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The Germans in South-West Africa and East Africa During the First World War

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The Germans in South-West Africa and East Africa During the First World War CHAPTER SIX DEFENDING THE HEIMAT: THE GERMANS IN SOUTH-WEST AFRICA AND EAST AFRICA DURING THE FIRST WORLD WAR Daniel Rouven Steinbach The enemy’s hordes are fi lled with alarm When faced with the German man’s strong arm. Germania’s lands remain pure and fi ne, In the East, as on the German Rhine! While the Fatherland watches anxiously to see If the result of this world war will be The theft of its sons’ homeland overseas As the perfi dious Brit anticipates already.1 The lines quoted above were composed in spring 1915 by a German citizen living in Tanga in German East Africa and were intended as an additional verse for the famous German patriotic song, ‘Die Wacht am Rhein’ (The Watch on the Rhine). Behind its bombastic language, this verse clearly illustrates the different reasons why German colonial settlers felt motivated to fi ght in the First World War. This chapter aims to examine this wartime mobilization of German settlers in Africa with particular reference to the German concept of Heimat.2 It focuses on the two German Schutzgebiete which had the largest white populations and that experienced the most protracted fi ghting during the war: German South-West Africa (now Namibia) and German East Africa (now mainly Tanzania).3 Newspapers that were published in the cities 1 UP, Deutsche Wacht allerwege! (22 May 1915, no. 21): ‘Voll Grauen spürt der Feinde Schwarm/Des deutschen Mannes starken Arm./Germanias Fluren bleiben rein,/Im Osten, wie am deutschen Rhein!/Doch sorgvoll schaut das Vaterland/Hinaus, ob auch der Weltenbrand/Nicht seiner Söhne ferne Heimat raubt/Wie es der falsche Brite schon geglaubt.’ 2 The expressions Reich (German Empire, i.e. the German national state), Heimat (homeland), Schutzgebiet (protectorate; German colony) and Schutztruppe (the German colonial army) will not be translated. All other translations are by the author. 3 Togo and the colonies in the South Sea collapsed within days, after little or no fi ghting. Even the fortress of Tsingtao in China fell after less than three months of JONES_f8_179-208.indd 179 4/4/2008 1:37:32 PM 180 daniel rouven steinbach of Windhoek, Swakopmund, Lüderitzbucht, Dar es Salaam and Tanga, up until their occupation by the Allied forces, are the primary sources for this study, together with accounts written by German colonialists during or immediately after the war. The central thesis of this chapter is that the African context chal- lenged the identity of German colonialists in many ways, and that the war provided them with a means to assert their unity with the German Reich. As was the case for Germans living in the Reich, the idea of Heimat—a particular, cultural idea of a German homeland—helped reassure the colonialists when faced with the crisis situation of war. To understand the situation in the colonies in August 1914, it is necessary to look fi rst at how the idea of Heimat related to German identity in general during the previous decades. In addition, it is nec- essary to examine the special role that ideas of Heimat played in the Schutzgebiete and how this affected their relationship with the Reich. The 1904 Herero War in German South-West Africa, the fi rst war fought by Germany, will then be analyzed in order to highlight the importance of the Heimat concept in a war situation, and to provide points of comparison with the First World War, ten years later. The subsequent discussion of the First World War will focus on four aspects in detail. First, it will investigate the situation at the beginning of the war, when fi ghting in the Schutzgebiete became inevitable. Second, it will analyze how the Heimat image was used to provide a rational explanation for the confl ict, particularly in the poetry produced by the colonialists. Third, it will examine German colonial society at war, through an explora- tion of its attitudes towards the local African population and soldiers, and towards other ethnic groups. Finally, it will look at the battles of the Schutztruppen—not in military terms, but in terms of their impact upon the colonialists’ attitudes. The chapter concludes with a brief assessment of how the war in Africa infl uenced the settlers expelled from Germany’s former colonies after the confl ict ended, as well as German society in general. Overall, the aim here is to provide insights into the colonialists’ experience of war from a number of different perspectives, rather than to provide a comprehensive analysis. By comparing the behavior siege. Although Cameroon’s Schutztruppe did not leave the colony until the beginning of 1916, the British and French had conquered the strategic harbor towns in September 1914 and began deporting the interned German civilian population. JONES_f8_179-208.indd 180 4/4/2008 1:37:33 PM.
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