Mixed debate in the German Reichstag (1912)

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The mixed marriage debate in the German Reichstag in May 1912 served to prepare a legal regulation of intercultural marriages and the status of descendants from intercultural sexual relationships. The debate confirms the racial ideas of the German parties at the time with regard to German colonial policy and the preliminary stages of the intensified racism in German society in the interwar period . The debate can be seen as an expression of an internationally observable tendency to tighten the barriers between colonial rulers and colonized people, but it also shows a certain German pioneering role in this development.

prehistory

At the beginning of the 20th century, the German colonial administrations had banned mixed marriages between Germans and members of native peoples in the colonies. In German South West Africa , a ban on “civil marriage between whites and natives” had already taken place in 1905, and in 1906 the governor of German East Africa reserved the right to make a personal decision on such requests. In 1907, in German South West Africa, marriages concluded before the ban were declared null and void.

The Reichstag was not confronted with such regulations issued by ordinance. On January 17, 1912, the Reichskolonialamt under State Secretary Wilhelm Solf for German Samoa enforced a distinction between children in "legitimate" and "illegitimate" mongrels in addition to the ban on marriage. Only children born up to now and entered in mixed race lists were entitled to civil rights and maintenance. All children born later, who could not be married anyway, were considered "illegitimate", with no claims on their fathers or their home country. In March 1912, the SPD submitted to the Commission for the Reich Budget of the Protected Areas the application for legalization of mixed marriages and for the alimentation obligation of fathers from Germany for illegitimate children in the colonies. At the same time, a resolution asked the Federal Council to draw up a draft law by which the ordinance law in the Protected Areas Act from 1900 would be restricted and the right of the Reichstag to participate would be expanded.

procedure

In the 53rd session of the 13th legislative period of the Reichstag, on May 2, 1912, the State Secretary of the Reich Colonial Office, Wilhelm Solf, opened a fundamental debate by addressing the "mixed race question" and the problem of " mixed marriages " in the German colonies in a dramatic way Art put up for negotiation in the Reichstag. The "bad consequences of mixed marriages", according to Solf, were recognized by all nations whose "colonizing profession brought them into contact with colored peoples of lower culture and lower civilization". Solf cited the United States as a special example : “Misunderstood humanity takes revenge, as does the undignified descent to the lower race.” He was “naturally against slavery”, but “the negro” had “lived in the old, patriarchal conditions Southern states felt better than he now has to feel internally, as a human being ”. Today “the negro” could even “become president if he was not lynched first ”. Solf said that lynching in the US will continue "until state law and popular sentiments are in harmony". Solf then appealed to the (exclusively male) MPs to consider whether they would like “black daughters-in-law” and “wool-haired grandchildren”. The German Colonial Society spends 50,000 marks a year on sending “white girls” to South West Africa. Solf argued, “Do you want these white girls to return with Hereros, with Hottentots and bastards as husbands?” Solf summed up his point of view with the words: “We are Germans, we are white and want to remain German.” Opposite the “colored” "Also the proletarian master". Solf therefore turned expressly to the strongest parliamentary group in the Reichstag since 1912, the Social Democrats, with a request for support, arguing that it is not the "wealthy" who are tempted "outside" to marry a "native woman", but the "Poor man, the little man".

Wilhelm Solf, who as governor of German Samoa (1900–1911) was considered to be more liberal and understanding, did not find the desired broad approval. Georg Ledebour from the SPD countered that Solf was not primarily concerned with the institution of marriage, but with the legitimacy of mixed race. In his answer, he said, "as soon as these young people in their strongest age come into contact with the subjugated peoples, where they have no or so few white women that they cannot enter into marriage at all", the result will be an "inevitable result" in "all colonies, not just in those of Germany", mixed race. In order to avoid racial mixing, one had to "give up the colonies", while Solf only wanted to "exterminate sexual intercourse". Ledebour criticized the mixed marriage ban specifically with reference to Samoa , where there are around 80 mixed marriages. Precisely because the Samoans are culturally closer to the whites than the “ Hottentots ” or Herero , their “sexual intercourse” has also risen to a “higher level”. Ledebour insinuated that Solf feared that the “influx of white blood” in Samoa would cause a “population” to grow, “partly white, partly Samoan blood”, which “just like the bastards in South West Africa, those from the mixture of Dutch and Hottentots "Have emerged, strengthen the" resilience of the natives ". With this, Ledebour took up an argument from Friedrich von Lindequist , the governor of German South West Africa , who in 1906 had warned in a memorandum on settlement policy about the “number of mixed connections” and the “bad consequences of racial mixing”, “because the white minority in South Africa by keeping their race pure in their rule over the colored people “had to assert themselves.

Ledebour positioned himself as a critic of the "capitalist colonial policy" and their "need" to keep the whites as "a master race separate from the natives" and to allow them to be "dominated", but also saw it "not as a desirable state" , "When marriages between natives and whites are concluded, or if there is extramarital intercourse resulting in mixed race". He was even “indignant” about the fact that “white women here in Germany had dealt with negroes”. And he pointed out the “unpleasant” fact that “certain women” showed a “perverse inclination” for “exotic peoples”, which Ledebour viewed as a phenomenon of bourgeois decadence .

The delegate Carl Braband ( Free People's Party , FVP) criticized in the further course of the debate that in the big cities at "demonstrations of exotic groups of Nubians, Negroes, Sinhalese" "white women had thrown themselves on the neck of the foreign guests". Braband rejected mixed marriages and the mixed race that grew out of them as a kind of pathological phenomenon and at the same time advocated the “prevention” of “marriages between people with serious infectious and hereditary diseases”. In view of the surplus of white men in the colonies, Braband conceded the inevitability of “sexual mixing” between colonists and “colored women”. But he too saw the “growth of the mixed race” as a “danger” that the German “cultural people” could only counter through “careful monitoring of the upbringing of the mixed race”.

The national liberal member of the Reichstag, Karl von Richthofen-Damsdorf , even saw “sexual connections between whites and colored people” as “sexual immorality” that could not be “sanctioned by the state” with a “seal”.

The free-conservative, Protestant pastor Johannes Zürn , German Reich Party , formulated the thesis that "children who emerge from mixed marriages develop towards the bad side". He invoked "healthy national racial consciousness" and also opposed "any facilitation of racial mixing in our colonies".

Similarly, the conservative MP Karl von Böhlendorff-Kölpin , who called for a "sharp separation" of races and an "education of our colonial citizens" against "mixed marriages" and "cohabitation". Even the “head of the Catholic mission in South West Africa” would have described “ brothels ” as the “lesser evil” in comparison with these “immoral” practices .

The Christian-social parliamentarian Reinhard Mumm from the Economic Association criticized the fact that a “certain female excavation” in the “big cities deals with blacks” and called for the “sharpest reaction” to anchor the rejection of such “racial shame” in the “popular consciousness”. The Christian Socials, however, saw a ban on mixed marriages as ineffective, since the other colonial powers did not have such a ban and a marriage in the neighboring colonies of France or England would be easily possible. Mumm therefore took the position of promoting "marriage between whites in the colonies" and only sending "married officials to the colonies".

Eduard David , a supporter of revisionism in social democracy , was almost the only one to take a more relaxed and less racist position. He pointed out that the Samoans in particular are "an extremely beautiful and healthy people". One can find phenomena here that should be considered “typical beauties of the human race”. The “racial feeling” fails here, or it turns into the feeling that “some whites” cannot “degrade” their offspring in such a relationship, but “improve” them. However, David said: "We do not want mixed populations to be created randomly either".

Center member Adolf Gröber also paid homage to “beauty” in the debate. In the Reichstag he showed pictures of a “bastard girl” and of Samoan women and commented: “They are not quite pretty, they are not prettier here either”. The center advocated the “permissibility of racial mixed marriages”, not least because of their low numerical importance. According to the “latest reports” from 1907 and 1908, there were 34 “mixed marriages” and 170 mixed race in the colonies of New Guinea ; in Samoa 90 mixed marriages and 938 mixed breeds; 42 mixed marriages and 3595 mixed race in South West Africa - whereby the so-called Rehoboths had contributed to the “suppression of the rebellion” of the Herero and Nama ( uprising of the Herero and Nama ) with “loyalty and efficiency”.

Matthias Erzberger , the leading representative of the Catholic Center , also came out clearly in the debate of 1912 "against the increase of the mixed race". However, “99 percent of all mixed race in the colonies” came from “extramarital sexual intercourse”. So it is illogical to ban mixed marriage. Anyone who wants to “fight the mixed race” must first and foremost take action against “cohabiting”. But those who forbid marriage promote cohabitation.

Result

At the end of the debate, the Reichstag passed a resolution on May 8, 1912, which called for the government to introduce a bill to "ensure the validity of marriages between whites and natives in all German protected areas" and the rights of illegitimate ones Determine children. The Social Democrats, the Center and parts of the Free People's Party voted for this; Overall, the vote resulted in 203 votes against 133 with one abstention. The law called for, however, was never to be passed. Two years later the First World War broke out, at the end of which Germany lost its colonies.

source

  • Negotiations of the Reichstag, 53rd to 56th session on May 2nd, 3rd, 7th and 8th 1912, pp. 1648–1747, digitized available .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Birthe Kundrus: Moderne Imperialisten , p. 219f .: The British government forbade its colonial officials from 1909 sexual relations with native women. In French West Africa , connections between French and native women were initially encouraged, but gradually became increasingly socially ostracized. In Southern Rhodesia in 1903 a law made sexual relations between white women and black men a criminal offense, but initiatives to reverse the situation failed.
  2. ↑ Reichstag protocols 19112,14,3, S. 1648A ff.
  3. ↑ Reichstag protocols 19112,14,3, S. et seq 1649 B.
  4. ↑ Reichstag protocols, 19112,14,3, p. 1730 B ff.
  5. ↑ Reichstag protocols 19112,14,3, S. 1728 A et seq.
  6. ↑ Reichstag protocols 19112,14,3, S. et seq 1732 C.
  7. ↑ Reichstag protocols 19112,14,3, S. 1735 A et seq.