German Colonialism and National Identity
New York; London: Routledge (2011), x, 340 pp.
Contains illustrations, bibliogr. pp. 313-332
Series: Routledge Studies in Modern European History, 14
ISBN 978-0-415-96477-7 (hbk); 978-0-203-85259-0 (ebook)
"The German empire that emerges from the volume edited by Michael Perraudin and Jürgen Zimmerer is one very much embedded in a broader European colonial discourse. Just like any other empire, Germany believed itself to be a "better" empire, more benevolent, more efficient, more civilized. Yet we learn that in spite of these propositions the German was a very violent, indeed genocidal, empire, whose brutal deeds were matched in its racist and aggressive representations. And we learn that while Germany's academic and political elite has sought to confront the colonial past, its general public remains for the most part detached and uninterested. While the volume gives a rich and variegated overview of the cultural processes that relate to German colonialism, the individual essays are rather short, and some of them lack the evidence and stringency of argument that one would expect of a full-fledged essay. The short introduction to the volume outlines the individual contributions, but it does not provide a theoretical framework that reflects on the culturalist approach of the volume or the claim posited in the title of a nexus between German colonialism and "German identity." A more comprehensive treatment of these overarching questions in the introduction would significantly have improved this extensive and insightful collection." (www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=32217)
Introduction: German colonialism and national identity / Michael Perraudin and Jürgen Zimmerer
I. COLONIALISM FROM BEFORE THE EMPIRE
Imperialism, race, and genocide at the Paulskirche: origins, meanings, trajectories / Brian Vick
Time, identity, and colonialism in German travel writing on Africa, 1848-1914 / Tracey Dawe
Gray zones: on the inclusion of Poland in the study of German colonialism / Kristin Kopp
II. COLONIALISM AND POPULAR UTTERANCE IN THE IMPERIAL PHASE
The war that scarcely was: the Berliner Morgenpost and the Boxer Uprising / Yixu Li
Boy's and girl's own empires: gender and the uses of the colonial world in Kaiserreich youth magazines / Jeffrey Bowersox
Picturing genocide in German consumer culture, 1904-1910 / David Ciarlo
The visual representation of Blackness during German imperialism around 1900 / Volker Langbehn
Colonialism and the simplification of language: Germany's kolonial-Deutsch experiment / Kenneth Orosz
III. COLONIALISM AND THE END OF EMPIRE
Fraternity, frenzy, and genocide in German war literature, 1906-1936 / Jörg Lehmann
Colonial heroes: German colonial identities in wartime, 1914-1918 / Michael Pesek
Crossing boundaries: German women in Africa, 1919-1933 / Britta Schilling
Abuses of German colonial history: the character of Carl Peters as weapon for volkisch and National-Socialist discourses: Anglophobia, anti-Semitism, and Aryanism / Constant Kpao Saré
"Loyal Askari" and "Black rapist": two images in the German discourse on national identity and their impact on the lives of Black people in Germany, 1918-1945 / Susann Lewerenz
SECTION IV. GERMAN COLONIALISM IN THE ERA OF DECOLONIZATION
(Post-)colonial amnesia?: German debates on colonialism and decolonization in the post-war era / Monika Albrecht
Denkmalsturz: the German student movement and German colonialism / Ingo Cornils
Vergangenheitsbewältigung à la française: post-colonial memories of the Herero genocide and 17 October 1961 / Kathryn Jones
The persistence of fantasies: colonialism as melodrama on German television / Wolfgang Struck
SECTION V: LOCAL HISTORIES, MEMORIES, LEGACIES
Communal memory events and the heritage of the victims: the persistence of the theme of genocide in Namibia / Reinhart Kössler
The genocide in German South-West Africa and the politics of commemoration: how (not) to come to terms with the past / Henning Melber
The struggle for genocidal exclusivity: the perception of the murder of the Namibian Herero (1904-08) in the age of a new international morality / Dominik J. Schaller
Narratives of a "model colony": German Togoland in written and oral histories / Dennis Laumann
Suspended between worlds: the discipline of Germanistik in sub-Saharan Africa / Arndt Witte
I. COLONIALISM FROM BEFORE THE EMPIRE
Imperialism, race, and genocide at the Paulskirche: origins, meanings, trajectories / Brian Vick
Time, identity, and colonialism in German travel writing on Africa, 1848-1914 / Tracey Dawe
Gray zones: on the inclusion of Poland in the study of German colonialism / Kristin Kopp
II. COLONIALISM AND POPULAR UTTERANCE IN THE IMPERIAL PHASE
The war that scarcely was: the Berliner Morgenpost and the Boxer Uprising / Yixu Li
Boy's and girl's own empires: gender and the uses of the colonial world in Kaiserreich youth magazines / Jeffrey Bowersox
Picturing genocide in German consumer culture, 1904-1910 / David Ciarlo
The visual representation of Blackness during German imperialism around 1900 / Volker Langbehn
Colonialism and the simplification of language: Germany's kolonial-Deutsch experiment / Kenneth Orosz
III. COLONIALISM AND THE END OF EMPIRE
Fraternity, frenzy, and genocide in German war literature, 1906-1936 / Jörg Lehmann
Colonial heroes: German colonial identities in wartime, 1914-1918 / Michael Pesek
Crossing boundaries: German women in Africa, 1919-1933 / Britta Schilling
Abuses of German colonial history: the character of Carl Peters as weapon for volkisch and National-Socialist discourses: Anglophobia, anti-Semitism, and Aryanism / Constant Kpao Saré
"Loyal Askari" and "Black rapist": two images in the German discourse on national identity and their impact on the lives of Black people in Germany, 1918-1945 / Susann Lewerenz
SECTION IV. GERMAN COLONIALISM IN THE ERA OF DECOLONIZATION
(Post-)colonial amnesia?: German debates on colonialism and decolonization in the post-war era / Monika Albrecht
Denkmalsturz: the German student movement and German colonialism / Ingo Cornils
Vergangenheitsbewältigung à la française: post-colonial memories of the Herero genocide and 17 October 1961 / Kathryn Jones
The persistence of fantasies: colonialism as melodrama on German television / Wolfgang Struck
SECTION V: LOCAL HISTORIES, MEMORIES, LEGACIES
Communal memory events and the heritage of the victims: the persistence of the theme of genocide in Namibia / Reinhart Kössler
The genocide in German South-West Africa and the politics of commemoration: how (not) to come to terms with the past / Henning Melber
The struggle for genocidal exclusivity: the perception of the murder of the Namibian Herero (1904-08) in the age of a new international morality / Dominik J. Schaller
Narratives of a "model colony": German Togoland in written and oral histories / Dennis Laumann
Suspended between worlds: the discipline of Germanistik in sub-Saharan Africa / Arndt Witte
