German colonialism in the time of National Socialism

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Various unsuccessful efforts to regain colonies overseas after the seizure of power , which the German Reich had to cede in the Treaty of Versailles of 1920, are described as German colonialism in the time of National Socialism . Due to the Second World War and the Nazi European plans , there was neither a return nor a military occupation of the colonies. Colonial revisionism was essentially limited to diplomacy, administration and propaganda . The significance of these efforts, which were mainly based on the colonial political office of the NSDAP founded in 1934 , had for the overall politics of National Socialist Germany is a matter of dispute in historical studies.

Prehistory: "Colonial policy" without colonies

Weimar Republic and League of Nations mandates in formerly German colonies

In the interwar period , the parties of the Weimar coalition more or less supported the demand of German colonial advocates for the return of the former German colonies. The SPD, led by Friedrich Ebert, wanted the colonies to be returned. Since the victorious powers in the peace negotiations at Versailles took the view that the German Reich had forfeited the right to colonies, on March 1, 1919 in the Weimar National Assembly a declaration of protest was passed by the large majority of the MPs , in which Germany was again unrestricted in use its pre-war colonial rights. Only the few MPs of the USPD voted against. Chancellor Philipp Scheidemann appointed Johannes Bell as colonial minister during the negotiations on the Versailles Treaty . Since April 1, 1924, the Foreign Office again had a colonial department. The department was headed by Edmund Brückner , the former governor of the German colony of Togo . Brückner pursued the goal of at least gaining mandate administration over some of the former colonies after Germany was admitted to the League of Nations . Foreign Minister Gustav Stresemann supported this in principle, but for him the “colonial question” was of subordinate relevance within the revision objectives. The "colonial policy" remained largely insignificant in the foreign policy of the Weimar Republic . The government only had a right to a say in colonial politics in individual cases - for example, when Germany protested against the integration of Rwanda-Urundi into the Belgian Congo colony in 1925. On September 9, 1927, Ludwig Kastl became a German delegate to the permanent mandate commission of the League of Nations. The administration of a mandate area was not transferred to Germany. The reluctant colonial ambitions led to a gradual break between the government and the organized colonial movement in Germany. The movement was now completely drawn into opposition to the republic by its radical representatives. The political tension between claim and reality persisted when, in the early 1930s, the presidential cabinets went over to a fundamental revision of the interwar order: The demand for the "return of colonial property as a badge of a great power" ( May ) was now to be pursued more radically, but did not achieve any results. At the time of the “ seizure of power ” in January 1933, the colonial movement placed its hopes primarily on the DNVP , the coalition partner of the NSDAP, and on Vice Chancellor Franz von Papen . Ultimately, it did not save them from being “brought into line ”.

Colonial aspirations in the National Socialist era

The party program of the NSDAP in 1920 called for colonies for the production of food reserves and for settlement by the population surplus in Germany. As early as December 10th, Adolf Hitler spoke of the “irreplaceable loss” of the colonies in a speech. In his program Mein Kampf in 1926, however, he clearly rejected the goal of regaining the German colonies:

“We stop the eternal Teutonic migration to the south and west of Europe and turn our gaze to the country in the east. We are finally closing the pre-war colonial and trade policy and moving on to the land policy of the future. "

Nevertheless, many who demanded the return of the colonies saw new hopes with the "seizure of power" by the NSDAP . The new government found support from the colonial movement, because Hitler seemed to them to be the guarantor of Germany's expansion.

1933–1939: Colonial demands in the pre-war period

Colonies out - advertising of the women's association of the German Colonial Society, 1933–1936

The colonial associations that had merged in 1922 to form the Colonial Reichsarbeitsgemeinschaft (KORAG) were transferred to the newly created Reichskolonialbund in 1933 with over one million members . Heinrich Schnee became its director , followed by Franz Ritter von Epp . As head of the NSDAP's colonial policy office , Epp stood for a purposeful colonial policy of the German Reich. At the same time, however, the colonial propaganda was adapted to the Nazi ideology. For example, the Reichskolonialbund was strictly forbidden by the Propaganda Ministry to advertise overseas settlement colonies. The settlement of Germans outside Europe, in particular the creation of rural settlements there, contradicted both the blood-and-soil ideology and the Eastern policy . Instead, the “co-ordinated” colonial movement had to limit itself to refuting the so-called “colonial guilt lie” and to regaining the former colonies for raw material supplies. The latter should not, however, conflict with the policy of self-sufficiency . The colonial youth departments and scout groups were dissolved and integrated into the Hitler Youth .

The colonial war memorial built in 1936 on the Liebichshöhe in Breslau with the inscription German land in foreign hands! - Remember our colonies.

From 1933, many streets and squares were renamed after personalities from German colonial history, including Carl Peters and Hermann von Wissmann . Other elements of the politics of remembrance were the erection of numerous colonial monuments, regular commemoration ceremonies and colonial exhibitions as well as film productions. The films include Die Reiter von Deutsch-Ostafrika (1934), Deutsche Pflanzer am Kamerunberg (1936), Der Weg in die Welt (1938), Deutsches Land in Afrika (1939), Carl Peters (1941) or Germanin (1943) . In addition, writings by authors of the so-called "colonial literature" were published, for example by Ewald Banse , Theodor Bohner , Senta Dinglreiter , Alfred Funke , Else Morstatt , Paul Rohrbach , Ilse Steinhoff or Josef S. Viera . The colonial library published novels for young readers . In doing so, the NSDAP tried to keep the colonial memories alive as a role model for what it saw as “genuine Germanness” and a pioneering spirit. With the continuation of colonial schools such as the German Colonial School for Agriculture, Trade and Industry in Witzenhausen , the German Women's Colonial School in Bad Weilbach and the Colonial Women's School in Rendsburg , selected specialists were to be prepared for the conditions in regained colonies.

The former German colonies of Cameroon and Togo in a school atlas from the early 1930s - the pre-war borders are still marked.

A few days after his appointment as Chancellor on January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler told the British newspaper Sunday Express :

“As for our overseas colonies, we have by no means given up on colonial aspirations; this problem too must be solved fairly. There are a great many things that Germany has to get from the colonies, and we need colonies as much as any other country. "

On March 30, 1933, Hitler met the chairman of the German Colonial Society, Heinrich Schnee. Schnee advocated the economic necessity of colonies. As a first step, he recommended the repurchase of the West African colonies of Cameroon and Togo. Hitler initially reacted hesitantly and merely agreed to support the Germans living abroad in the former colonies.

At the London Conference in June and July 1933, Reich Minister of Economics Alfred Hugenberg (DNVP) demanded the return of the former German colonies. The negative international reactions contributed to Hugenberg's resignation.

On July 1, 1934, the German Colonial Exhibition of the Reich Colonial Association opened in the Deutzer Messe in Cologne. The opening was marked by colonial acquisitions 50 years earlier. Among other things, head casts from South West Africa were shown, which were made on behalf of the anthropologist and “racial hygienist” Eugen Fischer . By decision of the Bremen Senate in 1935, today's Übersee-Museum was renamed the German Colonial and Übersee-Museum . The former German colonies came into focus, which should be on nature, culture and economy of the former protected areas .

In March 1935, Hitler introduced the return of the former German colonies for the first time in negotiations with British government representatives, and the “colonial question” now remained a constant, albeit relatively minor, topic of negotiation between the German and British governments. For example, on February 4, 1936, Hitler publicly demanded the cession of two colonies in return for an ongoing "active German friendship" with Great Britain.

The US Ambassador to Berlin, William E. Dodd , wrote in his diary on March 6, 1936 about a conversation with the British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden about the former German colonies: “I told Gie [South African envoy to Germany] that Germany was with the idea of ​​rejoining the League of Nations on the condition that it regain the colonies it owned in 1914. He replied: I spoke to Eden about it. He said England would only agree to the return of the colonies to Germany if they were declared mandates. In this way one could avoid that the natives would be armed, as the French did in Morocco. "

In principle, Great Britain was now ready to return colonies to the Empire; it wanted political concessions in return. Hitler, on the other hand, wanted colonies to be returned without any kind of compensation, because the German colonies had been expropriated from Germany without compensation.

Cameroonian Railway with slogans for the connection of Austria to the German Reich, 1938
Hitler Youth of the Auslands-HJ in the German school near Oldeani, Tanganyika Territory, around 1940

The National Socialist Organization ( NSDAP / AO ) controlled institutions and liaison groups in numerous countries, including in the former German colonies. As early as 1932, for example, a national group was founded in South Africa, which was popular with German Namibians and had numerous offices in the mandate area of South West Africa . The NS organizations there had a similarly large influx among the Germans as the parent organizations in Germany, so that the South African mandate administration felt compelled to ban them as early as 1934 (see, for example, the German Scout Association of Namibia ). The older party, the German Confederation for South West Africa , however, remained in existence until the Second World War.

In a memorandum dated late August 1939 for the British Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax , Sir Ivone Kirkpatrick of the Foreign Office's Germany Division wrote that if Hitler kept his promise to win Danzig without bloodshed, he would be “included in it British promise to return the colonies and to come to an understanding with Germany ”.

Since a regaining of colonies was to be expected from the political side, the German economy began with appropriate preparations. In July 1936 the Reichsgruppe Deutscher Kolonialwirtschaftlicher Unternehmer (Deko Group) was founded to organize the German colonial economic planning within the framework of the four-year plan and to do the practical preparatory work for the recovery of German colonial property. The head of the Deko group was Kurt Weigelt , a board member of Deutsche Bank . The Deko-Gruppe began its activities in the former colonies in 1937 in Cameroon, where in the mid-1920s almost all of the German plantations that were lost in 1919 had been repurchased and which were now being prepared as forests for the German needs for tropical timber. Negotiations between the Deko Group and the French Colonial Ministry, to which some former German colonies were subordinate to administration, enabled German scientists to be sent to the former German areas under French administration. As early as 1937, Lufthansa began to consider, from its Bathurst air base for land and sea planes in the British colony of Gambia in West Africa - from where the planes flew to or arrived in South America - "preparations for a connection with our colonies (Togo, Cameroon, South West Africa) - should we get them back one day - to meet. "

On the occasion of the 15th anniversary of the March on Rome in 1937, Benito Mussolini, in the presence of an NSDAP delegation under Rudolf Hess , demanded "Germany's participation in African colonial property" in front of around 300,000 people. The Duce's support was part of a long-standing German-Italian exchange on colonial projects in Africa. In the years that followed, the German plans of the Nazi era were oriented more towards Italian Africa than towards the colonial policy of the imperial era.

New Swabia

On December 17, 1938, the catapult ship Schwabenland set out to assert territorial claims in the Antarctic . Swastika flags were dropped from airplanes onto the ice desert (see also Neuschwabenland ), as property markings that were attached to pointed poles so that they could anchor themselves well in the ice when the impact was made. On January 14, 1939, Norway announced with a royal proclamation a territorial claim over the territory under Norwegian sovereignty in Antarctica , in which New Swabia is located. The German Reich rejected the Norwegian claim with a protest note after nine days and reserved full freedom of action with regard to future claims. 16 months later Norway was occupied by German troops.

In 1938, the Navy began planning colonial gunboats for stationing in the colonies to be reclaimed. On February 25, 1939, an internal naval letter about these gunboats asked for "accelerated draft processing, since such vehicles may be required very soon." In the Z-Plan , six set this colonial gunboats, but due to overloading of the German shipyards no orders were issued for these vessels.

Between 1935 and 1940, the German Africa Show , operated by the National Socialist trade union Deutsche Arbeitsfront , toured through Germany with a “Negro village” - represented by black Africans living in Germany - to “promote the colonial thoughts of the German people, especially in the smaller towns and cities spread across the country ”. An ulterior motive was the presentation of the Afro-German actors as “loyal (former) wards” in order to stylize them as “living proof” of the German ability to colonize.

In April 1938 the Hamburg Colonial Institute for teaching and research in the colonial area was founded and started its work with 400 students; the Institute for Foreign and Colonial Forestry was elevated to a Reich Institute in October 1939.

For the training of administrative staff for the now soon expected back under German rule former colonies began Reichsbund the German officials in 1938 with training courses for colonial officials, and in October 1938 in Ladeburg the first colonial Political Training House in Berlin of the Colonial Policy Office of the NSDAP (KPA) opened. As early as September 1936, the KPA had organized its first course on the “formation of a tribe of colonial experts who would pass on their knowledge to others”. Preparations for a colonial police started in 1936 and in February 1938 a first special colonial course for police officers took place at the university abroad in Berlin. In March 1939, Heinrich Himmler asked police officers and men to volunteer to “prepare for the formation of a police force suitable for use in the protected areas”. 380 police officers and 2,000 police officers reported and were examined for their ability to serve in the tropics. In 1939 the Navy had provided two companies for colonial use and the Army had the Hamburg Motorized Infantry Regiment 69.

On February 14, 1939, the Reich Propaganda Ministry informed the German press that in future the terms “lost colonies” or “former colonies” would no longer be used, but only “the German colonies”.

On March 9, 1939, Hitler commissioned the head of the KPA, Franz Ritter von Epp, with the preparations for the establishment of a Reich Colonial Office.

The German Colonial Exhibition was opened in Dresden on June 21, 1939 on 90,000 m² of exhibition space. Its motto was "Why we need colonies".

1939–1945: plans for the supplementary room and its demolition

With the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939, the “colonial question” changed fundamentally through the defeat of France in May / June 1940. On May 24, 1940, Hitler declared in a lecture to senior military officials in Charleville , France, that he did not believe in German colonies a lot, they are just a matter of prestige for him. But on June 16, 1940, the Völkischer Beobachter printed an interview with Hitler by the American journalist Karl von Wiegand , in which the latter spoke about the pre-war situation: "I had asked of England nothing more than that Germany should be regarded and treated as equal, that England should protect the German coast if Germany were to get involved in a war, and finally that the German colonies should be returned to me. And I will get it too! "

Between autumn 1939 and November 1940, the German leadership, namely Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop , discussed the formation of a so-called continental bloc several times . The plan envisaged expanding the "axis" Berlin-Rome not only to include Tokyo, but also Moscow, Madrid and later Vichy in order to form a broad front against Great Britain. The expansion efforts of the bloc states should be directed against the British colonies in Africa and the Middle and Far East. However, the plan was only half-heartedly pursued, as it contradicted Hitler's eastern policy and aroused reservations from Japan, Spain and the Vichy regime. Josef Stalin was also only willing to cooperate in exchange for concessions.

North and Central Africa in August 1940: Parts of the former German colonies of Cameroon and Togo are under the control of the German-dependent Vichy regime . (Cameroon switched to the camp of free France shortly afterwards . Togo, as part of French West Africa , switched sides in 1942.)

Due to the dramatically changed global political situation, the Commander-in-Chief of the German Navy, Erich Raeder , reported to Hitler on July 11, 1940 that six German merchant cruisers and their crews were available for the first ever military occupation of the former German colonies . Shortly before, Walther von Brauchitsch , Commander-in-Chief of the Army, had ordered the establishment of a colonial regiment and its training at a Norwegian military training area. A staff for colonial questions should be established at the Army Office.

Since such a rapid turnaround in the war in favor of Germany was not foreseeable in September 1939, and since the start of the war, overseas trade had collapsed immediately due to the British naval blockade of Germany, the activities of the German colonial trading companies were directed to Poland, which was conquered in September 1939. Large quantities of goods for the overseas markets, which could no longer be delivered due to the war, and which were manufactured for the "overseas taste" and unsuitable for the German market, were now sold by the German colonial companies in occupied Poland, where they are now one had opened up a new market.

When Germany occupied Belgium at the end of May 1940, a large part of the stocks of the Belgian company Union Minière du Haut Katanga fell into the hands of Germany. The company imported uranium ore from the Belgian Congo. During the following five years, German troops stole 3,500 tons of uranium compounds from Belgium, which were used in the uranium project for the development of nuclear weapons , among other things . The direct exploitation of the mines in Katanga was not possible due to the war with Great Britain.

On June 11, 1940, a colonial exhibition of the Reichskolonialbund was opened in the Neue Burg in Vienna. In February 1941 an exhibition followed in the Paulinenschlösschen in Wiesbaden . The Reichskolonialbund had over two million members in 1940, far more than the German Colonial Society before the First World War.

When Italy entered the war on Germany's side in June 1940, the fighting spread to East Africa. A German volunteer association was formed in Eritrea . Since the German government now hoped to come to a quick peace with Great Britain, the colonial planning was pushed ahead. In addition to the former German colonies, other areas in Africa were to become German colonies. Colonel-General Franz Halder wrote in his war diary after a lecture to Hitler on July 13, 1940: “The French and Belgian Congo are claimed for us.” In September 1940, Reich Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop traveled to Italy to see the division of Africa into one to agree a victorious end of the war with Great Britain. After that, all of Central and South Africa would fall to Germany and West and North Africa to Italy, with the exception of Morocco, which was to come to Spain.

As early as March 1939, the head of the NSDAP's Colonial Political Office, Franz Ritter von Epp , was commissioned by Hitler to set up a Reich Colonial Office for the administration of the colonies in Africa . On June 15, 1940, the head of the Reich Chancellery, Hans Heinrich Lammers , sent the Supreme Reich Authorities a circular about the preparatory work for the Reich Colonial Office: “The current situation requires that this preparatory work be completed quickly. Therefore, on behalf of the Fuehrer, I have to ask the highest Reich authorities to give the Colonial Political Office all support in the most generous manner within the scope of their competence and to do my best to ensure that the preparation for taking over the administration in our future colonies in the shortest possible time can be terminated. "

The Reich Colonial Office was to become the Reich Colonial Ministry and the seat of the new ministry was planned to be the Marstall building next to the Berlin City Palace , whose accelerated conversion for the future Reich Colonial Ministry was ordered by Hitler in March 1941.

On June 20, 1940, Reinhard Heydrich , the head of the Reich Main Security Office , ordered the establishment of Sipo and SD associations for deployment in the colonies . On January 14, 1941, the colonial police office under Karl Pfeffer-Wildenbruch was established by Heinrich Himmler's decree . In March 1941 the colonial police school was opened in Oranienburg Palace near Berlin and in January 1942 a second one in Vienna . Courses for German police officers have been running in the Italian colonial police school in Tivoli since 1940 .

The "Reich Colonial Law" of July 10, 1940 designated German colonies as "sovereign territory of the German Reich" which are "economic components of the German economy as a whole." The population of the colonies was divided into "Germans, natives and foreigners". The “Germans” were automatically “German citizens and imperial citizens”, the “natives” “Protectors of the Reich” and the “foreigners” were subdivided into “strangers of related blood, strangers of unrelated blood and hybrids”.

On October 3, 1940, the working group for colonial road construction met for the first time in Stuttgart as part of the tropical and colonial technical working conference of the Association of German Engineers , at which Fritz Todt, as chairman of the research society for roads in the National Socialist Association of German Technology, commissioned the working group To research road pavements for the annually flooded areas in the African colonies, while the working group on colonial road construction also set up an extensive work program for itself, which ranged from routing taking into account tropical conditions to investigations into the effects of tropical climatic conditions on building materials. On September 18, 1941, the Botanical Central Office for the German colonies in Berlin-Dahlem was reopened.

In October 1940, Hitler instructed not to set up a colonial force, like the Schutztruppe in the German Empire , but to send regular units of the Wehrmacht from Germany to the colonies in constant exchange.

The foreign organization of the NSDAP was commissioned in November 1940 to make all preparations for the (re) establishment of the party organizations in the colonies.

From October to December 1940 operated ships of the Navy as the Far East Association in the waters of the former German colony of German New Guinea intervened, and in December 1940 German auxiliary cruiser, the phosphate -Insel Nauru in the South Pacific at ( attack on Nauru ). The island had been part of the protected areas in the South Pacific from 1888 to 1914 , but subsequently belonged to the Japanese sphere of interest, which was recognized by the German Empire. According to reports, the German flag flew briefly on the uninhabited British island of Henderson in the south-east Pacific. A sign with the British notice of ownership is said to have been replaced by a notice that the island is now owned by the Greater German Empire.

In the 1930s and 1940s, forces who were averse to National Socialism demanded the old colonies back or new colonies, as Ludwig Beck and Carl Goerdeler did in their memorandum "Das Ziel" in 1941.

With the beginning of the campaign against the Soviet Union in June 1941, huge areas in Eastern Europe were conquered, and the German colonial trading companies already active in Poland and the Deko group expanded their activities into the occupied territories of the Soviet Union, now also known as colonies. Hitler's real aim has always been to win a huge colonial area in Eastern Europe, and by attacking the Soviet Union he sought to achieve his aim. Compared to this goal, the acquisition of colonies in Africa took a back seat. On October 18, 1940, he told Albert Speer :

“Just to get a colony, I wouldn't go to war for another day. Colonial politics can be pursued once you have Europe. Only our Cameroon I would again have nothing else. "

All plans for the takeover of the old colonies continued, and thanks to the military victories in the summer of 1942 - also in North Africa by the German Africa Corps - the colonial plans for Africa seemed feasible again. On January 20, 1942, the fighting even reached a former colony when Fort-Lamy on the border with Cameroon was attacked from the air in a German long-distance company . Except for property damage and a few injuries, however, this action had little impact on the war. In 1942 a tropical company of the “ Brandenburgers ” advanced through southern Libya to northern Chad . The flight reconnaissance undertaken from here reached as far as the southern shore of Lake Chad . The planned march to Central Africa did not take place due to the weak forces and the turn of the war in North Africa (see also Dora company ). As early as 1941, a British commando in Operation Postmaster had begun to neutralize suspected Axis supply ships on the coast of West Africa. The port of Santa Isabel off the coast of Cameroon was attacked in January 1942 .

The NSDAP's Colonial Political Office (KPA) had already set up branches in June 1940 at the colonial offices of the colonized and now conquered states of Belgium, the Netherlands and France. For the construction of the Reich Colonial Ministry, the KPA divided into the KPA / Party financed by the NSDAP and the KPA / State financed by the Reich, which was transformed into the future Reich Colonial Ministry and was to be temporarily housed in the Berlin Marstall until the planned new building for the Reich Colonial Ministry would be ready. In July 1942, the KPA for the economic administration of Cameroon, Nigeria, French Equatorial Africa, Belgian Congo and Tanganyika had completed the preliminary job and organization plans and examined the applicants for the occupation of these colonial administrations in professional terms.

To prepare for the economic and administrative takeover of the former German colony of Cameroon, the organization Banane was founded and finally Bernhard Ruberg was entrusted with the management of the task force for Cameroon, who by December 1941 also had staffing plans for the French colonies beyond Cameroon -Equatorial Africa and British Nigeria . The Sisal organization was set up for the same purpose for East Africa and was led by Philipp Bouhler from June 1942 . On June 17, 1942, the SS leader Otto Ohlendorf wrote to Heinrich Himmler:

“Some time ago, the Sisal Organization and the Bananas Organization were set up in the colonial planning sector. These two names are camouflages for the Task Force East Africa (sisal) and the Task Force West Africa (bananas). Reichsleiter SS-Obergruppenführer Bouhler, who is later to become Governor General of East Africa, is planned as the head of the Sisal organization. The head of the organization bananas is the chief of staff of Gauleiter Bohle in the AO. [Foreign organization of the NSDAP] , SS Brigade Leader Ruberg. The task forces have already started the preparatory work. - It is assumed in authoritative circles that Bouhler will not remain Governor General of East Africa, but that, after having gained practical experience outside in the colonies, he will replace General Ritter von Epp as Colonial Minister. "

On November 1, 1942, the college for foreign trade and colonial merchants was opened in Bremen. Work on building up the future Reich Colonial Ministry was also still in full swing when severe military setbacks occurred in November in the Soviet Union and North Africa. In November 1942, Epp, who was designated as the colonial minister, was ordered to end the propaganda for a German colonial empire. When the military situation deteriorated further at the turn of the year 1942/43, Epp received on January 13, 1943 the instruction that the Colonial Political Office by February 15, 1943 any work from the "Führer order" from March 9, 1939 to To stop the end of the war.

On March 8, 1943, Epp wrote to the Reich Chancellery in Berlin that he would ask for the continuation of smaller KPA offices, such as the card office for use by the Wehrmacht, and: “I attach importance to the administration of the Fuhrer for the future To keep the Marstalls assigned to the Colonial Ministry in their own hands. Since the rooms also have to be managed and maintained otherwise, this does not result in any additional costs. I notice that I have already made the largest part of the Marstall available to the Reich Ministry of Finance to accommodate other Reich authorities or Reich companies. "

At the beginning of 1942, the KPA had around 250 employees, not counting the employees in the branches in Paris and Brussels for the use of the colonial offices and their documents in the Netherlands, Belgium and France, now the remaining two dozen employees of the KPA, who report to the Foreign Ministry and were housed in the stables.

Heinrich Himmler had already ordered the cessation of all colonial preparatory work in his service area on March 25, 1942, but the colonial training courses in Vienna continued until August 1942 and in the school in Oranienburg until February 1943.

A large part of the KPA's files has disappeared; one can assume that the order of the Foreign Office of February 1, 1945 to destroy the KPA files was followed. "All files that are somehow questionable, especially those with political plans and proposals, racial legislation and all files that could incriminate other people who have worked with us," should be burned. In 1940 a “Colonial Blood Protection Act” was drawn up by the KPA, according to which the Nuremberg Laws should also be applied to Africans and strict racial segregation was planned.

The Madagascar Plan , the plan for the deportation of German Jews to the African island of Madagascar , had no connection with the plans for a German colonial empire in Africa at the time of National Socialist rule in Germany.

Consequences: Colonial references in neo-Nazism

Neo-Nazi parade in Munich 2005: The flag with the imperial eagle largely corresponds to the official flag of the Reich Colonial Office .

Although calls for overseas colonies are hardly ever made in neo-Nazism , colonial references can nonetheless be recognized in images and wording. For example, the clothing brand Thor Steinar , popular among right-wing extremists, used prints that refer to German colonial history: For example, the terms Platz in der Sonne , East Africa Expedition , Tanga , Heia Safari , South West Africa , Windhoek (in the old spelling) or Namutoni . Pictorial motifs such as a black and white photo with Africa researchers, the equestrian monument in Windhoek or the Namutoni Fort under palm trees fit into this context. Nevertheless, the imprints can easily be misunderstood as apolitical adventure and vacation motifs by the uninformed and thus obscure the revisionist background. Linguistic references can also be found in right-wing extremist songs, for example in the song Reichskoloniallied by the band Landser from the year 2000. An "interventionist" tendency, however, is evident in the Southern Africa Aid Committee . The association, which was founded to promote Germans in Africa, relativizes the German guilt for the genocide of the Herero and Nama , supported apartheid and was listed as right-wing extremist by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution.

Historical research

The various activities and statements by National Socialists to regain the German colonies are cited on various occasions as evidence that the National Socialists, with the General Plan East, not only aimed at conquering living space in Eastern Europe, but ultimately for much more extensive world domination . Hitler aimed at this ultimate goal with a “step-by-step plan” ( Andreas Hillgruber ) in which a large-scale colonial empire in Central Africa was one of the most important stages. Ralph Giordano , for example, describes something similar in his book If Hitler had won the war : the plan for a supplementary room in Africa is interpreted as the intended intermediate stage between the rule of Germany over Europe and a war against the final enemy USA.

This is countered by the functionalist side , among other things , that the foreign policy of the National Socialists was too improvised and too contradictory to be able to recognize a consistently pursued ultimate goal: For example, the colonial political office of the NSDAP consistently has a conflict with Great Britain as its main opponent in mind Put together what Hitler wanted to avoid in his program Mein Kampf . Nor does the historian Karsten Linne believe that regaining the German colonies was a strategic goal for Hitler. In his estimation, this demand was rather a tactical means for completely different purposes, for example to put pressure on Great Britain or to attract the bourgeois-conservative elite of Germany to its side in domestic politics. The historian Christian Hartmann describes the effects of the colonial political endeavors on National Socialist foreign policy and warfare as only "marginal".

literature

  • Timm Ebner: National Socialist Colonial Literature. Colonial and anti-Semitic traitor figures "behind the scenes of the world theater". Wilhelm Fink, Paderborn 2016, ISBN 978-3-7705-6029-5 .
  • Alexandre Kum'a Ndumbe III. : What did Hitler want in Africa? Nazi planning for a fascist reorganization of Africa (= critical and self-critical research reports on the Third World. 7). Translated from the French by Sven Däne and Petra Liesenborgs. Editing of the German manuscript Richard Lakowsky. IKO - Verlag for Intercultural Communication, Frankfurt am Main 1993, ISBN 3-88939-104-4 .
  • Karsten Linne: Germany beyond the equator? The NS colonial planning for Africa (= highlights of colonial history. 9). Ch. Links, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-86153-500-3 .
  • Wolfe W. Schmokel: The dream of the empire. German colonialism from 1919 to 1945. Sigbert Mohn, Gütersloh 1967

Web links

Commons : German Colonial Revisionism  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files
Wikisource: Colonialism topic page  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Reiner Tosstorff: What does not go well with the Weimar celebration. Weekend edition of March 16, 2019, p. 18.
  2. ^ Gunther Mai: The Weimar Republic. 3rd edition, CH Beck, Munich 2018, ISBN 978-3-406-72780-1 , p. 115.
  3. ↑ Winfried Speitkamp : German Colonial History (= Reclams Universal Library . 17047). Reclam, Stuttgart 2005, ISBN 3-15-017047-8 , p. 160 ff.
  4. ↑ Jens Ruppenthal: Colonial Revision - The Colonial Department in the Foreign Office of the Weimar Republic. In: Jungle World. No. 46, November 16, 2005 ( online archive ).
  5. ↑ Winfried Speitkamp: German Colonial History (= Reclams Universal Library. 17047). Reclam, Stuttgart 2005, ISBN 3-15-017047-8 , p. 169.
  6. ↑ Christian Hartmann , Thomas Vordermayer, Othmar Plöckinger, Roman Töppel (eds.): Hitler, Mein Kampf. A critical edition. Volume 1. Institute for Contemporary History Munich - Berlin, Munich 2016, ISBN 978-3-9814052-3-1 , p. 432.
  7. ↑ Adolf Hitler: Mein Kampf. Two volumes in one volume. 9th edition. Rather, Munich 1932, p. 742. Quoted from Ian Kershaw : Hitler. 1889-1936. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-421-05131-3 .
  8. ↑ Winfried Speitkamp: German Colonial History (= Reclams Universal Library. 17047). Reclam, Stuttgart 2005, ISBN 3-15-017047-8 , p. 170.
  9. ↑ Joachim Zeller : Dresden 1938: "Here too is German land". In: Ulrich van der Heyden , Joachim Zeller (ed.): Colonialism in this country. A search for clues in Germany. Sutton, Erfurt 2007, ISBN 978-3-86680-269-8 , pp. 262–266, here pp. 263 f.
  10. ↑ German planters on the Kamerunberg. Deutsches Filminstitut - DIF eV, accessed on April 23, 2018 .
  11. ^ German land in Africa. Deutsches Filminstitut - DIF eV, accessed on September 20, 2018 .
  12. ↑ Film: Colonial View and Views on Colonialism .
  13. ^ Gisela Graichen , Horst founder : German colonies. Dream and trauma. 4th edition. Ullstein, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-550-07637-1 , pp. 408, 414.
  14. ↑ Martin Eberhardt: Between National Socialism and Apartheid. The German population group of South West Africa 1915–1965 (= Periplus studies. 10). Lit, Berlin et al. 2007, ISBN 978-3-8258-0225-7 , p. 324.
  15. ^ Marianne Bechhaus-Gerst: German Colonial Exhibition , Cologne 1934. ( online atkopfwelten.org ).
  16. ↑ Übersee-Museum Bremen: History
  17. ↑ Wolfe W. Schmokel: The dream of the empire. German colonialism from 1919 to 1945. Sigbert Mohn, Gütersloh 1967, pp. 95 and 99.
  18. ^ Gisela Graichen, Horst founder: German colonies. Dream and trauma. 4th edition. Ullstein, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-550-07637-1 , p. 412.
  19. ↑ William E. Dodd Jr., Martha Dodd: Diplomat on hot ground. Diary of the United States Ambassador William E. Dodd in Berlin 1933–1938. Verlag der Nation, Berlin without a year, p. 357 f.
  20. ^ Gisela Graichen, Horst founder: German colonies. Dream and trauma. 4th edition. Ullstein, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-550-07637-1 , p. 413 ff.
  21. ↑ Jon Kimche: End of the war in 1939? The failed attack from the west. Deutsche Verlagsanstalt, Stuttgart 1969, p. 132.
  22. ↑ Eberhard Czichon : The banker and power. Hermann Josef Abs in German politics. Pahl-Rugenstein, Cologne 1970, p. 86.
  23. ↑ Karsten Linne: Germany beyond the equator? The Nazi colonial planning for Africa. Ch.links, Berlin 2008, pp. 31 and 56.
  24. ^ Jürgen Rosenstock: Flying boats over the Atlantic. The adventurous expeditions of Lufthansa 1934–1939. GeraMond, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-7654-7225-5 , p. 91.
  25. ↑ Patrick Bernhard: The "Colonial Axis " - The Nazi State and Italian Africa 1935 to 1943, in: Lutz Klinkhammer, Amedeo Osti Guerrazzi, Thomas Schlemmer (eds.): The Axis in War 1939-1945 - Politics, Ideology and Warfare 1939-1945. Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn / Munich / Vienna / Zurich 2010, ISBN 978-3-506-76547-5 , pp. 147-175.
  26. ^ Donald R. Rothwell: The Polar Regions and the Development of International Law (= Cambridge Studies in International and Comparative Law. 3). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge et al. 1996, ISBN 0-521-56182-5 , p. 58.
  27. ^ Siegfried Breyer: The Z plan. Striving for a world power fleet (= naval arsenal. Special. 5). Podzun-Pallas, Wölfersheim-Berstadt 1996, ISBN 3-7909-0535-6 , pp. 46-47.
  28. ↑ Erich Gröner : The German warships 1815-1945. Volume 1: Armored ships, ships of the line, battleships, aircraft carriers, cruisers, gunboats. 2nd, unchanged edition. Bernard & Graefe, Koblenz 1989, ISBN 3-7637-4800-8 , p. 173.
  29. ↑ Karsten Linne: Germany beyond the equator? The Nazi colonial planning for Africa. Ch. Links, Berlin 2008, p. 44 f. and 77.
  30. ↑ Susann Lewerenz: "Basthütten am Kolonial-Mal": The German Africa Show (1935-1940). In: Ulrich van der Heyden, Joachim Zeller (ed.): Colonialism in this country. A search for clues in Germany. Sutton, Erfurt 2007, ISBN 978-3-86680-269-8 , pp. 432-438.
  31. ↑ Karsten Linne: Germany beyond the equator? The Nazi colonial planning for Africa. Ch.links, Berlin 2008, pp. 54 and 56.
  32. ↑ Wolfe W. Schmokel: The dream of the empire. German colonialism from 1919 to 1945. Sigbert Mohn, Gütersloh 1967, p. 155.
  33. ↑ Karsten Linne: Germany beyond the equator? The Nazi colonial planning for Africa. Ch. Links, Berlin 2008, pp. 31, 48 and 53.
  34. ↑ Karsten Linne: Germany beyond the equator? The Nazi colonial planning for Africa. Ch.links, Berlin 2008, p. 53.
  35. ^ Gisela Graichen, Horst founder: German colonies. Dream and trauma. 4th edition. Ullstein, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-550-07637-1 , p. 427.
  36. ^ War diary of the Naval War Command. Entry July 11, 1940.
  37. ↑ Ralph Giordano : If Hitler had won the war. The plans of the Nazis after the final victory. eBook, Kiepenheuer and Witsch, Cologne 2015, ISBN 978-3-462-30940-9 , item 2212.
  38. ↑ Karsten Linne: Germany beyond the equator? The Nazi colonial planning for Africa. Ch.links, Berlin 2008, p. 71.
  39. ^ Ingrid Oppenauer: Exhibitions and conferences with a colonial background in Vienna 1939/1940. University of Vienna 2003 (with an epilogue from 2015; online as pdf ).
  40. ^ Colonial exhibitions : Wiesbaden 1941 , Hessen (post) colonial.
  41. ^ Sebastian Conrad : German Colonial History (= Beck'sche Reihe. 2448). CH Beck, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-406-56248-8 , p. 118 f.
  42. ↑ Karsten Linne: Germany beyond the equator? The Nazi colonial planning for Africa. Ch.links, Berlin 2008, p. 81.
  43. ↑ Karsten Linne: Germany beyond the equator? The Nazi colonial planning for Africa. Ch. Links, Berlin 2008, p. 74 f. and 86.
  44. ↑ Wolfe W. Schmokel: The dream of the empire. German colonialism from 1919 to 1945. Sigbert Mohn, Gütersloh 1967, p. 156 f.
  45. ↑ Martin Baer, ​​Olaf Schröter: A head hunt. Germans in East Africa. Traces of colonial rule (= highlights of colonial history. 1). Ch.links, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-86153-248-4 , p. 166.
  46. ^ Franz W. Seidler : Fritz Todt. Builder of the Third Reich (= Ullstein. 33095). Extended and updated edition. Ullstein, Frankfurt am Main et al. 1988, ISBN 3-548-33095-9 , p. 143.
  47. ^ Herbert Ford: Pitcairn Island as a Port of Call. A Record, 1790-2010. 2nd Edition. McFarland & Co, Jefferson NC et al. 2012, ISBN 978-0-7864-6604-7 , p. 152.
  48. ^ Wilhelm Ritter von Schramm (ed.): Beck and Goerdeler. Community Documents for Peace 1941–1944. Gotthold Müller, Munich 1965, p. 81 ff.
  49. ↑ Christian Hartmann, Thomas Vordermayer, Othmar Plöckinger, Roman Töppel (eds.): Hitler, Mein Kampf. A critical edition. Volume 1. Institute for Contemporary History Munich - Berlin, Munich 2016, ISBN 978-3-9814052-3-1 , p. 398.
  50. ^ Franz Kurowski : German command troops 1939-1945. "Brandenburger" and defense in worldwide use. 2nd Edition. Motorbuch-Verlag, Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 3-613-02018-1 , p. 136 ff.
  51. ↑ Wolfe W. Schmokel: The dream of the empire. German colonialism from 1919 to 1945. Sigbert Mohn, Gütersloh 1967, pp. 145–149.
  52. ↑ Albert Speer : Memories (= Ullstein. 3026). Unabridged edition. Ullstein, Frankfurt am Main et al. 1976, ISBN 3-548-03026-2 , pp. 150 and 535.
  53. ↑ Karsten Linne: Germany beyond the equator? The Nazi colonial planning for Africa. Ch. Links, Berlin 2008, p. 74 f. and 86.
  54. ↑ Helmut Heiber (Ed.): Reichsführer! ... letters to and from Himmler (= German 639). Unabridged edition. Deutscher Taschenbuchverlag, Stuttgart 1970, p. 152 f.
  55. ↑ Karsten Linne: Germany beyond the equator? The Nazi colonial planning for Africa. Ch.links, Berlin 2008, p. 154.
  56. ↑ Wolfe W. Schmokel: The dream of the empire. German colonialism from 1919 to 1945. Sigbert Mohn, Gütersloh 1967, p. 157.
  57. ↑ Karsten Linne: Germany beyond the equator? The Nazi colonial planning for Africa. Ch.links, Berlin 2008, p. 162.
  58. ↑ Wolfe W. Schmokel: The dream of the empire. German colonialism from 1919 to 1945. Sigbert Mohn, Gütersloh 1967, p. 169.
  59. ↑ Lora Wildenthal: German women for Empire, 1884-1945. Duke University Press, Durham NC et al. 2001, ISBN 0-8223-2807-0 , p. 196.
  60. ↑ Investigate Thor Steinar. The critical examination of a controversial brand. 2nd Edition. Research group “Investigate Thor Steinar”, Berlin 2008, p. 23 ff. ( Online as PDF ).
  61. ^ Andreas Hillgruber : Hitler's strategy. Politics and warfare 1940–1941. Bernard & Graefe Verlag for Defense, Frankfurt am Main 1965, p. 245 u. ö. (At the same time: Marburg, University, habilitation paper, 1965).
  62. ↑ Ralph Giordano: If Hitler had won the war. The plans of the Nazis after the final victory (= KiWi. 587). Kiepenheuer and Witsch, Cologne 2000, ISBN 3-462-02944-4 .
  63. ↑ Literature report by Klaus Hildebrand : The Third Reich (= Oldenbourg floor plan of history . 17). 5th edition. Reprint of the 3rd, revised and expanded edition. Oldenbourg, Munich 1991, ISBN 3-486-49094-X , p. 193 ff.
  64. ^ Karsten Krieger: Colonial Political Office of the NSDAP. In: Wolfgang Benz , Hermann Graml , Hermann Weiß (eds.): Encyclopedia of National Socialism . Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 3-608-91805-1 , p. 547.
  65. ↑ Karsten Linne: Germany beyond the equator? The Nazi colonial planning for Africa. Ch. Links, Berlin 2008, p. 165 f.
  66. ↑ Christian Hartmann, Thomas Vordermayer, Othmar Plöckinger, Roman Töppel (eds.): Hitler, Mein Kampf. A critical edition. Volume 1. Institute for Contemporary History Munich - Berlin, Munich 2016, ISBN 978-3-9814052-3-1 , p. 432.