Heinrich Loth

Heinrich Loth (born September 4, 1930 in Friedberg ) is a German historian. With his mission-critical work, he was one of the leading Africanists and colonial historians in the GDR . His theses on the “destructive role” of the missionary societies met with sharp criticism in West Germany, but all in all led to a more critical examination of the history of missions in connection with colonialism and imperialism . Until the mid-1980s, Loth increasingly differentiated his theses.

Life

Loth dropped out of high school in 1945 and worked in the city administration of Friedberg in Hesse until 1951. He was a member of the West German FDJ and KPD . In 1951 he went to study in the GDR . Until 1953 he first attended the workers and farmers faculty in Leipzig and in 1953 passed the school leaving examination . He then began studying history at the Karl Marx University in Leipzig , which he graduated in 1957 as a graduate historian.

From 1957 to 1959 Loth was a research associate at the Association of German Consumer Cooperatives and a lecturer at the Workers and Farmers Faculty of the German University of Music in East Berlin . In 1959 he passed the additional exam for high school teachers. From 1959 to 1961 he was a research assistant at the Africa Institute of Leipzig University and received his doctorate in 1961 under Walter Markov on "The destructive role of the Rhenish Mission Society in the process of state formation in South West Africa (1842-1893)". In 1961/62 Loth completed additional studies at the Lomonossow University in Moscow . After he had worked again as a research assistant at the Association of German Consumer Cooperatives in 1962, he worked from 1963 to 1966 as a research assistant or senior assistant at the Institute for Romance Studies , the Latin America Institute and the Historical Institute of the University of Rostock . In March 1965 he completed his habilitation with Markov and Horst Drechsler on “Germany and the 'Humanity Mandate' of the Congo State (1884–1908)”.

After Loth had taught in Rostock from September 1965 as a lecturer in the history of Africa at the Historical Institute and from September 1966 to 1969 at the Africa Institute of the University of Leipzig, he received a professorship with a teaching position for general history and the history of the international labor movement in September 1969 the section Marxism-Leninism / History of the Pedagogical Institute, which later became the Magdeburg University of Education .

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Loth emerged as a critic of the representation of the history of South West Africa by the missionary Heinrich Vedder and, from a historical-materialistic point of view , accused the missionaries of the Rhenish Mission Society of having been involved in the development of South West Africa for the European market. Based on August Bebel's and Vladimir Ilyich Lenin's criticism of religion , he postulated that the Christian mission had been one of the “main pillars in the oppression and plundering of the African peoples”. In addition, he emphasized what he believed to be a close connection between the mission and finance capital and the capitalist-economically motivated trading activities of the missionaries (including arms trade). Christianity weakened the will of the Africans to resist colonialism, and the missionaries in today's Namibia undermined the change from a primitive gentile society to a "nomadic early feudalism". Loth's definition of “nomadic early feudalism” became an important term in Marxist science in order to periodize pre-capitalist or pre-imperialist social formations and evaluate them in terms of universal history.

Loth also established continuities with the present and characterized the Federal Republic of Germany as the “legitimate heir to German colonial imperialism”, while the GDR was the “legitimate heir to the great anti-colonialist traditions of the German working class and humanistic forces”. His interpretation of the activities of the Rheinische Missionsgesellschaft was the doctrinal opinion in the GDR, but provoked sharp criticism in West Germany, especially from circles close to the mission. In 1964, Theo Sundermeier published a critical examination of Loth's theses in the Evangelical Mission Journal . In 1982, the colonial historian Horst Gründer accused Loth of starting too much from European ideas through the “forced corset of historical materialism”, seeing the tribes purely functionalistically as helpless objects of white manipulation and underestimating the rival tribalism of Africa.

Although Loth was denied access to the archives of the Rhenish Mission, he was still able to substantiate his theses with sources mainly from the Reich Colonial Office, showed the importance of the sources of the mission societies for the writing of colonial history and thus forced the mission societies to be critical of their own history to deal with. His work also influenced the anti- apartheid movement and colonial historiography in the FRG. He also contributed to changing the image of missions in African historiography. While he maintained a partial presentation of Christian missionary history until the mid-1980s, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Congo Conference in 1984/85 , Loth focused on alternative peace activities within the missionary movement , which he attested to Christian anti-colonialism within missionary work. With the evidence of "anti-colonial" voices within the mission, the GDR historian, according to Horst founder, took on a pioneering role. As early as 1976 Loth had announced that he wanted to show that the missionary motivation of original Christianity was actually not compatible with imperialism and colonialism. He also began to recognize the role of religion and mission in national liberation movements.

In Magdeburg, Loth led a research group that dealt with the history of colonialism and anti-colonialism in Africa with a focus on the history of sub-Saharan Africa . The Magdeburg historians researched the history of German colonialism and the Portuguese colonial empire . Loth wrote a history of the slave trade , dealt with the United States' Africa policy and the impact of the anti-slavery movement on British foreign policy, and published on the history of women in Africa.

Fonts

• The political cooperation of the Christian mission with the German colonial power in Africa. In: Zeitschrift für Geschichtswwissenschaft 7, No. 6 (1959), pp. 1337-1344.
• Colonialism under the cowl. Dietz, Berlin 1960.
  • Russian under the title: Kolonializm pod sutanoj. , Moskva 1962.
• The Christian Mission in South West Africa. On the destructive role of the Rheinische Missionsgesellschaft in the process of state formation in South West Africa (1842 - 1895). Akad.-Verl., Berlin 1963.
• Congo, the hot heart of Africa. History of the country down to our day; with 1 fig. 1. Kt. Deutscher Verl. Der Wissenschaften, Berlin 1965.
• Colonialism and Humanitarian Intervention. Critical examination of Germany's policy towards the Congo state (1884 - 1908). Akademie-Verl., Berlin 1966.
• German sources on the uprising movement in the upper Congo (1897-1902). In: Etudes africaines: Dedicated to the 2nd International Congress of Africanists in Dakar. 1967, pp. 85-93.
• Reach for East Africa. Politics of German imperialism and anti-colonial struggle; Legend and reality; with 14 illustrations. 1st edition. German Science Publishing House, Berlin 1968.
• The "new" policy of German imperialism and the resistance struggle in Tanganyika, 1906-1918. In: Nationalism and socialism in the liberation struggle of the peoples of Asia and Africa: [Protocol volume of Section 1 of the conference of the Institute for Orient Research of the German Academy of Sciences in Berlin on the occasion of its twentieth anniversary from October 23rd to 25th, 1967]. 1970, pp. 151-161.
• Ambitions in Ethiopia. Interference by German imperialism in the internal affairs of Ethiopia 1889-1939. In: African studies. 1973, pp. 19-36.
• Prophets, partisans, presidents. African popular leaders and their adversaries. German Verl. Der Wiss., Berlin 1973.
• and Thea Büttner: History of Africa. From the beginning to the present. Akad.-Verl., Berlin 1976.
• Africa under imperialist colonial rule and the formation of anti-colonial forces 1884 - 1945. Akad.-Verl., Berlin 1976.
• Africa from the beginning to the territorial division of Africa by the imperialist colonial powers. Akad.-Verl., Berlin 1976.
• In the shadow of the stars and stripes. 200 years of american. Politics and Mission in Africa. 1st edition. Union Verl., Berlin 1976.
• Apartheid and churches. South African Christians in the Resistance. A historical investigation. Pahl-Rugenstein, Cologne 1977, ISBN 9783760903088 .
• Rebels in priestly robes. Christians in Southern Africa and Their Role in Resistance to Colonialism and Apartheid: A Historical Examination. Union Verlag, Berlin 1977.
• On the history of the imperialist expansion policy in southern Africa. Documents from the secret files of German imperialism. Solidarity Committee of the GDR, Berlin 1978.
• From insurrection to an organized liberation struggle. Namibia's struggle against racism, colonialism and imperialism. Solidarity Committee of the German Democratic Republic, Berlin 1979.
• On the history of the imperialist expansion policy in southern Africa. Documents from d. Secret files d. German imperialism. Solidarity Committee d. GDR, Berlin 1979.
• Simon Kimbangu. [Prophet u. Martyrs in the Congo]. 1st edition. Union-Verlag, Berlin 1980.
• The slave ship. The history of the slave trade in Africa, the West Indies and America. 1st edition. Union Verl., Berlin 1981.
  • West German edition: Slavery. The history of the slave trade between Africa and America. Hammer, Wuppertal 1981, ISBN 3872941852 .
• The Portuguese colonial empire. Rise and fall. German Verl. Der Wiss., Berlin 1982.
• (Ed.): Old African healing art. European travelogues from the 16th to 19th centuries. 2nd Edition. Reclam, Leipzig 1984.
• From the serpent cult to the Christ Church. Religion and Messianism in Africa. 1st edition. Union Verlag, Berlin 1985.
• Between god and calico. The Berlin Conference 1884/85 on the division of Africa and the criticism of colonialism by Christian missions. 1st edition. Union Verlag, Berlin 1985.
• The woman in ancient Africa. Edition Leipzig, Leipzig 1986, ISBN 3361000599 .
• Travel to Nigritia. Images of the African past. 1st edition. Reclam, Leipzig 1986.
• Colonialism and religion. Historical experiences in the area of ​​the Indian Ocean. 1st edition. Union Verlag, Berlin 1987, ISBN 9783372001790 .
• Audiences on the black continent. Africa in Travel Literature of the 18th and 19th Centuries. 1st edition. Union Verlag, Berlin 1988, ISBN 9783372001882 .
• Africa. An old world center: the historical significance of a continent. Akad.-Verl., Berlin 1990, ISBN 9783050008189 .
• (Ed.): Ostracized thoughts. Philosophers, historians, and politicians on socialism; Documents and texts. 1st edition. Block, Magdeburg 1990, ISBN 3910173020 .
• Buddha's nonviolent world. A religion in the mirror of travel literature. 1st edition. Block, Magdeburg 1991.
• Henry the Navigator. Portuguese voyages of discovery. 1st edition. Rector of the Pedag. Hochsch., Magdeburg 1991.
• Russians, Circassians and Tatars. The rise and fall of an empire. 1st edition. Block, Magdeburg 1991.

literature

• Ulrich van der Heyden: The African Studies in the GDR. An academic discipline somewhere between exotic and exemplary. An investigation into the history of science. LIT, Münster 1999.
• Lothar Mertens : Lexicon of the GDR historians. Biographies and bibliographies on the historians from the German Democratic Republic. Saur, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-598-11673-X .

Web links

• Entry on Heinrich Loth in the Catalogus Professorum Rostochiensium

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Ulrich van der Heyden: Institutions of the Fomer GDR . In: Frieder Ludwig u. Afe Adogame (Ed.): European Traditions in the Study of Religion in Africa . Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 2004, pp. 316-318.
2. ↑ Horst founder: Colonialism and Marxism. German colonialism in the historiography of the GDR . In: Alexander Fischer u. Günther Heydemann (Ed.): History in the GDR . Vol. II. Prehistory and early history to the latest history . Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1990, pp. 690f.
3. ^ ^{A b} Horst founder: Colonialism and Marxism. German colonialism in the historiography of the GDR . In: Alexander Fischer u. Günther Heydemann (Ed.): History in the GDR . Vol. II. Prehistory and early history to the latest history . Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1990, p. 693.
4. ^ Horst founder: Christian mission and German imperialism. A political history of their relations during the German colonial period (1884-1914) with a special focus on Africa and China . Schöningh, Paderborn 1982, p. 116.