Imperial Colonial Office
The Reichskolonialamt was a Reich authority in the German Empire whose task was the administration of the colonies .
development
Until 1890, the Political Department of the Foreign Office , Department for German Overseas Interests, was responsible for German colonial policy. From this point on there was a separate colonial department, which was located in the Foreign Office, but was directly subordinate to the Chancellor. From 1896 the department also housed the command of the protection troops , which until then had been part of the Reichsmarineamt (from 1897 " command of the protection troops "). Since 1905 the Reich government has been preparing to convert the colonial department into a Reich office. With a decree of May 17, 1907, the Reich Colonial Office was established. This was primarily an administrative change: the colonial department was largely unchanged and transformed into an independent authority.
The Reich Colonial Office was directly subordinate to the Reich Chancellor . At the head of the authority were a State Secretary and an Undersecretary of State .
| Directors of the Colonial Department in the Foreign Office | |||
| No. | Surname | Taking office | Term expires |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Friedrich Richard Krauel | 1890 | 1890 |
| 2 | Paul Kayser | 1890 | 1896 |
| 3 | Oswald Freiherr von Richthofen | 1896 | 1898 |
| 4th | Gerhard von Buchka | 1898 | 1900 |
| 5 | Oscar Wilhelm Stübel | 1900 | 1905 |
| 6th | Ernst Prince of Hohenlohe-Langenburg | 1905 | 1906 |
| 7th | Bernhard Dernburg | 1906 | 1907 |
| State Secretaries of the Reich Colonial Office | |||
| No. | Surname | Taking office | Term expires |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bernhard Dernburg | May 17, 1907 | June 9, 1910 |
| 2 | Friedrich von Lindequist | June 10, 1910 | November 3, 1911 |
| 3 | Wilhelm Heinrich Solf | December 20, 1911 | December 13, 1918 |
| 4th | Johannes Bell as envoy for colonial politics in Versailles | February 13, 1919 | June 20, 1919 |
After the First World War , the Reich Colonial Ministry succeeded the Reich Colonial Office on February 20, 1919. It dealt mainly with the settlement of the lost colonies. Between Hitler's takeover of power in 1933 and the turn of the war in the winter of 1942/43, preparations were made for the re-establishment of the Reich Colonial Office , as the recovery of African colonies seemed possible at times. However, the Nazi state increasingly oriented itself towards the colonial administration of fascist Italy rather than the office of the imperial era.
structure
The Reichskolonialamt had four departments. Department A dealt with political and general administrative matters, Department B dealt with financial, transport and technical tasks and Department C was responsible for personnel issues. The fourth division was the command of the protection forces . For cash matters in the narrower sense there was a "colonial main cash desk".
The Colonial Council initially acted as an advisory body, but it was dissolved in 1908 and replaced by specialist commissions with experts. A "Regional Studies Commission" existed for scientific, particularly geographical, tasks a few years before the office was dissolved. In 1911, a "permanent economic commission" was also formed. In the German Agricultural Council and in the German Agricultural Society there were also commissions that were formed specifically to advise the Reich Colonial Office. The authority was located at Wilhelmstrasse 62 in Berlin-Mitte . The preserved files of the Reich Colonial Office are in the Federal Archives , Berlin-Lichterfelde branch.
Office expeditions
See also
Web links
- "Colonial Department, Reich Colonial Office and Reich Colonial Ministry 1890-1920" by Arne Schöfert
- Wilhelmstrasse 62: The Reich Colonial Office (Africa in Berlin - City Walk of the DHM )
- Reichskolonialamt in the colonial dictionary
Individual evidence
- ↑ Harald Sippel: The Colonial Department of the Foreign Office and the Reich Colonial Office. In: Ulrich van der Heyden , Joachim Zeller (Hrsg.): Colonial metropolis Berlin. A search for clues. Berlin-Edition, Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-8148-0092-3 , pp. 29–32, here p. 31.
- ↑ 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.