German Imperalism

28.5: German Imperalism

28.5.1: Germany and the Desire for Colonies

Despite German Chancellor Otto Von Bismarck’s opposition to overseas colonies, pressure from the German people to establish colonies for international prestige led to a significant empire during the Scramble for Africa.

Learning Objective

Analyze Germany’s efforts to obtain more influence in various areas of the globe

Key Points

  • Prior to German unification in 1871, most of the focus of German foreign policy was on issues internal to the state and its European neighbors.
  • This pragmatic attitude was mainly supported by the leading political figure of the time, Otto Von Bismarck, a major force behind unification.
  • Bismarck disliked colonialism but reluctantly built an overseas empire when it was demanded by both elite and mass opinion.
  • The attitude toward colonialism shifted again during the reign of Kaiser Wilhelm II, who espoused a Weltpolitik foreign policy that emphasized aggressive diplomacy, the acquisition of overseas colonies, and the development of a large navy.
  • The rise of German imperialism and colonialism coincided with the latter stages of the “Scramble for Africa” during which enterprising German individuals, rather than government entities, competed with other already established colonies and colonialist entrepreneurs.
  • German colonies comprised territory that makes up 22 countries today, mostly in Africa, including Nigeria, Ghana, and Uganda.
  • Germany lost control of its colonial empire at the beginning of World War I when its colonies were seized by its enemies in the first weeks of the war.

Key Terms

Otto von Bismarck
A conservative Prussian statesman who dominated German and European affairs from the 1860s until 1890. In the 1860s, he engineered a series of wars that unified the German states, significantly and deliberately excluding Austria, into a powerful German Empire under Prussian leadership. With that accomplished by 1871, he skillfully used balance of power diplomacy to maintain Germany’s position in a Europe which, despite many disputes and war scares, remained at peace.
Weltpolitik
The foreign policy adopted by the Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany in 1891, which marked a decisive break with former “Realpolitik.” The aim was to transform Germany into a global power through aggressive diplomacy, the acquisition of overseas colonies, and the development of a large navy.

The German colonial empire constituted the overseas colonies, dependencies, and territories of the German Empire. Short-lived attempts of colonization by individual German states occurred in preceding centuries, but crucial colonial efforts only began in 1884 with the Scramble for Africa. Germany lost control when World War I began and its colonies were seized by its enemies in the first weeks of the war. However. some military units held out longer: German South-West Africa surrendered in 1915, Kamerun in 1916, and German East Africa only in 1918 by war’s end. Germany’s colonial empire was officially confiscated with the Treaty of Versailles after Germany’s defeat in the war, and the various units became League of Nations mandates under the supervision (but not ownership) of one of the victorious powers.

Ambivalence Toward Colonialism

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 retained separate political structures and goals, and German foreign policy up to and including the age of German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck concentrated on resolving the “German question” in Europe and securing German interests on the continent.

Many Germans in the late 19th century viewed colonial acquisitions as a true indication of nationhood. Public opinion eventually arrived at an understanding that prestigious African and Pacific colonies went hand-in-hand with dreams of a world-class navy. Both aspirations would become reality, nurtured by a press replete with Kolonialfreunde (supporters of colonial acquisitions) and 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.” However, in 1884 he consented to the acquisition of colonies by the German Empire to protect trade, safeguard raw materials and export markets, and take opportunities for capital investment, among other reasons. In the very next year Bismarck shed personal involvement when he, according to Edward Crankshaw, “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. Bismarck even tried to give German South-West Africa away to the British.

In 1891, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany made a decisive break with former “Realpolitik” of Bismarck and established “Weltpolitik” (“world policy”). The aim of Weltpolitik was to transform Germany into a global power through aggressive diplomacy, the acquisition of overseas colonies, and the development of a large navy. The origins of the policy can be traced to a Reichstag debate in December 1897 during which German Foreign Secretary Bernhard von Bülow stated, “in one word: We wish to throw no one into the shade, but we demand our own place in the sun.”

A cartoon showing Otto Von Bismarck reading a book on social reform and smoking a pipe while other men below him scope out the lower hemisphere of the globe.

Otto Von Bismarck’s Ambivalence: Cartoon from 1884. Bismarck is happy with other nations being busy “down there.”

Acquisition of Colonies

The rise of German imperialism and colonialism coincided with the latter stages of the “Scramble for Africa” during which enterprising German individuals, rather than government entities, competed with other already established colonies and colonialist entrepreneurs. With the Germans joining the race for the last uncharted territories in Africa and the Pacific that had not yet been carved up, competition for colonies involved major European nations and several lesser powers.

The German effort included the first commercial enterprises in the 1850s and 1860s in West Africa, East Africa, the Samoan Islands, and the unexplored north-east quarter of New Guinea with adjacent islands. German traders and merchants began to establish themselves in the African Cameroon delta and the mainland coast across from Zanzibar. At Apia and the settlements Finschhafen, Simpsonhafen and the islands Neu-Pommern and Neu-Mecklenburg, trading companies newly fortified with credit began expansion into coastal landholding. Large African inland acquisitions followed, mostly to the detriment of native inhabitants. All in all, German colonies comprised territory that makes up 22 countries today, mostly in Africa, including Nigeria, Ghana, and Uganda.

As Bismarck was converted to the colonial idea by 1884, he favored “chartered company” land management rather than establishment of colonial government due to financial considerations. Although temperate zone cultivation flourished, the demise and often failure of tropical low-land enterprises contributed to changing Bismarck’s view. He reluctantly acquiesced to pleas for help to deal with revolts and armed hostilities by often powerful rulers whose lucrative slaving activities seemed at risk. German native military forces initially engaged in dozens of punitive expeditions to apprehend and punish freedom fighters, at times with British assistance.

Bismarck’s successor in 1890, Leo von Caprivi, was willing to maintain the colonial burden of what already existed, but opposed new ventures. Others who followed, especially Bernhard von Bülow as foreign minister and chancellor, sanctioned the acquisition of the Pacific Ocean colonies and provided substantial treasury assistance to existing protectorates to employ administrators, commercial agents, surveyors, local “peacekeepers,” and tax collectors. Kaiser Wilhelm II understood and lamented his nation’s position as colonial followers rather than leaders. In an interview with Cecil Rhodes in March 1899 he stated the alleged dilemma clearly: “Germany has begun her colonial enterprise very late, and was, therefore, at the disadvantage of finding all the desirable places already occupied.”

According to historian William Roger Louis, in the years before the outbreak of the World War, British colonial officers viewed the Germans as deficient in “colonial aptitude,” but “whose colonial administration was nevertheless superior to those of the other European states.” Anglo-German colonial issues in the decade before 1914 were minor, and both the British and German empires took conciliatory attitudes. Once war was declared in late July 1914 Britain and its allies promptly moved against the colonies, the public was informed that German colonies were a threat. The British position that Germany was a uniquely brutal and cruel colonial power originated during the war. By 1916, only in remote jungle regions in East Africa did the German forces hold out.

Attributions