial conquests merely to acquire square miles of territory.

In essence, Bismarck's colonial motives were obscure as he had said repeatedly "... I am no man for colonies"^[4] and "remained as contemptuous of all colonial dreams as ever." However, in 1884 he consented to the acquisition of colonies by the German Empire, in order to protect trade, to safeguard raw materials and export markets and to take opportunities for capital investment, among other reasons. 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. "Indeed, in 1889, [Bismarck] tried to give German South West Africa away to the British. It was, he said, a burden and an expense, and he would like to saddle someone else with it."^[8]