Magazine / History / Narrating the Nation / Article | 06/05/2008

Colonialism in the European memory, by Andreas Eckert

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Not us, the others too

The fear of demands for reparations is what prevents many European politicians even today from apologising openly and explicitly for the crimes of colonialism. This is also true of Germany, which waged two of the most comprehensive and brutal colonial wars during its period of colonial rule which lasted only thirty years: from 1904 to 1908 the war against the Hereros and the Nama in the then German South-West Africa (today's Namibia), and between 1905 and 1907 the so-called Maji-Maji war in German East Africa (today's Tanzania).[1]

For a long time, the colonial period seemed to arouse no interest in Germany. This was without doubt connected with the widespread tendency of equating colonialism with colonial rule, and thus of attributing to Germany only a marginal role in colonial developments. Germany's colonial possessions were indeed economically unimportant and in total short-lived. Germany remained apparently unaffected by problems connected with the consequences of colonialism. Coming to terms with the Nazi past and the Holocaust, as well as the integration of Germany into the West, were at the top of the political agenda in the context of the Cold War. In this connection, politicians may have been ready partly to concede that anti-Semitism had played a fatal role German history, but colonial racism and the exploitation of Africa, Asia and Latin America, by contrast, were things which "the others” had to come to terms with. The Federal Republic of Germany could even present itself in the first decades of the post-war period as an unincriminated partner, so to speak, in development work, whose policies were free from neo-colonial interests.

The debate about the Herero war explosive not least because it is linked to the focal point German 20th century history, Nazism and the Holocaust. The historian Jürgen Zimmerer, who now teaches at the University of Sheffield, has particularly informed this debate, including by means of numerous articles in newspapers. While many people agree with his claims that the war waged by German protection forces against the Herero and the Nama was a genocide, and likewise the prelude to a century of total war, they mount an all-out assault on Zimmerer's second thesis, which he has formulated following Hannah Arendt, namely that the Nazi policy of conquest and destruction, with its central concepts of "race” and Lebensraum is part of in the European tradition of colonialism, even if one cannot trace the crimes of national socialism directly back to colonialism. At the same time, Zimmerer sees a connection "from Windhoek to Auschwitz”.[2]

In dealing with its colonial past in Namibia, the German government has manoeuvred deftly. Although it has recognised a "special responsibility”, it has categorically rejected any financial compensation for the Herero. There has therefore been no official apology. Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer and Chancellor Gerhard Schröder had to manoeuvre tortuously during their state visits to Namibia, in October 2003 and January 2004 respectively, because although they wanted to present themselves as "historically responsible”, they absolutely wanted to avoid any apology. Development minister Heide Wieczorek-Zeul was the first to apologise officially, and she did so in a very emotionally manner, in August 2004 within the framework of a commemoration in the Namibian capital, Windhoek. "The atrocities committed then were what we would today call genocide … We Germans accept our historical-political and moral-ethical responsibility, and the guilt which we then took upon ourselves. I beg you, in the sense of our common prayer, the Our Father, to forgive us our sins.”[3] The Minister was immediately thereafter confronted with a press statement by the CDU/CSU parliamentary party's spokesman for development policies, Christian Ruck. The statement bore the surprising title: "The minister's emotional outburst could cost the taxpayer billions – Surprising declaration to a gathering of Herero and their lawyers.” The statement said, "Wieczorek-Zeul's speech could mean a decisive turn to the detriment of Germany. She has raised the level of risk for no good reason, and she has damaged relations with Namibia overall.”[4]

The whole thing remained a storm in a teacup. The minister's apology unleashed absolutely no claims for reparations, and since then the whole question seems to have vanished completely from the public consciousness. The second largest colonial war in which Germany took part, the Maji-Maji war, was hardly able to arouse any public interest at all. In spite of this, the consequences of this war were considerable in terms of the way the Germans waged war: German machine guns and the "scorched earth” policy led to famine, epidemics and the collapse of social structures for the African population. There are no reliable figures for the numbers of African victims of the war but it is estimated that there were between 60,000 and 70,000 deaths.

The controversial memory of German colonialism has often manifested itself in recent years in connection with monuments and the creation of places of memory.[5] It is striking that colonial Africa is increasingly present in German books and films. The Internet bookshop Amazon has over 300 novels about Africa published between 1981 and 2006 for sale; 80 per cent of them came into bookshops in the decade after the publication in 1995 of Stefan Zweig's bestseller, "Nowhere in Africa”, which was made into a film six years later, evidently in the attempt to cash in on the enormous success of that book. In this context, a basically Romantic view of colonial life in Africa has been popularised. However, it is interesting that most of these novels take place in British African colonies after the First World War. Nonetheless, German colonies are increasingly used as the background for major TV serials, such as "Afrika, mon amour”, broadcast in 2007.

In other European countries, too, which were once colonial powers, the colonial past is coming increasingly into the focus of public (and scholarly) debates. In Belgium, for instance, the research conducted by Ludo de Witte into the murder of the first Prime Minister of Congo, Patrice Lumumba, caused a committee of enquiry to be set up, which concluded in its final report that the Belgian population suffered from "an unaccepted past”.[6] In Italy, historians have expressed the hope that the growing presence of often "illegal” African migrants will help to mobilise the long suppressed memory of that country's colonial past.[7]

One could adduce further examples. Debates about the meaning for the present of the colonial past continue to take place overwhelmingly within the context of national discourses. There is no doubt, however, that colonialism was a European project. European modernity cannot be conceived without colonialism and imperialism. Europe was realised in the world, in confrontation with other societies beyond its own borders. European expansion changed the world and Europe with it. It left its mark not only on the conquered and colonised territories overseas, but also on the European states themselves. When the "common European home” is being created, the "colonial legacy” cannot be locked up in the cellar. The disputes which are still being largely conducted at the national level will lead to European debates.

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