German colonial efforts in Southeast Africa

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Africa Political Map, 1888

German colonial efforts in Southeast Africa were predominantly private initiatives at the end of the 19th century with the aim of establishing German colonies in southern Africa on the Indian Ocean . A parallel was the establishment of a colony in what was later to become German South West Africa , which meant that a closed German settlement colony with the inclusion of other areas seemed possible. However, the plans were in competition with the colonial interests of Great Britain . Due to Germany's policy of non-interference in this region, the attempted "land acquisitions" received no protection from the Reich and failed.

prehistory

As early as 1777, the Austrian trading company acquired a port in Delagoa Bay (today Maputo Bay in Mozambique ) on the southeast coast of Africa. The area had previously been abandoned by the Dutch East India Company . A small fortification was built and declared an Austrian colony. In 1781, however, the bay passed to Portugal.

In the 19th century, settlers of German origin lived in what would later become South Africa, such as members of the German Legion in British Kaffraria and the Germans in Natal .

Idea of ​​a German-Boer settlement colony

Colonial borders in southern Africa, 1885

The German colonial advocate Ernst von Weber suggested in his work Four Years in Africa , published in 1878 , that Germany should take possession of the Delagoa Bay and addressed a related memorandum to the German Emperor Wilhelm I and Chancellor Otto von Bismarck . From the much-mentioned Delagoa Bay, a “Germanization” and protectorate rule over the German and Dutch settlers of South Africa should proceed. The attempt failed, among other things, because of the reluctance of German politics at the time, especially Bismarck's, on colonial issues.

Adolf Lüderitz took up Weber's plan again in 1884 when, after the founding of " Lüderitzland " in what was later to become German South West Africa, he sought to expand eastwards to the Indian Ocean. The territory should include the Boer republic Transvaal . According to Lüderitz, the resulting colony could have served as a catchment basin for German emigration overseas. However, Bismarck was still hostile to these plans, which went far beyond property rights for commercial establishments. In addition, Great Britain rushed to install the Bechuanaland protectorate in 1885 , which was partly due to the changed geopolitical situation in the region. The British protectorate now lay like a wedge between the German colony in the west and the Boer republics in the east. Lüderitz felt "thrown back" in South West Africa.

In the following years, the German-Boer rapprochement increased the British displeasure, which reached its climax with the Krüger dispatch in 1896. The despatch was preceded by Wilhelm II's consideration of simply proclaiming a German protectorate over the Transvaal and immediately sending marine infantry to support the Boers. Due to serious diplomatic concerns and the difficult military feasibility, the emperor was dissuaded from this.

In the 1880s and 1890s, economic interests also repeatedly sparked speculation about Germany's colonial intentions in southern Africa. German investors were involved, for example, in the Boer railway construction. The President of the South African Republic of the Transvaal, Paul Kruger , has plans for a railway connection between Lüderitz Bay on the Atlantic and Santa Lucia Bay on the Indian Ocean.

German colonization approaches in Southeast Africa

Places of German colonization attempts on the coast of Southeast Africa, before 1890

The German Africa explorer Karl Mauch toured the Mashonaland and Transvaal around 1870 and spoke out in favor of a German colony there. In the winter of 1883/1884, the German colonialist Carl Peters sent a Southeast African colonial plan to the Foreign Office in Berlin, in which he proposed the German occupation of Mashonaland between the Zambezi and the Transvaal. In the summer of 1884, Bismarck announced that all areas south of the Zambezi were to be viewed as a British sphere of interest . A German occupation does not find approval. Peters later became outraged that the region had only come into British possession in 1889 and that a German colony was therefore possible.

Despite the reluctance of the German government and the competition with Great Britain, German private individuals and the military began isolated preparations for bases in south-east Africa, but these did not exist anywhere. The most advanced project was the attempted occupation of the bay of Santa Lucia in Zululand .

Santa Lucia Bay

Location of Santa Lucia Bay in Zulu country around 1885 ( property of the House of FAE Lüderitz )

In November 1884, the German traveler August Einwald signed a treaty with King Dinizulu on behalf of Adolf Lüderitz, which should secure Germany a local claim to what is now Lake St. Lucia in the Kingdom of Zululand . The German Colonel Adolf Schiel tried to assert the alleged claims and the associated possibilities with Bismarck. For a short time it seemed that a German colony could emerge between Portuguese East Africa ( Mozambique ) in the north and the British colony of Natal in the south. In the course of a compromise with Great Britain, however, the request was finally rejected in May 1885 when the British invoked a treaty with King Phunga that had already been concluded in 1843 . From 1884 to 1887 the short-lived Boer state Nieuwe Republiek developed around the Santa Lucia Bay .

Pondoland

Pondoland and neighboring areas annexed by the Cape Colony, 1875–1890

In 1885 the Baden Premier Lieutenant a. D. Emil Nagel attempted to found a German colony in Pondoland . Nagel acquired 400 km² of land from Chief Umquikela . By Otto Kersten was 1886 German Pondoland Society founded (DPLG) in Berlin, which in 1887 dispatched an expedition into Pondoland. The German Pondoland expedition was tasked with initiating the actual occupation, setting up an experimental station for arable farming and cattle breeding, establishing trade relationships with the residents and examining the country's raw materials. The expedition met the son of Chief Umquikela, who died in October 1887, named Usigkao. After long negotiations, he confirmed the contract concluded by his father with Nagel and agreed to transfer it to the DPLG. In 1888, the members of the expedition set up two stations: The Lambas station for cattle breeding and farming experiments was on the Wild Coast near Port Grosvenor . The Intsubana station , for collecting wood samples, was inland in the Ekossa forest. In view of British claims, however, the German Empire refused the status as a protected area . In 1887 Pondoland was annexed by Great Britain. By 1889 the DPLG was able to expand its land holdings to around 1,500 km² (including valuable wood stocks in the Ekossawald). German newspapers called for settlers to settle in the area. However, this project was also unsuccessful. In 1894 the Pondoland was finally united with the British Cape Colony .

Delagoa Bay

Delagoa Bay 1891

The acquisition of Delagoa Bay was a repeatedly expressed and yet never realized goal of German naval and colonial policy. Its strategic location as the access route for the Boer states once again raised hopes for a starting point for a German-Boer land bridge to German South West Africa. The bay, which belongs to Portuguese East Africa, was the focus of British and Boer as well as German interests in the 1890s . The railway line between Pretoria and the port of Lourenço Marques on Delagoa Bay was built with German capital, among other things. In order to secure access to the port and the rail link for Germany, the Imperial Navy sent warships into the bay to open the railways in 1895. The German cruisers Condor and Cormoran indicated the German presence in the bay. Great Britain should, among other things, defy concessions in the expected cession and redistribution of the Portuguese colonies, which initially did not occur.

consequences

Political map of South Africa according to territories from 1890: British (pink), Boer (yellow / orange), German (purple), Portuguese (green)

In the course of renouncing Santa Lucia Bay, Germany had promised on May 5, 1885 not to make any acquisitions between Natal and Delagoa Bay. In Article III of the so-called Helgoland-Sansibar Treaty of July 1, 1890, the German sphere of interest in southern Africa was finally limited to German Southwest Africa. Germany received only a narrow strip of territory in the north, the so-called Caprivi Strip , which connected German South West Africa with the Zambezi. A further connection to the Indian Ocean was not established. The southeastern mainland coast of Africa remained under British and Portuguese control. However, in 1898 the German Empire and Great Britain concluded an agreement (which was never realized) on the division of Portuguese colonial property ( Angola Treaty ), but according to this agreement, the southern part of Portuguese East Africa would have fallen to Great Britain, not Germany.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ernst von Weber: Four Years in Africa 1871–1875 . Volume 2, Brockhaus, Leipzig 1878, p. 329ff. ( Online version )
  2. ^ Horst founder: History of the German colonies . 5th edition, Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn / Munich / Vienna / Zurich 2004, pp. 80ff., ISBN 3-8252-1332-3 .
  3. ↑ Wolfgang J. Mommsen: Bürgerstolz und Weltmachtstreben - Germany under Wilhelm II. 1890 to 1918. History of Germany, Volume 7, Part 2, Propylaen Verlag, Berlin 1995, ISBN 3549058209 , p. 299f.
  4. ↑ Hans-Ulrich Wehler: Failure in Southeast Africa - Santa-Lucia-Bay and Zululand . in: (ders.): Bismarck and the Imperialism , 4th edition, Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, Munich 1976, ISBN 3-423-04187-0 , p. 281.
  5. ^ Evans Lewin: The Germans and Africa. Cassell and Company, London / New York / Toronto / Melbourne 1915, p. 64.
  6. ↑ Jutta Bückendorf: “Black-white-red over East Africa!” - German colonial plans and African reality. LIT Verlag, Münster 1997, ISBN 3825827550 , p. 197
  7. ^ Karlheinz Graudenz: The German colonies - history of the German protected areas in words, pictures and maps. 3rd edition, Weltbild, Augsburg 1988, ISBN 3-926187-49-2 , p. 100.
  8. ↑ The Lucia Bay. in: Die Grenzboten , vol. 44, 1885, pp. 161ff.
  9. ^ W. Schüßler: Kolonialgeschichte , in: Annual reports for German history . Edited by Albert Brackmann u. Fritz Hartung. Leipzig: Koehler. Born in 1937–1939. Vol. XXI, pp. 700f .; made available by the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences.
  10. ↑ Relevant and Inimitable, in: Die Grenzboten , vol. 62, 1903, p. 115f.
  11. ^ Wütschke: Germany and England in Africa, in: Die Grenzboten , vol. 76, 1917, p. 334.
  12. ↑ Santa Lucīa , in: Meyers Großes Konversations-Lexikon . Volume 17, Leipzig 1909, p. 587.
  13. ↑ Hans-Ulrich Wehler: Fehlschlag in Südostafrika - Santa-Lucia-Bay und Zululand, in: (ders.): Bismarck und der Imperialismus , 4th edition, Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, Munich 1976, ISBN 3-423-04187-0 , Pp. 292-298.
  14. ^ Landesarchiv Baden-Württemberg: Emil Nagel, former lieutenant from Baden: Project on land acquisition in "Pondoland", South Africa
  15. ↑ Pondoland , in: Meyers Großes Konversations-Lexikon, Volume 16, Leipzig 1908, pp. 145–146.
  16. ^ Franz Hertwig: The coastal area of ​​Natal and Pondoland in its economic development, in: Petermanns Geographische Mitteilungen . Volume 34, 1888, pp. 358 ff. ( Online on the website of the University of Jena. )
  17. ↑ Franz Bachmann: South Africa - Travel, Experiences and Observations during a six-year stay in the Cape Colony, Natal and Pondoland . H. Eichblatt, Berlin 1901, DNB 57912536X , p. 207 f.
  18. ^ Hansard: South Africa - German Occupation of Pondoland , March 15, 1887 (Engl.)
  19. ↑ Peter Wende: The British Empire - History of a world empire. CH Beck, Munich 2008, p. 201.
  20. ↑ Without author: Politische Tagesschau, in: Thorner Presse , VII. Year, No. 85, April 10, 1889, p. 2. ( Online on the website of the Toruń University Library .)
  21. ↑ K. v. S .: The Delagoa Bay and Samoa, in: Die Grenzboten , Vol. 57, 1898, pp. 517-523.
  22. ↑ Willi A. Boelcke: This is how the sea came to us - The Prussian-German Navy in Übersee 1822 to 1914. Ullstein, Frankfurt / Main, Berlin, Vienna 1981, ISBN 3-550-07951-6 , p. 204f.
  23. ↑ Christian Wipperfürth: From sovereignty to fear - British foreign policy and social economy in the age of imperialism . Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-51-508517-3 .
  24. ↑ lucia-bai Meyers Konversations-Lexikon , 4th edition, Leipzig and Vienna 1888, Volume 14, page 308.

literature

  • Evans Lewin: The Germans and Africa. Cassell and Company, London / New York / Toronto / Melbourne 1915, p. 102. ( PDF; 8 MB)
  • Helmuth Stoecker : Urge to Africa - The German colonial expansion policy and rule in Africa from the beginning to the loss of the colonies . 2. revised Ed., Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1991, ISBN 3-05-000825-3 .