District Office (Colonies)

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A district office in the German colonies was the official seat for a district in a colony of the German Empire . The word district office was generally equated with the district administered by the district office. The largest administrative unit in a German colony was the district.

prehistory

With the administrative structure in the colonies of the German Reich acquired since 1884, mostly civilly administered "stations" and "police posts" or "military stations" and "military posts" run by the German military ( Schutztruppe ) emerged.

Since the colonies of the European colonial powers according to their legal understanding after their acquisition - often through division at the conference table by the European governments, as for example at the Congo Conference in Berlin in 1884/85 - were subordinate to the respective colonial powers, but the local rulers often did not want to recognize this new rule , these areas were militarily conquered and subjugated by the Europeans, as was the case in the German colonies. As a result, the military stations were often the beginning of the German administration, which were converted into civilian districts after the pacification of the country.

The districts

As a subdivision of a district, there were sub-districts, district branches , police stations and posts. With the expansion of the German administration in the colonies and the further development of the administration, for example, police stations were raised to district branches and district branches to districts. However, districts were also dissolved and added to other districts or districts divided into two new districts. During the ongoing administrative structure and the expansion of the administration into all areas of the colonies, there was also a constant change in the administrative structure in each colony, with the military stations and military districts gradually being converted into civil district offices.

Each colony had its own peculiarities in the development of the German administration and so in German South West Africa, for example, the stations were initially called substations and the district offices district offices, or the districts districts.

The coverage of the colonies in districts was completed around 1900, but the internal development of the districts, both their spatial administrative structure and their internal development, remained until the beginning of the First World War in August 1914, which immediately included the colonies Construction understood.

Districts in German East Africa

In 1913, the largest German colony, German East Africa, with an area of ​​997,000 square kilometers and around 7.6 million inhabitants, there were 19 district offices with 17 branches and two police posts, two military districts and the three residences Rwanda , Urundi and Bukoba , which were formed in 1906 from two district offices were. In contrast to the district offices, the local rulers in the residences were granted their own independent administration.

The administrative structure in German East Africa began on the coast and developed from there inland. If Dar es Salaam was the seat of a district chief in 1888 and from 1889 the seat of the Dar es Salaam district office, the Aruscha military station, founded in 1900, was spun off from the Moschi district on April 1, 1913 and declared a separate district. The district Tabora was divided even on August 11, 1916 in the districts Tabora North and South Tabora.

literature

  • Publisher Walther Hubatsch: The Protected Areas of the German Empire 1884–1920 - Excerpt from: Outline of German Administrative History 1915–1945, Volume 22: Federal and Reich Authorities, JG Herder Institute publishing house, Marburg / Lahn 1984.