STORIES AND MISSION APOLOGETICS: THE RHENISH MISSION FROM WARS AND GENOCIDE TO THE NAZI REVOLUTION, 1904-1936 GLEN RYLAND MOUNT ROYAL UNIVERSITY [email protected]

tories of a Herero woman, Uerieta Kaza- Some Germans even met her face-to-face when Shendike (1837-1936), have circulated for a she visited the Rhineland and Westphalia with century and a half among German Protestants in missionary in 1859, a year the Upper Rhineland and Westphalian region. after her baptism.2 Other than a few elites, no Known to mission enthusiasts as Johanna other Herero received as much written attention Gertze, or more often “Black Johanna” from the missionaries as Uerieta did. Why was (Schwarze Johanna), Uerieta was the first her story of interest to missions-minded Protest- Herero convert of the Rhenish Mission Society. ants in ? By 1936, her life had spanned the entire period In 1936, missionary again of the Herero mission she had served since her told her story, this time shaping her into an youth. Over the years, the mission society African heroine for the Rhenish Mission. In published multiple versions of her story Vedder’s presentation “Black Johanna” demon- together with drawings and photos of her.1 strated the mission’s success in the past and embodied a call for Germans in the new era of National Socialism to do their duty toward so- called inferior peoples. Vedder used Uerieta’s I am grateful to Dr. Doris L. Bergen, Chancellor Rose story to shape an apologetic for Protestant mis- and Ray Wolfe Professor of Holocaust Studies, Uni- sions within the new regime. versity of Toronto, for her insight, guidance, and The Rhenish Mission had been in Southwest detailed feedback to help gain clarity in the content and Africa since 1842 as the only mission society claims of this essay. until 1904. Vedder arrived at the outset of the 1 The first story about Uerieta came in 1861; see Carl Hugo Hahn, “Die Schwarze Johanne,” Der kleine Southwest African-German Wars (1904-1907) Missionsfreund, no. 12 (1861): 179-88. Her story and a genocide that went with these wars. He resurfaced in the early twentieth century when the observed firsthand the genocide and served as Rhenish Mission Inspektor Johannes Spieker chaplain at the concentration camp for the mentioned her in a report from Africa in 1903 and Herero in . He remained in the again in 1905, during the Herero-German War and colony until Germany was defeated and lost its genocide. Then followed other stories about Uerieta: Jakob Irle Die Herero: Ein Beitrag zur Landes-, Volks- colonies during the First World War. In 1922, & Missions-kunde (Gütersloh: Bertelsmann, 1906), he returned from Germany having just 238; Hedwig Irle, Unsere Schwarze Landsleute in published his first story of Uerieta, and he Deutsch Südwest Afrika (Gütersloh: Bertelsmann, remained in the colony through the Second 1911), 127-31; August Kuhl-mann, Auf Adlers Fluglen World War. In 1849, at the outset of the (Barmen: Missionshaus, 1911), 22-24. In 1998 the apartheid system, Vedder became the Senator Namibian postal service honored Uerieta by including her image in a stamp series that honored Namibian women; see Diane Hubbard, “Urieta (Johanna Maria) Kazahendike, God’s Peace and Blessing,” in Women Writing Africa: The Southern Region, eds. M. J. 2 C. H. Hahn, “Die Schwarze Johanne,” Der kleine Daymond et al. (New York: The Feminist Press, 2003), Missionsfreund (hereafter DKMF), no. 12 (1861): 179- 1:96-98. 88.

Symposia 5 (2013): 17-32.© The Author 2013. Published by University of Toronto. All rights reserved. 18 SYMPOSIA for the People of , at which time he Hitler and the Nazi elite turned out to have little published a third version of Uerieta’s story. use for overseas missions, missionaries tried to Throughout the first four decades of find a place in the “racial state.”5 Vedder’s career, starting in 1903, the Rhenish Missionary stories, including Vedder’s Mission was on the defensive and its Schwarze Johanna in 1936, were rooted in these representatives sought in various ways to prove changing contexts. They reflected political, its value to the German state and society. religious, and social upheavals, but they also During the Southwest African Wars, this project represented missionaries’ attempts to intervene involved defending the mission society and its in events and shape them to fit their purposes in missionaries against charges of sympathy Africa and at home. Helmut Walser Smith toward Africans. Missionaries on the ground in traces the “collapse of fellow feeling” through Southwest Africa also served the aims of the modern period to 1941 and the murder of empire in direct ways, by aiding in the millions of Jews. A “collapse” was also destruction of Herero communities and lives. apparent in the actions and words of After 1918, defending the mission meant missionaries from Southwest Africa, who fending off criticisms from Germany’s wartime promoted the German cause as they perceived enemies and trying to maintain a presence in it.6 Africa, even as the mission sold off properties at home and in territories no longer in German Two Wars 3 hands. With the ascendance of National The German colonial government in Southwest Socialism in 1933, currying favor involved Africa entered what would be its final decade of depicting overseas missions not as a sign of rule with a ruthless war that included the mass Christianity’s fundamental incompatibility with murder of Herero and Nama (1904-1907). Nazism but rather as a source of a “properly” 4 Horst Drechsler characterized the years that racialist understanding of the world. Although followed the genocide as “the peace of the graveyard.”7 A heavy peace also settled over the Rhenish Mission and its work. At first the 3 On the stalemate of the Rhenish Mission during missionaries had appeared to falter in the face WWI, see Eduard Kriele, Die Rheinische Mission in of criticisms at home over their role in the der Heimat (Barmen: Missionshaus, 1928), 345-72. On decisions to sell mission properties, see Archiv- und Museumsstiftung der VEM, Schriftarchiv, Bestand Rheinische Mission (Archives and Museum foundation 5 According to Wolfgang Wippermann, Michael of the UEM, hereafter RMG) 18 Protokollen der Burleigh, and Detlev Peukert, racial policies and Deputationssitzungen (und der Hauptversammlungen) ideology were the distinctive features of the Nazi 1917-1924 (10 April 1922), 629-30. “racial state”; see W. Wippermann and M. Burleigh, 4 This argument for the 1930s is made by Doris L. The Racial State: Germany 1933-1945 (Cambridge: Bergen, “‘What God has put asunder let no man join Cambridge University Press, 1993); D. J. Peukert, “The together:’ Overseas Missions and the German Christian Genesis of the "Final Solution" from the Spirit of View of Race,” Douglas F. Tobler (ed.) Remembrance, Science,” 236. A 2009 German Historical Institute Repentance, Reconciliation 11 (New York: University conference was devoted to this claim: see Mark Press of America, 1998), 5-17. Overseas missions had Roseman, Devin Pendas, and Richard Wetzell (eds.) developed racist ways of thinking, notably racial Beyond the Racial State (New York: Cambridge specificity and divisionism, which Protestant mission University Press, forthcoming 2013). leaders saw as “important lessons for race relations” 6Helmut Walser Smith, Continuities of German that “could be transferred on to Jews.” This use of History: Nation, Religion, and Race across the Long overseas missions went beyond the German Christian Nineteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Movement and its members’ efforts to fuse Christianity Press, 2008). and Nazism. Protestants who never joined the German 7 Horst Drechsler, “The Peace of the Graveyard,” Let Christians or who left the movement in 1934 also us die fighting: The Struggle of the Herero and Nama appealed to the racist practices and ideas found in against German Imperialism, 1884- 1915 (London: overseas missions. Zed Press, 1980), 231-47. RYLAND / STORIES AND MISSION APOLOGETICS 19 colony, but they found their bearings amid the There is an ironic pastoral tone to Kuhl- wretchedness of the concentration camps, or mann’s narrative of this process.13 Prior to the what the Germans called Konzentrationslager.8 Herero surrender, he called the Herero “a These camps operated from January 1905 until fleeing flock,” reminiscent of the biblical the civilian colonial government abolished them language describing the disciples who in 1908.9 The captured Herero, mainly women abandoned Jesus in Gethsemane. Once they and those unable to work as forced laborers, surrendered, they became “the gathered,” were consigned to three main concentration reminiscent of ekklesia, the biblical word for camps at Swakopmund, , and Shark “church” with a literal meaning of “the called- Island.10 The military ran the camps with out ones.” The incarcerated Herero, whether in assistance from some civilians, including one of the concentration camps or in a work missionaries. camp, he referred to as “our prisoners of war” The Rhenish Mission threw its energies into and his “little congregation.” Kuhlmann also the process of rounding up Herero survivors, described collection by other missionaries, setting up four collecting stations in early 1905 including Johannes Olpp and Willy Diehl, who at Omburo, Otjosazu, Otjihaenena, and later at found “great joy” in handing over Herero “ring Otjozongombe. A directive from Berlin on 14 leaders” to the German authorities. He ap- January 1905 and missionary descriptions make preciated the “free hand” the governor afforded clear the central role missionaries played.11 missionaries in setting up collection stations. Rhenish missionary August Kuhlmann provided His reports and later descriptions indicate that a few details in his book, Auf Adlers Flügeln. missionaries believed their “surprising success” By his account, the Herero would send a with collection resulted from a “trust” relation- messenger to a missionary, who assured them ship that existed between them and the Herero, the missionary had come to bring peace. The a boast Rhenish missionaries and mission messenger would leave and return with his leaders repeated each time they recounted the entire community. Confined to an area bounded history of this period. by thick bush and guarded by the military, the There are problems with this claim of trust. Herero then awaited transportation to one of the Kuhlmann noted that he carried a rifle with him concentration camps. In this way, missionaries in the collection process, an acknowledgment gathered most of the 15,000 Herero prisoners that missionaries were militarized for this task.14 who went to the concentration camps.12 Photos taken of surrendering Herero coupled with missionaries’ description of their condition at the time of capitulation indicate the Herero 8 Nils Ole Oermann, Mission, Church and State Relations in under German Rule (1884-1915) (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1998), 109-12. 9 As of late 1905, an estimated 8,800 Herero prisoners Herero and that he had collected an estimated 5000 worked as forced laborers in military and civilian Herero. Statistical discrepancies reflect two factors: projects spread across the colony; Jan-Bart Gewald, death tolls in the collection process and concentration Herero Heroes: A Socio-Political History of the camps, and the children, who did not go to Herero of Namibia, 1890-1923 (Oxford: James Currey, concentration camps but were placed under the care of 1999), 195. missionaries August Kuhlmann and Friedrich Meier, in 10 Ibid., 185-91. and respectively. See 11 According to correspondence between General von Kuhlmann, 80-85; cf. Gewald, 194. Trotha and the Rhenish Mission, 18 February 1904, 13 Ibid., 75-89. cited in August Kuhlmann, Auf Adlers Flügeln 14 Kuhlmann informed General von Trotha that he had (Barmen: Missionshaus, 1911), 78-79. collected, disarmed, and deprived of cattle 300 Herero 12 The numbers given of imprisoned Herero vary survivors. He asked what to do with them, suggesting considerably. Kuhlmann ran the collection camp at he transfer them to the Karibib concentration camp; Omburo, just north of Otjimbingwe. He estimated that Kuhlmann to von Trotha, 9 February 1905, reprinted in the Rhenish Mission rounded up as many as 20,000 Kuhlmann, Auf Adlers Flügeln, 74-78. 20 SYMPOSIA had little choice but to give in.15 These sites alongside concentration camps, which in effect show the complicity, or more accurately, the was an invitation for missionaries to take part in crucial and central role that missionaries had in the military operation against the Herero. this stage of the genocide. Their involvement The Rhenish missionaries received Rohr- marked the start of the destruction of the Herero bach’s call favorably. In fact, they already through incarceration. intended to expand. In April 1904, they had As for the Herero mission, after 1904 discussed plans for a station at Swakopmund Rhenish missionaries no longer targeted a and announced they were in search of a second nomadic people through isolated stations; site.19 They pledged to supporters that they instead they focused on a concentrated would continue the work and expressed the population held captive by military force.16 view that the Herero uprising would end to the With the subsequent growth of the German mission’s advantage: “Once the rebellion has settler population and its administrative been put down, our task will be to set our eyes demands, African interests fell under on a new order for the mission there and to missionary jurisdiction of the missionaries, who pursue in all seriousness the Christianizing of took the role of representing the African all that remains of the .”20 When population by serving as native commissioners the government announced plans for a second in local advisory councils.17 concentration camp at Karibib, the Rhenish In these ways, the Rhenish Mission gained Mission told its supporters that it too was ready legitimacy in Germany for its work in to establish an adjacent mission station.21 In Southwest Africa. The German administration these camps, missionaries would serve as welcomed and encouraged the new missionary chaplains, medics, and pastors to a literal roles. Just days before the Battle of Waterberg captive audience of Africans. and the start of the genocide in August 1904, By focusing its expansion on locations for Paul Rohrbach (1869-1956), a Protestant concentration camps, the Rhenish Mission had theologian turned colonial official, met with endorsed the military campaign against the Her- missionaries and urged them to extend their ero.22 Barmen assigned missionaries to Oka- work.18 He proposed new mission stations handja, Karibib, and Swakopmund, the locations where the German military planned concentration camps.23 General Lothar von

15 For a concise statement of the atrocities during the Herero genocide, see Jürgen Zimmerer, “War, Con- centration Camps and Genocide in South-West Africa: 19 Berichte der Missionsgesellschaft zu Barmen The First German Genocide,” in Genocide in German (hereafter BRMG) (July 1904): 262. South-West Africa: The Colonial War of 1904-1908 20 Kollektenblatt, no. 2 (1904): 4. and its Aftermath, eds. Jürgen Zimmerer and Joachim 21 On the Deputation deliberation over Rohrbach’s Zeller), trans. by E. J. Neather (Pontypool: Merlin advice to expand the mission once the Herero were put Press, 2003), 41-63. down, see RMG 14 Protokollen 1896-1905 (9 Sept. 16 Oermann, 113. 1904): 428, par. 13. The Deputation rejected 17 On the structural changes within the colony and the Rohrbach’s idea of large land purchases; RMG 14 mission work, see Oermann, 167-170. Protokollen 1896-1905 (10 Oct. 1904): 431, par. 11; 18 On Rohrbach’s colonial theology, see Paul BRMG (August 1904): 301. Rohrbach, Im Lande Jahwes und Jesu. Wanderungen 22 It did not restore stations emptied by the disruption und Wand-lungen vom Hermon bis zur Wüste Juda of Herero communities; RMG 14, Protokollen 1896- (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1901); P. Rohrbach, Der 1905 (13 June 1904): 415-16, par 10. In July, the deutsche Gedanke in der Welt (Düsseldorf: Karl Robert Deputation requested a report of the exact damages to Langwiesche, 1912). On Rohrbach’s expansionist stations, see RMG 14 Protokollen 1896-1905 (7 July ideology, see Woodruff D. Smith, The Ideological 1904): 419, par 16. Origins of Nazi Imperialism (Oxford: Oxford 23 Swakopmund was not a new location for the Rhenish University Press, 1986), 160-65; cf. Walser Smith, Mission; missionaries had tried earlier but failed. In Continuities, 193-97, 204-06. 1904, the port town appeared ripe for mission work. RYLAND / STORIES AND MISSION APOLOGETICS 21

Trotha had little use for the Rhenish In order to sustain expansion in Southwest missionaries, and when he arrived in the colony, Africa, the Rhenish Mission had to he made it clear that Protestant missionaries communicate that its work was vital to Berlin’s were not welcome in the German military.24 As imperial aims and German greatness. Their a result, initially only Vedder’s assignment in efforts produced an outpouring of support in Swakopmund came to pass.25 1904, but mission leaders worried that support By the end of 1904, as the German military might subside.28 In 1905, they projected a starved and murdered Herero in the desert, the deficit of about Mk 200,000 and expected the Rhenish Mission stood poised for growth. A debt to grow.29 The Deputation appealed to the public relations campaign back home com- Protestant church and its associations in regions plemented efforts on the ground in the colony. where the mission society had influence but no Growth meant a need to raise funds and network.30 It also created a new publication, publicize successes. The Deputation sent Home Flugblätter der Rheinischen Mission (leaflets of Inspector Johannes Spieker to Southwest Africa the Rhenish Mission), for supporters to give to to help restore the Herero mission and write neighbors and friends.31 Increased publication reports suitable for readers at home.26 Spieker’s also meant an expansion of the mission reports dominated the Rhenish Mission news society’s story-telling capacities. from Southwest Africa until later in 1906.27

Vedder served as chaplain to the concentration camp, outline how missionaries were taking part in the war hospital, and military, as well as pastor for the German effort; Altena, 467-68, footnote 579; for the colonists. He was not trained for pastoral work and Deputation’s request, see RMG 14 Protokollen 1896- found that role least to his liking. At his request, he was 1905 (13 June 1904): 415-16, par 10; cf. RMG 14 relieved of the pastoral duties in 1906; RMG 14 Protokollen 1896-1905 (13 June 1904): 415-16, par 10; Protokollen 1896-1905 (25-29 Aug. 1906); Vedder to (7 July 1904): 419, par 9; cf. Johannes Olpp, Die Spiecker, 8 June 1906, RMG 1.660a, 628; cf. J. Kulturbedeutung der evangel[ischen] Rh[einischen] Baumann, Mission und Ökumene in Südwestafrika: Mission für Südwest Africa (Swakopmund, 1914). Dargestellt am Lebenswerk von Hermann Heinrich 28 A debate in 1904 in German on the role of Vedder (Leiden: Brill, 1965), 22-32; Oermann, 124. missionaries in the conflict had raised concerns in 24 Oermann, 100. Barmen about possible financial repercussions. 25 On assignments for the new missionaries, namely Specifically, the Deputation feared Berlin might Friedrich Meier and J. Heinrich Brockmann, see withhold the license for the quarterly house-to-house Altena, 442-43, 464. In early 1905, the new civilian collection, which could bring upward of Mk 100,000. governor, Friedrich von Lindequist, lifted the ban on This was no small sum, given that the average cost per Protestant missionaries. Meier was then assigned to a missionary in the field in 1904 was Mk 5000; RMG 14, concentration camp in Windhoek, where most of the Protokollen 1896-1905 (27 April 1904): 401-402, par. 500 prisoners were women and children. August Elger 4. was posted at Karibib. ELCIN V.37, Chronicken 29 RMG 128, “Rundschreiben an die Missions-Hilfs- Windhuk 1905; cf. Gewald, 196. Wilhelm Eich was Ges,” p. 7. The deficit in 1905 was Mk 125,387; in put in charge of the Herero mission, while Kuhlmann 1906 it increased to Mk 188,783, and by 1914 it was to care for the children in Otjimbingue; RMG 14 reached Mk 256,178; see Walter Spieker, Die Protokollen 1896-1905 (13 June 1904): 415-16, par. Rheinische Missions-gesellschaft in ihren volks-und 10; cf. RMG 14 Protokollen 1896-1905 (10 Oct. 1904): kolonialwirtschaftlichen Funktionen (Gütersloh: 431, par. 11. Bertelsmann, 1922), 80. 26 RMG 14 Protokollen 1896-1905 (10 Oct. 1904): 431, 30 RMG 14, Protokollen 1896-1905 (9 May 1904): 410, par 11. par. 6. 27 The Deputation asked Missionary Carl Friedrich 31Flugblätter der Rheinischen Mission ran from 1904 Wandres to write about the situation in Southwest until 1919. The first edition identified the Herero Africa for a German newspaper in , but uprising and noted that Germans were well aware of the daily rejected his article. The Deputation also the trouble, “von dem wir aus allen Zeitungen hören”; appointed Johannes Olpp to prepare a memorandum for Flugblätter 1 (1904): 3; cf. RMG 14, Protokollen distribution in the colony and in Germany that would 1896-1905 (27 April 1904): 401-02, par. 4. 22 SYMPOSIA

The mission society also increased funding presence in the colony, people at home for “propaganda.” Costs hovered between three responded. A steady increase of donations led and eight percent of the budget before 1908, the mission society to increase its quarterly and grew to fourteen percent by 1914.32 The print-run of Kollektenblätter to 90,000 copies Flugblätter were a key component of the public with hopes to further offset the cost of apologetic for mission work: articles appealed expansion.36 The years between the colonial for support while defending the missionary. In wars and the First World War were a time to 1905, the Flugblätter reminded readers that the recover and rebuild the mission work, in part by Herero mission was a “link in the chain” of 180 strengthening ties to the German imperial missionaries; 110 stations; 400 schools; 22,000 project. students; and over 100,000 converts of the The gains the Rhenish Mission made in that Rhenish Mission, itself “a rather important link” decade, however, dissipated during First World in the overall Protestant German missionary War. Missionaries and their supporters had movement. The “noble workforce” of that shared the elation at the outbreak of war, and all cause, the Flugblätter announced, consisted of sixty-five missionary candidates at the Barmen 7500 men and 4000 women.33 Supporting one Mission Seminary were among the thirteen link in the chain would help secure the whole. million German soldiers in the war effort.37 Missionary heroics became the focus of When Germany lost its colonies, the tie between mission literature, upholding the image of a the mission society and imperial aims was also loyal, courageous missionary as a true lost, and the South African military regime representative of Germany. Spieker pronounced deported three of its missionaries from South- the missionaries “natural peace mediators … west Africa, including Heinrich Vedder.38 between the white compatriots and the colored The situation at the mission head office in natives in the colonies, because they love them Barmen, Germany, was also dire. The mission both.”34 The missionaries, he claimed, enabled a house was left nearly empty as the war drained solution to the colonial war by collecting much of the vitality from the Rhenish Mission. survivors, which, he added was possible Germany became preoccupied with the battle because of the “very great trust” between the field, and the mission field seemed even more missionary and the Herero.35 Spieker’s reports distant.39 As Roger Chickering reminds us, “the neglected the brutality of the gathering process, the conditions in the collection stations, and the deadly nature of the concentration camps. 36 For statistics on public donations, see Instead, he presented the missionary as the glue Kollektenblätter, no. 1 (1907): 1-2. For donations from to restore a fragmented colony. the local mission groups, see the internal study of As the Rhenish Mission carried out its thirty-two regional mission societies that showed an promise to recreate a strong missionary increase of fifty-two percent in contributions from 1904 to 1909; “Rund-schreiben an die Missions-Hilfs- Ges.” RMG 128, 59; Walter Spieker, 80. 37 Roger Chickering, Imperial Germany and the Great 32 Walter Spieker, 81. War, 1914-1918 (Cambridge: Cambridge University 33 Flugblätter, no. 2 (1905). Press, 1998), 195; Leo Grebel and Wilhelm Winkler, 34 Ibid., 2. The Cost of the World War to Germany and to Austria- 35 Spieker presented missionary roles in rounding up Hungary (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1940), Herero and bringing them to concentration camps as 76. On elation among mission supporters at home, see “saving” the surviving Herero. He boasted that Willy a September war sermon citing a poem that “the Diehl had collected 3561 Herero at Otjihaënena – 1028 German character shall one day restore the world” (Am men, 1299 women, and 1234 children – and August deutschen Wesen soll dereinst die Welt genesen), Kuhlmann had achieved a similar feat in Omburo; J. EMW (Sept. 1914): 257-63; cf. Menzel, 258-59; Spiecker, “Von der Friedensarbeit der rheinischen Kriele, 342-43. Mission in Otjihaenena (Deutsch-Südwest-Afrika),” 38 BRMG (1916): 5; cf. Kriele 344-47. Kollektenblätter, no. 3 (1906): 2-3. 39 Chickering, 96-99. RYLAND / STORIES AND MISSION APOLOGETICS 23 war was about dying,” and any effort to give a of need, because of the blessing that heroic meaning to the vast number of deaths through [missionary] work has been could not suppress the rising despondency.40 returned to the Protestant churches of the From the Rhenish Mission, twenty-eight can- Rhineland and Westphalia, and because didates and forty-one missionary sons died, as the Lord of the Church has given the well as seven sons of the Home Inspectors and mission as the most important task to his two sons of the mission Director, Johannes congregations.47 Spieker.41 The plea worked, although it brought a new The financial strain of the war brought kind of supporter.48 By the late 1920s the further changes to the Rhenish Mission.42 The Rhenish Mission was working more closely mission society had faced its worst shortfall in with the church synods than ever before.49 1917 after having lost contact with most of its 43 mission fields. Missionaries in Southwest Courting the National Socialists Africa had relied on credit from South Africa and these debts came due.44 The Deputation Amid war and genocide, the Rhenish Mission explored two options: either amalgamate with had cast its lot with the colonial project. The the Bethel Mission Society that operated in East loss of Germany’s colonies and defeat in 1918 Africa, or reduce the size of the assets and fields put an end to that partnership and brought new belonging to the Rhenish Mission.45 A union in challenges. This time the mission responded by the post-war years would help centralize costs, turning back to its base in the Protestant but it might also increase the overall financial churches of the Rhineland and Westphalia. burden in an uncertain time. The Rhenish There it found renewed support, especially Mission opted to sell property and turn over funding, not only from the local mission some mission fields to non-German mission networks and individual pastors that had been societies, which was not popular with the its mainstay almost a century earlier, but from mission supporters who were in effect the church councils and bureaucratic structures. principal investors in the Rhenish Mission. The rise of National Socialism and Adolf Spiecker pleaded with the local mission Hitler’s appointment as Chancellor in 1933 associations to step in and help alleviate a tempted the mission society with yet another shortfall of a half million Marks.46 By 1922, the potential partner: the Nazi movement. Its situation had not improved, and the Rhenish energy and popularity appeared to many church Mission made an appeal to church presbyteries: people, including missionaries and spokesmen for overseas missions, to be evidence of Our congregations have a grave and German renewal. In the hope of participating in sacred duty to help the mission in its time the national revival, some mission leaders offered their services. Their strongest card, based on experience with Africans, and 40 Chickering, 100. particularly the Herero, was missionary notions 41 Kriele, 343; cf. BRMG (1916): 1. 42 of race. Chickering, 103-08. Heinrich Drießler, Home Inspector for the 43 Walter Spieker, 80; cf. Kriele, 338-41; Julius Richter, Geschichte der evangelischen Mission in Rhenish Mission from 1928 to 1934 with re- Afrika (Güter-sloh: Bertelsmann, 1922). On post-war sponsibility for Southwest Africa, played a key debt, see BRMG (1917): 139-42; Menzel, 261-62, 272- role in this regard; by retelling the missionary 87; Kriele, 355-64, 372, 374. 44 Kriele, 360-62; cf. Oermann, 218. 45 See Menzel, Die Bethel Mission: Aus 100 Jahren Missionsgeschichte (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 47 RMG 128, 5-6. 1986). 48 Ibid., 44-53; until the 1920s, financial support came 46 “Rundschreiben an die Missions-Hilfs-Ges,” RMG primarily from local mission unions and individuals. 128, 7; cf. Menzel, 260-61. 49 Ibid., 54-55. 24 SYMPOSIA stories, he created an appeal for more mission annual report of the mission that year thanked work within the Nazi regime. On 1 April 1933, God for preserving German “self- Drießler joined the National Socialist Party and determination” during the years of democracy, the national synod of the German Christian hinting that some credit for this steadfastness movement (Deutsche Christen). He befriended should go to missionaries who had “helped” Joachim Hossenfelder, the Bishop of Branden- Germans find “inner renewal” and restored burg, who called the German Christians “the national hope in 1933.56 Stormtroopers of Jesus Christ,”50 and became a Drießler’s descriptions of Africans appeared member of the Inspectoratskollegen, a group of in the midst of this euphoria. He attempted to missionary leaders noted for their “National link missionary notions of race to the Nazi Socialist orientation.”51 From key positions racist agenda. His depictions of Africans sought within the Protestant church, the German to show that the missionary movement had long Christians aimed to purge Christianity of all been a leader in defining and upholding racial vestiges of its Jewish roots by erecting differences.57 Since his duties included an institutions for de-judaization of Christianity.52 eleven-month field inspection to South- and They also sought a Reichskirche that would Southwest Africa in 1931, he wrote seventeen unite all German Christians – Protestants and reports and a monograph titled Die Rheinische Catholics – under the cross and swastika.53 Mission in Südwestafrica (the Rhenish Mission Drießler was not alone in his enthusiasm and in Southwest Africa).58 He retold familiar optimism in 1933.54 The mission seminarians missionary narratives, and of the six groups of joined the Stormtroopers en masse.55 The people in Southwest Africa that he discussed, the Herero were prominent.59 He contrasted them with the missionaries who appeared as diligent and dedicated agents of German 50 On Hossenfelder, see Ernst Klee, Das Personnel- ethnological and religious activity. Missionaries lexikon zum Dritten Reich (Frankfurt am Main: had labored to learn the and Fischer, 2005), 271; Bergen, Twisted Cross: The German Christian Movement in the Third Reich collect cultural products, including their fables, 60 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, myths, and proverbs. The Herero, by contrast, 1996), 18, 65. had suffered under a fractured and despotic 51 Berhhard Seiger, “Nationalsozialistische leadership that perpetuated “pride,” “self- Gesinnung.” Reformationskirche der Gemeinde Köln- righteousness,” and “distrust” of the whites and Bayenthal, 1905 bis 2005, 62ff. The Inspektorkollegen included notable leaders of the mission movement, among them Ludwig Weichert (Berlin Mission Society) and Reinke (North German Mission Society); see Hartmut Lehmann, “Missionaries without Empire: German Protestant Missionary Efforts in the Interwar the SA until 1936; ibid., 25. The Rhenish Mission had Period (1919-1939),” Brian Stanley (ed.), Missions, internal conflict over this issue, evident in Nationalism, and the End of Empire (Grand Rapids, correspondence between Warneck and Delius, 1 and 15 MI: Eerdmans, 2003), 35-53. January 1940, RMG 1.287. 52 Bergen, Twisted Cross, 148-71. 56 Jahres Berichte der Rheinischen Mission (1933): 3. 53 Bergen, “Catholics, Protestants, and Dreams of 57 Ibid., 29-39. Confessional Union,” Twisted Cross, 102-18. 58 Heinrich Dreißler, Die Rheinische Mission in 54 In his authorized history of the Rhenish Mission, Südwestafrica (Gütersloh: Bertelsmann, 1932); cf. H. Gustav Menzel portrays Drießler and others who sup- Dreißler’s report in BRMG (1932): 4, 34; Allgemeine ported the NSDAP as unrepresentative and isolated; Missions-Zeitschrift (1932): 96ff, 113ff. Menzel, 306, also see footnote 545, 429. 59 Drießler’s sources were a three-volume ethnological 55 On Barmen seminarians and the SA, see a 1940 work by the Rhenish Missionary Peter Heinrich private report by E. Delius, “Bemerkungen zur Brincker (1936-1904), Die Stämme Südwestafrikas I. Geschichte der Rheinischen Mission in den Jahren Nach der Geschichte; II. Nach Sitten und Gebräuchen; 1929 bis 1939,” RMG 1.287; cf. Menzel, 304-06. III. Nach Sprachen. According to Delius, some seminarians did not leave 60 Drießler, 55-56. RYLAND / STORIES AND MISSION APOLOGETICS 25 led them into degenerate acts of “theft, harlotry, improve the Africans was not through the idleness, and barbarity.”61 cultural tools of arts and literature, he insisted, Drießler summarized for German readers in but through labor.67 Unlike missionaries, 1933 the missionaries’ explanation for the fate Drießler claimed, settlers and traders had an of the Herero.62 Although missionaries had opposite “civilizing” aim: to indebt Africans persisted in their effort to civilize them through and deprive them of their cattle wealth, land, education and agriculture, the Herero, Drießler and freedom.68 He maintained that only the concluded, remained a stubborn people until the missionaries had understood that an essential wars of 1904-1907 broke them. Death, he racial hierarchy existed in Southwest Africa: the claimed, was the ultimate evangelist and bearer Nama were suited for domestic work, the of “Good News” to the obstinate African: “Only Herero for farm labor, and the Ovambo for the when death comes does the material world seem mines. Similar to the Nazi hierarchy of worthless, and they begin to turn their hearts European people, Drießler argued that each fully to the grace of God.”63 Africans who had African group had its place according to the faced death yet survived and yielded to God’s level of “civilization” achieved and maintained grace began a slow progression toward through the missionaries’ efforts.69 civilization; they became a model for their Drießler spoke for those mission leaders people.64 The lesson from Southwest Africa was who wanted a restored German colonialism clear: violence could produce spiritual life when under the banner of National Socialism.70 He missionaries guided the process.65 Drießler’s asked if it was time for Germans to become book was no mere recounting of mission active once again in southern Africa. His reply history: it was an assertion that extreme was unequivocal; Germany had a responsibility violence was necessary to renew the spiritual in Africa to both the African and German life of a people. communities.71 After all, he argued, the Rhenish Drießler also contrasted the missionaries Mission’s work in Africa concerned Germans at with settlers and traders to reinforce how home as much as Africans abroad: missionaries’ missionaries understood and upheld racial part in establishing German colonies, main- distinctions. Missionaries, he claimed, had taining peace, and taming the heathen proved focused on elevating “the African” to become a civilized Christian people.66 The way to

61 Ibid., 70. 62 During the “wars of liberation” against the Nama missionaries to pacify the remaining Herero, which led (1863-1870), Drießler maintained, missionaries had him into his conclusion about the civilizing mission sought to help the Herero become a “free, independent and praise for the impact the Rhenish had on the people.” But freedom and unity had not enabled the Herero; ibid., 146-55; 217-26. Herero to progress because they failed to leave 67 One example of the “civilizing” work of the “heathendom” and embrace the “great invisible power missionaries was in education, where the youth “must of Christianity.” According to Drießler, when be educated through work” and moral education, ibid., missionary colonists made visible the intangible power 311, 314. of the Gospel by creating an agricultural community as 68 Ibid., 191-97. a model for Africans, the Herero misread diligence and 69 Drießler summed up his book by identifying the hard work as “clawing at the dirt all day long,” which distinct labor value of each group, for which he had no appeal for their idle character; ibid. credited the missionaries, ibid., 299-304. 63 Ibid. 70 Drießler published two parallel articles in 1932, “Die 64 Ibid., 175. Zukunft der Rheinischen Mission in Südafrika” and 65 Ibid. “Hauptprobleme der Rheinischen Mission in Süd- 66 After describing the Herero-German War and how westafrika,” Allgemeine Missionszeitung (1932), 96- the Herero were defeated, Drießler noted that the 104, 113-125. German colonial government looked to the 71 Ibid., 96-97. 26 SYMPOSIA they were a vital resource for restoring an unabashed apologetic for the role of Germany’s national integrity.72 Germans in Africa and the value of missionary work to Germany. The Making of a Heroine: Those who remember Vedder recall his Heinrich Vedder and Uerieta Kazahendike many stories, among which were three narratives about Uerieta Kazahendike, Schwarze Among missionaries who penned narratives 75 about Southwest Africa in the first half of the Johanna. His 1936 version of Schwarze Jo- twentieth century, Heinrich Vedder was the hanna entered German society concurrent with most prolific. Like Drießler, Vedder was a radicalization under the Nazi regime of convinced the mission field had something notions of race. But racial ideas mattered to valuable to offer in the new era of racialist Vedder throughout his life. He started out as a thinking. Although based in Africa, he kept a young missionary critical of the German close watch on political and religious treatment of Herero prisoners during the developments in Germany.73 Only mis- Herero-German war and became a supporter of sionaries, he insisted, possessed the knowledge National Socialism in 1933. After World War of the various African people needed to rule II, he served as Senator for Namibian “natives” in the South African Senate and was an them. Vedder placed himself within this 76 tradition by collecting African oral history, advocate of apartheid. fables, and stories to construct narratives about African “tribes.”74 In the process, he provided

his outside publications for other mission societies, local religious journals, academic journals, newspapers 72 Drießler builds his argument first by pointing out the in Germany and South Africa, government publications need to connect the mission work and German settler as a senator for Southwest Africa, and his numerous churches closer: “Diese Verbindung von Missionsamt articles in the Afrikanischer Heimatkalendar, to which und Pfarramt ist, missionarisch gesehen, eine große he was a life-long contributor; see Baumann, Mission Not,” ibid. Missionaries would then gain more support und Ökumene (Leiden: Brill, 1965), 73-147. from the German settlers, and in return, they would 75 For Vedder on Uerieta, see “Die alte Johanna,” help preserve German nationalism among the settlers, DKMF, no. 8 (1921): 57-62; Die Schwarze Johanna. ibid., 116-18. Lebens- und Zeitbild der 99 Jährigen Johanna Gertze, 73 In 1927, the Rhenish Mission assigned Vedder to der Erst-lingsfrucht vom Missionsfelde des assemble “spiritual nourishment” for readers of Hererolandes, Parts I & II (Barmen: Missionshause, German in Southwest Africa. Germans at home were to 1936); Uerieta. Eine Schwarze Frau, (Barmen: provide material. Vedder’s boxes of clippings and Rheinische Missionsgesell-schaft, 1949); and his notes, housed in the National Archives of Namibia in autobiography, Kurze Geschichten aus einem langen Windhoek, indicate he also collected and disseminated Leben (Barmen: Rheinische Missions-gesellschaft, political information. See BRMG no. 1, 5, 6 & 8 1953). On Vedder as a story teller, see J. (1927): 15, 61, 89, 121; cf. NAN, Holding A-579, Trümmpelmann, “Dr. Vedder, der Erzähler und boxes 1-7. Historiker Südwestafrikas,” Festschrift: Dr. h.c. 74 Vedder’s extensive publications include his mono- Heinrich Vedder. Ein Leben für Südwestafrika, W. graph, Das alte Südwestafrika: Südwestafrikas Gesch- Drascher and H. J. Rust (eds.) (Windhoek: S.W.A. ichte bis zum Tode Mahareros 1890 (Berlin: Martin Wissenschaftliche Gesellschaft, 1961), 111-36. Warneck, 1934) that went unchallenged until after Na- 76 On Vedder’s role as Senator and support for mibian independence. Also notable are H. Vedder Die apartheid, see Martin Eberhardt, Zwischen Bergdama. 2 vols. (Hamburg: Friederichsen, 1923), H. Nationalsozialismus und Apartheid: Die Deutsche Vedder, C. H. Hahn, and L. Fourie, The Native Tribes Bevölkerungsgruppe Süd-westafrikas, 1915-1965, of South West Africa (London: Cass, 1966), and H. (Berlin: Lit, 2007), 459-64, 493-497; cf. H. Vedder, Vedder, Kurze Geschichten aus einem langen Leben Einfuhrung in die Geschichte Südwestafrikas (Wuppertal: Rheinische Missionsgesellschaft, 1953). (Windhoek: Meinert, 1953), 101; J. Baumann, “Ein The United Evangelical Mission Archive in Wuppertal Lebensbild Dr. Vedders,” in W. Drascher and H. J. has a record of Vedder’s publications through the Rust, (eds.) Südwestafrica: Festschrift für Dr. h.c. Rhenish Mission, but the list does not include many of Heinrich Vedder, 11-22; Klaus Gockel, Mission und RYLAND / STORIES AND MISSION APOLOGETICS 27

Growing up amidst the religious enthusiasm Nama after the war made missionary work less and mission fervor in Ravensberg, Westphalia, cohesive and logistically challenging. In 1910, Vedder was a product of the culture he would the Rhenish Mission sent Vedder to Gaub to set one day foster.77 His mother steered him toward up a school for teachers and evangelists to help missionary stories that would inculcate missionaries carry out multi-lingual visitations Lutheran piety and revivalist devotion. She in the new colonial context.80 Gifted in learning narrated stories from her youth and encouraged languages, Vedder used this position to expand her children to read Der kleine Missionsfreunde, his linguistic skills and cultural knowledge. a publication to which Vedder would one day When South Africa conquered the German contribute. Her efforts paid off. In his teens, colony in July 1916, they expelled Vedder and Vedder aspired to be a missionary; he read the two other senior missionaries.81 Once back in stories, became fascinated with other cultures Germany, Vedder was put to work visiting the and languages, and even began to study Greek. missionary network, where he developed his As the third child and second son in a lower skill as a storyteller. After the war, the Rhenish middle-class farming family from Mission began to publish his stories regularly.82 Lenzinghausen, a missionary career offered a In his accounts, African chiefs often perpetrated path for advancement for those who were violence, conflict, and disruption; ordinary religiously inclined, ambitious, and Africans showed the destructive outcome of adventurous. In 1903, after six years of training “heathendom”; and wild animals symbolized in the Barmen Mission School where he learned the moral flaws of Africans, except for lions, six languages, the Rhenish Mission ordained who brought dignity, peace, and order, and Vedder and sent him to Southwest Africa. usually symbolized the missionaries.83 From the outset of his career at the For his stories, Vedder sought characters Swakopmund concentration camp, Vedder ob- who could bridge the reality of the mission field served up close the extreme violence of German and perceptions back home. A favorite military and colonists toward the Herero and the character was Schwarze Johanna, or Uerieta mass conversions to Christianity.78 The war and Kazahendike.84 Unlike his other characters, genocide had shattered Herero communities and cattle wealth; their only exit from the camps was as laborers on farms and in mines. Vedder 80 could advocate for the Herero and help them Vedder, “Erziehung, Ausbildung und Arbeit der secure employment that enabled them to leave einge-bornen Gehilfen in Südwest-Africa,” in 79 Missions-pädagogische Blätter, no. 2 (April - June the camps. But the dispersal of the Herero and 1920): 20-2; Vedder Manuskripten B, 843-45. 81 Johannes Olpp (Jr.), who was also deported wrote to Johannes Spieker after the war and noted that next to Vedder’s name on the list of those expelled was Apartheid – Heinrich Vedder und Hans Karl Diehl written, “Is hostile toward British rule and treats the (Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe, 2010). natives very badly.” Olpp to Spieker, 19 August 1919; 77 Vedder’s biographies include Julius Baumann, cited in Baumann, Mission und Ökumene, 39, footnote Mission und Ökumene (Leiden: Brill, 1965); Brigitte 78. Lau, “Thank God the Germans Came: Vedder and 82 Vedder’s stories appeared in four publications of the Namibian Historiography,” History and Historiogra- Rhenish Mission as well as in books and booklets. phy: 4 Essays in Reprint (Windhoek: Discourse They also spread to other German periodicals, MSORP, 1995), 1-16; and Altena, 480-481. including the national missions journal Allgemeine 78 On the number of baptisms, see the monthly Berichte Missionszeitschrift and local religious and popular der Rheinischen Mission for 1905-1907; cf. literature such as the Evangelisches Monatsblatt für missionaries’ astonishment over conversions, see Westfalen. Vedder to Spieker, 5 May 1908 and 1 Jan. 1909, RMG 83 Vedder, “Allerlei Löwen,“ DKMF, no. 9 (1921): 65- 1.660b, 67-8, 79-81. 68; no. 10 (1921): 73-75. 79 On motivations for conversion, see Gewald critical 84Various spellings are Ueriette, Urieta, Uerieta and comments; Gewald, Herero Heroes, 193-204. Uerita. 28 SYMPOSIA many of whom were villains and weak converts, mission was not. In his 1936 two-volume Uerieta had embraced the missionaries, their iteration, Vedder presented Uerieta as a Herero faith and mission, and remained loyal. She had matriarch of Christian faith and a model for the ascended from the poorest, the Damara slaves, transition from heathendom to Christianity. to stand as a heroine next to the northern “gods” The third and much shorter narrative came in in the work of elevating African “heathens” to 1949, in the context of the new apartheid civilization and faith.85 Starting in her youth, system. Here Uerieta appeared as a faithful, she held vital roles in the Herero mission as a though distinctly African, Christian witness. translator, linguist, teacher, nurse, and Other sources leave little doubt that Uerieta evangelist.86 She was also a source for Vedder’s was a remarkable woman. The daughter of a compilation of African oral history.87 In a sense, freed Berg Damara slave, her dark complexion Vedder “knew” Uerieta even before he met her. made her place in the Herero community She was highly regarded among supporters of ambiguous. When Nama raiders attacked her the Herero mission, who viewed her conversion village in the 1840s, leaving her family as the first sign the Herero would surrender to impoverished, the family fled to the New the Gospel.88 One of these supporters was Barmen mission, a station run by missionary Vedder’s mother, who had met and spoken with Hugo Hahn near Otjikango. By 1848, the Uerieta in 1859, an experience she relayed to eleven-year-old Uerieta had endeared herself to her children.89 the Hahn family and become their house cleaner Vedder appears, however, to have viewed and children’s nurse. In this role, she learned previous accounts of Uerieta as inadequate for the languages of the home – English, German, the new context in Germany. He reintroduced and – which gave her the expertise to her through three narratives that elevated her assist Hahn in developing an Otjiherero from an impoverished young maid to a pious alphabet and a translation of the Bible.90 By the heroine. Each version characterized her late 1850s, she was teaching Herero and differently. His 1921 account told how he met Bergdamara children in the mission school, and her during the Herero-German war. In this from the 1860s to 1880s she travelled with her variation, Uerieta represented renewed hope husband, Samuel Gertze, to form new that, though the colonies were lost, the Herero mission outposts. There is no record for the next period of her life, but around the time of

the Herero-German War (1904-1907), Inspector Spieker and Vedder rediscovered Uerieta living 85 A heroine is “a female intermediate between a woman and a goddess” occupying the space between near the Otjimbingue mission station, where she the mundane and the divine; Oxford English served Africans and Germans as a nurse and Dictionary, s.v. "heroine," retrieved 5 September 2012 pharmacist. Her children and grandchildren had from http://www.oed.com. taken up roles as evangelists and teachers in the 86 Hugo Hahn acknowledged her role in helping him Herero mission. complete the Herero Bible and dictionary, and other In 1936, Vedder’s second iteration of reports celebrated her Christian piety and marveled at Uerieta’s story did not merely adjust trivial her fluency in European languages; BRMG, no. 9 (1958): 135. facts or update her status. Nor was this version 87 Uerieta’s name often appeared in Vedder’s notes. National Archives of Namibia, Windhoek, Holding A- 579, boxes 1-7. 88 For Hahn’s version of Uerieta’s conversion, see 90 Her family being originally Damara, Uerieta likely BRMG, no. 9 (1958): 135. spoke the Khoisan dialect, the language of the Nama 89 Vedder, “Die alte Johanna,” 1-3. Not all Germans and Damara in addition to Otjiherero. This might were thrilled about seeing Uerieta. Children in explain how she would be useful to Rhenish Gütersloh shouted names at her; some even threw missionaries to the Nama during her time in the south stones. C. H. Hahn, “Eine Reise nach Europa,“ DKMF, waiting for the Hahn’s to return from their first no. 8 (1860): 124-27. furlough in 1853. RYLAND / STORIES AND MISSION APOLOGETICS 29 simply a eulogy at the time of her death. interest in prayer. Uerieta then moved to Vedder rewrote her story for the new Germany Bethany to live with the family of Rhenish and presented details about Uerieta to fit his missionary Heinrich Kreft. There during an apologetic of German missionary work. He evening prayer she became more fully embedded his depiction of her in racialized “awakened” by observing the piety of Maria, terms he thought would suit the language of the the youngest Kreft daughter, who would die not Third Reich. She illustrated Vedder’s claims long thereafter.95 Vedder tells the story through about the role of missionaries among other Uerieta’s voice: “races.” One evening, Mrs. Kreft had much to do. Vedder altered the previously known details It was time for little Maria to go to bed. I about Uerieta. He retold her entrance into the had bathed her when Mrs. Kreft said, Hahn home, recast her relationship with the “Uerieta, put little Maria to bed; I do not Hahn children, and revised the story of her con- have time.” I brought little Maria to the version.91 According to Vedder’s 1936 version, bedroom and was about to lay her down Uerieta’s entrance into the missionary home in her small bed, when she resisted, was a single event centered on sweeping the kneeled down, folded her hands and said: house clean. She had shown enthusiasm for “Pray with me. That is what Mother sweeping but lacked the skill to do more than always does when she puts me to bed.” I “move the dirt around” until Mrs. Hahn wanted to pray, but I could not. I simply instructed her.92 Uerieta had insisted that an could not pray. What shame I had brought African maid, not a German woman, should do on myself! It was the first time in my life such work and pleaded with Mrs. Hahn to let that I had been asked to pray with a white her stay with them to do domestic chores. Mrs. child, but I did not know how to do so. I Hahn relented. Once in the missionary home, became frightened and I thought to Uerieta developed a relationship with the myself, “You have grown up and yet you missionary children, whose care Mrs. Hahn cannot pray.” This thought would not entrusted to her. Vedder focused on Uerieta’s leave me. At that moment I became affection for the newborn Traugott Hahn (b. awake and started to reflect on my life. 1848), who would later become a well-known Little Maria Kreft had awakened me.96 pastor in Reval, Westphalia and thus familiar to 93 Vedder’s audience. A dramatic tone developed as Vedder told of Uerieta’s progress toward the Christian faith. Mission, 1873); cf. “Die Geschichte vom kleinen While in Stellenbosch, where the Hahns left her Krüppel,” DKMF, no. 9 (1861). in 1853, Uerieta encountered the elderly and 95 G. Krönlein, “Maria Kreft (Bethanien, 4. März saintly missionary Christiane Kähler, whom 1862),” DKMF, no. 8 (1862): 127-28. mission supporters also knew from the 96 “Eines Abend hatte Frau Kreft sehr viel zu tun. Da literature.94 Kähler awakened in Uerieta an sollte das kleine Marienchen zu Bett gebracht werden. Ich hatte sie gebadet. Da sagte Frau Kreft zu mir: ‘Uerieta, bring du Mariechen zu Bett. Ich habe jetzt kein Zeit dazu.’ Ich brachte Mariechen in die 91 Vedder, Schwarze Johanna, 1936, 17-18. Schlafstube und wollte sie in ihr Bettchen legen. Sie 92 Ibid. sträubten sich aber, kniete vor mir nieder, faltete ihre 93 In Vedder’s clippings is a set of notes based on Händchen und sagte: ‘Bete mit mir! Das tut Mutter interaction between him and Traugott Hahn, in which immar auch, wenn sie mich zu Bett bringt.’ – Das the topic of Uerieta is listed as item 6; NAN, Holding wollte ich wohl tun, aber ich konnte nicht. Ich konnte 579, box 2. noch nicht beten. Wie habe ich mich damals geschämt. 94 Christiane Kähler, or “Schwester Kähler,” was one Zum ersten mal in meines Leben sollte ich mit eines of the first single, female missionaries of the Rhenish weissen Kind beten, und ich wusste nicht, wie ich es Mission; see Gustav Warneck, Christiane Kähler: Eine machen sollte. Da habe ich einen Schrecken Diakonisin auf die Missionsfelde (Barmen: Rheinische bekommen. Ich dachte: nun bist du schon so gross 30 SYMPOSIA

Vedder stressed that at this time Uerieta was Hahn’s warning about limits on future unable to pray; she had only the desire to pray. marriage prospects was presumably because he When she requested baptism, Missionary Kreft would have a say in who she could marry, hesitated, not wishing “to force her into though Vedder was unclear on this point. He anything.”97 does tell how, during Uerieta’s week of In 1857, Uerieta returned to New Barmen to decision, her resolve would be tested when a resume her duties in the Hahn home and, young man from South Africa arrived in the according to Vedder, complete her conversion village and proposed marriage to Uerieta’s to Christianity. On 15 April 1858, after Hahn´s parents. Uerieta was interested, Vedder mid-week sermon of the “glory of heaven” and indicated, but just in time Hahn discovered that the “agony of hell,” Uerieta approached Hahn to the man was a thief on the run. The young man make her request. Here Vedder tells the story in disappeared as quickly as he had appeared. On Hahn’s voice: 25 July 1858 Hahn baptized Uerieta and she took the Christian name Johanna Maria. After the service, Uerieta wept and asked Seventy years earlier Hahn had told to be baptized. She had expressed her Uerieta’s story quite differently. He recounted desire for baptism already once before. how Uerieta took the initiative in sweeping and [This time] she spoke freely and also proved to be so competent that Mrs. Hahn confessed the mistakes she had made wanted her as a domestic servant.99 The theme while in the Kreft home. I gave her until of awakening African initiative, labor and skill the next Sunday to think things over and was Vedder’s invention. Hahn stressed made her aware that baptism would bring Uerieta’s relationship to his older daughter, certain difficulties because she would be Margarita, not Traugott, but Margarita was not the first and, possibly for some time, the less known to Vedder’s audience. As for only one among her people to become a Uerieta’s conversion, Hahn’s version was less Christian. For example, she would not be idealized and progressive than Vedder’s. Her able to consider marriage because after time in Bethany with the Kreft family was baptism she should not be united with a dichotomous, and Hahn blamed Uerieta for heathen.98 being troublesome, noting her “rude behavior,” “disobedience,” “idleness,” “stubborn

character,” and “defiance,” all of which he concluded showed she was in need of geworden und kannst immer noch nicht beten. Das ist 100 mir sehr nachgegangen. Da bin ich wach geworden und “chastisement.” Hahn also expressed reser- habe angefangen über mich nachzudenken. Marie- vations about Uerieta’s readiness for baptism, chen Kreft hat mich wach gemacht!” Vedder, Schwarze but there was pressure on her for marriage, Johanna, 25-26. which required Hahn to make his move to 97 “Kreft aber hielt es nicht für richtig, Uerieta zu convert her. When she requested baptism, he drängen.” Vedder, Schwarze Johanna, (1936), 26. 98 noted, “there is something that is not to my “Nach dem Abendgottesdienst kam Uerieta weinend liking, but I cannot say what it is.”101 He added zu mir und bat um die Taufe. Sie hatte früher schon einmal den Wunsch geaussert, getauft zu werden. Sie a remark about her relationship to a Herero sprach sich befriedigend aus und bekannte auch ihre man, and, without giving details, hoped “the Fehler, die sie sich bei Krefts hatte zuschulden kommen lassen. Ich gab ihr Bedenkzeit bis zum nachsten Sonntag und machte sie darauf aufmerksam, dass es ihr besondere Schwierig-keiten bringen werdt, wenn sie, wie es sich anliesse, dann noch lange die 99 C. H. Hahn, “Die Schwarze Johanne,” DKMF, no. einzige Christin unter ihren Landsleuten sein würde. So 12 (1861): 179-88. könne sie z. B. nicht daran denken zu heiraten, weil sie 100 Lau, Hahn Tagebücher, 969; DKMF, no. 12 (1861): sich, wenn sie getauft würde, mit keinen Heiden 181-83. verbinden dürfe,” ibid, 29-30. 101 BRMG, no. 9 (1958): 135. RYLAND / STORIES AND MISSION APOLOGETICS 31 incident with Kamuvandu does not recur.”102 was steeped in “the race question.” The return On the day he baptized Uerieta, he added a note of the Saar to Germany, the Nuremberg Laws, in his journal that her parents were attempting remilitarization of the Rhineland, Berlin to marry her to an older widower.103 Vedder Olympics, and Germany’s entry into the had sidestepped entirely the cultural dilemma Spanish Civil War all occurred in 1935 and that Uerieta was negotiating and that were 1936. It was to the Germans who witnessed, implied in Hahn’s diaries.104 participated in, and celebrated these events that A further discrepancy concerns Uerieta’s Vedder addressed his narrative. progress in Christian piety and prayer. In 1935, a year before his Schwarze According to Vedder, Uerieta was willing but Johanna appeared, Vedder published his essay, unable to pray until she submitted to catechism “Race, religion, and mission, according to our in preparation for baptism. In the pietism of the experience.” In it he argued that the primary missionary movement, prayer was often the difference between “races” was not physical but telltale sign of piety.105 Contrary to Vedder, psychological; the crucial factor was the “drive Hahn’s journal indicated that Uerieta had begun to live.”107 Vedder identified five drives that to pray “by heart” in 1853, while in made the “blond and blue-eyed” race superior to Stellenbosch, and when she arrived in New others: Forschungstrieb (the drive to research), Barmen four years later, Hahn observed that she Wissens- und Lernenstrieb (the drive to know “often prays.”106 Such details would upset and to learn), Mitteilungstrieb (the drive to Vedder’s progressive narrative toward communicate information), mental or conversion. intellectual Produktions-trieb (the drive to The meaning of Vedder’s alterations and produce), and Metaphysicher Trieb (a contradictions relates to his message and his metaphysical drive that governed the entire audience: he was writing for someone and not thought and conduct of a people). The goal of just about someone. He shaped Urieta’s story to mission work was to awaken these drives and illustrate a notion about “the African” that restore full spiritual life (Seelenleben). “Drive,” supported his apologetic for missionary work as he argued, would determine whether a people an arm of German expansion. In 1936, the year could prevent or reverse degeneration. The of Uerieta’s death and Vedder’s two-part “blond and blue-eyed” people had distinguished biography of her, a newly rearmed Germany themselves by possessing and cultivating superior drives, which gave them a superior civilization.108 Other races also had “drives,” 102 though these might lie dormant and need Ibid.; Kamuvandu was a member of Hahn’s com- 109 munity, Lau, Tagebücher, 981, 991. On Hahn’s re- awakening. A few races, Vedder added, flections on Uerieta, conversion, and marriage, see possessed drives toward destruction, as was the Lau, Tagebücher, 958-59, 972-74, 1082. case with “the Jews.”110 103 Ibid., 103. 104 These details may have been too cluttered for Vedder’s version, or it may be that the senior Uerieta had purged these aspects from her story when she told 107 The physical life, Vedder claimed, finds its source it to Vedder. It could also be that Hahn misread the in “dem Impuls des Triebleben.” H. Vedder’s, Rasse, marriage issue and recorded them inaccurately in his Religion und Mission aus “Unsere Erfahrung,” (Biele- journals. In any case, Vedder’s version removes feld: Anstalt Bethel, 1935), 19. Vedder cited race complexity, if not ambiguity. theorists von Luschan, Linnaeus, and Gobineau. His 105Frömmigkeit was a common theme in missionary essay was placed in the context of contemporary stories. An example associated with Uerieta is Maria discussions of race; Vedder, Rasse, 7-18, 21. Kreft, whose death narrative preceded Uerieta’s con- 108 Ibid., 19, 22. version story in 1861 by just four months; G. Krönlein, 109 Ibid.,19. “Maria Kreft (Bethanien, 4. März 1862),” DKMF, no. 110 Notes in preparing the manuscript for Das alte süd- 8 (1862): 117-28. westafrika: Südwestafrikas Geschichte bis zum Tode 106 Lau, Tagebücher, 969. Mahareros 1890 (Berlin: Warneck, 1934), indicate that 32 SYMPOSIA

The African “drive” was dormant, “move the dirt around.” Living in close according to Vedder. Through ongoing proximity with them gave her the language and encounters with developed races, the natural domestic skills needed to develop as a civilized drives of the Africans would awaken, and in person and to civilize her people. As a result, time they too could achieve their full human she became ever more useful to the potential. But the “race science” of the 1930s, missionaries. When she converted, married a he maintained, had left out one crucial Christian, became a mother to seventeen component: the duty of superior races to elevate children, joined her husband in mission work, the lower races. “The lower the peoples are,” and served the wider colonial communities, she he claimed, “the greater is the obligation of became a matriarch of faith, according to privileged people to offer them a hand so that Vedder. they too can develop as full human beings.”111 Vedder had indeed written more than a He added, “In particular, the peoples that eulogy for Uerieta. He had taken the possess colonies should acknowledge this duty opportunity of her death to offer an argument and fulfill it.”112 Other mission leaders agreed for the missionary movement within the that missionary work made its subjects dominant racist ways of thinking. Using the “complete human beings,” and that it took time popular format of storytelling, Vedder reiterated to elevate the heathen. Johannes Warneck, arguments from his other works, Das alte Director of the Rhenish Mission, had written in Südwestafrika (1934) and Rasse, Religion und 1909 that a long multi-generational process was Mission aus “Unsere Erfahrung” (1935). He required before “they can enter into the fullness dismissed the genocide of the Herero with the of [the Gospel’s] spiritual wealth.”113 statement that “colonial wars are not Vedder’s 1935 discussion of race sheds uncommon” and blamed the conflict on a light on the peculiarities in his 1936 depiction “people of nature” (Naturvölker) trying to of Schwarze Johanna. In addition to prevent progress.115 How Uerieta experienced representing the ideal African convert and the genocide of the Herero was not mentioned. mother of a generation of Africans faithful to Instead Vedder boasted that Germans, the work of the mission, Uerieta also embodied especially missionaries, had rescued the “tribes” the success of missions in bringing “race” work of Southwest Africa – the Nama, Damara, to completion.114 Missionaries had awakened in Bergdamara, Herero, Ovambo, Tjimba, and her a latent and natural drive for labor. They Khoi-San – from degenerating into violence, taught her to be productive and do more than destruction, and self-annihilation. That argument appears vicious, cynical, or at best disingenuous in view of the atrocities Germans committed against the Herero and Nama. The Vedder was exploring this idea of “drive” (Trieb), denial implicit in it stands out against Vedder’s charting how it might fit with the “races” he was claim to be an authority on African “tribes,” familiar with; NAN, Holding A-579, boxes 1-7. 111 having learned their languages and studied their Vedder, Rasse, 29 culture, and it contrasts his direct experience of 112 Ibid. 113 Johannes Warneck, The Living Forces of the the events of 1904 to 1907 as a missionary in Gospel: Experiences of a Missionary in Animistic Southwest Africa. Heathendom (Edinburgh: Oliphant, Anderson, & Given an ability to tell stories, an audience Ferrier, 1909), 19. prepared to listen, and a new political and 114 Vedder’s utilization and idealization of Uerieta ideological context at home, Vedder had framed parallel the idealization of German mothers for missionary work in racial language. Mission imperial purposes in Anna Davin’s article, “Imperialism and Motherhood,” in Tensions of Empire: Colonial Cultures in a Bourgeois World,” eds. Frederick Cooper and Ann Laura Stoler (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1997), 87-151. 115 Vedder, Schwarze Johanna (1936), vol. 2, 24-26. RYLAND / STORIES AND MISSION APOLOGETICS 33 work, he said, was true “race work”: “Our work ———. “What God has Put Asunder Let No is rooted in people,” he wrote, adding “the Man Join Together.” In Remembrance, mission is not indifferent about racial Repentance, and Reconciliation: The values.”116 He claimed missionaries had long Twenty-Fifth Anniversary Volume of the “wrestled” with such questions: Annual Scholars Conference on the Holocaust and the Churches, edited by Jesus’s command to do the work of Douglas F. Tobler. Lanham: University missions is first to be understood as a gift Press of America, 1998. and then as an assignment to be fulfilled. Chickering, Roger. Imperial Germany and the Neither an individual nor a whole people Great War, 1914-1918. Cambridge: can refuse it without doing harm to them- Cambridge University Press, 1998. selves.117 Davin, Anna. “Imperialism and Motherhood.” He bemoaned the exclusion of mission In Tensions of Empire: Colonial voices from the race dialogue in the Third Cultures in a Bourgeois World,” edited Reich, claiming that missionaries knew best by Frederick Cooper and Ann Laura from long experience how to elevate the Stoler, 87-151. Los Angeles: University “spiritual life” of a people.118 Schwarze of California Press, 1997. Johanna illustrated this apologetic in defense of Drechsler, Horst. “Let us Die Fighting”: The Protestant missions, even as Germany prepared Struggle of the Herero and Nama for a new expansion. against German Imperialism, 1884– 1915. London: Zed Press, 1980. ———. Südwestafrika unter Deutscher Bibliography Kolonialherrschaft. Berlin: Akademie, 1966. 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