How did nature challenge German colonialism in Southwest Africa? What role did water, sand, and a small mollusc play as Germans tried to establish their first and, in many ways, only settler colony? This paper explores the events surrounding the town of Swakopmund, a small coastal settlement
defined as the main entry point (Eingangstur) into German Southwest Africa at the time. As a case study, Swakopmund arguably provides an excellent framework when showcasing the importance of widely underestimated environmental protagonists in the construction of the German Empire; it also
underlines the value of incorporating environmental history more broadly into discussions of German colonial fantasies in the age of hydrology.
hortly before Christmas, old Mr. Hoppenstedt buys the board game "We are Building a Nuclear Power Plant" 1 for his grandson. While the youngster remains disinterested in the game, the rest of the family set up trees, houses, cows, and the neutron accelerator. Soon the miniature plant stands next to the Christmas tree in the living room. The mother of the family exclaims, "If we did something wrong then we will hear a puff!" 2 Seconds later, a small ex-S
Even leaving aside the vast death and suffering that it wrought on indigenous populations, German ambitions to transform Southwest Africa in the early part of the twentieth century were futile for most. For years colonists wrestled ocean waters, desert landscapes, and widespread aridity as they tried to reach inland in their effort of turning outwardly barren lands into a profitable settler colony. In his innovative environmental history, Martin Kalb outlines the development of the colony up to World War I, deconstructing the common settler narrative, all to reveal the importance of natural forces and the Kaisereich’s everyday violence.
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