Central Association for Commercial Geography and Promotion of German Interests Abroad
The Central Association for Commercial Geography and Promotion of German Interests Abroad was founded in 1878 with the long-term goal of acquiring colonies for Germany.
prehistory
The origin of the association goes back to the cartographer Henry Lange , who was in contact with some leading German colonial advocates, such as the Göttingen geographer Johann Eduard Wappäus and Hermann Blumenau , the founder of the settlement named after him in Santa Catarina , southern Brazil , and who was already in contact at the beginning of the Founded the Leipzig Geographical Association in the 1860s . At the end of the 1860s, Lange met a group of geographers around the Africa researcher Otto Kersten in Berlin , who at that time were already advocating plans to direct emigration and colonial expansion and who succeeded in winning interested parties and financially strong sponsors for another planned association.
founding
On October 9, 1878, the Central Association for Commercial Geography and Promotion of German Interests Abroad was founded in Berlin by this group of geographers, statisticians, editors and business people. Robert Jannasch , himself a statistician, from whom the unusually high proportion of statisticians came from when the association was founded, took over the chairmanship. The association's statutes read: "The association recognizes that it is its duty to maintain lively communication between Germans living abroad and the mother country, as well as about the natural and social conditions in the countries where Germans are settled, To gain and disseminate education. On the basis of the knowledge gained abroad, the association endeavors to direct emigration to the countries which are favorable to the settlement of Germans and in which German popular consciousness is able to keep itself alive. The association hopes to be able to establish German colonies through the establishment of trading and shipping stations. "
The association's program showed the triple orientation as a geographic society, emigration association and colonial association. The establishment of colonies in the political sense was intended as a long-term goal.
Member recruitment and expansion of the association
A specially set up "agitation committee" was responsible for recruiting members. It was looking for individual and corporate members all over Germany, »the chambers of commerce and trade, trade associations, engineering associations, municipalities, trade schools, outstanding industrialists and merchants, scientifically educated people [...] but above all the German parliamentary bodies and governments for the purposes of the association to win". Representatives of export interests dominated by far among the members. More than two thirds of the registered members were small to medium-sized manufactured goods manufacturers, merchants and, in small numbers, representatives of bank capital. In addition to those in the Berlin catchment area of the association, entrepreneurs from the Rhineland and Westphalia in particular became members. In the last third of the membership, geographers, statisticians, explorers and officers were particularly represented.
Already in the first year of the association a considerable number of important and representative names and organizations were able to be accepted into the association. In 1880 the Centralverein had the head of the Admiralty, Albrecht von Stosch , Vice-Admiral Otto Livonius , the legation councilors from the Bunsen Foreign Office and Heinrich von Kusserow , the General Secretary of the German Trade Conference, Wilhelm Annecke, from the larger Hanseatic trading houses Johann Cesar as members and sponsors Godeffroy , numerous professors, the industrialists Werner von Siemens , Hermann Gruson and Arthur vom Rath, the Westphalian Union (coal and steel industry) and the Cologne-based United Rhenish-Westphalian powder factories in addition to a number of small and medium-sized entrepreneurs from the banking and insurance business, Georg von Siemens boss of Deutsche Bank, Adolph von Hansemann director of the discount company and the directorates of Baltic and Rheinisch-Westfälischer Lloyd. As a result of double membership in the top management, the Centralverein was in close contact with many geographical societies as well as with the Hamburg Colonization Association from 1849 , and later also with the Munich "Association for the Protection of German Interests Abroad". He cooperated peripherally with the " African Society in Germany ", subsidized annually by Reich funds to the amount of 100,000 marks , to which the "German-African Society" and the "German Society for Research on Equatorial Africa" had united in 1878. Branch clubs of the Centralverein were established in the following years in Barmen, Chemnitz, Dresden, Düsseldorf, Freiburg im Breisgau, Jena, Kassel, Leipzig, Marburg and Stuttgart. Branch associations were also established overseas, particularly in Brazil, Argentina and Australia.
The first, and until the founding of the Düsseldorf West German Association for Colonization and Export, the only significant one of these branch associations, was the Leipzig "Association for Commercial Geography and Promotion of German Interests Abroad", which Ernst Hasse , director of the local statistical office, founded in February 1879. In Leipzig, even more clearly than in Berlin, the majority of the membership base registered shortly after the foundation was made up of small to medium-sized local entrepreneurs interested in exporting. The "Promotion of German Interests Abroad" was clearly in the foreground at the Leipzig Association. The Leipzig Association sought to promote the "energetic cultivation of German exports" through sample exhibitions of German industrial products abroad and through its Weltpost magazine .
A large and economically significant part of the individual and cooperative members of the Central Association came from western parts of the empire. Friedrich Fabri's plan to create a regional center for colonial association work for the Prussian states of Rhineland and Westphalia was therefore also in the interests of the Central Association and its West German members.
The West German Association was nominally constituted as a branch of the Berlin Central Association, thus integrating itself into the intended supra-regional organization of a colonial movement, but maintaining a largely independent position vis-à-vis the Berlin umbrella organization.
Work of the association
The activities of the association were supposed to prepare the way for the acquisition of colonies, but mainly focused on more immediate, current tasks. Such was the question of emigration, which was of great importance due to the high number of Germans who emigrated. The promotion of exports came more and more to the fore in the Centralverein's advertising letters. The association worked on these topics in its two magazines, which it had published since 1879: Export and Geographical News for World Trade and Economics .
The guiding principle of the associations in Berlin and Leipzig was to use organized emigration through concentrated colonization to arrive at new, secure sales areas for German industry overseas. That is why, for Robert Jannasch, »emigration, colonial and trade policies were closely linked«.
The colonial propagandists Friedrich Fabri and Wilhelm Huebbe-Schleiden only came into contact with the Berlin Association through the publication of their writings, which were enthusiastically received in the Geographische Nachrichten. When the Centralverein convened its first congress for commercial geography and the promotion of German interests abroad in Berlin in the autumn of 1880, both were already among Jannasch's "shop stewards".
On October 26, 1880, the first congress for commercial geography and the promotion of German interests abroad began in Berlin. The Central Association, which at that time had nearly 2,000 members, had arranged the congress. Among the 300 participants were Jannasch, Hasse, Fabri and Hübbe-Schleiden, the directors of the Prussian and Imperial statistical offices, Engel and Becker, the economists, statisticians and geographers Adolf Wagner , Meitzen and Eduard Pechuel-Loesche as well as the Legation Councilors Bunsen and Kusserow. Fabri and Hübbe-Schleiden met here for the first time in public with the groups around Jannasch and Hasse. The will for future cooperation was expressed by the fact that the board of the Central Association appointed both of them as corresponding members. Emigration was the top priority on the Congress agenda.
On June 26, 1881, under Robert Jannasch's chairmanship, a conference of the "stewards" of the Central Association, which also included representatives of the West German Association. The first item on the agenda was the question: "What position does the association have to take in the next elections in order to ensure that its efforts are valid and promoted in the Reichstag?" It was about the Reichstag election in October 1881 .
The Centralverein and its Leipziger Zweigverein followed the example of the Westdeutscher Verein, which provided thousands of circulars to the press to support candidates for the Reichstag who wanted to pursue a German colonial policy at the Reich level. Ernst Hasse wrote a circular in Leipzig to campaign "to work to ensure that men are set up who are ready to lend their word and voice to the endeavors we represent in the Reichstag". Jannasch tried to promote the "colonial electoral movement" through various articles in the organ of the Centralverein. Overall, the colonial election propaganda operated by the Central Association, the Leipzig Association and the West German Association in 1881 did not produce the desired success.
The mediation of business connections through the association's own magazine "Export" was more successful. The "export office" of the Centralverein arranged a total of 730 overseas business contacts through regular export and import offers by the end of 1883.
Loss of leadership of the German colonial movement
While the Central Association for Commercial Geography and Promotion of German Interests Abroad, as the umbrella association of colonial associations, was actually more of a kind of 'general store' for emigration policy, export support and colonial policy, colonial propagandists tried to find a new form of colonial propaganda and they also wanted to get away from the claim to power in the branch associations of the Central Association Free Robert Jannaschs.
At the end of June 1881 at the Berlin Conference of the Centralverein, the attempt to bring about a "colonial electoral movement" was unanimously brought about by the West German, Leipzig and Berlin Centralverein. But the agreement between the two leading branch associations and their Berlin umbrella organization did not last long. The West German Association had joined the Centralverein as a regional association in the hope of being able to use the Berlin weekly »Export« as an association organ. The paper was particularly popular in circles of the manufactured goods industry and the export trade, but Jannasch refused the Leipzig and Düsseldorf organizations a say in the editorial team of "Export" and wanted to keep the leadership role in colonial policy through his Centralverein.
Since an assembly of colonial advocates in Frankfurt am Main on August 26, 1882, decided to found an empire-wide colonial association and a committee was set up for this purpose, the preparations for the constituent assembly of the German colonial association have been underway . During the preparations for the establishment of the German Colonial Association, tensions between the West German and the Central Association increased steadily. As a result, they led to the break between the Berlin and Düsseldorf associations and were of considerable importance for the rapid growth of the new Frankfurt organization, which offered the branches of the Centralverein as the new umbrella organization a sensible alternative.
On October 9, 1882, Hasse arranged a conference of delegates for the branch associations of the Central Association in Leipzig. It was also aimed at discussing the possibilities of a comprehensive organization of the colonial movement in Germany. The Leipzig conference brought the assembled representatives together in protest against the repressive policies of the Berlin umbrella organization. The Central Association was asked to "convene a delegates' conference as soon as possible" to establish a new organization. Robert Jannasch, who had refused to sign the Frankfurt founding call for the German Colonial Association, also ignored the Leipzig application. This marked the break of the Central Association with its branch associations. Leading members of the West German Association signed the call to found the German Colonial Association. The constituent assembly scheduled for December 6, 1882 in Frankfurt, Jannasch attempted to evade by calling a general assembly of the Centralverein in Berlin for the same day. Friedrich Fabri and the leadership group of the West German Association went to Frankfurt for the constituent meeting of the German Colonial Association.
On December 6, 1882, the two meetings in Berlin and Frankfurt met at the same time. Jannasch continued to claim the unrestricted leadership role for the Central Association. He justified this claim, among other things, by pointing out that the Centralverein "effectively represented the interests of the German export trade in all parts of the world and created thousands of business connections." Jannasch obviously did not know that "the new Frankfurt Association" was intended as a propaganda organization and not, like the Centralverein, primarily as a mediator of specific export opportunities.
At the end of December, the West German Association received the message that the Central Association considered the previous connection with its branch associations to be dissolved. For a few months the colonial movement fell apart again into individual local associations and regional associations, until the former branches of the Central Association came together under the German Colonial Association as the new umbrella association.
When in January 1883 Ernst Hasse was co-opted from the Leipzig Trade Geographical Association to the board of the Colonial Association, the two most important branch associations were organizationally separated from the Central Association, but without giving up their cooperation with the Central Association.
Like Ernst Hasse, Friedrich Fabri had also tried in vain to involve the Centralverein as an organization with equal rights in the "great national alliance" sought. The attempt failed because of the demonstrative disinterest of the group around Jannasch.
The Düsseldorf General Assembly of the West German Association granted the board of directors the requested power to negotiate merger with the new Frankfurt organization, and in March 1883 the most important of the former branches of the Central Association joined the new Frankfurt umbrella organization.
Further work of the association
In the associations of the German colonial movement, until the acquisition of colonies by Chancellor Bismarck in spring 1884, the discussion about the question of emigration prevailed . The South American Colonization Society was founded in January 1884. The result of the investment advertising and propaganda carried out by the Central Association and its Leipzig branch association, the West German and the Colonial Association remained low. Of the millions hoped for, only 200,000 marks could be raised, which, moreover, were paid in almost exclusively by those interested in South America from the four advertising clubs themselves. Not a single major bank was willing to risk its capital in Paraguay . With this weak financial basis, the original project could not be tackled. The attempt to implement at least part of the program produced, after great effort, a pathetic result: a few estancies and brickworks, an insignificant shipping company and, finally, a small, quickly forgotten settlement with colonists who were left to their own devices and soon became impoverished were all in Paraguay came true.
In June 1885, Carl Peters succeeded in breaking through the policy of isolation pursued by the German Colonial Association against his Society for German Colonization and, with the Central Association and the Munich Association for the Protection of German Interests Abroad, the "creation of a German colonial association" was the long-term goal to agree. In August 1885, Friedrich Fabri, the chairman of the West German Association, also agreed to these plans.
On January 5, 1886, the representatives of the Colonial Association, the West German Association, the Central Association and the Society for German Colonization met in the Berlin offices of the German Colonial Association under the chairmanship of Hermann zu Hohenlohe for the first of a series of delegate conferences that lasted until June 1886 lasted, and which had the content of the cooperation of the German colonial associations. One topic was the convening of a General German Congress to promote overseas interests. The congress was finally organized by the Society for German Colonization and the Centralverein alone and took place in Berlin in mid-September 1886. The Württemberg Association for Commercial Geography and the Promotion of German Interests Abroad, the German School Association, the German Export Association Berlin and three German mission societies sent delegations to the congress. The most important result of the congress was the resolution, taken at the request of Carl Peters, to establish a General German Association to represent German national interests as an umbrella organization. This was founded in December 1886. In view of the absolute majority of the Society for German Colonization in the Presidium, the Central Association and the School Association quickly lost interest and terminated their membership. One year after it was founded, the General German Association disintegrated again.
The End
After the German Colonial Society took over the leadership of the German colonial movement, the Centralverein only assumed a subordinate position in the colonial movement. The association remained active in the field of foreign trade, especially through its Export magazine . The First World War with the loss of the German colonial empire also heralded the end of the association. The last chairman was probably Emil Brass , who took over management in April 1919. In 1925 the association was dissolved.
literature
Klaus J. Bade : Friedrich Fabri and imperialism in the Bismarckian era , Verlag Atlantis, Freiburg im Breisgau 1975. ( Digitized , PDF, 2.9 MB)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Klaus J. Bade: Friedrich Fabri and Imperialism in the Bismarckian Age . Osnabrück 2005, page 202.
- ↑ Klaus J. Bade: Friedrich Fabri and Imperialism in the Bismarckian Age . Osnabrück 2005, page 253.
- ↑ Klaus J. Bade: Friedrich Fabri and Imperialism in the Bismarckian Age . Osnabrück 2005, page 295.
- ↑ Klaus J. Bade: Friedrich Fabri and Imperialism in the Bismarckian Age . Osnabrück 2005, page 329.
- ↑ Klaus J. Bade: Friedrich Fabri and Imperialism in the Bismarckian Age . Osnabrück 2005, page 488.