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Global histories a student journal Placing German Colonialism in the City: Berlin Postkolonial’s Tour in the African Quarter Authors: Christian Jacobs & Paul Sprute DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17169/GHSJ.2019.341 Source: Global Histories, Vol. 5, No. 2 (November 2019), pp. 110-117. ISSN: 2366-780X Copyright © 2019 Christian Jacobs & Paul Sprute License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Publisher information: ‘Global Histories: A Student Journal’ is an open-access bi-annual journal founded in 2015 by students of the M.A. program Global History at Freie Universität Berlin and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. ‘Global Histories’ is published by an editorial board of Global History students in association with the Freie Universität Berlin. Freie Universität Berlin Global Histories: A Student Journal Friedrich-Meinecke-Institut Koserstraße 20 14195 Berlin Contact information: For more information, please consult our website www.globalhistories.com or contact the editor at: [email protected]. Placing German Colonialism in the City: Berlin Postkolonial’s Tour in the African Quarter by CHRISTIAN JACOBS & PAUL SPRUTE Christian Jacobs & Paul Sprute | Placing German Colonialism in the City 111 VI - 2 - 2019 | Global Histories: a student journal y t i C After decades of neglecting a few subway stops away from the e h t Germany’s history of colonial rule and apparently more central sites of Berlin’s n i ambitions, the German public – from (colonial) history, such as the Reichstag m s i l the national to the local level – finds or the world-renowned Museum Island a i n o itself increasingly often exposed to opposite to which the historical city l o C the challenge of dealing with its (post) palace is currently being reconstructed. n a colonial past and present. In Berlin Berlin Postkolonial, an association m r e and beyond, activists and some established by activists from Germany G g critical historians have confronted and former German colonies in 2007, n i c a hesitant and quite often ignorant organizes guided tours through this l P | institutions, politicians, or citizens neighborhood of unassuming housing e t u with the need to begin working blocks in the former working-class r p S through this aspect of Germany’s district of Wedding. l u a history. They have pointed to wider The Afrikanisches Viertel P & implications and continuities beyond owes its name to its street signs – all s b o the time period between 1884 - the related to former German colonies c a J year of the Berlin Conference as an or colonialists in Africa. The streets n a i important moment for the division were designated prior to the First t s i r of the African continent between World War when Carl Hagenbeck h C European imperial interest - and planned to build a zoo in the nearby 1919 - when the German Empire Volkspark Rehberge. Similar to his was forced to give up its colonies zoological garden in Hamburg, - not only overseas but also within Hagenbeck wanted to display both Germany itself. The comparative animals and humans from the German brevity and sudden abortion of this colonies. Exhibiting “exotic” humans era of formal colonial rule abroad as uncivilized was a common practice have frequently been used as in Europe at the time, helping to arguments to diminish its historical legitimize colonial empires in the relevance, especially compared to metropoles.2 While Hagenbeck’s plans Nazi rule and the Holocaust as the were not realized due to the First World central turning point of Germany’s War, the street names selected during history in the twentieth century.1 the planning process remained in One of the most striking place. examples of underexposed colonial On the tour through the connections in Berlin’s cityscape is neighborhood, the activists of Berlin the so-called Afrikanisches Viertel, Postkolonial stop at specific streets the African Quarter (Figure 1); just and explain the historical background of their names. This way, the tour can recount Germany’s colonial past 1 For the recent debates on German colonialism and its legacy see: Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte no. 40-42 (2019) “Deutsche Kolonialgeschichte,” 30 September 2019; Britta 2 Anna Dreesbach, “Colonial Exhibitions, Schilling, Postcolonial Germany: Memories of ‘Völkerschauen’ and the Display of the ‘Other’,” Empire in a Decolonized Nation (Oxford: Oxford European History Online (Mainz, 2012), https:// University Press, 2014). d-nb.info/1043575553/34. 112 Global Histories: a student journal | VI - 2 - 2019 Christian Jacobs & Paul Sprute Christian Jacobs & Paul FROM | Placing German Colonialism in the City FIGURE 1 Map of the African Quarter. Courtesy of Kyle Riffe. and address prevailing structures SWAKOPMUND TO LÜDERITZ: of colonial ideology within German THE HISTORICAL IMPLICATIONS society. Moreover, the tour guides OF THE STREET NAMES explain the efforts Berlin Postkolonial has made in the last decade to change The tour starts at the subway Germany’s politics of memory, not least station Afrikanische Straße, right by pushing for the street names to next to Swakopmunder Straße. be changed. Thus, the tour is a good Swakopmund, today a port in opportunity to discuss the role of civil Namibia, used to be one of the main society activists in promoting debates entry points in Germany’s most about the colonial past in Germany. important settler colony. With the help of legal tricks and discriminatory laws German settlers acquired more Global Histories: a student journal | VI - 2 - 2019 113 y t i C and more land, leading to conflict Nachtigal who was appointed special e h t with indigenous peoples under commissioner of the German Empire n i increasing economic and social in West Africa in 1884. In the next m s i l pressure. In 1904, both the Herero two years, he integrated Togoland, a i n o and Nama people started a rebellion Lüderitzland (later German South l o C attacking German settlements, West Africa) and Cameroon into the n a in reaction to which the German German Empire as protectorates. m r e government sent General Lothar von Thus, Nachtigal’s mission marked G g Trotha with additional troops to crush the beginning of the official German n i c a the revolt. The German strategy was presence in Africa and he was l P | aimed at exterminating the Herero portrayed as a heroic founding e t u and Nama: Forced into the desert, figure in the German public. In r p S thousands died of thirst while those order to mark a departure from this l u a who survived were imprisoned in glorification of the German presence P & concentration camps where every in Africa, Berlin Postkolonial has s b o second prisoner died. urged the district council to rename c a J Even though generals had Nachtigalplatz. n a i officially articulated the extermination The square is crossed by t s i r of the Herero and Nama people Petersallee which has officially h C as the goal of the campaign, no been named after Hans Peters, a German government acknowledged German politician and member of the events as genocide until 2015. a resistance group during the Third Today, Germany has still not officially Reich, since 1986. However, the apologized to the victims. While street was originally dedicated to Herero and Nama representatives Carl Peters who acquired 12,000 have pushed the Federal Republic to square kilometers of land in East do so for a long time, the matter has Africa in 1884, signing treaties with become a topic of debate within the African chiefs who did not share the German wider public only in the last colonialists’ understanding that such decades, as part of a larger trend of treaties legitimized direct colonial rediscovering the German colonial rule. The lands were declared past.3 German East Africa and Peters was From Swakopmunder Straße appointed to rule the colony as the tour of Berlin Postkolonial turns the imperial commissioner. Peters’ into Togostraße, walking down to the notorious brutality and cruelty was square Nachtigalplatz. It is named later scandalized by members after the colonial scientist Gustav of the Reichstag, leading to his dismissal. Even though the street is officially named after another 3 For the current position of the German Foreign Peters nowadays, Berlin Postkolonial Office see: Auswärtiges Amt, “Addressing has argued that this solution is Germany’s and Namibia’s Past and Looking for the Future,” 1 July 2019, https://www. inadequate in the environment of the auswaertiges-amt.de/en/aussenpolitik/ Afrikanisches Viertel. This tendency regionaleschwerpunkte/afrika/-/1991702. 114 Global Histories: a student journal | VI - 2 - 2019 C h r i s t i a n J a c o b s & P a u l S p r u t e | P l a c i n g G e r m a n C o l o n i a l i s m i FIGURE 2 to incidentally raw egg from his window at Mnyaka n t Flag of the German h deny the Sururu Mboro, our tour guide e Colonial Office hoisted C in Volkspark Rehberge, i colonial (fortunately missing him). Mboro t Berlin 2019. Photo: y Hauke Jacobs. character of the took the opportunity to share that Afrikanisches the tours are frequently disturbed Viertel by introducing a by people blocking the few benches decontextualized street name is available for seating or yelling at echoed in the one street named after the tour groups. It is obvious that a the Second World War, Ghanastraße, significant portion of local residents celebrating independence in a do not accept the presence of neighborhood set up to serve the critical perspectives on the history of opposite purpose. ‘their’ district and its links to German Next, the tour turns to walk colonialism.
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