Angolan-German relations

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Angolan-German relations
Location of Angola and Germany
AngolaAngola GermanyGermany
Angola Germany

The states of Angola and Germany maintain direct diplomatic relations with the Angolan Embassy in Berlin and the German Embassy in Luanda . Angola's President José Eduardo dos Santos visited Germany twice, in 1981 (GDR) and 2009. Chancellor Angela Merkel was the first German head of state to visit Angola in 2011, and in February 2020 she came a second time.

Angola is now the third most important German trading partner in sub-Saharan Africa .

history

Memorial to the German dead in the battle for Naulila (1914)
The Angolan student Moisés José da Costa at the Technical University of Karl-Marx-Stadt (1986)

Angola had been a Portuguese colony since 1483 , when the German Empire took possession of the south-bordering area as German Southwest Africa in 1884 . When the First World War broke out in August 1914 , Portugal was initially still neutral and only received a German declaration of war in 1916. On December 18, 1914, however, the battle for Naulila broke out in southern Angola , the climax of the punitive expedition of the German protection force against Portuguese West Africa (Angola). The trigger was the death of several German officers and officials who had previously been picked up by the Portuguese military on Angolan territory and taken into escort, and who had died in an exchange of fire after a series of misunderstandings.

With the end of the German colony Deutsch-Südwest in 1915, over 1,400 Germans emigrated to Angola, where they mostly worked as farmers. These Angola-Germans lived mainly in the region of Benguela , where there was at times a German school, and other regions in southern Angola.

After independence and the outbreak of the Angolan civil war in 1975, most Angolan Germans left the country.

The Angolan President Eduardo dos Santos in 1981 in the GDR

At the same time, relations between the People's Republic of Angola and the German Democratic Republic developed amicably until the end of the GDR in 1989. Several thousand contract workers and students from Angola came to the GDR. Around 20% of today's leaders in business and politics in Angola studied in the GDR.

After the end of the GDR in 1990, the case of the Angolan Amadeu Antonio Kiowa, murdered by neo-Nazis in Eberswalde , attracted international attention. Angolans were repeatedly among the victims of the numerous xenophobic attacks that followed.

With the enormous economic development after the end of the Angolan civil war in 2002, German attention for the country increased again. Chancellor Angela Merkel was the first German head of government to visit Angola in 2011. The armaments deals that were also agreed upon caused discussion in German politics.

The Chancellor came to Angola a second time in February 2020, where she met the Angolan President João Lourenço u. a. spoke about the delivery of coast guard boats to the Angolan Armed Forces Navy . An aviation agreement and business and training agreements were also concluded.

economy

With the economic upswing after the end of the civil war in 2002, economic relations between Angola and Germany also increased significantly. Angola is now considered to be the third most important German trading partner in sub-Saharan Africa . Critics criticize the lack of attention to corruption and the problematic human rights situation in Angola when it comes to the role of German lenders and arms exports.

Around 20 German companies are now represented with their own branches in Angola, including Bauer , Bosch , Commerzbank , DHL , Siemens and Volkswagen (ASGM). With a market share of 90%, the German Krones AG is almost unrivaled in the Angolan market for beverage filling systems.

In 2016, with the Tigra beer , a serious domestic competitor entered the Angolan beer market for the first time for the brands of the traditional market leader Cuca BGI . The beer was developed in collaboration with the Doemens Institute in Munich , where the Tigra master brewers were also trained.

In 2015, German exports to Angola amounted to 335.5 million euros, after 372.6 million euros (2014) and 283.7 million euros (2013). About 30% of German exports to Angola are machines, another 14.3% are metal goods.

Angolan exports to Germany in 2015 amounted to 76.1 million euros, after 130.1 million euros (2014) and 469.5 million euros (2013). About 80% of this was petroleum , another 18% petrochemical products.

This means that the Federal Republic of Germany is not one of Angola's seven most important trading partners in terms of imports or exports.

Sign at the Angolan embassy in Berlin

diplomacy

The German embassy in Luanda resides in the Angolan capital Luanda at Avenida 4 de Fevereiro No. 120. There are no other German consulates in Angola.

The Angolan Embassy in Berlin is located at Wallstrasse 59. There is also a Consulate General of the Republic of Angola in Frankfurt am Main and three Angolan honorary consulates in Bremen , Düsseldorf and Munich .

German institutions in Angola

  • Goethe-Institut in Luanda, Rua Comandante Kwenha No. 272
  • Delegation of German business in Angola ( AHK Angola), Luanda, Rua Engenheiro Armindo de Andrade No. 80
  • Angolan-German vocational training center FormPRO in Luanda

Angolan institutions in Germany

  • Association of Angolans in Germany eV ( Associação dos Angolanos na República Federal da Alemanha ) in Meckenheim
  • In 2005, Angolans founded the internationally distributed Portuguese-language magazine Ngingão Cultural in Dortmund . It also functioned as a cultural association and organized a. a. Misses and concerts in Dortmund, including Bonga Kuenda . The magazine appeared for a few years and was then discontinued, while Chief Executive Kota Ngingas continued to write articles in the Portugal Post for a while .

Sports

Soccer

Angolan fans before the first World Cup game in Cologne on June 11, 2006

The Angolan national soccer team took part in a world championship for the first time after they qualified for the 2006 soccer world championship in Germany. After two draws and one defeat, however, she did not make it into the round of 16.

The Angolan soccer player Miguel Pereira (* 1975) played for FC Schalke 04 at the age of 18 and has been active as a player and coach in Germany ever since. Nando Rafael (* 1984), Narciso Lubasa (* 1989), Joe Vunguidica (* 1990) and Danny da Costa (* 1993) are other German-Angolan football players.

basketball

In addition to soccer, basketball is also very popular in Angola. The German national basketball team and the Angolan men's selection have played against each other five times so far, with four German and one Angolan victory (as of October 2018). They met for the first time at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Badalona , with the German selection winning just under 64:63.

The Germans and Angolan basketball women have not yet met (as of October 2018).

Occasionally Angolan players also play in Germany, for example the German-Portuguese-Angolan player Jone Lopes Pedro (* 1990), who has lived in Aachen since he was six.

Roller hockey

The German national roller hockey team also took part in the 2013 roller hockey world championship in the Angolan capital Luanda and in the southern Angolan port city of Namibe , but after one victory and two defeats it was eliminated in the group stage.

At the roller hockey world championship in 1997 in Wuppertal , Germany , the hosts and the Angolan selection met in the game for seventh place, Angola lost 1: 4, so that Germany finished seventh and Angola eighth.

See also

literature

Web links

Commons : Angolan-German Relations  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b “Merkel open to Angola's desire for coast guard boats” , article of February 7, 2020 in Münchner Merkurs , accessed on February 24, 2020
  2. ↑ a b German economic interests in Angola , article from August 2011 on www.konfliktverarbeitung.net, accessed on January 3, 2017
  3. ↑ a b c Merkel supplies Angola with patrol ships , article from July 13, 2011 at Spiegel Online , accessed on January 3, 2017
  4. ↑ a b German companies discover potential in Africa , article from June 11, 2014 in Deutsche Mittelstandsnachrichten, accessed on January 3, 2017
  5. ^ Angolans beaten up by the right , article of August 18, 2000 in the newspaper Die Welt , accessed on January 3, 2017
  6. ↑ List of German companies in Angola ( Memento of the original from January 3, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , PDF access on the website of the German Embassy Luanda, accessed on January 3, 2017 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.luanda.diplo.de
  7. ↑ a b c Angola's economic data , pdf download by the Federal Agency Germany Trade and Invest , accessed on January 3, 2017
  8. ^ Website of the Goethe Institute in Luanda
  9. ^ Website of the delegation of the German economy in Angola
  10. ↑ FormPRO website
  11. ↑ Ngingão Cultural Magazine No. 6 (March 2007)