West German Association for Colonization and Export

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The West German Association for Colonization and Export was founded in 1881 by industrialists from the Rhineland and Westphalia to support their business interests through colonial activities.

founding

In 1880 meetings of later founding members of the association took place and finally "various gentlemen of the West German big industry and the higher civil servants" decided to found the association and agreed on an advertising campaign, which should precede the public constitution. On January 14, 1881, an advertising letter was sent to the press for the constituent assembly of a branch of the Central Association for Commercial Geography and Promotion of German Interests Abroad, founded in Berlin in 1878 . The advertising letter said: “The need for overseas colonies is felt more and more in Germany, which our rural and other emigrants a new GermanGrant home, secure and high pensions for capital, increased sales for industry, trade and shipping new opportunities for profitable activity ”. Registration for participation in the constituent assembly was to be sent to the General Secretary of the Central Association of German Industrialists .

The constituent assembly met on January 29, 1881 in the Düsseldorf Tonhalle . About sixty of the most important representatives of the Rhenish-Westphalian large-scale industry, wholesale trade and other "notabilities" had gathered. The colonial propagandist Friedrich Fabri , who was also a pioneer in founding the association, gave the opening speech and Fabri was also elected chairman of the association.

The association considered the "main purpose of its activity":

  • the promotion of the national movement for the acquisition of arable and trading colonies for the German Reich,
  • the increase in German exports,
  • the national exploitation of emigration through the establishment of colonization associations and
  • the suggestion of commercial colonization and other overseas manufacturing enterprises.

Nominally, the Central Association for Commercial Geography and the Promotion of German Interests Abroad in Berlin was the umbrella organization of the West German Association for Colonization and Export in Düsseldorf, but in fact the West German Association acted largely independently and was already significantly more important in terms of its members than the Berlin Central Association, which is why but initially there was no conflict between the two associations, because the Berlin association was more geared towards creating connections between companies in colonial economic sectors, while the Düsseldorf association represented the economic colonial interests of large-scale West German industry and wanted to carry out general colonial propaganda. But soon there were disagreements, mainly in rivalries between the leaders of the colonial movements in Germany and which lasted until the mid-1880s.

Soon after the founding of the West German Association, the maximum number of 36 possible board members was reached. Representatives of the heavy, textile and consumer goods industries, finished goods production and banking of the most important economic area in Germany sat on the board.

First significant activity

The first major task the association set itself was to intervene in the Reichstag elections of October 1881 in favor of the colonial movement. On behalf of Fabri, Wilhelm Hübbe-Schleiden wrote his "Motives for an Overseas Policy in Germany" in mid-1881. The "motifs" were part of a circular in thousands of copies that was sent to numerous newspaper editors at the beginning of August 1881 and printed many times, in which the board of the West German Association called for "overseas policy to be commemorated in the Reichstag elections," the nominated candidates to demand a vote on the colonial question in their constituencies and, insofar as this is positive and not "overriding reasons of a political nature dictate otherwise", to support their election as much as possible.

The important newspaper Hamburgischer Correspondent wrote about the colonial initiative of the West German Association that the initiative of the West German Association raised the colonial question for the first time "out of the framework of a purely theoretical discussion into a political program."

However, the courted political parties did not yet take up the colonial question as an election campaign topic.

Member recruitment and expansion of the West German Association

In the first year, the membership of the West German Association was almost exclusively promotional in order to attract outstanding representatives of the economy and dignitaries "of importance". This individual advertising achieved rapid success. As early as 1881/82, numerous important names of "notabilities" and representatives of the industrial and commercial capital of the industrial area on the Rhine and Ruhr were on the board of the association . However, it was not the intention of the chairman of the association, Friedrich Fabri, to found a club of dignitaries, rather he wanted to reach broader layers of the German population. In the absence of other options, in March 1882 he felt compelled to appeal to the assembled members of the association "to kindly take over the propaganda for our association in their circles". Many members believed, however, that they had already satisfied the "propaganda" by simply declaring their membership. "In fact, it is not enough that we have a full board for Rhineland and Westphalia, which meets about six times a year and invites a larger group of friends to a general assembly," Fabri warned the board.

In 1883 Fabri succeeded in enforcing a change in the association's statutes. It should enable local departments to be set up to intensify public relations work. 26 sections with more than 50 members were granted the right to send a representative to the board of the West German Association. On November 5, 1883, Conrad Bertelsmann founded the Bielefeld "Association for Colonial Policy", which joined the West German Association as a section. In this association the most outstanding representatives from industry, wholesaling, banking and administration came together with dignitaries of the local educated middle class and large agrarians from the surrounding area. This first local section of the West German Association, which was constituted with 65 founding members, was followed in 1884 by the Gelsenkirchen and Surroundings section with 98 founding members, chaired by the industrial magnate Emil Kirdorf . Then Cologne followed with around 100 club members. The West German Association found itself in this situation in 1884, when the acquisition of colonies for Germany , which began in the same year, gave the colonial association work a powerful boost.

The connection to the German Colonial Association , the formation of branch associations and the gradual departure from pure advertising of notables raised the number of members of the West German Association from 421 in spring 1883 to 1058 in spring 1884. In June 1885 the association had 2000 members. It stayed that way in 1886. The reason for the sudden stagnation lay primarily in the severe struggle for direction between the German Colonial Association and the Society for German Colonization founded by Carl Peters in 1884 .

The propaganda of the West German Association

In the summer of 1882, the ignorance of Fabri and the association's board about propaganda work led Timotheus Fabri, a son of Friedrich Fabri, and Wilhelm Hübbe-Schleiden to travel to England for several weeks to study the advertising methods of the colonial movement there. However, the British colonial movement was busy defending the British colonial empire against its internal critics, while the German colonial movement still wanted to acquire colonies.

The West German Association set up an office in which the association's journal, the Colonialpolitische Correspondenz , which had been published since January 1883 , was also edited. In addition to the colonial-political correspondence , advertising letters and appeals were sent and brochures were also published. For this purpose, Fabri caused the "rhetorical agitation", the lecture work of the West German Association, to expand. The main difficulty was finding speakers with colonial expertise. Fabri said in 1882: "You are almost completely absent in Germany today". After all, employees of the association went on lecture tours outside of the Rhenish-Westphalian region.

Another measure to spread colonial advertising was the public events following the annual general meetings of the association, which Fabri organized as the highlights of colonial association life in the western Reich. For this purpose, travelers to Africa such as the meteorologist Alexander von Danckelmann , who had been in Central Africa for a long time on behalf of King Leopold II of Belgium , and Carl Jühlke , who became known as Carl Peters' companion on the first Usagara expedition, were engaged to give lectures .

Co-founding of the German Colonial Association

When the founding call for the German Colonial Association was drawn up and sent in November 1882, the chairman of the West German Association, Friedrich Fabri, and some other members of the West German Association, who formed a powerful association that brought together all the colonial supporters in Germany, were among the signatories of the founding call wanted to create as an umbrella organization.

During the preparations for the establishment of the German Colonial Association in Frankfurt am Main from mid-1882, the tensions between the West German and the Central Association increased steadily. The break between the Berlin Association and the Düsseldorf Association was of considerable importance for the rapid growth of the new Frankfurt Association, which, as a new umbrella organization, had to offer the branch associations of the Central Association, the largest of which was the West German Association. The new colonial association in Frankfurt am Main was intended as a pure propaganda organization, while the Centralverein worked on more economic areas of colonial activity.

The Düsseldorf General Assembly of the West German Association in March 1883 gave the executive board the power to negotiate merger with the German Colonial Association, but set it on two important conditions: The purpose set out in § 2 of the statutes in 1881 was not to be changed and the Rhineland and Westphalia to West German Reserved for the association. According to the "Cologne punctures" negotiated between the two associations, the West German Association joined the German Colonial Association as a regional association. Simultaneous membership in both associations was possible. Some board members of the West German Association also became board members of the Colonial Association. So did Friedrich Fabri.

In March 1883 the colonial association, which four months after its founding had almost 1,900 members, was able to enter 421 members of the West German Association in its membership directory, whose economic importance and social position outweighed their mere number. Since 1883, the West German Association for Colonization and Export was the most important section of the German Colonial Association with the largest number of members.

The Colonialpolitische Correspondenz was made available to the Colonial Association as a press organ. Then the paper, which last appeared in an edition of 4,000 copies, was discontinued and its successor was the Deutsche Kolonialzeitung in 1884 .

The End

After his three-year term in 1884, Friedrich Fabri was confirmed as chairman of the association for three more years and held this position until the association was dissolved.

With its 5th General Assembly on June 17, 1886 in Düsseldorf, the West German Association appears to have appeared for the last time as a regional association of the German Colonial Association in its own larger event. The last reference to the association can be found in the annual report of the colonial association before its 4th general assembly in May 1887 in Dresden .

When the West German Association for Colonization and Export was founded in 1881, there was no foreseeable acquisition of colonies for Germany; when it was dissolved in 1887, the German Reich was the third largest colonial power ( German colonies ) after Great Britain and France. If the founders of the association belonged to a wafer-thin economic top class of society, which was completely inexperienced in colonial matters, it became clear that colonies were of no interest as a market for big industry. Concrete export opportunities were discussed in the board of directors and overseas companies were projected for their profitability, but there were no actual ventures, the interest of large industrialists in colonies waned and the association was no longer of any use to them.

The German Colonial Association was merged with the Society for German Colonization to form the German Colonial Society on December 19, 1887 . The area of ​​the West German Association for Colonization and Export as a local department of the German Colonial Association became the "Lower Rhine-Westphalian Gauverband" of the German Colonial Society.

literature

  • Klaus J. Bade : Friedrich Fabri and imperialism in the Bismarckian era , Verlag Atlantis, Freiburg im Breisgau 1975.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Klaus J. Bade: Friedrich Fabri and Imperialism in the Bismarckian Age , Internet edition: www.imis.uni-osnabrueck.de/BadeFabri.pdf , with a new foreword, Osnabrück 2005, page 238.
  2. ↑ Klaus J. Bade: Friedrich Fabri and Imperialism in the Bismarckian Age, Internet edition: www.imis.uni-osnabrueck.de/BadeFabri.pdf, with a new foreword, Osnabrück 2005, page 260.
  3. ↑ Klaus J. Bade: Friedrich Fabri and Imperialism in the Bismarckian Age, Internet edition: www.imis.uni-osnabrueck.de/BadeFabri.pdf, with a new foreword, Osnabrück 2005, page 271.
  4. ↑ Klaus J. Bade: Friedrich Fabri and Imperialism in the Bismarckian Age, Internet edition: www.imis.uni-osnabrueck.de/BadeFabri.pdf, with a new foreword, Osnabrück 2005, pages 291-292.
  5. ↑ Klaus J. Bade: Friedrich Fabri and Imperialism in the Bismarckian Age, Internet edition: www.imis.uni-osnabrueck.de/BadeFabri.pdf, with a new foreword, Osnabrück 2005, page 285.