The conundrum of colonialism in postwar Germany

Abstract

After World War II East and West Germans alike contributed to the maintenance and dismantling of European colonialism, whether by means of direct participation or state policy. At the same time, Germans in both states fashioned a variety of narratives about Germany's own colonial period, selectively including and interpreting facts in order to support sweeping pronouncements on Germany's past, present, and future. In this regard Germans were not unique, as other Europeans after 1945 likewise struggled to find their way in a rapidly decolonizing world and to make sense of the history that had led them to this point. Yet, unlike other Europeans, Germans had been without a colonial empire of their own since World War I. In West and East Germany colonialism permeated political culture. German politicians, bureaucrats, businessmen, and workers dealt with colonialism, its decline, and its aftermath on a regular basis. Colonies were objects of foreign policy-making; decolonization provided an important context for political and economic developments within, between, and beyond both German states; and Germany's colonial past offered redemption and reproach to those willing to find them there. These and other encounters with colonialism dot the historical record, appearing in government archives, political pamphlets, and popular culture ranging from periodicals to film and television. Colonialism's continued relevance for Germans-and indeed the continued relevance of Germans in Europe's waning overseas empires-naturally invites one to compare and contrast the German experience with that in France, or the United Kingdom. However, it also points to the importance such similarities or differences had for Germans. Colonialism certainly helped forge connections between Germans and non-Germans across Europe, Africa, and elsewhere, but more importantly it provided a language for defining Germans' relationships with the rest of the world, not to mention with each other.

The Kaiser's lost African empire and the Alternative für Deutschland: Colonial guilt-denial and authoritarian populism in Germany

“…When the General died in 1964, the then CDU Federal Defence Minister, Uwe von Hassel (who had himself spent his childhood and youth in East Africa) arranged for elderly Askaris to fly in from Tanzania to attend the funeral, as living evidence of the loyalty which the great man had evoked. 19 In 1966 a television documentary programme series, ironically titled Heia Safari, was broadcast on the ARD channel, criticising German policy in Africa during the colonial era. ARD was flooded with comments from viewers.…”

Notes sur l’opinion publique allemande du xxe siècle, le colonialisme et les colonies portugaises (approche provisoire)

“…From 1945 to 1989, there seem to be two basic strands of opinion in the German public space regarding colonialism in general (cf. Verber, 2010) and Portuguese colonialism in particular. One might be tempted to say that these two strands of opinion correspond roughly to the two German states.…”

Performing European Memories

“…Along with the Soviet Union and other socialist states, the GDR took an active part in a worldwide anti-imperialist movement, encouraging decolonisation efforts in Africa, Asia, and the rest of the world as part of its concerted effort to gain international legitimacy, enhance its global stature, and win allies. East Germany's solidarity with and support of liberation movements in Africa, and its branding West Germany and its chief ally, the United States, as neo-colonialist, could be also seen as a concerted effort to distance itself from colonial guilt and responsibility, while seeking to relegate West Germany to that past (see, Verber, 2010;Conrad, 2011;Madureira, 2011). Supporting this view, Luis Madureira for instance cites Erich Honecker's address at an international conference held in East Berlin in 1980, where he boldly asserted that, having established friendly relations with many colonial, decolonising, and postcolonial countries in Africa and the rest of the world, "the German Democratic Republic has broken with the German imperialist past once and for all" (qtd.…”