University of New South Wales 2005 UNIVERSITY of NEW SOUTH WALES Thesis/Project Report Sheet

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BÜRGERTUM OHNE RAUM: German Liberalism and Imperialism, 1848-1884, 1918-1943.

Matthew P Fitzpatrick A thesis submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of New South Wales 2005 UNIVERSITY OF NEW SOUTH WALES Thesis/Project Report Sheet

Surname or Family name: Fitzpatrick First name: Matthew Other name/s: Peter Abbreviation for degree as given in the University calendar: PhD. School: History Faculty: Arts Title: Bürgertum Ohne Raum: German Liberalism and Imperialism 1848-1884, 1918-1943.

Abstract

This thesis situates the emergence of German imperialist theory and praxis during the nineteenth century within the context of the ascendancy of German liberalism. It also contends that imperialism was an integral part of a liberal sense of German national identity. It is divided into an introduction, four parts and a set of conclusions.

The introduction is a methodological and theoretical orientation. It offers an historiographical overview and places the thesis within the broader historiographical context. It also discusses the utility of post-colonial theory and various theories of nationalism and nation-building.

Part One examines the emergence of expansionism within liberal circles prior to and during the period of 1848/ 49. It examines the consolidation of expansionist theory and political practice, particularly as exemplified in the Frankfurt National Assembly and the works of Friedrich List.

Part Two examines the persistence of imperialist theorising and praxis in the post-revolutionary era. It scrutinises the role of liberal associations, civil society, the press and the private sector in maintaining expansionist energies up until the 1884 decision to establish state-protected colonies.

Part Three focuses on the cultural transmission of imperialist values through the sciences, media and fiction. In examines in particular the role of geographical journals and societies and of the periodical Die Gartenlaube.

Part Four discusses the post World War I era, and examines liberal attempts to revive German imperialism, within the context of a refusal to accept the Versailles settlement. It also delineates points of convergence and divergence between Nazi and liberal imperialisms.

This is followed by a summation of the evidence and arguments, in which it is concluded that the liberal narration of German national identity was predicated both on the objectification of colonised lands and attempts to emulate and ultimately rival British imperial power.

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THIS SHEET IS TO BE GLUED TO THE INSIDE FRONT COVER OF THE THESIS “ ... Die germanische Race ist von der Vorsehung bestimmt, die

Weltherrschaft zu führen. Sie ist physisch und geistig vor allen andern bevorzugt, und die halbe Erde ist ihr fast unterthan. England, Amerika, Deutschland, das sind die drei Zweige des mächtigen germanischen Baumes, der auf den Hochebenen

Asiens gekeimt, im Herzen Europas Wurzel getrieben hat, und unter dessen Schatten einst die ganze Erde ruhen wird.”1

1 Wochen-Blatt des Nationalvereins. (WB). No.23. 7th Sept. 1865.p.183. “Die deutsche Seemannsschule in Hamburg in ihrer Bedeutung für die Zukunfts-Marine Deutschlands.”

ii Contents

Acknowledgements v List of Abbreviations vi

Introduction 1

Part One. A Liberal Empire for a Liberal Nation.

1. National Unification and Overseas Expansion: Germany’s Liberal

Imperialists at the Frankfurt Assembly of 1848 – 1849. 41

2. Mythopoesis – The Establishment of Imperialism as a Liberal Discourse of Nationhood and the Reification of the Tropes of Imperialist Discourse. 80

Part Two. Reconstituting the Oneiric Empire in the ‘Post-Liberal’ Era.

3. Tending the Flame: The ‘Retreat and Return’ of Liberal Imperialist Praxis 1849-1884. ‘Informal’ Empire and Private Sector Imperialism. 119 4. Tending the Flame: The ‘Retreat and Return’ of Liberal Imperialist Politics 1849-1884. Bürgerlich Agency and the World of the Verein. 160 5. Bismarck and the Socio-Political Context of the Colonial ‘Umschwung.’ 184

Part Three. Embourgeoisement and the Texts of Imperialism – The

Consolidation of Cultural Hegemony and Liberal Expansionism 1849 – 1884.

6. Scientific Discourse as Imperialist Discourse. The Political and Geographic Sciences and Liberal Imperialism. 214

iii 7. Popular Culture and the Transmission of Imperialist Values – Die Gartenlaube and Colonial Fiction. 277

Part Four. Reviving Lost Dreams: Liberal Imperialism Between the Wars.

8. Hans Grimm and the Liberal Sense of National Exile. 321 9. The Broader Post 1918 Imperialist Movement – Heinrich Schnee and the Kolonialgesellschaft. 347

Conclusion 373 Bibliography 388

iv Acknowledgements

There are numerous people who have assisted me throughout this project and who deserve my heartfelt thanks: To begin with, thank you to my postgraduate colleagues, Nevenko Bartulin, Susie Protschky, Sally Cove, Ed McMahon, Peter Dean and Sacha Davis for their help in creating a scholarly critical mass.

Thanks are also due to my supervisor Günter Minnerup, who has spent a great deal of time ensuring that my ideas did not go unchallenged. Thanks as well to Andrew Bonnell, Dirk A Moses, John Milfull, Hartmut Pogge von Strandmann, Horst Gründer and Pamela Katsch, who have read and commented upon parts or the whole of this work in its various stages. The errors, inconsistencies and flaws that remain are of course my own.

The financial support offered by the School of History at the University of New South Wales in the form of an Australian Postgraduate Award, as well as the generous support of the German Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst have contributed materially to my ability to complete any research whatsoever, whilst the pleasant and helpful staff at the Bundesarchiv in Koblenz and Berlin, das Geheime Staatsarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz in Berlin, the Staatsarchiv Hamburg, the Niedersächsisches Staatsarchiv in Wolfenbüttel and the Institut für Zeitungsforschung in Dortmund have ensured that I have had something novel to write about.

This work is dedicated to Natasha Grundy, and Ethan, Peter and Elaine Fitzpatrick, for their love and support.

v List of Abbreviations

BA Bundesarchiv CEH Central European History DDP Deutsche Demokratische Partei DG Die Gartenlaube DKG Deutsche Kolonialgesellschaft DKZ Deutsche Kolonialzeitung DNVP Deutschnationale Volkspartei DVP Deutsche Volkspartei GstA PK Geheimes Staatsarchiv, Preußischer Kulturbesitz IMT International Military Tribunal JMH Journal of Modern History Korag Koloniale Reichsarbeitsgemeinschaft Mittheilungen Mittheilungen aus Justus Perthes’ geographischer Anstalt über wichtige neue Erforschungen auf dem Gesammtgebiete der Geographie NSDAP Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei NsSA Niedersachsisches Staatsarchiv RKB Reichskolonialbund StA Hamburg Staatsarchiv Hamburg SPD Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands WB Wochen-Blatt des Nationalvereins WS Wochenschrift des Nationalvereins

vi Introduction

Midway through the second volume of his magisterial study of German history,

Thomas Nipperdey embarked upon his explanation of German colonial history.

Somewhat apologetically, he announced “Hier muß nun kurz von den Kolonien die

Rede sein.”1 What followed was a three and a quarter page sketch of the nature of

German rule in the African colonies, the sole theme of which was that Germany’s colonial history was a short-lived, largely unimportant era in the history of the

German nation. Neither particularly successful nor unsuccessful when seen against the background of the experience of other, more dynamic, colonial powers such as

Britain and France, for Nipperdey, Germany’s colonies lay well outside of the main narrative of German history, as an insignificant social experiment devoid of social or historical origins or effects.

In 1975, Wolfgang J Mommsen described imperialism as a late nineteenth century phenomenon that marked the “Sündenfall des Liberalismus.” German liberals, he claimed, had allowed “die Verfremdung der liberalen Idee durch die imperialistische Ideologie…” during the 1880s.2 According to Mommsen, apart

1 T Nipperdey. Deutsche Geschichte 1866-1918. 2. Band: Machtstaat vor der Demokratie. Verlag C.H. Beck, München, 1992.p.286ff. 2 WJ Mommsen. “Wandlungen der Liberalen Idee im Zeitalter des Imperialismus.” in K Holl & G List. Liberalismus und imperialistischer Staat. Der Imperialismus als Problem liberaler Parteien in Deutschland 1890-1914. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen, 1975.p.110. In the same volume, Lothar Gall criticised the theological overtones of Mommsen’s characterisation, as well as commenting on the even stronger formulation of the issue in the original paper in which Mommsen presented the idea. See L Gall. “Sündenfall des Liberalen Denkens oder Krise der bürgerlich- Introduction 2 from the idiosyncratic and largely isolated works of Friedrich List, whose ideas were, in the late 1870s, “leicht… wieder aus der Schublade zu holen,” there was no broader liberal imperialist tradition in Germany until the 1880s, with a pro- imperialist liberal political position not clearly articulated until the late 1870s. After twenty intervening years of scholarship, Mommsen continued to hold the view that liberal imperialism was a movement with shallow roots, stating in his 1993 magnum opus that “während der Periode der Vorherrschaft des Nationalliberalismus von

1867 bis 1879 spielten koloniale Bestrebungen in der deutschen Öffentlichkeit allerdings noch keine sonderlich bedeutsame Rolle.”3

For Lothar Gall, German colonialism was an expression of “der neue

Nationalismus” of the 1880s, which, seemingly without context and or origins, gripped European countries, as they struggled for “eine führende Stellung im

Weltstaatensystem der Zukunft.”4 Correctly diagnosing the “wirtschaftliche

Erwägungen” related to the perceived need for primary materials and new markets for surplus German production as one of the motivations for state-driven German expansionism in the post-1884 era, Gall nevertheless failed to offer any explanatory mechanism that could illustrate where these evidently pro-imperialist business considerations came from and how the pressure they exerted came to force a liberalen Bewegung? Zum Verhältnis von Liberalismus und Imperialismus in Deutschland.” In K Holl & G List. Liberalismus und imperialistischer Staat.pp.148-9, 156.n.5. 3 WJ Mommsen. Geschichte Deutschlands. Siebenter Band, Erster Teil. Das Ringen um den nationalen Staat. Die Gründung und der innere Ausbau des Deutschen Reiches unter Otto von Bismarck 1850 bis 1890. Propyläen Verlag, Berlin, 1993.p.508. 4 L Gall. Europa auf dem Weg in die Moderne, 1850-1890. R. Oldenbourg Verlag, München, 1997.pp.94ff. A more subtle approach to German imperialism can be at least partially detected in some of Gall’s earlier works. See for example L Gall. “Sündenfall des liberalen Denkens,” L Gall. “Liberalismus und Auswärtige Politik” in K Hildebrand & R Pommerin. Deutsche Frage und europäisches Gleichgewicht. Böhlau Verlag, Köln, 1985. Introduction 3 reversal of German government policy. Germany’s nineteenth century imperialism remains, for Gall, a late-nineteenth century phenomenon that marked the emergence of expansionist pressures within Germany, rather than the culmination of them.

Similarly, Klaus Hildebrand, in his detailed study of German foreign policy, gave the notion that colonial imperialism was a form of political utterance and praxis with deep roots within German society short shrift. Pointing to the refusal of the

Reichstag to accept Bismarck’s proposal of a Samoan colony in 1880, Hildebrand declared, “Im übrigen war der Kolonialgedanke… kaum in repräsentativem Maße populär.”5 In his shorter survey of German foreign policy between the

Reichsgründung and World War One, Hildebrand allowed precisely one and a half pages for what he dismissively described as “Bismarcks Kolonialpolitik.”6 For

Hildebrand, early German imperialism amounted to no more than a momentary tactic employed by Bismarck in 1884 to isolate Britain in Europe, thereby ensuring

English dependence on Germany in its ongoing political contest with France for

European hegemony. As such, colonialism’s importance had passed as early as

March 1885, with the following thirty years of colonial imperialism operating as an incidental legacy of Bismarck’s complex game of continental diplomatic chess.

Hildebrand’s conviction that colonies were a political device in the hands of

Bismarck also excludes any deeper historical account of the origins and significance of German colonial policy, and while he offers an account of Bismarck’s interest in

5 K Hildebrand. Das Vergangene Reich: Deutsche Außenpolitik von Bismarck bis Hitler 1871-1945. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart, 1995.p.87. 6 K Hildebrand. Deutsche Aussenpolitik 1871-1918. Enzyklopädie Deutscher Geschichte Band 2. R. Oldenbourg Verlag, München, 1989. pp.15-16. This notion of ‘Bismarck’s colonialism’ has made its way into contemporary, popular accounts of German colonialism. See for example the focus on Bismarckian politics in “Die Peitsche des Bändigers” in Der Speigel 12.3.2004.p.104. Introduction 4 colonies, Hildebrand’s analysis does not allow for an explanation of the pre-existing social resonances of colonial imperialism to which Bismarck sought to appeal.

Other historians, such as Hans-Ulrich Wehler,7 Klaus Bade,8 and Hans Fenske,9 have perhaps more seriously engaged with Germany’s early expansionist past, whilst colonial specialists such as, Horst Gründer,10 Helmut Bley,11 Horst

Drechsler,12 Gesine Krüger13 and Jürgen Zimmerer,14 have also contributed serious

7 The critical work here is of course H U Wehler. Bismarck und der Imperialismus. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Köln, 1969. For a detailed discussion, see below. 8 K Bade. Friedrich Fabri und der Imperialismus in der Bismarckzeit: Revolution, Depression, Expansion. Atlantis Verlag, Freiburg, 1975. K Bade. “Die ‘Zweite Reichsgründung’ in Übersee: Imperiale Visionen, Kolonialbewegung und Kolonialpolitik in der Bismarckzeit” in A Birke & G Heydemann (Hg). Die Herausforderung des europäischen Staatensystem: Nationale Ideologie und staatliches Interesse zwischen Restauration und Imperialismus. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen, 1989. 9 H Fenske. “Imperialistische Tendenzen in Deutschland vor 1866: Auswanderung, überseeische Bestrebungen, Weltmachtträume.” Historisches Jahrbuch 97/98, 1978.pp.336-383. H Fenske. “Ungeduldige Zuschauer: Die Deutschen und die europäische Expansion 1815-1880” in W Reinhard. Imperialistische Kontinuät und nationale Ungeduld im 19. Jahrhundert. Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt a.M. 1991. H Fenske. Preußentum und Liberalismus. Verlag JH Roll, Dettelbach, 2002. 10 H Gründer. Geschichte der deutschen Kolonien. Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn, 1985. H Gründer. Da und dort ein junges Deutschland gründen: Rassismus, Kolonien und koloniale Gedanke vom 16. bis zum 20. Jahrhundert. Deutsche Taschenbuch Verlag, München, 1999. 11 H Bley. Namibia under German Rule. Lit Verlag, Hamberg, 1996. H Bley. “Der Traum vom Reich? Rechtsradikalismus als Antwort auf gescheiterte Illusionen im Deutschen Kaiserreich 1900- 1918,” in B Kundrus. (Hg). Phantasiereich: Zur Kulturgeschichte des deutschen Kolonialismus. Campus Verlag, Frankfurt a.M.2003. 12 H Drechsler. Südwestafrika unter deutscher Kolonialherrschaft. Der Kampf der Herero und Nama gegen den deutschen Imperialismus, Akadamie-Verlag Berlin, 1966. H Drechsler. Südwestafrika unter deutscher Kolonialherrschaft.Die großen Land- und Minengesellschaft. Akadamie-Verlag, Stuttgart, 1996. 13 G Krüger. Kriegsbewältigung und Geschichtsbewußtsein: Realität, Deutung und Verarbeitung des deutschen Kolonialkriegs in Namibia 1904 bis 1907. Göttingen, Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht. 1999. Introduction 5 work to the field. However within German language scholarship, the writing of histories of nineteenth century colonialism and imperialism has been seen as something of an historiographical cul-de-sac, with its contribution seen as somehow extraneous to a dominant analytical paradigm that privileges an artificially linear,

Eurocentric history of the German nation. Indeed, much important German scholarship in the field of empire studies has been seen in terms of African history or the history of the Americas, the Pacific or Asia rather than the history of an explicitly national, that is to say, German imperialism; effectively quarantining it from discussions of German history more broadly.

English-speaking historiography, up until recently, had also paid little serious attention to the domestic context of the colonial period. The most notable exceptions to this is the work of Hartmut Pogge von Strandmann,15 AJP Taylor’s short diplomacy-based book on the subject,16 the work of Franz Lorenz Müller17

14 J Zimmerer. Deutsche Herrschaft über Afrikaner: Staatlicher Machtanspruch und Wirklichkeit im kolonialen Namibia. Lit Verlag, Münster, 2002. 15 H Pogge von Strandmann. “Domestic Origins of Germany’s Colonial Expansion under Bismarck” Past and Present 42(1), 1969.pp.140-159. H Pogge von Strandmann. “Imperialism and Revisionism in Interwar Germany” in WJ Mommsen & J Osterhammel (eds). Imperialism and After: Continuities and Discontinuities. Allen & Unwin, London, 1986. H Pogge von Strandmann. “Consequences of the Foundation of the German Empire: Colonial Expansion and the Process of Political-Economic Rationalization” in S Förster, WJ Mommsen & R Robinson. Bismarck, Europe and Africa: The Berlin Africa Conference 1884-1885 and the Onset of Partition. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1988.pp.105ff. 16 AJP Taylor. Germany’s First Bid for Colonies 1884-1885: A Move in Bismarck’s European Policy. WW Norton & Co., New York, 1970. 17 FL Müller. “Imperialist Ambitions in Vormärz and Revolutionary Germany: the Agitation for German Settlement Colonies Overseas, 1840-1849,” in German History Vol 7(3), 1999.pp.346-368. For his earlier, German language work, see FL Müller. “Der Traum von der Weltmacht.” Imperialistische Ziele in der deutschen Nationalbewegung von der Rheinkrise bis zum Ende der Paulskirche.” in Jahrbuch der Hambach Gesellschaft, 6 (1996/97).pp.99-183. Introduction 6 and Lora Wildenthal’s study of the gendered nature of German imperialist experiences and imaginings.18 More recently, under the rubric of cultural studies, a more literary-inspired body of work has found prominence in both English and

German, in the works of such figures as Susanne Zantop,19 Pascal Grosse,20

Joachim Zeller21 and Birthe Kundrus,22 whose monographs and anthologies of articles directed towards the subject of German imperialism demonstrate a methodological preference for a deconstruction of the scientific and literary texts of

German imperialism, in an attempt to reveal the internal tensions, the racialising theoretics and cultural encoding evident in imperialist utterances and practices.

Firmly ensconced within the thematically and stylistically dynamic oeuvre of postcolonial studies, their work has made significant inroads into the understanding of German expansionism’s broader cultural resonances, before, during and after the years of liberal imperialism.

With the exception of perhaps Wehler, Pogge von Strandmann, AJP Taylor, and

Bade, none of the older school of historians of Germany’s colonies have attempted

18 L Wildenthal. German Women for Empire, 1884-1945. Duke University Press, London, 2001. L Wildenthal. “The Place of Colonialism in the Writing and Teaching of Modern German History,” in European Studies Journal 16(2), 1999.pp.37-68. 19 S Zantop. Colonial Fantasies: Conquest, Family and Nation in Pre-Colonial Germany, 1770- 1870. Duke University Press, London, 1997. S Friedrichsmayer, S Lennox & S Zantop (Hg). The Imperialist Imagination: German Colonialism and its Legacy. University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, 1998. 20 P Grosse. Kolonialismus, Eugenik und Bürgerliche Gesellschaft in Deutschland, 1850-1918, Frankfurt a.M. 2000. 21 J Zeller. Kolonialdenkmäler und Geschichtsbewußtsein. Eine Untersuchung der kolonialdeutschen Erinnerungskultur. IKO – Verlag für Interkulturelle Kommunikation, Frankfurt, 2000. 22 B Kundrus. (Hg) Phantasiereich: Zur Kulturgeschichte des deutschen Kolonialismus. Campus Verlag, Frankfurt a.M. 2003. B Kundrus. Moderne Imperialisten: Das Kaiserreich im Spiegel Seiner Kolonien. Böhlau Verlag, Köln, 2003. Introduction 7 to view German colonialism as a part of the broader patterns of German history that were emerging during the nineteenth century, except in so far as they have utilised this as background to their narrative of events in the colonies. Much German historiography has viewed colonialism as essentially consisting of a sideshow from the dominating role of either domestic political strife, or at best, as Immanuel Geiss has said, a slight diversion from the absolute primary concern with continental politics which was to last until the turn of the century,23 and it is fair to say that most historians have posited the rightful locus of historiographical attention as lying elsewhere. Colonialism, and its superordinate imperialism, as sustained social phenomena (as opposed to Bismarckian caprice or cynical short-term Realpolitik), have been excised, explained away or simply overlooked in works dealing with nineteenth and early twentieth century German history.

This intrinsically Eurocentric analytical paradigm forgets that the history ‘created’ through the various processes of imperialism derived solely from, and was therefore essential to, not only the history of the imperialist nation itself, but also the specific historical agents that coalesced to bring about a national and/or international ‘drive to empire.’ This historiographical model similarly overlooks the simple logic that a national history of a colonising power and the history of the imperialism stemming from that power must primarily be seen as the study of self-consciously cultivated, autochthonous social and cultural processes whose origins lie not with any need within the indigenous cultures of the colonial ‘periphery,’ but with the material and discursive conditions that arose through the construction and definition of the

23 I Geiss. “Sozialstruktur und imperialistische Dispositionen im zweiten Deutschen Kaiserreich” in K Holl & G List Liberalismus und imperialistischer Staat: Der Imperialismus als Problem liberaler Parteien in Deutschland 1890-1914. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen, 1975.p. 42. Introduction 8

European nation-state. Imperialism as a European, and in this instance, German enterprise, must be viewed as a concerted and purposive contribution to the creation of material wealth and international power for the nation, as well as to the identity formation of the nation, precisely as an imperialist power.

Imperialism, as Frantz Fanon has pointed out, while enacted in the lands of the non-

European ‘periphery’, finds its locus of meaning firmly within the prevailing discursive conditions of the European imperial centre:

The settler makes history and is conscious of making it. And because he constantly

refers to the history of his mother country, he clearly indicates that he himself is the

extension of that mother country. Thus the history which he writes is not the history

of the country which he plunders but the history of his own nation…24

Within Germany, the excising of nineteenth century imperialism from national historiography, as critiqued here by Fanon, could be said to be a post-World War II phenomenon. Previously, the intrinsically European considerations underwriting the domination of the non-European world by European nations were far better understood, particularly by those that had sought to further the imperialist ideal. “In

Afrikas Schicksal spiegelt sich Europas Schicksal,” wrote Germany’s Arthur Dix in

1932, arguing for the return of Germany’s colonies. “Die weltpolitische Stellung der

24 F Fanon. The Wretched of the Earth (trans. C Farrington). Macgibbon & Kee, London, 1965.p.41. Also cited in R Young. White Mythologies: Writing History and the West. Routledge, London, 1993.p.120. This is not to relegate events in the colonised lands to the realm of the unimportant or subordinate, nor to undermine the agency of those objectified by European imperialism, rather it merely highlights that the meaning of colonial imperialism, as understood by the imperialists themselves had as its focal point the interests of the imperial metropolis. Often this Eurocentrism was undermined by the rebellious insistence of the colonised that imperialism be viewed according to an indigenous understanding, as an experience of dispossession whose locus of meaning was to be found in the land being colonised. Introduction 9 europäischen… findet seit der Abteilung Afrikas in ihrer afrikanischen Stellung einen sichtbaren Ausdruck…”25 Yet despite such earlier appreciations of the link between imperialism and the construction of the German nation state, historians have been slow to fully integrate Germany’s pre-Nazi imperialism into their narratives of German nation building and the construction of German national identity, seeing in it only an historical dead-end of little more than curiosity value.

Methodologically, this is simply an error of writing history ‘nunc pro tunc.’26

The marginalisation, not to say quarantining, from historiography of the importance and impact of imperialism on the imperialist state is of course not exclusive to the domain of German historiography, but has until recently been a dominant feature of much European historiography, as Edward Said noted:

The asymmetry is striking. In one instance, we assume that the better part of history in

colonial territories was a function of the imperial intervention; in the other, there is an

equally obstinate assumption that colonial undertakings were marginal and perhaps even

eccentric to the cultural activities of the great metropolitan cultures.27

The treatment of early German imperialism as an essentially marginal affair is an example of this process of systemic historiographical wrong-headedness: a process

25 A Dix. Weltkrise und Kolonialpolitik: Die Zukunft Zweier Erdteile. Paul Neff Verlag, Berlin, 1932.p.309. The concept of viewing and mirroring here is important, illustrating as it does the extent to which an empire was seen as an external site from which an asserted national self-image could be reflected back to Europe. 26 See DH Fisher. Historians’ Fallacies: Towards a Logic of Historical Thought. Harper & Row, New York, 1970.p.135. Fisher evocatively defines this methodological error as “the mistaken idea that the proper way to do history is to prune away the dead branches of the past, and to preserve the green buds and twigs which have grown into the dark forest of our contemporary world.” 27 E Said. Culture and Imperialism.p.35. Quoted in HJ Kaye’s introduction to VG Kiernan Imperialism and its Contradictions. Routledge, New York, 1995. Introduction 10 that risks, indeed favours the overlooking of a crucial current of nineteenth century socio-political development that was, at the time, perceived as playing a critical role in the development of a united, economically progressive and politically liberal

Germany. To belittle the role of mid-nineteenth century colonial imperialism, as historians such as Nipperdey have done, is to inscribe a post-World War Two teleology into nineteenth and early twentieth century events – that is, to see German colonial imperialism, an important early manifestation of German imperialism and liberal national identity, as an historical dead end half a century before it was to become one. Similarly, viewing nineteenth century imperialist discourse as a politically shallow form or mere rhetorical gesture, an empty signifier, a catch-all, or as a knowing but meaningless nod or threat aimed at vested political interests, is to misunderstand the deep-rootedness of German imperialist sentiment, particularly amongst Germany’s ascendant liberals, or in terms of social strata, Germany’s mercantile Wirtschaftsbürgertum and its complement, the Bildungsbürgertum.

However, another approach to German imperialism is possible, one that attempts to integrate German imperialism into its broader historical context and situate it at the heart of the socio-political debates of the era in which it arose. According to this model, an understanding of German imperialist discourse and praxis becomes central to an understanding of liberal attempts at narrating, or providing a discursive underpinning to, an emerging nationalist sensibility and a resultant political project of nation building.

Furthermore, with imperialism understood as lying at the core of the liberal narration of the German nation-state, and consistently posited by liberals as a Introduction 11 totalising, superordinate discourse of ‘German-ness,’ an understanding emerges of why the political entity ‘Germany,’ defined as an imperialist liberal nation, was negatively envisaged by those adhering to explanatory metanarratives that rivalled this liberal version of nationhood. That is, a historiographical model informed by an understanding of the central role played by imperialism in nineteenth century

Germany illuminates the nature of the clash between the liberal nationalist- imperialist metanarrative and other, mutually exclusive visions of what was or could be meant by the signifier ‘Deutschtum.’ Rather than postulate colonialism and imperialism more broadly as an historical accident, or at best a contingent by- product of other, more important, decision-making processes, early German imperialism can be revealed as the important and serious nation-building undertaking that it was seen as being at the time, both by those liberals who campaigned for an active imperialist strategy and by those other conservative, socialist and Catholic Germans who opposed the imperialist and nationalist projects of an emergent liberalism.

Such an empire-centred approach is emerging in the historiography of other

European nations, notably in the field of postcolonial studies. Robert Young, for example, drawing upon the insights of Edward Said’s Culture and Imperialism,28 has recommended just such an imperialism-focused approach for the study of

British history, stating that “… colonialism, in the British example, was not simply a marginal activity on the edges of English civilisation, but fundamental in its own cultural self-representation.” 29 Admittedly, nineteenth century German imperialism, when compared against the British form (upon which it was self-

28 E Said. Culture and Imperialism. Vintage, London, 1994. 29 R Young. White Mythologies.p.174. Introduction 12 consciously modelled), remained modest in its actual physical and temporal scope.

Yet, in terms of its effects upon cultural, and indeed, political self-representation prior to, during and after the colonial era, imperialism played a nonetheless crucial role within German liberalism as a means of proclaiming a sense of modernity and national cohesion. As such, Young’s preferred form of English historiography has much to recommend to the analysis of the German past.

In employing a postcolonial methodology for the study of the German past, the question then arises: how central was imperialism to German culture, society and politics in the nineteenth and early twentieth century? Wilhelm Roscher, writing in

1885, stated that “In Reichstagsverhandlungen wie in Wahlreden, in

Zeitungsartikeln wie in gesellschaftlichen Unterhaltungen spielt die Kolonialfrage jetzt eine Hauptrolle.”30 For decades previous to this statement, liberal Germans, including Roscher, had been laying the theoretical groundwork for this explosion in interest in German colonial imperialism. Simultaneously complementing this growing textual assertion of imperialism were the actions of Germany’s educated and mercantile upper middle-classes, who had established a certain facticity to

German colonial claims through their ‘scientific’ exploration of extra-European lands and by the establishing of trading outposts and private sector colonies across the globe.

Similarly, the aspiring lower and middle orders had steadily voted with their feet, settling abroad in these colonies and those of other European powers as a means of reaching the social position and attaining the wealth that they felt was denied them

30 W Roscher & R Fannasch. Kolonien, Kolonialpolitik und Auswanderung (Dritte verbesserte). CF Winter’sche Verlagshandlung, Leipzig 1885. See Vorrede, p.1. Introduction 13 in Germany. Spanning from the Vormärz through to beyond the Nazi

Machtergreifung as a constituent discourse within the liberal Weltanschauung, or metanarrative, imperialism had been consciously connected with the very concept of the liberal German nation, to become integral to the liberal idea of nationhood.

Wolfgang Mommsen spoke of imperialist ideology as a late nineteenth century aberration, a mechanism for “die Verfremdung der liberalen Idee,”31 however, broadly speaking, the notion of a German colonial empire and imperialist power, both as an end in itself and as a nation-building strategy, belonged to the German liberal tradition and had done so since at least the early nineteenth century, consolidated in the works of such liberals as Hans Christoph von Gagern, Friedrich

List and Wilhelm Roscher, carried throughout the years of liberalism’s political retreat by individuals such as Hermann Blumenau and Johann Sturz and organisations such as the Hamburger Kolonisationsverein, as well as being reinvigorated by Friedrich Fabri in the late 1870’s. Similarly, the establishment of an expansionist foreign policy was one of the few points of near universal agreement at the 1848-9 Frankfurt National Assembly, while active naval and expansionist foreign policies were central planks in the policy position of the

Nationalverein during the 1860s. In the cultural sphere, novelists such as Friedrich

Gerstäcker, magazines such as Die Gartenlaube and the social scientists dominating the disciplines of geography and anthropology consistently defended imperialism’s integral place within the liberal Weltanschauung.

31 W J Mommsen. “Wandlungen der liberalen Idee” p.110. Introduction 14

This did not cease with the ending of Germany’s colonial era. After Germany’s colonies were confiscated at the end of World War One, the ex-colonies inhabited a discursive and political space as a topos for various strands of Weimar nationalist discourse – used as an emblematic signifier of German victimhood, whose significance lay not so much in their physical loss (which in many ways could be seen as an economic blessing) as in the perceived meaning of this loss. Imperialist discourse once again became a means to discuss the nature of German nationalism more generally, as well as a site for melancholic nostalgia. Colonial discussion became a part of the revanchist and expansionist discourse of the embittered liberal middle classes that still expected Germany to fulfil its role as a Weltmacht commensurate with Britain. At this time, the discursive parameters altered, becoming concerned with issues such as the betrayal of a tacitly understood

‘European solidarity’ in the face of the ‘inferior’ colonised peoples – an embittered astonishment that the English and French had not only sided with the colonised, but had seen fit to enforce their occupation of Western Germany with ‘racially inferior’ colonial subjects, thereby inverting ‘an historically accepted anthropological

‘natural law.’32

Through new imperialist narratives and strategies, many liberal German writers and theorists ever more emphatically delineated their pre-World War One imperial and racial epistemology, conflating colonial tropes of racial superiority with post-war calls for the exercising of European hegemony that stemmed from the far Right.

Whereas prior to World War One, colonialism was seen in Germany as being part

32 See for example Deutsche Kolonialzeitung: Organ der Deutschen Kolonialgesellschaft. 28th October, 1920. p.97. “Gegen die Schwarze Schmach.” and 20th May 1921. p.57. “Die Schwarze Schmach.” Introduction 15 of a broader, ascendant, pan-European nationalist liberal movement, afterwards it became a movement symptomatic of a disappointed and radicalised ex-liberal hypertrophic, nationalist chauvinism.

Clearly, the history of early German imperialism and that of German liberalism were remarkably intertwined, yet the major English language surveys of German liberalism, Dieter Langewiesche’s Liberalism in Germany and James Sheehan’s

German Liberalism in the Nineteenth Century33 have underplayed to the point of omission the role played by imperialism in the formulation of not only a liberal identity but of a liberal national ideal. Following more traditional politico- chronological formats, these works scarcely concerned themselves with the interplay between liberalism and imperialist theorising. Other historians, seeking to briefly address the issue of liberal imperialism in order to put the issue to rest, have played a semantic game, insisting either that the German liberals were imperialists but not really liberals, or that they were indeed liberals but that their actions were not really those of imperialists.34 Either way, most historians, following

33 D Langewiesche. Liberalism in Germany. (trans. C Banerji), Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2000, J Sheehan. German Liberalism in the Nineteenth Century. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1978. 34 See for example Immanuel Geiss’ concept of the Kompromißcharakter of the Kaiserreich, in which the German liberals are unable to become fully liberal as a result of the persistence of aristocratic elements. I Geiss “Sozialstruktur und imperialistische Dispositionen im zweiten deutschen Kaiserreich” in K Holl &G List. Liberalismus und imperialistischer Staat. p. 45. See also Mommsen’s notion of the Feudalisierung of Germany’s Bürgertum in WJ Mommsen in “Wandlungen der liberalen Idee” p.119. Along the same lines is Peter Mencke-Glückert’s contribution, “Wilhelminischer Liberalismus aus aktueller Sicht” in K Holl & G List. Liberalismus und imperialistischer Staat. pp. 35-39. As an example of the case for ‘liberals but not imperialists,’ see H G Zmarzlik’s claim that “Wer dem Liberalismus nachfragt, um seine Potentiale historisch zu Introduction 16

Mommsen’s lead, have claimed that imperialism and its political instrumentality were strictly limited to the post-1884 era. Langewiesche is again exemplary here, explicitly affirming Mommsen’s view in his assertion that, “A nationalism that had transformed itself into imperialism had no place within a liberal politics of integration.”35 The dominant analytical paradigm has presented German liberal imperialism as having had shallow roots and as having been an impossibility until

German liberals had ‘capitulated’ to a darker, more conservative agenda, betraying their core beliefs in the process of becoming a captive Bismarckian party.36

As Lothar Gall has pointed out,37 much of this type of work has revolved around the construction of abstract, ideal types of both ‘liberalism’ and ‘imperialism’ against which the thoughts and actions of Germany’s liberals might be measured, so as to demonstrate an (inevitable) inability to meet the standards of a purely notional, ideal-typical liberalism.38 In this manner, uncomfortable associations between

messen, darf ihn demnach nicht zu nahe mit dem Imperialismus zusammenbringen. Er muß ihn vielmehr zurückführen auf umfassendere Zusammenhänge, die hier mit dem Begriff ,,Modernisierung” eingeführt worden sind.” H G Zmarzlik “Das Kaiserreich als Einbahnstrasse?” in K Holl & G List. Liberalismus und imperialistischer Staat.p.70. For a recent reassertion of the ‘feudalised liberals’ thesis, see the recently published dissertation of one of Mommsen’s students, H J Tober. Deutscher Liberalismus und Sozialpolitik in der Ära des Wilhelminismus: Anschauungen der liberalen Parteien im parlamentarischen Entscheidungsprozeß und in der öffentlichen Diskussion. Matthiesen Verlag, Husum, 1999.p.38. 35 D Langewiesche. “German Liberalism in the Second Empire, 1871-1914.” in KH Jarausch & LE Jones (eds.) In Search of a German Liberalism from 1789 to the Present. Berg, New York, 1990.p.229. 36 Hence WJ Mommsen’s notion of a “Sündenfall des Liberalismus.” 37 L Gall. “,,Sundenfall’’ des liberalen Denkens oder Krise der burgerlich-liberalen Bewegung?” in K Holl & G List. Liberalismus und imperialistischer Staat.pp. 148-158. 38 Thus Mommsen’s “Verfremdung der liberalen Idee durch die imperialistische Ideologie” Mommsen. “Wandlungen der liberalen Idee” p.110. In no other area of history has an historian so Introduction 17 imperialism and liberalism might be avoided in a post World-War II historiographical setting that sought to disentangle the two. According to these works, liberals could not be imperialists, as liberalism and imperialism were, by very definition polar opposites.

Yet a scrutiny of the works of the most prominent liberal thinkers of the nineteenth century and early twentieth century, as well as an observation of many of liberalism’s most prominent political figures, illustrates quite overwhelmingly that

Germany’s liberals had been positing imperialism on the English model as the basis of a modern liberal nation for almost a century before the disappointment of these dreams were instrumentalised by the NSDAP as a means of securing the support of hitherto staunch liberals such as Hans Grimm for their radically new brand of expansionism that amounted to a calculated Vernichtungsimperialismus.39 Indeed, it seems likely that amongst Germany’s nineteenth century liberals, imperialism was seen as a necessary constituent of liberal discourse. That is, German liberals themselves saw imperialism as a central tenet of liberalism that was not only compatible with other constituent elements such as nationalism but was actually implicit in them. For them a united, liberal German nation necessarily entailed a forward foreign policy underwritten by a strong national navy and the expansion and subsequent protection of German interests and settlements throughout the world.

successfully been able to claim that a group could not countenance a course of action because of its incompatibility with the high ideals of the group’s guiding metanarrative. 39 This is of course not to argue that earlier liberal imperialism was in any sense intrinsically benign, merely that it was of a different order and served differed discursive, social and material ends to that of the Third Reich. Introduction 18

Of course, Germany’s liberals could not simply impose this expansive vision upon the German nation, and of course there did exist alternate discursive strands, even within liberalism itself, that appeared not to view imperialism as a fundamental element of their identity, particularly after the split between the National Liberals and the Progressive Liberals that saw the issues of pragmatism and constitutionality dominate intra-liberal debate, often at the expense of longer-standing sources of agreement between the two liberal wings.40 However, as liberalism’s oldest and more pervasive manifestation, German nationalist-liberalism (especially as seen at the 1848 Frankfurt Nationalversammlung, amongst the Nationalverein and in its most apparent post-1871 manifestation, amidst the Nationalliberalen) clearly sought to link the parallel discourses of imperialism and nationalism throughout the nineteenth century, as a means of foregrounding them as consciously chosen signifiers of liberalism’s ability to overcome particularist objections to a posited liberal nation-state.

This injection by liberals of the emblematic and symbolically resonant discourse of imperialism into the pre-existing, over-arching debate over the appropriateness and

40 On the opposition of the Linksliberalen to colonialism, see for example S Zucker. Ludwig Bamberger: German Liberal Politician and Social Critic, 1823-1899. University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, 1975.pp.180ff. Usefully, Zucker positions Left Liberal dissent on the issue as stemming from a belief that German imperialism was best left to the private sector, so as to ensure that it did not become a means of transforming protectionist economics into German foreign policy, through the establishment of protected colonial trading blocs. The issue between the National Liberals and the Left Liberals was therefore more a dispute about private sector versus state-conducted expansionism, rather than between anti- and pro-expansion liberals. See esp. Zucker.p.183. This dispute might best be explained as a desire amongst progressive liberals to keep imperialism temporarily quarantined in the private sector until it could be achieved without Bismarck, in a truly liberal political environment. On the Progressive / National Liberal split, see Chapter Five. Introduction 19 substance of existent social and political forms, was instrumental in the liberals’ attempts to legitimise their claim to social and political dominance. Through the forging of a state that was congruent with the tropes and principles of a nationalist liberal metanarrative,41 during an era in which “the problem of German identity

[remained] unsolved,”42 German liberals, via the deployment of an expansionist foreign policy, attempted to create a political and cultural movement that, whilst formed in the crucible of liberalism, could be joined by both their own supporters and, potentially, the natural constituency of other rival narrations of German nationhood.

Yet this should not be seen as a cynical “invention of tradition”43 used by liberals to dazzle, divert and deflect adherents to rival national metanarratives. Those liberals

41 This was recognised by the early biographer of Miquel, Hans Herzfeld, when he wrote “Zugleich hielt man im liberalen Lager doch die Hoffnung fest, daß auf dem Boden der neuen Einheit der allmähliche Sieg des liberalen Gedankens notwendig erfolgen werde.” H Herzfeld. Johannes von Miquel: Sein Anteil am Ausbau des Deutschen Reiches bis zur Jahrhundertwende. Band I. Meyersche Hofbuchhandlung, Detmold, 1938.p.45. On the centrality of nationalism to liberalism, as a discourse “which turned a ‘left wing’ into a ‘rightwing’ ideology,” see HA Winkler. “Nationalism and Nation-State in Germany’ in M Teich & R Porter (eds.) The National Question in Europe in Historical Context. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1993.pp.182-3. See also M Hroch. ‘Das Bürgertum in den nationalen Bewegungen des 19. Jahrhunderts. Ein europäischer Vergleich.’ in J Kocka (Hg). Bügertum im 19.Jahrhundert. Deutschland in europäischen Vergleich. Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, München, 1988.pp.337-359. 42 J Sheehan. German History 1770-1866. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1989.p.836. 43 Although self-conscious, the process is not as transparently manipulative as Hobsbawm’s phrase seems to indicate. See E Hobsbawm & T Ranger (eds).The Invention of Tradition, Cambridge University Press Cambridge, 1983. Similarly, the construction of national identity is a far more symbiotic process than is indicated in Hobsbawm’s later assertion that “whatever the nature of the social groups first captured by ‘national consciousness’, the popular masses – workers, servants, peasants – are the last to be affected by it”. In the case of Germany, the lower orders, through their involvement with emigration were thoroughly aware of the arguments for and against colonies, as it affected their immediate life-sphere. (E Hobsbawm Nations and Nationalism Since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality (2nd ed) Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1992.p.12). Introduction 20 that attempted to manipulate and replicate the meaning of the nation, to have it reflect their explanatory metanarrative and support their material interests, did so heartily, from a point of full immersion in the discourse of nationhood in which they firmly believed. That is, the proponents of liberal imperialism did not merely assert an invented brand of imperialist nationalism as a superficial political manoeuvre aimed at bamboozling political rivals during times of crisis, as some have argued.44 To the contrary, it is apparent that the loudest cries for a forward

German foreign policy came at times, such as 1848, in which German liberals were enjoying the political ascendancy.

As members of a proposed ‘national community,’ albeit one that they were attempting to imagine and shape in their own imperialist image, German liberals understood the importance of not only being involved in the shaping of the shared cultural imaginings and understandings implicit in the narration of the German nation, but of being accepted as the hegemonic or official voice of nationalist utterance. Once that was achieved, other narrations of the forms of political unity could be branded as heretical, deviant, unpatriotic, or simply wrong, thereby reinforcing the liberal cultural hegemony and consolidating the political and material ascendancy of Germany’s Bürgertum. As well as being perceived by liberals, who felt themselves to be imitating the English model, as integral to the concept of liberal rule, imperialist nationalism held out the tactical possibility of the material and political consolidation of liberal control over the German nation-state.

44 See for example H U Wehler Bismarck und der Imperialismus, and its idea that liberals, along with conservatives used imperialism as a means of diverting socialist pressures. Instead of seeing imperialism in terms of a cynical Ablenkung, it should be more properly seen in terms of combative Konkurrenzkampf. Introduction 21

This process of self-positioning, of becoming the dominant enunciators of the national direction in order to secure and perpetuate political hegemony via the state, has been alluded to by Gilles Deleuze:

the apparatus of the State is a concrete assemblage which realizes the machine of over-coding society…This machine in its turn is thus not the State itself, it is the abstract machine which organizes the dominant utterances and the established order of a society, the dominant languages and knowledge, conformist actions and feelings, the segments which prevail over others.45

That is, in order that they might exercise political and economic dominance, liberals had to first combat and eventually subsume alternative discursive renderings of

‘Deutschtum’ within their own explanatory metanarrative. This has been described as a process of ‘capture,’46 involving a harnessing of the concerns of social groups outside of a particular discourse community, via the appeal to a nominally superordinate discourse, in order to broaden what would otherwise be seen as a partisan discourse, so as to demonstrate its applicability to all social groups. In the case of German liberal imperialism, Germany’s ascendant middle classes attempted, through their theorising, praxis and popular culture representations of their project, to demonstrate the universality of the benefits of an imperialist nationalism. Just as the building of a nation-state was a central tenet of German liberalism, the assertion of an imperialist foreign policy was a crucial part of this nationalist discourse.

Nationalism, as liberalism’s vehicle for the establishment of a hegemonic form of social and political organization within Germany, underwritten by the mythopoeic

45 G Deleuze. Dialogues (trans. Hugh Tomlinson). Columbia University Press, New York, 1987. p.129. 46 S Newman “War on the State: Stirner’s and Deleuze’s Anarchism”, in Anarchist Studies Vol 9(2). White Horse Press, Cambridge Oct 2001.p.151. Introduction 22 power of imperialist discourse, was proffered as a totalising metanarrative superseding all other narrations of the German nation, whether Catholic, socialist or agrarian conservative. The forms of praxis it engendered were to be enacted and materialised through a new, national polity that was indeed to be the “concrete assemblage” of an intrinsically liberal encoding of German society.

It is this process of ‘capture’ and the way in which liberals sought to establish liberal imperialism as the hegemonic discourse of political rule within a posited national entity called ‘Germany’ that is the concern of this study. As such, it is a study both of German cultural and political history, which seeks to demonstrate not only a continuity within liberal imperialist discourse stretching from 1848 until beyond 1933,47 but also to demonstrate that, through this component of nationalist discourse, the edifice of liberal nationalist identity came to rest upon the availability of a colonial realm that was perceived as a discursive and material space in which the idea of ‘Germany’ could be established through the prosecution of an imperialist foreign policy.

Concerned with the discourse of imperialism rather than its practice, this study does not intend to chart the actual years of German colonialism, which have become the subject of increasingly sophisticated analysis in recent years.48 Rather, this study

47 In fact, traces of an earlier, liberal imperialism (by this time synonymous with African colonies) can be seen as late as 1943, at which time members of the Reichskolonialbund voiced their opposition to orders from Goebbels that all imperialist propaganda be directed to supporting Eastern expansionism. See BA Berlin NS18/162.pp.31-6, NS18/624.p.6, and particularly NS 18/152.pp.1,12 and NS18/533.pp.3-4. 48 See in particular, the recent works of J Zimmerer and B Kundrus, who have charted both the articulation of colonialism and the slippages between official imperialist discourse and its Introduction 23 will outline the construction and maintenance of an imperialist topos in both the political and cultural spheres precisely in those years in which Germany did not have a colonial empire, so as to demonstrate the way in the idea of and desire for empire interacted with the broader political agenda of Germany’s liberals.

Whereas in the years 1884-1918 the actual, relatively geographically static German colonies played an important political and material role, both in terms of what they offered and what they failed to offer, in the pre- and postcolonial eras, theories of and plans for a German colonialism on a grand scale became increasingly central to the nation-building project of German liberals.49 As both the symbol and guarantor of an ascribed future prosperity and an expanded role in the world, imperialist theory and praxis, marked by naval expansion and private colonial possessions, became a site for the elaboration of the more general expansionist and militaristic tendencies present in German liberalism in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. 50 With Germany’s colonies variously envisaged by liberals as

implementation. J Zimmerer. Deutsche Herrschaft Über Afrikaner. B Kundrus. Moderne Imperialisten. 49 contra HA Winkler. Liberalismus und Antiliberalismus. Studien zur politischen Sozialgeschichte des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen, 1979.p.57. Winkler argues that the terms nationalism and imperialism are largely mutually exclusively. His example of the British case is particularly unconvincing, as new research by Catherine Hall and others has shown. See C Hall. Civilising Subjects. Metropole and Colony in the English Imagination, 1830-1867. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2002. See also J Pitts. A Turn to Empire. The Rise of Imperial Liberalism in Britain and France. Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2005. D Armitage. The Ideological Origins of the British Empire. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2000. 50 On the emerging literature pointing to the importance of military assertiveness to German nationalism and nationalist liberals, see D Langewiesche. ‘Nation, Nationalismus, Nationalstaat: Forschungsstand und Forschungsperspektiven’ Neue Politische Literatur 40. (1995).pp.190-236. See also M Kittel. ‘Abschied vom Völkerfrühling? National- und außenpolitische Vorstellungen Introduction 24 encompassing the entirety of South America, much of Southern Africa and a large portion of China and the islands of the Pacific, it is difficult to characterise these plans as modest and unimportant side projects unrelated to the liberals’ understanding of Germany’s future role in the world. That the actual scope and role of Germany’s colonies were, for German liberals, an eventual disappointment has served to obscure the ideological centrality of expansionism and colonialism to

German liberalism during those periods in which Germany did not have state-run colonies. It would be false to assert that the ultimate modesty of Germany’s overseas colonial empire meant that German liberal imperialists had planned for such a modest empire. Their original, far bolder plans deserve serious attention if the history of German liberalism is to be properly understood.

This desire and drive for empire, rather than the management of an actual empire, therefore constitutes the subject of this thesis. Further discussed will be the way in which imperialism was proffered by liberals as the discursive vehicle for their preferred socio-political metanarrative, that was to supplant its socialist, Catholic and conservative rivals through its breadth of resonance and the materialisation of the hoped for economic and demographic effects. This linkage between imperialism and liberal nation building, it will be argued, is most visible during those periods in

im konstitutionellen Liberalismus 1848/49.’ Historische Zeitschrift 275 (2002).pp.333-383. N Buschmann. Einkreisung und Waffenbruderschaft. Die öffentliche Deutung von Krieg und Nation in Deutschland 1850-1871. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen, 2003. It is important to note that despite the advances made by this literature in demonstrating a more assertive, indeed militarist liberal tradition in Germany, particularly as it related to the rest of Europe, the centrality of colonial imperialism to liberal nationalism remains unexamined. For the importance of militarism to national liberal associations, see especially A Biefang. Politisches Bürgertum in Deutschland 1857-1868: Nationale Organisationen und Eliten. Droste, Düsseldorf, 1994. Introduction 25 which the distracting variable of the fortunes of actual imperialist rule was not a factor.

Equally important as the liberals’ deployment of ‘nationhood,’ garnered from their perception of a notional British model,51 as their preferred manifestation of the state is the fact that their project to establish hegemony over the state was never fully successful. Even as bourgeois cultural forms and politics appeared to have attained some semblance of dominance in the post-unification era,52 this ascendancy was continuously undermined by both internal liberal division and the tenacity of the proponents of rival metanarratives, who continuously reformulated their positions, and in so doing deferred and ultimately denied the consolidation of liberalism’s politico-cultural dominance.

However, whilst the failure of German liberalism to construct a totalising national identity from imperialist discourse was partially due to the refusal of conservatism, political Catholicism and socialism to accept liberalism’s pre-eminence as a privileged ‘encoder’ of social and political meaning for the state, it was also due to the existence of a gap between the limitless possibilities afforded by unbridled liberal and imperialist theorising and the politically and materially constrained conduct of liberal and imperialist forms of praxis. There was, during the nineteenth century, no ‘final moment,’ even when German colonies had been established, in which liberal imperialists could proclaim their definitive triumph, as having seen their national metanarrative become synonymous with the entirety of German

51 D Blackbourn. The Long Nineteenth Century. Fontana Press, London, 1997.p.130. 52 As per Geoff Eley. See for example G Eley. “Society and Politics in Bismarckian Germany,” German History. 15(1), 1997.pp.101-132, esp. pp.131.ff. Introduction 26 national self-perception. Liberals were never entirely successful in definitively positioning their discursive and material priorities as consubstantial with a monolithic, depoliticised ‘national’ agenda. Although able to insinuate a large portion of their political agenda into national politics, liberals, partially through internal divisions and partially as a result of the activities of their rivals, were never able to fully capture the German state and their claims to rule continued to be contested.

This translated into a certain instability in the deliverance of material and political benefits for German liberals via the means of national politics. With the relatively stable liberal discourse of imperialist nationalism constantly and necessarily decanted through the unstable, superordinate contest between conflicting models of governance and social organisation, and as such, through the prevailing material, political and cultural conditions in which this superordinate contest was situated and reproduced,53 a continuous modification of their notion of what imperialism could mean for the German nation and how it should be carried out was necessitated.

Hence, debate existed, between National Liberals and the Progressive Liberals, for example, over whether imperialism should or could be conducted through the state, or, given its uneven results in working towards liberal goals, whether the private sector might not produce more favourable imperialist outcomes, at least in the short to medium term - until liberal hegemony could be realised. Yet this political unevenness never required the giving up of the bedrock conviction that imperialism was integral to the future of a liberal German nation-state.

53 The model here is not one of base-superstructure, but one of symbiosis, in which the material was saturated by the discursive (particularly at the level of official politics), and the discursive was saturated by the material. Introduction 27

With the drive for a national German imperialism unable to be politically actualised by the German nation state, the lack of an empire came to be perceived as a conspicuous deficiency. This absence of empire constituted a point of entry into a wider debate regarding the need for Germans to reject the political status quo and follow an alternate trajectory under the auspices of German liberals. As such, absence and its effects becomes a category of analysis, in that it is possible to trace how the physical absence of empire manifested itself as an historical driving force that was intimately linked with the uneven, sometimes frustrated but largely successful ascension of liberalism as the dominant politico-cultural force behind the drive towards the construction of the German nation-state as a Weltmacht.

In part, this also helps explain that what was understood at various times as constituting an imperialist project became in the long term a sprawling set of ideas that at times competed and at times were viewed as perfectly compatible. Trading colonies based on mercantile imperatives, and the more Malthusian, emigration oriented projects of ‘inner’ (Eastern) colonisation, independent and private-sector settler colonisation, state-directed settler colonisation, and assisted and protected emigration, as well as naval power, and missionary activity were all at different times seen as competing and as complementary forms of German liberal imperialism. The minute shifts in how these variant forms of imperialist praxis were posited over time defy any theoretical or schematic formulation,54 grounded as they

54 Contra W Smith. The Ideological Origins of Nazi Imperialism. Oxford University Press, New York, 1986. This intellectual terrain can most certainly be mapped and explained, but not reified into a schematic and ideologically determined subdivision of nineteenth and twentieth century imperialist theory. Categories such as ‘Weltpolitik’ and ‘Lebensraum’ were not so much competing Introduction 28 were in the contingencies of political happenstance and the personal preferences of the individual imperialist theorist or practitioner. With each theorist or practitioner delineating anew the parameters of a nascent liberal Germany’s international power, the resonance of imperialism was enhanced as a robust, combative, teleologically- driven discourse that articulated a range of future national modalities within an umbrella category of ‘imperialist liberal nation.’ It is partly the flexibility afforded by this apparently heterodox cacophony of options within German imperialist discourse itself, as wide-ranging expressions of liberalism’s imperialist nationalism, that enabled it to compete so effectively against rival metanarratives. Stable in terms of the commonality and durability of the central identifying tropes of the discourse, its relative fluidity in terms of the complexion of the various suggestions for its actual implementation made it difficult for rivals to attack the discourse in its entirety.55

imperialisms as divergent branches of liberal imperialism. The exaggerated differentiation between the two has more to do with a post-World War Two desire to place a degree of intellectual distance between a Europe-focused imperialism and overseas imperialism. Perhaps important correctives here are the insights of both Hannah Arendt and Frantz Fanon regarding the linkages between colonial imperialism and fascism. See A Eckert. “Namibia – ein deutscher Sonderweg in Afrika? Anmerkungen zur internationalen Diskussion” in J Zimmerer & J Zeller. Völkermord in Deutsch- Südwestafrika: Der Kolonialkrieg (1904-1908) in Namibia und seine Folgen. Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin, 2003.pp.232,236. Both Weltpolitik and Lebensraum were policies that sought to allow the nation to expand its markets and its supply of raw materials by force, whilst providing a destination for emigration that would allow the emigrants’ labour to be maintained within the colonising nation’s economy. 55 The variety of projects described as ‘imperialist’ should make it clear that the definition of imperialism used here includes those forms of ‘informal empire’ discussed in J Gallagher & R Robinson. “The Imperialism of Free Trade” Economic History Review. 2nd Series, 6(1), 1953.pp.1- 15. Introduction 29

This heterodoxy in the forms of nineteenth century German liberal imperialism requires detailed charting, in order to demonstrate that, firstly, far from beginning with Bismarck’s telegram to South African Consul Lippert on the 24th of April

1884, German imperialism had its origins in the very roots of the nineteenth century liberal nationalist agenda.56 Secondly, it is necessary to illustrate the fact that, despite this apparent heterodoxy, the multifarious manifestations of imperialism, whether governmental or non-governmental, coalesced to comprise, in material terms, a foreign policy direction that would bind the lands of the colonial periphery to the political, economic and cultural requirements and priorities of a united, industrialised, capitalist Germany. Culturally speaking, in so doing, imperialism simultaneously incorporated and defined these lands as a site for the processes necessitated by the formulation of a distinctively liberal conception of German statehood as co-essential with nationalism and a hypertrophic expansionism.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

With regard to conceptualisations of nations and nationalism, Ernest Gellner’s insight that nations are in essence modern phenomena is yet to be convincingly refuted. Similarly, the statement that “it is nationalism that engenders nations, and not the other way round”57 constitutes a cornerstone to this study. Nations in general, and Germany in particular, should not be considered as autochthonous

56 Bismarck’s telegram to Lippert read “Nach Mitteilungen des Herrn Lüderitz zweifeln die Kolonialbehörden, ob seine Erwerbungen nördlich des Oranseflusses auf deutschen Schutz Anspruch haben. Sie wollen amtlich erklären, daß er und seine Niederlassungen unter dem Schutze des Reiches stehen.” Cited in F Linde. Bismarck: Größe und Grenze seines Reiches. Dieterich’schen Verlagsbuchhandlung, Leipzig, 1939.p.348. 57 E Gellner. Nations and Nationalism. Blackwell Publishers, Oxford, 1983.p.55. Introduction 30 outgrowths of a landscape and timeless heritage, whose vitality lies dormant until summonsed by history.58 Rather, groups, who for a variety of reasons see their interests as being best served by their existence, call nations into being through self- consciously ‘nationalist’ endeavours.59 Without being utterly random formations, nations are nonetheless consciously contrived entities, which, as John Breuilly has argued, arise both as “a matter of contingency and part of a more general pattern of development.”60

As Homi Bhabha has argued, these nations are often based on the obligation to forget past and present social ruptures, differences and divides rather than any profound, totalising or nation-necessitating bond.61 In Germany, where liberal exhortations for a nation-state stemmed from discernible material interests generated by modernisation - interests that had a limited, even negative impact on other segments of German society - both the contingency of the nation-state’s actual contours62 and the obligation to forget social and material differences within the nation were especially pronounced.

58 For an illustration of this point, see Hagen Schulze’s Gibt es überhaupt eine deutsche Geschichte? Siedler, Berlin, 1989. Perhaps unwittingly, Schulze demonstrates the heterogeneity and instability of the constructed nation. 59 Hence Hagen Schulze’s “Nationalbewegung.” H Schulze. Der Weg zum Nationalstaat. Die deutsche Nationalbewegung vom 18. Jahrhundert bis zur Reichsgründung. Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, München, 1985.p.2. 60 J Breuilly. The Formation of the First German Nation-State, 1800-1871. Macmillan, London, 1996.p.2. Breuilly of course holds that the German nation-state preceded German nationalism. Nationalversammlung. See ibid. p.113. 61 H Bhabha. “DissemiNation” in HK Bhabha (ed.). Nation and Narration. Routledge, London, 1990.pp.310-311. 62 J Breuilly. Formation of the First German Nation-State.p.11. Introduction 31

It is the attempt to overcome this contingency and these differences, via the construction of a seemingly coherent, totalising narrative of ‘nationhood,’ upon which all could agree, that is alluded to in the phrase ‘nationalist discourse.’ Those that viewed themselves as sharing a specific identifying aspect of culture or economic purpose, as in the case of Germany’s liberals, and who continuously manipulated and modified the significance of this shared identifier, via their interaction with one another (and with external others that negatively defined their identity), in order to proffer this shared identifier as a precondition for belonging to an idealised nation-state (whether one partially pre-existing as post-1866, post-

Mainlinie Germany arguably was, or one that was yet to be delineated) can be said to have been involved in the assemblage and maintenance of a nationalist discourse.

Nationalism then is the attempt to assert the pre-eminence of (pragmatically but nevertheless contingently) selected strands of regional geography, economics or

(usually linguistically defined) culture as the most important in the realisation of an aggregate identity.63 In the case of Germany, it can be seen as a deliberate, tactical conflation of a peculiarly liberal identity with the identity of the entire polity. The liberal project was to ensure that these strands of nationalist identification were (at least tacitly) accepted as being of sufficient importance to allow the populace to accede to being organised and ruled in their name.

In this sense, nationalist rule was to require at least a nominally popular aspect in so far as the dominant element of society must not have actively rejected the discursive edifice that was to constitute the organising principles of the nation. As

63 Craig Calhoun suggests as much, in his argument that “we treat nationalism first as a discursive formation.” C Calhoun. Nationalism. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1997.p.22. Introduction 32

August Ludwig von Rochau64 pointed out, when government ceased to reflect the hegemonic communal identity, the only recourse was to coercion, with its concomitant long-term instability and ultimate unsustainability.

The model of German nationalism offered here is one in which social and material power was diffused amongst old and new social forces; but where nationalist pressures were concentrated specifically within the ascendant middle classes. The imagery of rule liberals demanded contained ideological, cultural, linguistic and, thanks to imperialist thought and praxis, racial components. In many ways, its precise composition was largely irrelevant – what was important was the breadth of its resonance amongst, and its concurrence with the objectives of those who increasingly came to set the tone of German society. It is this notion of resonance and concurrence that Ernest Renan referred to when he stated “A nation’s existence is… a daily plebiscite.”65 Alternatively, as Timothy Brennan, like Calhoun has pointed out, this construction and establishment of a hegemonic configuration of nationalism might profitably be seen as a ‘discursive formation,’66 whereby mythologised commonalities were instrumentalised in the process of forming a political entity that reflected a desired form of social organisation– in Germany’s case, the liberal assertion of the nation-state.

In the German case, the liberal formulation of nationalism was underpinned by the discourse of imperialism, which acted as liberalism’s central mythopoeic engine,

64 LA von Rochau. Grundsätze der Realpolitik.Ullstein, Frankfurt, 1972.pp.32-33. See in particular his theory of the power of “die öffentliche Meinung.” 65 E Renan. “What is a Nation?” in HK Bhabha (ed.) Nation and Narration. p.19. Bhabha quotes this passage in his own work in this volume, “DissemiNation.” p.310. 66 T Brennan. “The National Longing for Form” in HK Bhabha (ed). Nation and Narration.p.46. Introduction 33 both as an envisioned foreign policy programme and as a domestic gesture of nascent liberal material power. This mythos of imperialism, the discursive embodiment of German liberals’ attempt to define national identity through reference to the German struggle in and against the alterity of the extra-European world, was a discursive project that stretched at least from the 1840’s until beyond the Nazi Machtergreifung.

It is worth pointing out that the inextricable links between Germany’s liberal nationalism and liberal imperialism were largely a product of the double edged example of British liberalism that, as recent scholarship attests, had seamlessly blended the two concepts.67 Just as British constitutionalism, its status as a

Rechtsstaat, its outwardly directed trade economy and its political liberalism were objects of admiration, so too were its naval power and imperial possessions, which were viewed by German liberals as underpinning Britain’s political and economic successes. The equation between extra-European colonies supported by irresistible naval power and the affluence and political ascendancy of the liberal middle classes was a seductive one for German liberals, who sought to reproduce this success in their own country.

However this attempt to import the British path to modernity was also tinged with a strong competitive spirit that simultaneously viewed British successes as directly

67 On this see C Hall. Civilising Subjects. Metropole and Colony in the English Imagination, 1830-1867. See also J Pitts. A Turn to Empire. The Rise of Imperial Liberalism in Britain and France. D Armitage. The Ideological Origins of the British Empire. For an interesting comparison between the English and German cases in a slightly later period, see S Neitzel. Weltmacht oder Untergang. Die Weltreichslehre im Zeitalter des Imperialismus. Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn, 1999. Introduction 34 affecting Germany’s chances at reproducing them herself. With every colony

Britain adopted, German liberals saw themselves as increasingly locked out of the extra-European world. German admiration for Britain’s global role and prosperity was often more akin to envy and the notion of competition was also close to one of rivalry- even hostility.68 It was all of these contradicting attitudes and influences that German liberals brought to their nation-building task.

Yet to be answered is the question of in what way the emergence of nationalism was a distinctly modern state of affairs. Broadly speaking, it was its interconnectedness with the disruption caused to the traditional social patterns of agrarian society by nascent industrialisation that sees it as essentially modern. As the processes of modernisation in the mid-nineteenth century pitted new, proto- industrial modes of production against an agrarian sector under enormous strain,69 a concomitant social and cultural redefinition occurred, in which “rival cultures

[were] struggling to capture the souls of men.”70 Earlier demographic and labour patterns were replaced with competing forms, as social dislocation and distress accompanied the agrarian crisis.71 Simultaneously, social identities were altered, as an increasingly self-conscious bourgeoisie and an embryonic proletariat began to emerge.72 German politics too became a “striking juxtaposition of old and new.”73

68 Hence Lothar Gall’s notion that with regard to German liberalism “Im Letzten erschien hier nicht die Freiheit, sondern die Macht als höchster Zwech eines Gemeinwesens.” See L Gall ‘Liberalismus uns auswärtige Politik.’p.45. 69 D Blackbourn. The Long Nineteenth Century.pp.112-117. 70 C Calhoun. Nationalism.p.40 71 D Blackbourn. The Long Nineteenth Century.pp.120-121. 72 ibid.pp.118-120. 73 ibid.p.120. Introduction 35

This amounted to a movement towards what Wilhelm Heinrich Riehl declared in

1851 to be “bürgerliche Gesellschaft.”74

This social change, engendered by a nascent modernity, confounded the utilisation of political power as executed in earlier states and necessarily gave rise to new forms of political organisation. The notion of the state as a political entity that was the personal possession of a sovereign gave way to that of the “bureaucratic state”75 and eventually to that of a nation as an ‘imagined community,’ whose self-image was continuously reiterated through print media, as theorised by Benedict

Anderson76 as well as through the self-consciously patriotic practices of civil society.77 In terms of origins, the frames of reference for the new nation-state were drawn from the social logic underpinning the emerging, visibly oppositional, middle-class, and predominantly liberal elements of society.78

Part of this process of forging a distinctly national identity (as opposed to the regional, confessional, class or gender identity that the national was meant to supersede) included the delineation of a national mission that gave the national community a sense of teleological importance. It is in this respect that German

74 Quoted in J Sheehan. German History.pp.793-794. 75 D Blackbourn. The Long Nineteenth Century.pp.98-99. 76 B Anderson. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism. Verso, London, 1983.pp15-16. On the role of print capitalism in Germany, see the discussion of Die Gartenlaube below. 77 D Blackbourn. The Long Nineteenth Century.pp.124-25. On the role of the Nationalverein, see Chapter Four. 78 ibid. p.130. See also G Eley on the ‘embourgeoisement’ of Wilhelmine Germny as an example of a change in the way in which an industrialising society ‘imagined’, or rather presented itself. G Eley. From Unification to Nazism: Reinterpreting the German Past. Allen & Unwin, Boston,1986.p.11 Introduction 36 liberal imperialism can be seen as of historical significance, as the proffered vehicle of liberal Germany’s unifying national teleology. Contrary to the views of

Hildebrand, Nipperdey and WJ Mommsen, from the inception of a particularly liberal metanarrative of ‘Germany,’ in the Vormärz years, the German state was defined by liberals in terms of its international complexion – how it, as a nation, would act upon the world stage, how it would discharge its Weltaufgabe.

As Geoff Eley has convincingly argued, and both the Bielefeld and Frankfurt investigations into the nature of, and relationship between, Germany’s Bürgertum and liberalism have illustrated,79 there can be no immediate correlation made between liberalism as a political form and the bourgeoisie as a social class,80 however some of the problems of discussing the two in unison can be partially alleviated by disentangling from the concept ‘liberalism’ those ideal-type abstractions that both Eley and Lothar Gall have argued are essentially undesirable ossifications of an intrinsically fluid discourse,81 and it arguable that there remains room for an analysis that demonstrates lines of overlap and commonality between the two. If German liberalism is viewed in terms of the evident and professed

79 On the two competing research projects, see especially J Sperber. “Bürger, Bürgertum, Bürgerlichkeit, Bürgerliche Gesellschaft: Studies of the (Upper) Middle Class and Its Sociocultural World.” in JMH 69 (2), 1997.pp.271-297. See also Celia Applegate’s book review of some of the results of Gall’s Frankfurt project in JMH. 71(2) 1999.pp.492-496. 80 D Blackbourn & G Eley. The Peculiarities of German History. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1984.pp.75ff. 81 Eley points to the way in which liberalism as a political discourse was mediated by the disparate social and economic priorities of its adherents. Peculiarities of German History.p.77. Lothar Gall has similarly remonstrated against the tendency of historians to measure liberals against the theoretical construct ‘liberalism’ precisely as a means of pointing out their deficiencies without reference to the context within which liberals, as historical agents, were situated. L Gall. “Sündenfall des liberalen Denkens.”p.148. Introduction 37 actions and motivations of self-confessed German ‘liberals,’ enacting policy according to their material interests on the one hand and the dictates of compromise necessitated by the political process on the other, without the imposition of an overly schematised conceptual edifice, a clearer picture of liberalism emerges, as a concrete political assemblage, realised by groups of engaged individuals who individually and collectively claimed ‘liberalism’ for themselves; a liberalism that did in fact maintain an affinity with the material, cultural and political objectives of the Wirtschaftsbürgertum.82 As such, as David Blackbourn has argued, “There is... good reason to talk of German bourgeois liberalism,” as the product of a relationship between bourgeois material interests, socio-cultural norms and liberal politics.83

Clearly, liberalism, or for that matter numerous liberalisms had sprouted and changed between 1848 and the Nazi Machtergreifung, and it becomes difficult to trace a single necessary condition to which all self-professed liberals adhered, as commitments to such things as free trade and protectionism came and went and as

82 H Kiesewetter. “Economic Preconditions for Germany’s Nation-Building in the Nineteenth Century.” in H Schulze. Nation-Building in Central Europe. Berg, Leamington Spa, 1987.pp.81-105. As Kiesewetter makes clear, this is not an argument for the economic necessity of liberal nationalism, in the manner that Helmut Böhme has argued for (Deutschlands Weg zur Großmacht.Studien zum Verhältnis von Wirtschaft und Staat während der Reichsgründungzeit 1848- 1881. Köln, 1966.pp.249-50. ) Rather it is an argument that posits political, cultural and material conditions as favouring a liberalism that was nationalist in nature. See also H Seier. “Liberalismus und Bürgertum im Mitteleuropa 1850-1880. Forschung und Literatur seit 1970.” in L Gall. Bürgetum und bürgerlich-liberale Bewegung im Mitteleuropa seit dem 18. Jahrhundert. R Oldenbourg Verlag, München, 1997.p.228. a “gewissene Affinität zwischen ‘bürgerlich’ und ‘liberal’ ist auch hinfort noch auszugehen.” 83 D Blackbourn. “The German Bourgeoisie: An Introduction.” in D Blackbourn & RJ Evans (eds.) The German Bourgeoisie: Essays on the Social History of the German Middle Class from the late Eighteenth to the early Twentieth Century. Routledge, London, 1991.p. 18. Introduction 38 liberalism underwent a seismic shift as it was transformed from an oppositional movement to a governing force.84 What is interesting however is the frequency with which expansionist politics were posited as central to a liberal Weltanschauung over the course of the nineteenth century by Germany’s Wirtschaftsbürgertum,85 as the

Britain-inspired linkages between international trade, imperialism, national prosperity and liberal political hegemony were increasingly perceived by liberals as irrefutable.

Yet the Wirtschaftsbürgertum, were not the sole constituent element of liberalism’s social base, nor was their political role in liberal politics always a determinant one.

As Eley has further argued,86 the educated bourgeoisie, the ‘professoriate’ comprising the Bildungsbürgertum played a pivotal role in the delineation and enacting of liberal culture and politics. As that section of liberal society professionally engaged in the elaboration and transmission of culture, their role in furthering liberal aims cannot be overestimated, particularly when assessing the gradual processes leading to the liberal cultural hegemony that was a precondition for the construction of Riehl’s bürgerliche Gesellschaft.

84 ibid. p.21. See also A Biefang. Politisches Bürgertum in Deutschland 1857-1868. Nationale Organisationen und Eliten. Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf, 1994. On the problem of the various interpretations of the terms liberalism and Bürgerlichkeit see J Kocka. “Bürgertum und bürgerliche Gesellschaft im 19. Jahrhundert. Europäische Entwicklungen und deutsche Eigenarten.’ in J Kocka (Hg). Bürgertum im 19. Jahrhundert. Deutschland in europäischen Vergleich. (Band I). Deutscher Tashenbuch Verlag, München, 1988. J Sperber. ‘Bürger, Bürgertum, Bürgerlichkeit, Bürgerliche Gesellschaft: Studies of the German (Upper) Middle Class and its Sociocultural World’ Journal of Modern History 69 (June 1997).pp.271-297. See also J Leonhard . Liberalismus. Zur historischen Semantik eines europäischen Deutungsmuster. Oldenbourg, München, 2001. 85 Not only in the nineteenth century. See for example Hans Grimm in the Weimar era. See Ch.8. 86 Eley. Peculiarities of German History.p.76. Introduction 39

Although not completely co-extensive with liberalism as a movement, Germany’s

Wirtschaftsbürgertum and its Bildungsbürgertum will comprise the two sectors of liberal German society that this study will scrutinise,87 in order to demonstrate the relatively harmonious relationship between the two when it came to the issue of an expansionist national foreign policy. Imperialism, as an integrative discourse uniting the disparate elements comprising liberal circles, operated throughout the nineteenth century as a (not always successful) means of overcoming differing liberal perspectives on issues such as free trade and protectionism, the role of

Prussia and the shape of the German nation. Coupled with nationalism, imperialism was proffered as a point of unity, firstly for German liberals and secondly for the nation that they were attempting to forge.88

In terms of la longue durée, Germany’s era of actual state-sanctioned overseas imperialism appears at a glance to be one of the great dead-ends of history.

Spanning barely thirty years and influencing a mere handful of regions, Germany was always very much a second tier colonial power. As such, it is not difficult to over-emphasise the material importance of Germany’s state-run colonies. However, imperialism was experienced, at least vicariously, through texts and political discussion by a far greater part of the German population, before, during and after

Germany was actually engaged in colonising activities, than were actually involved in its mechanics. Furthermore, those involved in imperialist projects belonged to a

87 This is in accordance with JJ Sheehan’s view of the composition of Germany’s liberal parties. See German Liberalism.pp.80-83. 88 On the role of external expansion in the liberals’ nation-building project, see also L Gall. ‘Liberalismus und auswärtige Politik.’ pp.42-45. Introduction 40 privileged social milieu that was able to exercise a great degree of influence over the affairs of the entire nation.

Herein lay the historical importance of German imperialism and its texts for

Germany society, as a topos or site through which the domestic contestation of identity, cultural hegemony and politico-material dominance could be pursued.

Without arguing the absurdity that Germany’s actual colonies and events there were immaterial to German colonialism, for many Germans, and particularly for many liberal Germans, colonial undertakings and a German naval capacity were significant as much for their domestic metaphorical resonances, their congruence with a liberal imagery of rule and its correspondence to the vision of a modern, industrial and worldly Germany as for any material benefits that might accrue from their establishment.89 A German imperialist foreign policy meant more than mere

‘prestige’ – it was a deep-seated founding symbol of the liberal German nation and its arrival into the world. It is this that is meant by the notion of liberal imperialism’s mythopoeic function.

An investigation into the teleological underpinning of the texts of imperialism necessitates an understanding of the social context within which these texts appeared. An assumption of this study is that the teleology and central tropes of

German imperialist discourse both reflected and profoundly affected the material and political facts of the era in which they were situated, in particular with regard to

89 By material benefits it is meant the short-term economic gain generated by the exploitation of colonial resources, as well as the long-term material benefits that stood to be accrued if German liberals managed to assert their social and cultural hegemony within Germany, thereby enabling them to define the national interest in terms of their own specific class interests. Introduction 41 liberal concerns regarding the nature of the ‘German national mission’. As such, imperialist discourse was only partially oneiric, being affected by and having an effect upon the material world in which it came to be situated. That is, the narratives of German imperialism were both firmly embedded in the existing broader socio- political fabric of their temporal context, as well as able to operate as active agents in its transformation. 90 During both the pre-colonial and post-colonial eras, literary and non-literary texts, political discussions and private colonial initiatives were instrumental in the transformation of relatively amorphous strands of imperialist discourse into broader social realities – such as the eventual political enacting of imperialism and anti-imperialism, liberalism and anti-liberalism.

This contextualising of texts and political discussions, whilst hardly an innovation, is approached here somewhat differently from the usual means employed by

Germany’s historiographers, in that it uses, at least partially, the insights afforded by postcolonial studies. Narratives about external, and, from the European perspective, peripheral lands have been studied so as to illustrate the intrinsically domestic preoccupations operating within them. Put simply, the importance of deconstructing these texts, ostensibly about the external world, lies in their construction of social meaning within Germany, which is important not merely for

90 This approach owes much to the medievalist Gabrielle Spiegel, who has described it as a search for the ‘social logic’ of texts. She has argued for “seeing textuality as both arising from and constitutive of social life, which it seeks to endow with meaning” G Spiegel “History, Historicism and the Social Logic of the Text in the Middle Ages.” Speculum,65 (1990).p.85. This is also in line with Edward Said’s theory that “texts are worldly, to some degree they are events, and even when they appear to deny it, they are nevertheless a part of the social world, human life”. E Said. The World, the Text and the Critic. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Mass., 1983.p.4. This is neither an exclusively idealist or materialist narration of the past, but one that seeks to integrate the two approaches. Introduction 42 nineteenth century German colonists or those interested in the seemingly antiquarian issue of colonial policy in the nineteenth century, but for all historians interested in the role of an objectified alterity in the forging of a liberal German nation.

Whilst this study is based in part on original archival research, elements of the empirical material have been discussed before. However, this study attempts to look at both the freshly discovered and previously presented primary materials not so much as a series of unrelated, exemplar cases of imperialist discourse or praxis, but rather as inextricably linked interventions in a continuous discursive tradition that spanned a century. By presenting each imperialist theorist or practitioner as illustrative of liberal imperialism’s longevity and importance in the construction of a liberal German nation, this study seeks to offer a long-term, cumulative view, whereby the intertextual and self referential nature of German liberal imperialist discourse between the early 1840s and the early 1940s might become more apparent.

In instrumentalising imperialist discourse and action, German liberals attempted to satiate what Horst Gründer has described as a nationalist Identitätssehnsucht91 via the discourse and praxis of empire, and its concomitant project of racial hegemony.

As such, liberal imperialism saw the institutionalisation of imperial Herrschaft and of cultural and racial superiority, (represented as benevolent stewardship or education of ‘lesser peoples’) as opposed to language frontiers and tradition as the foremost identifiers of German identity. Increasingly, German identity was

91 H Gründer. Geschichte der deutschen Kolonien. Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn, 1985.p.30. Introduction 43 delineated with reference to a colonial alterity,92 as represented through the texts of a burgeoning imperialist literature and defined in relation to the broader ‘civilising’ mission of Europeans.

As an effective discursive means of supporting the hegemony of the liberal formulation of the nation-state, and as the embodiment of the nationalist liberal metanarrative and epistemology of rule, imperialist discourse reveals far more than a series of individual ponderings over peripheral parcels of land in Africa, America,

Asia and the Pacific. The colonies themselves have been perceived as a marginal part of German territory, however, the texts and discussions they engendered and the discursive space they occupied spoke far above their material weight, in so far as they provided a national discourse of imperialism that was instrumental in the ascendancy of German liberalism. The politico-cultural ascendancy of imperialism is an example of the process of embourgeoisement that German society underwent, a process that was at least partially a product of the liberal objectification of alterity.

92 See B Kundrus. Moderne Imperialisten: Das Kaiserreich im Spiegel seiner Kolonien. Böhlau Verlag, Köln, 2003. p.16-17. Part One: A Liberal Empire for a Liberal Nation. National Unification and Global Expansion 45

Chapter One.

National Unification and Global Expansion: Germany’s Liberal Imperialists at

the Frankfurt Assembly of 1848 – 1849.

Contrary to Wolfgang Mommsen’s assertion that German liberal imperialism was a

late- nineteenth century deviation from liberalism’s true ideals,1 German liberals had,

by 1848 reached a broad consensus that colonial imperialism was an integral part of

any liberal foreign policy and an integral element of a liberal postulation of German

national identity. Competing with conservative, Catholic and socialist envisionings of

Germany, the liberals of the 1848 period drew upon the heterogeneous imperialist

theoretics of the previous two decades in order to assemble an imperialist foreign

policy agenda, as a form of demarcation between themselves and the advocates of

competing metanarratives of German statehood.

That this demarcation was necessary was a result of the general fluidity in the

typologies of German nationhood proffered by the adherents to rival metanarratives

of the as yet unsubstantiated concept of ‘Germany.’ As Brian Vick has recently

argued, in the revolutionary period, the various prototypical formulations of

nationhood within the German speaking regions of Europe had by no means

coalesced around a single, consolidated doctrine or ideology that could be spoken of

1 W Mommsen. “Wandlungen der liberalen Idee.”p.109ff. National Unification and Global Expansion 46

as a unified concept of ‘German nationalism.’2 Instead, as a contested field, the

discourse of German national identity came to be situated not only within the clash of

radically democratic, liberal, and conservative Germans, but also within the context

of intra-liberal debate and the broader contestations for political, economic and

cultural hegemony being fought out in Central Europe between Prussia and the

Habsburg Empire, as well as the states of the ‘third Germany’ that to a greater or

lesser extent fell into their competing spheres of influence.

Explicit in the textual products and political discourse of the liberal bourgeoisie of the

1840’s was the view that expansionism offered a mechanism for constructing, uniting

and identifying a new liberal German nation. Similarly, expansionism was viewed in

part as an answer to, rather than a deflection of, the so-called ‘Sozialfrage’ – what

was to be done to address the needs of those who had experienced the social

dislocation brought about by Germany’s move away from a rural economy, towards

an urban, industrial social model? Importantly, it was seen neither as an opportunity

to divert the populace away from the social problems inherent in the shift to

modernity, nor an attempt to have Germans believe that the social question did not

exist or that it was of lesser importance. Rather it was an attempt to solve these

problems via what was seen as a valid use of economic and social planning.3

2 BE Vick. Defining Germany: The 1848 Frankfurt Parliamentarians and National Identity. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 2002.pp.1-3. 3 This solution was eventually termed ‘social imperialism’ – whiich, it should be pointed out, is not the same as Hans Ulrich Wehler’s use of the term. See G Eley. “Defining Social Imperialism: Use and Abuse of an Idea.” Social History 3, Oct.1976.pp.265-290. National Unification and Global Expansion 47

This form of justification for an expansionist foreign policy was already a liberal

commonplace by 1848. As an overly verbose Johann Tellkampf bemoaned the lack of

German colonies at the Frankfurt National Assembly in Frankfurt’s St Paul’s Church,

Assembly President Heinrich von Gagern testily complained that Tellkampf was

expostulating on a subject already well understood by the assembled delegates. The

Frankfurt Assembly, von Gagern proclaimed, was already well aware of the argument

for a policy of state-channelled emigration, courtesy of a corpus of pro-colonial

literature that predated the Assembly. Books, he asserted, had been written on the

subject for over twenty years.4 As such the honourable gentleman was clearly wasting

the Assembly’s time with his recapitulation of their contents and yet another rehearsal

of the pro-colonial position.

The Vormärz works to which von Gagern referred, as Alexandra Lübcke has recently

argued, belonged to German pro-colonial theorists who had attempted to nationalise

and thereby control emigration, so that it could be directed and planned in accordance

with the material and social interests of a unified German nation.5 In these early

stages of establishing the discursive parameters of German imperialism, colonial

theorists came to elide the burgeoning discourses of nationalism and imperialism.

4 F Wigard (ed). Stenographischer Bericht über die Verhandlungen der deutschen constituirenden Nationalversammlung zu Frankfurt a.M. (Sten.Ber.). Frankfurt aM. 1848. Vol. II,p.1057. 5 A Lübcke. “Welch ein Unterschied aber zwischen Europa und hier…” Diskurstheoretische Überlegungen zu Nation, Auswanderung und kultureller Geschlechteridentität anhand von Briefen deutscher Chileauswanderinnen des 19. Jahrhunderts. Frankfurt aM, 2003. pp.75-78. See also S Zantop’s notion of a “nationalist-colonialist ideology.” Colonial Fantasies. Conquest, Family, and Nation in Precolonial Germany, 1770-1870. Durham, 1997.p.8. National Unification and Global Expansion 48

Pre-1848 works such as those of Heinrich von Gagern’s father, Hans Christoph von

Gagern, as well as those of Friedrich List and Hermann Blumenau6 had helped build

a corpus of literature exhorting Germans to unite and create a colonial empire,

stressing the complementary nature of the two projects. Many liberal of this period,

when discussing the necessity of the nation-state, couched their arguments in terms of

the need to expand German control of overseas territories as a means of alleviating

internal population pressures, just as Blumenau’s editor Johann Wappäus did in his

view that, “Allem Anschein nach steht die Zeit nahe, wo die planmäßige Leitung der

deutschen Auswanderung als eine Nationalsache wird aufgefaßt werden.”7

However, as important as the early textual renderings of imperialism were, the first

concrete political steps towards imperialism came with the incorporation of

imperialist longings into the nation building undertaking of the 1848 Frankfurt

Nationalversammlung, at which, amongst other business such as the construction of a

national constitution and the delineation of powers and national borders, motions

pertaining to the construction and maintenance of a naval fleet as well as the

systematic direction and protection of emigration were debated and passed.

If the discussions that took place in Frankfurt in 1848/49 are anything to go by, the

Assembly’s largely liberal politicians did indeed view the issues of directed

6 See Chapter Two. 7 JE Wappäus “Vorwort” in H Blumenau. Deutsche Auswanderung und Colonisation. Leipzig, 1846.p.iv, quoted in A Lübcke. Welch ein Unterschied.pp.75-76. See also HC von Gagern. Fernerer Versuch, politische Ideen zu berichtigen. Vol III – Der Deutschen Auswanderung. Gebrüdern Wilmans, Frankfurt aM, 1817. National Unification and Global Expansion 49

emigration and the not unrelated issue of bolstering Germany’s military presence

around the world as urgent priorities. With its creation of a national navy, together

with its discussion of establishing overseas settler and trade colonies for German

emigrants, the Assembly could be seen as having asserted a distinctively liberal

foreign policy, whose character could without exaggeration be described as

imperialist. Even given the additional agreement of the Cafe Milani’s reformist

conservatives, who comprised approximately six percent of the Assembly, and the

Donnersberg Hof’s radical democrats, who comprised approximately seven percent of

the Assembly, the expansionist foreign policy formulated in Frankfurt can with

justification be seen as policy that met with the approval of an overwhelmingly liberal

body – as a policy that represented common ground between “constitutionalist-

liberals” and “democratic liberals.”8

The historical importance of this early bürgerlich imperialism in the establishing of a

long term expansionist current within German liberalism is worthy of examination.

Highlighting its long term effects, Gustav Stresemann later said of early German

liberalism and its imperialist policies that they moved an entire generation of liberals,

including the young Stresemann, into supporting an expansionist foreign policy. For

Germany’s future liberal leaders, liberalism, as defined for them by the Paulskirche

8 On the composition of the Nationalversammlung, see W Siemann. The German Revolution of 1848-49. (trans. C Banerji). Macmillan, London, 1998.pp.123-126, 191. National Unification and Global Expansion 50

debates, was to be ‘the champion of the German fleet, of German unity, and of

German greatness.’9

Despite this, historians of liberalism such as Wolfgang Mommsen have asserted that,

far from an influential current within liberalism, liberal imperialism was a late

nineteenth century deviation from liberalism’s true ideals, occurring only as German

liberals became ensnared in the political machinations of Bismarck, a result of their

attempts, “ihre gesellschaftlichen Ideale an jenen der adligen Oberschicht zu

orientieren...”10 Other historians, such as Thomas Nipperdey and Klaus Hildebrand

have largely ignored the strength of early liberal imperialist sentiment, attempting

instead to quarantine liberalism from imperialism, viewing the origins of German

colonial imperialism as essentially stemming from the immediate political conditions

of the 1880s.11 Dieter Langewiesche and James Sheehan have remained similarly

mute on the subject of imperialism in their otherwise comprehensive accounts of

early German liberalism.12

9 G Stresemann. “A Fragment of Autobiography” in E Sutton (ed.) Gustav Stresemann. His Diaries, Letters and Papers. Vol I, London, 1935.p.5. See also p.13: Stresemann’s enthusiasm for naval expansion and colonialism was such that he was warned against speaking too much about the subject when he ran for the Reichstag at the age of twenty-nine. 10 WJ Mommsen. “Wandlungen der liberalen Idee im Zeitalter des Imperialismus” in K Holl & G List. Liberalismus und imperialisitischer Staat: Der Imperialismus als Problem liberaler Parteien in Deutschland 1890-1914, Göttingen, 1975.pp.109ff, p.119. 11 T Nipperdey. Deutsche Geschichte 1866-1918. Zweiter Band: Machtstaat vor der Demokratie. München, 1992.p.286ff. K Hildebrand. Deutsche Aussenpolitik 1871-1918. Enzyklopädie Deutscher Geschichte Band 2. München, 1989. pp.15-16. 12 D Langewiesche. Liberalism in Germany. (trans. C Banerji), Princeton 2000. J Sheehan. German Liberalism in the Nineteenth Century. Chicago 1983. National Unification and Global Expansion 51

Perhaps a product perhaps of post-World War Two attempts to construct liberalism as

a metanarrative free of the taint of imperialism,13 this analytical paradigm ignores the

deep linkages between the proffering of imperialism as a mode of foreign policy

during the 1840s and the simultaneous attempts to construct a liberal German nation.

Taking refuge in Sonderweg notions of a failed and feudalised nineteenth century

liberalism, most accounts begin with a ‘Bismarckian’ Kolonialpolitik as an outgrowth

of a posited liberal capitulation during the mid 1880s.14 Others see in imperialism a

defensive means of preserving the socio-political status quo of Germany’s

‘conservative utopia’ through the diversion of disruptive social pressures abroad.15

Despite the post-war utility of theories advancing the weakness of nineteenth century

German liberalism, there exists a great deal of documentary evidence to suggest that

the German imperialism of the 1880s was a direct outgrowth of the earlier, self-

13 On the historians’ contribution to post-1945 nation building, see WJ Mommsen “The Return to the Western Tradition. German Historiography since 1945.” German Historical Institute, Washington DC, Occasional Paper 4, quoted in G Minnerup. “Review Article: Postmodernism and German History.” Debatte. Vol 11 (2), 2003.p.209. Of his generation, Mommsen wrote, “They were guided by the conviction that the new Germany could survive only if the conventional authoritarian and anti-liberal interpretation of German history were to give way to a new democratic past. Among this generation, there was little doubt that historiography had a definite political function to fill, and that the option of taking refuge in objective historical scholarship that was aloof from present-day politics was not open to them.” 14 As per WJ Mommsen’s notion of a “Sündenfall des Liberalismus.” See WJ Mommsen. “Wandlungen der Liberalen Idee.”p.110. 15 HU Wehler. Bismarck und der Imperialismus. Köln, 1969. See for example page 115. See also K Bade. Friedrich Fabri und der Imperialismus in der Bismarckzeit. Revolution – Depression – Expansion. Freiburg, 1975. National Unification and Global Expansion 52

assured national imperialist vision of German liberals in the first half of the

nineteenth century. As a discourse underwriting liberal attempts at constituting the

German nation, imperialism was a self-conscious contribution to the narration and

political construction of the identity of the German state precisely as an imperialist

power. Confirming this, the record of the 1848 Frankfurt National Assembly reveals

the first truly national presentation by German liberals of imperialism as an overt

political agenda to be realised through the efforts of a liberal, national government.

As the most notable political manifestation of liberal imperialist nationalism, the

embracing of an imperialist foreign policy by the 1848 Frankfurt

Nationalversammlung deserves far more scrutiny than it has received. Amongst other

business such as the construction of a national constitution and the delineation of the

powers of the German nation-state, motions pertaining to the construction and

maintenance of a naval fleet as well as to the national direction of emigration were

debated and passed by overwhelming majorities – a point rarely stressed by historians

of 1848. Yet this liberal imperialism, it must be said, has not been monolithically

ignored. That the actions of the Nationalversammlung were based upon a perceived

need amongst German liberals for an expansionist foreign and naval policy has

already been pointed out by Frank Lorenz Müller in a study that has pointed to

Vormärz manifestations of imperialist agitation, particularly as found in the national

liberal organ the Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung.16 Müller’s argument, although

seemingly modest in its scope, stands as an implicit critique of Wolfgang

16 FL Müller. “Imperialist Ambitions in Vormärz and Revolutionary Germany.” See also FL Müller. “Der Traum von der Weltmacht.” National Unification and Global Expansion 53

Mommsen’s twin erroneous views that colonial theorising began in the 1870’s17 and

that imperialist tendencies and liberalism were necessarily incompatible.18 It has also

convincingly demonstrated that, for Germany’s liberals, much of their early interest

in issues such as international trade and national unity were inextricably linked to

their desire for overseas dominions,19 and that as such the dating of the beginnings of

a strong interest in colonial imperialism belongs more properly to the 1840s.

It is not Müller alone who has identified a recognisably liberal imperialism in the

revolutionary period of the 1840’s. Hans Fenske too has contributed a number of

studies devoted to early liberal imperialism, which point to German liberalism’s

precocious expansionist foreign policy,20 while Ernst Rudolf Huber, in his

monumental study of German constitutional history, has also succinctly pointed out

that:

Diese Flottenleidenschaft der deutschen bürgerlichen Bewegung hatte ihren tieferen Sinn und Grund. Das Streben nach Seehandel und Welthandel führte im Zeitalter des wirtschaftlichen Imperialismus, dessen Träger nicht die tradionalistische feudale und militärische Oberschicht, sondern die aufsteigende bürgerliche Gesellschaft war, auch im Deutschland notwendig zum Streben nach Seegeltung und Weltgeltung.21

17 WJ Mommsen . Imperialismus: Seine geistigen, politischen und wirtschaftlichen Grundlagen, Hamburg, 1977.p.110. 18 WJ Mommsen. “Wandlungen”.p.109ff. 19 FL Müller. “Imperialist Ambitions.”pp.346-7. 20 H Fenske. “Ungeduldige Zuschauer.” H Fenske. Preußentum und Liberalismus. pp.379-428. H Fenske. “Imperialistische Tendenzen.” 21 E R Huber. Deutsche Verfassungsgeschichte seit 1789: Band II, Der Kampf um Einheit und Freiheit 1830 bis 1850. Stuttgart, 1960.pp.655-56. Emphasis in the original. National Unification and Global Expansion 54

The notions of prestige at stake were those pertaining to a newly emerging liberal

nation attempting to assert its national credentials, both internally and externally by

enacting a corpus of foreign policy options whose symbolic resonances would be

mistaken by no-one. As these historians have made clear, quite apart from any

material benefits that German liberals hoped would accrue to the proposed fledgling

nation, liberal imperial sentiment was at its core a method of speaking both to

Germans and other global powers about what sort of German nation was emerging.

Colonial imperialism was in this sense a form of nationalist utterance, as well as a set

of practices based in material necessity.

It would be nonsense to postulate that the 1848 Assembly was a product of the

German liberal middle classes’ longing for a colonial empire. Clearly the primary

reasons for the Frankfurt Assembly lay in the broader, domestic political and

economic balance of power, and the desire of the Germany’s ascendant middle

classes to attain a level of political participation commensurate with their economic

and social success.22 Nevertheless, these same middle classes, in this the premier

forum for their views, did offer a glimpse of their own preferred foreign policy

options and priorities. In so far as their views predated by some thirty-three years the

construction of the German state they were attempting to build, these views can

22 A detailed discussion of the causes of the 1848 revolutions is beyond the scope of this study. For further information, see WJ Mommsen. 1848 – Die ungewollte Revolution: Die revolutionären Bewegungen in Europa 1830-1849. Frankfurt a.M, 1998 or H U Wehler. Deutsche Gesellschaftsgeschichte – Band II – Von der Reformära bis zur industriellen und politischen ,,Doppelrevolution” 1815- 1845/49. München, 1989. National Unification and Global Expansion 55

reasonably be said to represent a founding vision of a future liberal Germany’s

foreign policy and its perceived place in the world.

What can be said of this vision is that for the Paulskirche assembly, the construction

of a naval fleet capable of defending Germany’s coastline was seen as a major

priority. With Northern Germany under the threat of Danish naval blockades at the

time of the debates, naval power was a question of acute importance. Yet it would be

an error to see the desire of the Nationalversammlung for a naval fleet exclusively in

terms of the war with Denmark and the linked question of Schleswig-Holstein.23

Rather, the protection of Germany’s mercantile presence in the wider world, a desire

for colonial possessions and a perceived need for a German destination for German

emigration were similarly critical considerations for the assembly members, as the

discussions over the establishment of a German fleet and over emigration make clear.

In this context, a fleet was seen as a necessary force guaranteeing not only Germany’s

unity, but also its expansion and power. In terms of political symbolism, an imperial

Kriegsflotte was seen as symbolic of a powerful, imperial Germany that was a

23 Contra WJ Mommsen. 1848. pp.230-231. As with all pre-1880s forms of liberal imperialism, Mommsen has attempted to explain away the enthusiasm for a German imperial fleet in terms of a momentary lapse of political judgement with no long-term precedent or implications. By focusing on the war with Denmark as the sole cause of naval enthusiasm, Mommsen implies that with the passing of the war, the moment of imperialist enthusiasm had passed and German liberalism was able to concentrate once again on its ‘deeper’ historical purpose of German unification. This approach neatly substitutes the (long-term, domestic, and liberal) social logic of imperialism with the (immediate, external, that is Danish) catalyst and ignores the material and social imperatives that led to the inclusion of imperialism in the 1848 project to create a strong Germany. National Unification and Global Expansion 56

Weltmacht not only commensurate with Britain but also consciously imitating Britain,

through its pursuit of liberalism domestically and expansionism in the wider world.

It is interesting to note that naval enthusiasm was of course not monolithically limited

to liberals. Indeed, as the most thorough articulation of a plan for a German navy, the

influential treatise by the conservative Prinz Adalbert of Prussia became the starting

point for discussions in Frankfurt over a German navy. Adalbert’s plan, endorsed by

the Frankfurt Assembly’s naval committee, delineated both the primary objectives

and the actual dimensions of the proposed fleet in a manner that met with the full

support of the Nationalversammlung.24 Demonstrating a commitment to the concept

of a fleet as a means and a symbol of national unity, Adalbert’s discussion began with

some remarks on the recent conflict with Denmark, and importantly, pointed out the

unanimity of opinion behind a naval fleet:

Das einige Deutschland will aber die Integrität seiner Länder kräftig geschützt, seine Flagge geachtet, seinen Handel wieder blühend sehen und künftighin auch auf dem Meere etwas gelten. Die gesammte Nation begehrt daher einstimmig eine deutsche Kriegsmarine; denn deutsch ganz deutsch muss sie sein – eine ächte Representantin der wiedergeborenen Einheit des Vaterlandes… 25

Having spelt out this national support in an argument that operated as a means of

nationalising the significance of a navy, Adalbert offered three different models for

its establishment: a navy capable of mere coastal defence, a navy with offensive

capabilities capable of defending German trade abroad, and an independent navy –

24 Adalbert. Denkschrift über die Bildung einer deutschen Kriegsflotte. Potsdam, 1848. On the Nationversammlung support for Adalbert’s plan, see J Duppler. Prinz Adalbert von Preußen: Gründer der deutschen Marine, Herford, 1986.p.49. 25 Adalbert. Denkschrift.p.4. National Unification and Global Expansion 57

that is to say a navy of the ‘first rank,’ commensurate with those of Germany’s largest

rivals Britain, France and Russia, able to act decisively wherever necessary.26

Ostensibly impartial in his presentation of the three differing levels of naval

engagement, Adalbert gave some hint of his maximalist preferences, arguing that if

Germany did indeed become the ‘fourth first-rank sea power’ then it would enable

Germany “eine große Rolle auf dem Meere zu spielen, eine Rolle, die seiner Stellung

in Europa würdig ware.”27 On the question of whether it was within the capacity of a

central German government to construct and man such a naval force, Adalbert

asserted that it was.28

As a model for discussions within the Naval Committee that dealt with Germany’s

naval capacity at the Frankfurt Nationalversammlung,29 Adalbert’s treatise

demonstrated not only an immediate concern with the contemporary crisis with

Denmark, but also hinted at further foreign policy options for Germany, even

countenancing the notion of a future naval alliance with Denmark and Sweden aimed

at Russia.30 Although, as a conservative, he focused largely upon the European

context (as seen through his positing of Danzig as the most suitable location for the

26 ibid .p.5. 27 ibid.p.27. 28 ibid.p.30. 29 A pithy illustration of the role played by Adalbert in the proposing of ideas for a national fleet can be seen in the November (5th and 7th) correspondence between the Prussian trade minister Duckwitz and Committee chairman Gevekoht, in which the applicability of Adalbert’s ideas was discussed. See DB 407: 577. BA Koblenz. 30 Adalbert.Denkschrift.p.34 National Unification and Global Expansion 58

primary naval station for geographic and geopolitical reasons31 and his conclusion

that it was likely that any naval conflict would take place in European waters),

Adalbert nonetheless understood that naval battles located in Europe would inevitably

have global repercussions, deciding as they would Germany’s capacity to secure and

expand its global trade network and safeguard the interests of Germans abroad. 32 In

this expansion of the significance of intra-European conflict into the larger world, the

embryonic beginnings of the Assembly’s own, more recognisably liberal argument

for naval expansionism can be seen.

As Adalbert himself correctly asserted, there was, at least amongst international-trade

minded liberal circles, a great deal of unanimity about the necessity of a German

fleet, and this was reflected in the discussions that took place at the Frankfurt

Nationalversammlung. Although the history of the Assembly has largely been cast in

terms of divisions and the emergence of irreconcilable factions, whose gradual

ossification undermined the founding spirit of the assembly,33 however in terms of an

approach to an active imperial policy as a means of unifying the nation, the assembly

was one vote from unanimous in its acceptance of a vigorous naval policy, whose

cornerstone would be a German fleet. Only the fleet’s contours and the funding

became issues for debate.

31 ibid.pp.34-35. 32 ibid.p.27-29. 33 See for example D Langewiesche. Liberalism.pp.39-47. and J Sheehan. German Liberalism.pp. 59-61. National Unification and Global Expansion 59

This overwhelming support suggests strongly that the Assembly delegates,

irrespective of whether they had actively voiced their support or not, were unified in

their belief that a future German nation would be in need of a fleet.34 That the

creation of a fleet with a global reach would signify Germany’s unity was similarly

not contested by any of those present, with the fleet seen as being an “echtes Kind des

zu gründenden liberalen und demokratischen deutschen Nationalstaats,” as Jörg

Duppler has argued.35 Despite the breadth of opinion represented at the assembly,

despite the factional disputes, political distance and regional differences between the

Assembly’s reform-conservatives, the “constitutionalist liberals” and its radical

,universal suffragist “democratic liberals”,36 only a single member of the assembly,

Hermann Grubert of Breslau, voted against the establishment of a national naval

fleet.37 Interestingly, despite his opposition to the fleet, even Grubert recognised the

potency of a navy as a symbol of national unity, even as he critiqued it, arguing that

“Die Flotte soll…das erste Zeichen der Einheit Deutschlands sein.”38

With the exception of Grubert, the entire assembly voted for the proposal, as put to

the assembly by the Naval Committee (Marine-Ausschuß):

34 P Heinsius. “Anfänge der Deutschen Marine” in W Hubatsch (Hrsg) Die erste deutsche Flotte, 1848- 1853., Bonn, 1981.p.18. 35 J Duppler. Prinz Adalbert.p.49. 36 This characterisation of the split between the Frankfurt deputies is drawn from W Siemann. The German Revolution of 1848-49.p.126. 37 R Koch (Hrsg). Die Frankfurter Nationalversammlung 1848/9: Ein Handlexicon der Abgeordneten der deutschen verfassungsgebenden Reichsversammlung, Frankfurt, 1989.p.193. Grubert’s stance was in contrast to the more than fifty other members of the Leftist Donnersberg faction, all of who voted for the construction of a German national fleet. 38 F Wigard. Sten.Ber.Vol I,p.314. National Unification and Global Expansion 60

Beschließt die Nationalversammlung, daß die Bundesversammlung zu veranlassen sei, die Summe von 6 Millionen Thalen zum Zweck der Begründung eines Anfangs für die deutsche Marine, über deren Verwendung und Vertretung die zu bildende provisorische Centralgewalt der Nationalversammlung verantwortlich sein wird…

The acceptance of the proposal was met with a general cry of ‘Bravo.’ 39

The debate preceding the vote had laid out the conceptual framework within which

the fleet was envisaged and spelt out in detail how the aim of establishing a liberal

German nation could be furthered by the strengthening of Germany’s international

economic and military position through a forward foreign policy. Importantly, this

debate was not limited to the essentially Europe-centred theorising of Adalbert, but

rather built upon his plan as the basis of a gradually emerging liberal expansionist

foreign policy.

These expansionist themes were concisely summarised in the contribution to the

debate made by Johann Tellkampf, a member of the Centre-Left Württemberger Hof

faction who would later go on to be a member of the post-unification National Liberal

party.40 Tellkampf rightly acknowledged that the war with Denmark was a

consideration in the construction of a fleet, however argued that the matter did not

simply end there. Rather, the fleet would enhance Germany’s foreign trade position

through both the bellicose gunboat diplomacy and the imposition of colonies that it

would enable:

39 F Wigard. Sten.Ber. Vol I.pp.318-19. 40 R Koch. Frankfurter Nationalversammlung.p.399. H Best & W Weege. Biographisches Handbuch der Abgeordneten der Frankfurter Nationalversammlung 1848/49. Düsseldorf, 1998. pp.334-335. National Unification and Global Expansion 61

Aber es ist nicht allein der gegenwärtige Krieg, den wir vor Augen haben müssen. Eine Flotte ist auch höchst wichtig zur Zeit des Friedens. Ich erlaube mir darauf aufmerksam zu machen, daß ohne den Schutz einer Flotte wir viel schwieriger Handelsverträge schließen und aufrecht erhalten können, als mit derselben. Wir haben es überall gesehen, daß andere Nationen, wenn es sich um Handelsverträge handelte, viel gunstigere Bedingungen bekamen, sobald sie ihre Gestandten in einem ihrer Kriegschiffe nach den Häfen jener Länder schickten, wo ihre Flagge bereits bekannt und geachtet war… Auch zur Beseitigung des Sundzolls und zur Erwerbung und Erhaltung einer Colonie ist eine Flotte erforderlich… Wenn wir also eine Flotte haben, so werden wir vermittelt derselben uns wieder Absatz nach den überseeischen Ländern, eröffnen.41

Tellkampf also spelt out the more commonly understood complementary ‘intellectual

benefits’ of an active foreign policy, citing the well-known English example as a

demonstration of how naval progress, international engagement and liberal social and

political freedoms went hand in hand:

Aber, meine Herrn, es giebt nicht allein materielle Vortheile, es giebt geistige, höhere, die wir durch die Flotte uns sichern. Die Geschichte zeigt uns, daß geistiger Fortschritt überall da am schnellsten und gesundesten sich entfaltete, wo der Verkehr mit andern Völkern am leichtesten und gesichersten war, daß handeltreibende Völker der alten und der neuen Zeit es waren, wo neben der Civilisation das freieste politische Leben sich entwickelte und herrschte. Es leidet das Meer, dieß bewegliche Element, keine Stagnation weder im socialen, noch im politischen Leben…. Es bleibt durch das frische magnißvolle Seeleben ein Volk stets jung und kräftig. Es ist dieses auch einer der Gründe, weshalb sich England stets so frei erhalten hat.42

Both materially and intellectually, Tellkampf argued, Germany could move towards

an enriched and socio-politically freer existence, through the simple measure of

becoming a naval power capable of trading with and colonising the world as the

English had. Summarising his position in a manner that brought forth cries of ‘Very

41 F Wigard. Sten.Ber.Vol. I,p.309. 42 F Wigard. Sten.Ber.Vol I.p.309. National Unification and Global Expansion 62

good’ and ‘Bravo’ from the assembly, Tellkampf linked the themes of naval capacity

with those of political liberalisation, national strength and national unity:

Es sind, also die für eine Flotte erforderlichen Geldmittel, so bedeutend sie sind, doch geringer, als die angedeuteten Vortheile für unserer materielles Wohlergehen und für politische Kraft und Freiheit. Wir gehen durch die Bewilligung der beantragten Mittel der Welt durch die That den klarsten Beweis, daß die Einigkeit Deutschlands eine Wahrheit ist.43

During the debate, similar sentiments were expressed by a number of members, who

saw in naval activity both a field of action in which the energies of the German

people could be profitably engaged as well as an expression of German unity and

nationhood. For many in the assembly, the existence of a fleet represented an act of

‘propaganda by deed,’ whereby the largely theoretical imperial desires of Vormärz

liberals could be realised. As well as its patently power-political dimension, the

grounding of a ‘German’ fleet contained for liberals such as Tellkampf an important

rhetorico-discursive dimension, aimed at persuading both ‘Germans’ and the larger

world that, as a liberal nation, Germany did what all successful liberal nations could

do – protect and expand their material interests abroad via a navy that could intervene

where necessary. An imperial fleet had the role of convincing the German speaking

populace of central Europe that were being fashioned into a nation that they were

‘Germans,’ and that being German entailed being a trading, seafaring, colonising

nation not unlike England.

43 F Wigard. Sten.Ber.Vol I.p.309. National Unification and Global Expansion 63

This helps to explain the large number of appeals to national unity that abounded

during the fleet debate. One such appeal was made by Edgar Ross of Hamburg, the

vice-President of the Naval committee and member of the reform-conservative Café

Milani and Casino factions, who, like Tellkampf, later went on to become a member

of the National Liberal party, between 1867 and 1871, and who continued his interest

in Germany’s seafaring capacity well into the 1870’s.44 His contribution to the debate

was in essence an attempt to arrive at the goal of building a new, unified nation-state

through the establishment of an imperial fleet:

Der Ausschuß ist vor die Versammlung mit der ersten That getreten, welche bekunden soll, daß das deutsche Volk nicht bloß philosophisch zu räsonnieren, sondern auch im Handel entschlossen zu sein versteht .45

Similar sentiments were expressed by Joseph Radowitz, also a member of the Naval

Committee and Café Milani faction.46 Radowitz saw the work of the Assembly as

being the creation of a fleet as a symbol of national unity and cultural and economic

strength:

Wir wollen die Einheit Deutschland’s gründen; es gibt kein Zeichen für diese Einheit, daß in dem Maaße innerhalb Deutschland’s und außerhalb Deutschland’s diesen Beschluß verkündet, als die Schöpfung einer deutscher Flotte… Die Schöpfung der Flotte ist nicht bloß eine militärische Frage, eine commercielle Frage, sondern im höchsten Grade eine nationale Frage. 47

Summarising the debate moments before the overwhelmingly affirmative vote,

Radowitz pointed to the near unanimity of opinion held by the Assembly:

44 R.Koch.Frankfurter.p.345. 45 F Wigard. Sten.Ber.Vol. I.p.313. 46 R Koch.Frankfurter Nationalversammlung.p.321 47 F Wigard.Sten.Ber.Vol. I.p.251. National Unification and Global Expansion 64

Ueber die Nothwendigkeit, daß Deutschland eine Kriegsmarine erhalte, habe ich nur eine einzige verneinende Stimme gehört, ich nehme an, daß hierüber im Allgemeinen kein Zweifel obwaltet, und zwar nach beiden Richtungen hin: in Bezug auf die materielle Nothwendigkeit und auf die weit höhere sittliche Bedeutung.48

The interrelationship between a German fleet and an expansionist foreign policy was

made clear throughout the debate over the navy. Whether discussing the

contemporary war with Denmark, the desire for a robust protection of German trade

and emigrants or the utility of a fleet as a tool for the establishment of colonies, each

speaker not only understood the broader goal of enabling Germany to assert its

interests abroad, but that the creation of such a capacity had enormous potential as a

symbol of Germany’s ‘arrival’ as a great and united power commensurate with its

neighbours. The potential benefits to be accrued from the liberal’s imperialist naval

policy were seen as overwhelming and as flowing to the entire German nation.49

Inside of the Assembly’s Naval Committee itself, the interconnectedness of the

pragmatic utility and the symbolic significance of a naval fleet was also discussed.

For example, at the Committee meeting of the 6th of October 1848, with Prussian

trade minister Duckwitz also in attendance, the committee debated the possibility of

the various naval vessels of the individual German states flying a single Kriegsflagge

48 F Wigard. Sten.Ber.Vol. I.p.317. 49 It was not just in the Paulskirche that the internal and external benefits of a unifying naval policy were understood. Representatives of German industry from Bamberg in June 1848, in one of their naval proposals, spelt this out very clearly: “Deutschland in seiner Zersplitterung wurde bisher von der Industrie Englands beherrscht. Deutschland, einig und kräftig, kann und muß sich dieser Herrschaft entledigen.” The method proposed for this shrugging off of English hegemony was the establishment of a strong naval force and the expansion of the merchant navy. BA, Koblenz.ZSg.8/9a:83.3. National Unification and Global Expansion 65

and mercantile vessels flying the Handelsflagge of a unified Germany. Duckwitz,

although positive about the notion of a national fleet,50 saw it as needing more time

until all states had uniform maritime laws. At this point, Deputy Committee Chairman

Edgar Roß from Hamburg, a Casino faction delegate and future National Liberal,51

protested on symbolic grounds.52 The flag, Roß argued, should be the immediate

symbol of a national central government, under which Germany could gain its

rightful ‘Anerkenntniß’ across the globe, just as France had done. As such, Germany

could not wait for such legal niceties.53 Roß’ point about the symbolic resonances of

a truly German naval flag was readily agreed upon, however the Committee finally

agreed with Duckwitz that nationalist symbolism and legislation needed to be

congruent in order to avoid unwanted international controversies. As such, it was

agreed that the emotive symbolism of the flag required the type of support that could

only be provided by a codified and uniform body of national maritime legislation,

which was as yet to be formulated by the Nationalversammlung. Duckwitz’s

pragmatic insight proved justified in 1849, when the British government explicitly

stated that it would not recognise a German naval flag before a German nation

actually existed.54

50 Duckwitz’s input to the committee was significant and far from obstructionist, as demonstrated not only by his attendance at such committee meetings, but also his theoretical contribution to the committee – for example his 30th of October delineation of the responsibilities and bureaucratic structure of a national naval ministry. See BA, Koblenz. DB 51:392:i:p.37ff, DB 51: 407.p.569ff. “Marine.” 51 H Best, W Weege. Biographisches Handbuch.p.285. 52 BA, Koblenz. DB 51: 392: i:p.36. “Protokoll der Sitzung des Marineausschusses am 6. Okt. 1848” 53 BA, Koblenz. DB 51: 392: i:p.36.p.36. 54 BA, Koblenz. DB 53: 15. Heft 15.p.17. “whenever a German Empire shall have been definitively organised and permanently established, the British Government will no doubt according to its general National Unification and Global Expansion 66

That the fleet was a powerful symbol of national strength and unity was also grasped

by the liberal public watching proceedings from outside of the National Assembly,

with various citizens and citizen committees lobbying Assembly members and

offering their contribution to the debate. The Kiel branch of the Hamburg Marine-

Congresse proclaimed “eine von Deutschland geschaffene Seemacht würde ein stets

gegenwärtiges Zeugniß seiner Einheit seyn…”55 Another pamphlet issued by ‘a

German officer’ asserted that “Deutschland will die Stelle einnehmen, die seiner

würdig ist,”56 while another explained that it was now understood “das deutsche

Vaterland soll ein einiges und starkes sein” and to that end it required a unifying

navy.57 Yet another put the matter as follows:

Wenn wir in den gegenwärtigen Tagen nicht nur davon hören und lesen, sondern auch fast täglich Zeugen davon sind, wie Reich und Arm, Alt und Jung sich drängen, jeder ihren Beitrag, ihr Scherflein zur Erbauung einer deutschen Flotte auf den Altar des gemeinsamen deutschen Vaterlandes niederzulegen, dann müssen wir stets von Ruhm uns gehoben fühlen, von der Hoffnung auf eine große und schöne Zukunft, die uns bevorsteht und in diesem fast wunderbaren Volksbewußtsein um so nehr die sichere Gewähr für ein und einiges Deutschland erkennen.58

The number and nature of the various contributions, suggestions and petitions

received by the naval committee demonstrate the immense breadth of appeal enjoyed rule in regard to such matters acknowledge the new political body and of course its maritime flag, but… the time for such a step does not seem as yet to have arrived.” (Lord Cowley, 7th July 1849 in relation to the Heligoland incident). 55 BA, Koblenz.ZSg.9/573. “Denkschrift über die Errichtung einer Deutschen Flotte.” Kiel, May 1848. 56 BA, Koblenz.ZSg.9/1191. “Deutschland eine Seemacht” Leipzig, 1848. 57 BA, Koblenz. ZSg.9/5059.p.6. “Das erste Preußische See-Kanonenboot für die deutsche Kriegsflotte” Stralsund, 1848. 58 BA, Koblenz. ZSg.8/36.p.9. “Deutsche Flotte – Deutscher Kanal” Schleswig, 1848. National Unification and Global Expansion 67

by the Assembly’s attempt to create a truly national navy. In reviewing the

correspondence of the Naval Committee,59 what becomes clear is the extent to which

the support and of funding of the fleet was articulated by the politically aware

German public as a national task, with naval associations quickly spreading

throughout the German speaking states and abroad,60 with private citizens vigorous in

their appeals to establish a navy capable of asserting Germany’s position abroad.

These associations and citizens were often generous in their financial support of the

fleet,61 pledging contributions in accordance with their means as well as sending

numerous pro-naval petitions signed by association members and other citizens.

It is perhaps worth noting that it is impossible to apply any Wehlerite notions of a

prophylactic social imperialism to the imperialist agitations of the period of the

59 BA, Koblenz. DB 51/394, 395, 396, 406. 60 One interesting example comes from an “Aufruf an alle Deutschen in England” in which it was asserted that in the face of the call for a naval fleet, “alle politischen Meinungsverschiedenheiten verschwinden und die Begründung eines deutschen Kriegsflotte ist die erste That des zur Einheit wiedergeborenen Deutschland.” Apart from the deployment of this ‘fleet as unification’s tool’ trope was the explanation of the fleet’s necessity, stated as being that Germany’s “Interessen reichen auch über den Ocean hinaus, seine Handelsflagge weht auf alle Meeren… Deutschland bedarf einer Kriegsflotte. Zur Wahrung seiner Ehre, zum Schutze seines Welthandels, zur Aufrechthaltung des Friedens, nicht zum Angriffe und zur Zerstörung muß sie rasch ins Leben treten.” BA, Koblenz. DB51/395.p.340. 61 See for example a proposal for army officers to offer a percentage of their salaries to the establishment of the fleet, based on the officers’ understanding that “ohne Flotte kann Deutschlands Wohlstand und Grösse, und seine Stellung, welche es in europäischen Staatensysteme einzunehmen berechtigt ist, nicht geschaffen, erhalten und befestigt werden.” BA, Koblenz. DB51/395. Unnumbered “Aufruf an die Waffen Genossen aller deutscher Stämme” Authorised by Rittmeister v.Buchholz, July, 1848, Posen. Other proposals included the introduction of a one pfennig tax on all publications (including newspapers) in German states. BA, Koblenz. ZSg9/575. Eugen v.Breza. “Die Deutsche Kriegs-Marine: Ein Gesetz- Vorschlag.” Breslau, 1848. National Unification and Global Expansion 68

Frankfurt National Assembly. In fact, the desire to establish a navy and colonies

stemmed not from a fearful attempt by politically weak and economically vulnerable

liberals to install a politico-economic ‘safety valve’ that would weaken the position of

a radicalised working class polity through a diversional project of national prestige.62

Rather, liberals saw an imperialist foreign policy precisely as an expression of liberal

strength and nationalist confidence, as a way of assisting those elements of society

that had lost ground in the leap into a capitalist modernity. Far from a denial of or

diversion from the Sozialfrage, colonies were seen as an attempt to solve the problem,

so as to further the material progress of all elements of German society, including the

proletariat, not within a ‘conservative utopia’ but a German state congruent with the

liberals’ nationalist metanarrative. This is evident both in the actual speeches

delivered by the members of the Assembly and the general tenor of paternal concern

for the fate of Germany’s emigrants. Within liberal circles, colonies in particular were

seen as a means to further the welfare of the poorest elements in German society,

offering a means of social mobility and an escape route for those who had seen their

social position drastically eroded by Germany’s rapid industrialisation and

urbanisation processes.63

62 See Wehler Bismarck und der Imperialismus.pp.120-123. 63 See the speech of Franz Josef Buß, later to join the Catholic Centre Party, who explicitly linked the problem of poverty and the solution of colonialism. F Wigard.Sten.Ber. Vol.VIII.p.5719. See also the future National Liberal Edgar Roß of Hamburg’s view that an active naval policy would assist in alleviating the problem of unemployment. F Wigard. Sten.Ber.Vol.I.p.314 and the future National Liberal Johann Tellkampf’s view that colonies offered unlimited room for the young to develop their energies. F Wigard. Sten.Ber.Vol.II.p.1057. National Unification and Global Expansion 69

Contemporaneous pamphlets too spelt out, in quasi-Malthusian terms, the view that

Germany was suffering from the ‘disease’ of poverty, which could only be cured

through a programme of emigration.64 Plans to this effect were many and varied, with

the Dresden Gewerbe-Verein releasing an article explaining how the establishment of

a national bank could enable adequate funding for a navy and the establishment of

inner resettlement programmes and overseas trading colonies that would assure

Germany of its rightful Machtstellung, whilst assisting the poorest elements of

German society.65 Similarly, the contribution of Friederich Hundeshagen also

concentrated on the benefits that the poorest elements of Germany could derive from

an active national naval and colonial policy, as well as pointing out the power

dividend for the nation itself:

…durch die Gründung einer deutschen Seemacht wird es möglich, den Nachbar – wie den überseeischen Staaten gegenüber eine geeignete Stellung einzunehmen, die Auswanderung zu leiten, sie zu schützen.66

Die Gründung solche Etablissements durch die deutsche Flotte wo deutsches Kapital auf fernen deutschen Territorien eine zweckmäßige Anlage findet, wollen wir mit Freuden begrüßen, sie wird unsere Schifffahrt heben, und der Auswanderung deutscher Kapitale nach fremden Besitzungen, wo sie den Reichthum fremder Nationen erhöhen, vorbeugen. So schließen wir denn mit dem Wunsche, daß die Centralgewalt sowohl die Nation von einer drückenden Armensteuer durch die Auswanderung und Ansiedlung

64 BA, Koblenz. DB58/176.p.126. “Vorschlag zur zweckmäßigen Staatsunterstützung der Auswanderung” 1848. Also to be located as BA, Koblenz. ZSg.9/771. 65 BA, Koblenz. ZSg9/652.p.2-3, 35-38. The concerns of the pamphlet are somewhat wordily encapsulated in its title: “Hochwichtiges der Gegenwart in Sieben Bildern, betreffend die gegenwärtigen gedrückten Verhältnisse des Mittelstandes, nämlich der Handwerker und Arbeiter, so wie des Handels und aller Gewerbe in Deutschland und wie diesem wichtigen Stand des deutschen Volks geholfen werden kann” (Mitglied des Gewerbe-Vereins, Dresden), Dresden 1848. 66 BA, Koblenz. ZSg.9/1308.p.1. “Die deutsche Auswanderung als Nationalsache, inbesondere die Auswanderung des Proletariats” Frankfurt aM. 1849. National Unification and Global Expansion 70

überflüssiger Arbeitskräfte befreien, als auch der Wohlfahrt der Nation durch Anlage von Kolonien entgegen kommen möchte.67

The Gesellschaft für nationale Auswanderung und Colonisation, zu Stuttgart spelt

out in a supplement to the Schwäbischen Merkur that it too saw colonisation as an

answer to the Sozialfrage, proclaiming that it saw its main purpose as being the:

…Gründung selbstständiger deutscher Niederlassungen in auswärtigen Ländern durch Ableitung des Ueberflusses der Bevölkerung und Sammlung derselben in freien Ansiedlungen, in welchen die deutsche Nationalität streng bewahrt und gepflegt wird, um sie zu Hülfsquellen und Märkten für das Mutterland zu machen.68

The Colonisations-Verein of Hamburg also posited the assistance of Germany’s poor

as one of their primary tasks, claiming “durch Colonisation allein ist es möglich, die

ärmeren Auswanderer zu leiten.” The management of poor emigrants was of course

seen as a means of supporting German industry and international trade through the

supplying of raw materials and colonial markets,69 however it primarily amounted to

a poverty eradication measure.

These individuals and associations viewed colonisation and a strong navy as ensuring

a series of positive outcomes for the new German nation – the assistance of the

67 BA, Koblenz. ZSg.9/1308.p.62-63. 68 BA, Koblenz. DB58/179p.65. Undated Beilage to Schwäbischen Merkur. See also the “Blatt zur Uebersiedlung Deutscher nach Texas” DB58/179.p.74, which saw the nation’s task in the following terms: Die Aufgabe der Gegenwart muß es daher seyn, der ärmeren Klasse die Auswanderung und die Begründung eines befriedigenden Wohlstandes möglich zu machen…” Unlike many other colonising groups, this association saw indirect colonisation as a more realistic vessel for German expansionism. 69 BA, Koblenz. DB1/28.Band I.pp.11-12. “Statuten des in Hamburg errichten Colonisations-Verein.” 1849. For mercantile benefits see p.30. National Unification and Global Expansion 71

nation’s poor, the utilisation of the ‘surplus labour power’ latent in the ranks of the

poor to the advantage of German industry, and the positioning of Germany amidst the

foremost ranks of world powers, both economically and militarily. Despite some

misgivings on the far-Left of the Nationalversammlung about the economic burden a

fleet might possibly impose upon the poor,70 there was scarcely a single member that

did not recognise the imperial fleet as a way of signalling both to its citizens and to

the world the ability of a liberal Germany to look after its people abroad. Far from an

anti-socialist safety valve, the building of a fleet was both a paternal act of liberal

poor assistance as well as an assertion of the nascent German nation’s mercantile and

military strength, a means of characterising a new German state as an imperialist

nation.

As Klaus Bade has repeatedly argued, this view of emigration as playing a major role

in the alleviation of the poverty that accompanied the rise of the modern

industrialised economy overseen by the Wirtschaftsbürgertum was one of the most

pressing concerns within mid-nineteenth century Germany.71 For their part, German

proletarian and peasant emigrants certainly seemed to agree with the liberal analysis

70 Such was the standpoint of the leftist Friedrich Schlöffel. Schlöffel warned of a second revolution to follow the first political one, a revolution of the hungry, who would extract their revenge if they were overtaxed for the establishment of a fleet. See F Wigard. Vol.I. Sten.Ber.p.311. 71 KJ Bade. Homo Migrans. Wanderungen aus und nach Deutschland. Erfahrungen und Fragen. Essen, 1994.p.21. See also KJ Bade. “Conclusion: Migration Past and Present – the German Experience.” in D Hoerder & J Nagler (eds). People in Transit: German Migrations in Comparative Perspective, 1820- 1930. New York, 1995.p.400. See also KJ Bade & M Weiner. Migration Past, Migration Future. Germany and the United States. Providence, 1997.p.5. “Transatlantic emigration from nineteenth-century Germany was primarily a socio-economic mass movement…” National Unification and Global Expansion 72

of the solution, seeing in emigration the prospect of socio-economic betterment, as

recent regional studies have shown.72 However, German liberals, as the key stake-

holders in the new, internationalising German economy were also keen to solve one

of its more apparent shortcomings – its propensity to consign large segments of

Germany’s peasant and working classes to pauperism. Without a mechanism for the

alleviation of domestic poverty, German liberalism would find itself unable to

overcome one of industrial capitalism’s more obvious negative externalities. Poverty

and social displacement represented a structural problem that liberalism, as a

totalising metanarrative seeking to order German society in accordance with its own

tenets, set about correcting through imperialism.

With liberalism’s totalising claims in mind,, it is hardly surprising that, as Renate

Vollmer has remarked, “[i]n the 1840s the concerns of the middle classes regarding

the proletariat and pauperism and suggestions regarding the so-called ‘social

question’ were broadly discussed.”73 As a perceived test of their vision of Germany,

German liberals applied themselves to the question of poverty and came up with the

solution of not just emigration, but ‘directed emigration’ – a solution that entailed,

depending upon the theorist, official or unofficial German overseas possessions, that

72 R Mühler. “Colonist Traditions and Nineteenth-Century Emigration from East Elbian Prussia” in D Hoerder & J Nagler (eds).People in Transit.p.43. See also A Lubinski. “Overseas Emigration from Mecklenburg – Strelitz: The Geographic and Social Context.”p.78 in the same. 73 R Vollmer. Auswanderungspolitik und soziale Frage im 19. Jahrhundert. Staatliche geförderte Auswanderung aus der Berghauptmannschaft Clausthal nach Südaustralien, Nord- und Südamerika 1848-1854. Frankfurt aM, 1995.p.64. “In den 1840er Jahren waren im bürgerlichen Mittelstand Sorge um das Proletariat, Diskussion um den Pauperismus und Vorschläge der sogenannten ‘sozialen Frage’ weit verbreitet.” National Unification and Global Expansion 73

would ensure the retention of the emigrating ‘human capital’ within the larger,

internationalised German economy.

Within the context of the debate in the Paulskirche over German emigration, the

question of what happened to Germans once they left Europe also included a

discussion of the desirability of German colonies, as Müller has pointed out.74 Once

again, Johann Louis Tellkampf was active in the debate, demanding the protection of

even previous generations of German emigrants, not only on humanitarian grounds,

but also as a means of exerting German influence over American politics. Having

pointed out that if Germany’s emigrants had all gone to a single destination Germany

would already have a colonial empire of its own,75 Tellkampf went on to note that

German emigrants in North America received voting privileges after five years, and

as such, he explained, if the some four million Germans in America were looked after

by their government, they could use their votes to influence the American democracy

for the benefit of Germany, creating in America an ersatz colony that could offer

Germany the raw materials it required:

Wenn wir nun unseren deutschen Auswanderern Schutz ertheilen, so werden wir die Liebe aller Ausgewanderten gewinnen; sie werden dann geneigter sein, Handels- Maßregeln, gleich günstig wären für Nordmerika und für Deutschland, durch den Einfluß ihrer Wahlstimmen zu unterstützen. Dieß wäre für unser Vaterland, da wir leider keine Colonieen haben, ein nicht zu übersehender Nutzen der Auswanderung.76

74 F L Müller. “Imperialist Ambitions.” pp.364-65. 75 F Wigard. Sten.Ber. Vol.II.p.1056 76 F Wigard. Sten.Ber. Vol.II.p.1057. National Unification and Global Expansion 74

Tellkampf’s views on the utility of a nation’s own colonies as a destination for its

emigrants were unambigiuous – colonies offered not only a potential boon to German

trade, but also an answer to the social question, a means of social mobility for

Germany’s poor. Referring to the British example, and anticipating the plot of Hans

Grimm’s Volk Ohne Raum by some eighty years,77 he explained that:

... die Jugend im Auslande, in den Colonieen, in den zu cultivirenden Ländern einen freien Spielraum zur Entfaltung ihrer Thatkraft, die möglicherweise dem übervölkerten Vaterlande hätte zum Verderben gereichen können. Das Ausland entwickelt diese Kräfte und bietet ihnen freies, lohnendes Feld der Thätigkeit, und den Weg zu Wohlhabenheit und Ansehen.78

As mentioned, Tellkampf’s attempts to discuss at length the problems associated with

emigration and the lack of a colonial destination were interrupted by Assembly

President Heinrich von Gagern on the behalf of an impatient Assembly, which was,

Gagern claimed already adequately informed on the subject. Undeterred, Tellkampf

went on to explain the effect of poorly coordinated emigration on the nation’s

emigrants, causing von Gagern to exclaim, “Herr Tellkampf! Darüber sind schon vor

zwanzig Jahren Bücher geschrieben wurden.”79

Gagern’s impatience betrays the familiarity of the intellectual terrain to liberal

Germans. The State, so the argument ran, had seemingly neglected to protect its

citizens abroad and had failed to offer them a German colony within which to settle.

This had already had a negative impact both on these citizens and on Germany itself.

77 H Grimm. Volk Ohne Raum. Albert Langen / Georg Müller Verlag, München, 1933. First published in 1926. 78 F Wigard. Sten.Ber.Vol.II.p.1057. 79F Wigard. Sten.Ber.Vol.II.p.1057. National Unification and Global Expansion 75

The Assembly should, therefore, afford Germany’s citizens living in the colonies of

other nations the protection of the German State, in lieu of or until such time as there

existed German colonies. By dwelling on these well-rehearsed facts, Tellkampf was,

in von Gagern’s eyes, simply wasting the Assembly’s time. All knew of Germany’s

colonial deficiencies and the effect of State neglect on emigrants, rendering such

preaching to the converted redundant.80

In fact the Assembly’s President, Heinrich von Gagern, was in a perfect position to

declaim on the breadth of the Vormärz literature on the necessity of a German policy

of liberal imperialism, with his father the colonial propagandist Hans Christoph von

Gagern having already contributed three works of his own to the corpus81 - works

that Heinrich von Gagern had critiqued some years earlier.82 Judging by his

correspondence with his father, Heinrich von Gagern had by 1844, if not as early as

1841, delineated a coherent position on Germany’s imperialist future; namely that in

the foreseeable future, a state-led, national imperialist policy was admittedly difficult

to envisage,83 but that it was most certainly desirable, particularly as a means of

assuring an enduring connection between Germany and its emigrants. Not only

80 On the proponderance of pro-imperialist sentiment within liberal circles during the Vormärz era, see FL Müller. “Der Traum von Weltmacht.” pp.99-183. 81 See for example Hans Christoph von Gagern’s Fernerer Versuch, politische Ideen zu berichtigen III: Der Deutschen Auswanderung. Frankfurt a M, 1817. For Hans Christoph von Gagern, see S. v.Senger und Etterlin. Neu-Deutschland in Nordamerika: Massenauswanderung, nationale Gruppenansiedlungen und liberale Kolonialbewegung, 1815-1860. Baden-Baden, 1991.pp.29ff. 82 P Wentzcke & W Klötzer. Deutscher Liberalismus im Vormärz: Heinrich von Gagern, Briefe und Reden 1815-1848. Göttingen, 1959.pp.243-45, 251, 276-80,438-39. On the agitation of Hans Christoph v.Gagern, see also FL Müller. “Imperialist Ambitions.” p.354. 83 P Wentzcke & W Klötzer. Deutscher Liberalismus.p.277. National Unification and Global Expansion 76

desirable, it was also seen as perfectly justifiable to rule over ‘almost unpopulated’

lands where the population had not reached the status of a coherent nation with a

(presumably recorded) history of which they could be ‘more or less proud.’84 In the

intervening four years, what had of course changed was that the desired colonial

empire was now an entirely feasible enterprise, courtesy of the National Assembly

over which von Gagern presided.

The Assembly’s President was of course not the only deputy present to have a

background in pro-colonial agitation, with Johann Gustav Droysen having expressed

his view in 1844 that a Brazilian colony was perhaps Germany’s best imperial

prospect. Discussing his decision to write on “die Rätlichkeit und Ausführbarkeit

deutscher Kolonisationen,” Droysen declared in a letter of November 1844 that,

“Brasilien muß und wird für Deutschland die beste Stellvertretung der Kolonie

werden.” 85

84 H von Gagern, in a letter to his father Hans Christoph von Gagern, 18th Aug. 1844, in P Wentzcke & W Klötzer. Deutscher Liberalismus.p.278. “Das Streben nach deutschem Zusammenhang, nach deutschem Einfluß, selbst Übergewicht (wenn es erreicht werden kann) in Kolonien finde ich gerechtfertigt, natürlich, wohltätig, wo noch keine Nation mit Nationalansprüchen existiert, wo eine Bevölkerung im Entstehen erst begriffen ist. Welche zivilisierte Nation auf einen solchen Punkt der Erde, auf solches Vakuum die größte Masse der Bevölkerung liefert und ihr Übergewicht zu begründen weiß, die ist in ihrem Recht, und um so besser, um so glücklicher, wenn dies mit Ausschluß anderer Nationalitäten geschehen könnte…. Solcher ausschließliche Kolonialbesitz wird aber schwerlich den Deutschen beschieden sein.” Gagern went on to nominate areas of North and South America as two realistic possibilities for a German colonial empire. 85 Letter to Arendt, 18 Nov. 1844, in R Hübner (ed) Johann Gustav Droysen: Briefwechsel. (Band.I: 1829-1851). Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart, 1929.p300. See also. FL Müller. “Imperialist Ambition.”.p.366. National Unification and Global Expansion 77

As Müller has pointed out, further debate on the question of emigration took place in

March of 1849,86 by which time the patience of those hoping that the Assembly

would decide on a colonial policy was fast running out. The decision of the

committee in charge of drafting the emigration legislation to treat the question of

establishing German colonies at a suitable later date87 was met with hostility by some

members, who viewed the issues of emigration and colonial imperialism as both

urgent and inextricably linked.

To demonstrate the breadth of the concern the inadequacy of the proposed legislation,

three examples may be used. From the right, Franz Joseph Buß of the reform-

conservative Café Milani faction88 stated his reasons for opposition of the bill as

stemming not from a belief that the interests of emigrants should not be protected, but

rather from a belief that this bill was not sufficient to do so.89 Reminding the

Assembly of colonialism’s welfarist dimension, Buß rejected the bill as missing the

heart of the question:

Es ist ein Transportgesetz, nicht mehr… aber die große Frage, die große Seite die Sache, die Sorge für die Beseitigung der in Deutschland und namentlich in einzelnen Theilen ungemein aufwuchernden Massenarmuth ist dabei ganz vergessen… Ich betrachte die Auswanderungsfrage in ihrer praktischen Auffassung als eine Frage der öffentlichen Armensorge90

86 FL Müller. “Imperialist Ambitions.”.p.364. 87 F Wigard. Sten.Ber.Bd.VIII.p.5710. 88 H Best, W Weege. Biographisches Handbuch.p.112. 89 F Wigard. Sten.Ber.Bd.VIII..p.5718. “…ich halte sie nicht für genügend; sie bedürfen großer, wesentlicher Ergänzungen.” 90 ibid.p.5719. National Unification and Global Expansion 78

Buß’ proffered means of ensuring that the German nation’s handling of emigration

met the appropriate standards of humanitarianism was mentioned at the end of his

speech:

Von der höheren Auffassung der Auswanderung zur Gründung von Colonieen… schweige ich bei der Aufgeregtheit der Versammlung. Aber etwas muß für den Auswanderer, den besitzenden und den armen, geschehen.91

Following Buß was Friedrich Schulz, from the leftist Westendhall faction,92 whose

contribution in its vision of Germany’s imperial future demonstrated the overlapping

nature of seemingly divergent expansionist strategies. In a lengthy speech, Schulz

expressed his opinion that the question of emigration and colonies were linked, that

the question of colonies was an urgent one, that colonisation could just as easily be

undertaken to Germany’s south-east as in America and indeed that both arenas for

German imperialism were equally desirable:

Am großen Ocean kann ein mächtiges herrliches Neudeutschland erblühen, welches die natürliche Freundschaft der Vereinigten Staaten mit uns noch bedeutend verstärkt. Aber, wenn wir nicht eilen, kommen wir auch im Westen Amerikas zu spat, wenigstens für umfangreichere Ansiedelungen, welche einen selbständigen Einfluß zu üben vermögen… Die Auswanderung geht fast ausschließlich nach dem fernen Westen; aber es giebt noch Ansiedelungsländer an unserer nächsten Grenze, im Osten und Südosten unseres Vaterlandes, welche in nächster Zeit von großer Bedeutung werden können, wie auch der Ausschußbericht zu meiner Freude anerkennt… Dort an unserer Grenze ist unser Texas, unser Mexico… Ich wünsche, daß das Auswanderungsamt, sobald es die Verhältnisse erlauben, sich mit der österreichischen Regierung über ein geregeltes Colonisationssystem für die Donauländer verständigt.93

91 ibid.p.5720. 92 H Best, W Weege. Biographisches Handbuch.p.311. 93 F Wigard. Sten.Ber.Bd.VIII.pp.5721-22. National Unification and Global Expansion 79

The Viennese Johann Jacob Herz, following Schulz as a speaker to the emigration bill

virtually picked up where Schulz had left off in his affirmation of an imperial mission

in the East, declaring that “Die Moldau und die Wallachei ist eines der schönsten

fruchtbarsten Länder in den europäischen Staaten… ein solches Land ist gewiß vor

allen andern zur Colonisation geeignet, und muß dem deutschen Bruder lieb sein.”94

These examples not only illustrate the breadth of pro-colonial sentiment within the

Assembly, they also serve to refute the dominant historiographical assumption that

the desire for overseas colonies and for so-called ‘inner-colonisation,’ which was

actually Eastern or South Eastern expansion, stemmed from two ideologically

opposed movements whose social basis were quite distinct from one another,95

however at this stage, the two were seen as being in no way mutually exclusive.96 In

fact, at this time both were variant forms of the same liberal expansionism,

distinguished only by the fact that those espousing eastern colonisation were more

likely to be großdeutsch as opposed to kleindeutsch nationalists.97

Similarly, it has also been assumed that both of these settlement programmes were

somehow intrinsically ‘reactionary,’ in that they were attempts to support the

94 ibid.p.5722. See also p.5723. 95 The classic formulation of this is of course Woodruff Smith’s The Ideological Origins of Nazi Imperialism, Oxford, 1986. Smith applies his analysis to Wilhelmine Germany, where the two theories of Weltpolitik and Lebensraum appear more distinct than they actually are. 96 See for example the proposition of the Dresden Gewerbe-Verein to establish both. BA, Koblenz. ZSg.9/652. 97 Buß, Schulz and the Viennese Herz, the three speakers who in this debate advocated eastern colonisation were großdeutsch nationalists. See R Koch, Frankfurter Nationalversammlung.p.377, 111. National Unification and Global Expansion 80

endangered German peasantry.98 Yet it seems a misuse of the term ‘reactionary’ to

denote a process whereby the urban and rural poor were to be internationalised and

instrumentalised for the purposes of supplying German industry with the raw

materials it would need in order to transform Germany into an industrialised power

following the British path to modernity, a process in which the same poor were to be

afforded access to a degree of social mobility unobtainable in Germany. As a solution

to the twin problems of poverty engendered by modernisation and the need for an

industrialised Germany to obtain inexpensive access to the raw materials,

colonisation, as discussed in Frankfurt was clearly viewed as part of a modernising

agenda that itself was an expression of German liberalism’s confidence in a united,

industrial and commercial German nation. More likely than notions of a dewy-eyed

attempt at saving the peasantry, it could be argued that for German liberals,

colonialism offered a convenient way of ‘outsourcing’ rural and urban poverty in a

way that remained profitable for German industry and trade.

Pro-colonial sentiments were shared by many in the Assembly, which passed not only

the emigration bill, but also the amendments that made reference to subsequent

preparations for a German colonial project.99 Both in terms of the parameters of the

debate and the actual bill itself, the issues of emigration and the perceived need for

Germany colonies were acknowledged to be linked issues that could be addressed by

the simple expedient of undertaking an assertive imperialist line in foreign policy.

98 W Smith. Ideological Origins.p.25. 99 FL Müller. “Imperialist Ambitions.”.p.365, F Wigard. Sten.Ber. Vol.VIII.pp.5720-28. National Unification and Global Expansion 81

Liberal politicians and numerous civil society associations supported an imperialist foreign policy, not only because, an expansionist foreign policy lay in their material interests, but also because this policy best approximated their conceptualisation of the

German state as a power that could claim parity with the other major European liberal imperialist nations of Britain and France. In terms of other, endogenous pressures, the liberals of the Nationalversammlung were asserting a vision of the German nation- state that rivalled conservative, Catholic and socialist envisionings of German statehood and their perception of a future German Weltaufgabe. Unsurprisingly, the liberals of the 1848 period drew upon the heterogeneous liberal imperialist theoretics of the previous two decades. As an outgrowth of a discourse able to transcend the internal fissures between kleindeutsch and großdeutsch nationalists, Listian protectionists and free traders, constitutionalist and democratic liberals, an imperialist foreign policy agenda operated as a means of asserting the rapidly internationalising material interests of Germany’s Wirtschaftsbürgertum whilst furthering the nationalist teleology that lay at the heart of the theorising of the Bildungsbürgertum. In imperialism, liberals found a politics that portrayed them to both themselves and others as a broad, unified church worthy of their unifying task, through the establishment of solid discursive lines of demarcation between themselves and the advocates of other, mutually exclusive, domestic metanarratives of the German state.

Explicit in the textual products and political discourse of the liberal bourgeoisie of the 1840’s was the view that expansionism offered a mechanism for constructing, uniting and identifying a new liberal German nation. Furthermore, expansionism was National Unification and Global Expansion 82

viewed in part as an answer to, rather than a deflection of, the so-called ‘social

question’ – what was to be done to address the needs of the economically

disenfranchised, who had experienced the social dislocation brought about by

Germany’s move away from a rural economy, towards an industrial economic model,

and who comprised the main body of Germany’s large emigrant population.

Importantly, it was seen neither as an opportunity to divert the populace away from

the social problems inherent in the shift to a capitalist modernity,100 nor as an attempt

to have Germans believe that the social question did not exist or that it was of lesser

importance. Rather it was an attempt to solve these problems via what was seen as a

use of economic and social planning that accorded with liberal interests. This

reasoning saw the discourse of imperialism penetrate the liberal explication of the

German nation, and consequently saw Germany’s liberal politicians exhorting

Germans to unite and create an empire, or, as was often the case, to unite through the

creation of an empire.

Taken together, the debates over a German navy and over the regulation of

emigration represented a solidification of prevailing liberal ideas concerning a united

Germany’s place in the world. With each vote relating to a broadening of the scope of

the German state’s capacities throughout the world ending in an overwhelming

endorsement of an active foreign policy, garnered from large majorities that

transcended factional lines, the Frankfurt National Assembly offered the German

public a vision of a future liberal Germany - a vision of an expansionist Germany

100 Contra Wehler Bismarck und der Imperialismus.p.115. National Unification and Global Expansion 83

with an active navy interceding on the behalf of its citizens, colonies and business

interests around the globe. That these visions did not come to immediate fruition as

political circumstances came to change is no reason to believe that ‘all of this

imperialism… went for nought when the revolution failed in 1849.’101 As Woodruff

Smith more properly states, expansionism maintained a steady profile amongst liberal

circles well after their political ascendancy at the national level was stymied, largely

due to the fact that the liberal vision of modernity, of Germany as an industrialised

trading nation, came to more closely approximate the material conditions experienced

by those representing the various permutations of German liberalism, and the

problems that imperialist expansion were designed to address did not abate with the

ebbing political fortunes of the National Assembly. Imperialism continued to be not

only discussed but also enacted after 1849, even in the face of governmental

opposition, because material and social conditions, as perceived through the lens of

the liberals’ nationalist metanarrative, required imperialist discourse as the theoretical

basis for a future national praxis.

101 W Smith. Ideological Origins.p.26. Chapter Two.

Mythopoesis – The Establishment of Imperialism as a Liberal Discourse of

Nationhood and the Reification of the Tropes of Imperialist Discourse.

As the Frankfurt Assembly’s President Heinrich von Gagern had remarked to Johann

Tellkampf, books, treatises and pamphlets relating to the topic of the German nation

abroad had abounded for the twenty years previous to the Nationalversammlung. The

liberal press too had taken an interest in imperial affairs, as had German poets,

songwriters and writers of political tracts.1 Sometimes, as was the case with Ernst

Moritz Arndt and Georg Hergwegh,2 the poets and the politicians were one and the

same. However, unlike in the realm of nationalist politics, the creation of textual

treatments of German liberal imperialism continued unabated, despite the counter-

revolutionary political climate of the 1850s.

With German liberals unable to assert their long held goal of becoming a colonial

power via the type of national parliamentary politics represented by the Frankfurt

National Assembly, German imperialism moved at least partially into the sphere of

literature, ensuring both the continuance of the earlier textual interest in a German

colonial project, and the spurring of Germany’s Bürgertum into private sector forms

of imperialist venture. These texts, far from being a random assortment of theories

from the margins, represented a consolidated body of literature marked by a large

1 See H Fenske. “Imperialistische Tendenzen,” FL Müller. “Der Traum von der Weltmacht.” 2 G Herwegh. Die deutsche Flotte: Eine Mahnung an das deutsche Volk. Verlag der literarischen Comptoirs, Zürich, 1841. Mythopoesis 85

degree of intertextuality and self-referentiality. Along rehearsed and relatively stable

lines of discussion and employing concepts and rhetorical formulations that spanned

half a century, liberal theorists engaged in the transmission of an imperialist culture –

a culture that had its origins in the Vormärz era. Apparently heterogeneous in their

aims, most imperialist texts of the time in fact employed one or a number of well-

established discursive strategies that together constituted the tropes of liberal

imperialism.

In order that the textual manifestations of liberal imperialism be properly understood,

the tropes of imperialist discourse require identification and analysis, as a preliminary

step towards, firstly, their contextualisation and, secondly, the assessment of their

simultaneous reflection and construction of social facts.3 These common rhetorical

tropes, consolidated throughout the course of the nineteenth century, were

continuously and consciously employed in an attempt to gain widespread adherence

3 The contextualisation of these texts will not include a detailed survey of literacy levels and readership, and it will be taken as a reasonable assumption that, for the texts discussed, “Der ‘gemeine’ Leser ist ein Bürger” and that social divisions marked the consumption of imperialist texts by the German population. See R Schenda Volk Ohne Buch: Studien zur populären Lesestoffe 1770-1910. Vittorio Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main, 1970.pp.456ff. See also R Schenda Die Lesestoffe der Kleinen Leute: Studien zur populären Literatur im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert.Verlag CH Beck, München, 1976, and R Engelsing Analphabetentum und Lektüre: Zur Sozialgeschichte des Lesens in Deutschland zwischen feudaler und industrieller Gesellschaft. JB Metzlersche Verlagsbuchhandlung, Stuttgart, 1973. Although more often addressed to the bourgeois reader, imperialist texts did at least partially penetrate into the world of the working class reader in the late nineteenth century – on this see for example JP Short. “Everyman’s Colonial Library: Imperialism and Working-Class Readers in Leipzig, 1890-1914.” in German History.Vol.21 (4), 2003.pp.445-475. Mythopoesis 86

to national imperialist discourse, and ultimately to the liberal nationalist

metanarrative and its concomitant formulation of the German polity.

These often-employed rhetorical formulations of imperialist aims were explicit

signifiers of the attempt by liberals to gain and consolidate their cultural hegemony at

a time of apparent political difficulty, through the building of a broad national

consensus behind a particularly liberal vision of German society. The constant

enunciation of this vision through a well established rhetoric of expansionism both

nourished the pro-imperialist topos within liberal circles themselves and, importantly,

ensured the maintenance of a national profile for the liberals’ nationalist-expansionist

agenda.4 Broadly speaking, these tropes were economic, demographic, political,

moral and nationalist in nature, and were properly tropes, in that they were symbolic

as well as literal utterances, as opposed to mere themes for discussion, and in that

they were metaphorical manifestations of deeper arguments regarding the nature of

the new German nation and regarding Germany’s position vis-à-vis other European

powers.

This is not to say that they operated as ‘empty signifiers’ of identity, or pure literary

artifice without reference to material factors. Indeed, these material factors,

4 The utility of a textual approach to consensus building is confirmed by Schenda, when he writes, “Es steht fest, daß die Kommunikationsmittel die Denkweisen einer ganzen Nation beeinflussen können.” Volk Ohne Buch.p.487. This insight is not so distant from the Gramscian notion of organic intellectuals attaching themselves to the ascendant ideology of an emerging social cohort. That is, these text composers were not merely justifying existent social realities; rather through their labours they mediated and transformed social facts into conceptual units that themselves went on to operate on the material world, attempting to turn myths into reality. Mythopoesis 87

constituting the social logic in which these texts were situated, necessarily informed,

and to some extent determined, the liberal preference for an overtly imperialist

dimension to their proffered nationalist metanarrative. Clearly, a discernibly

bürgerlich social stratum chose a means of self-expression that coincided with and

advanced its material needs.

These tropes although at times reshuffled, reconfigured, and re-emphasised,

constituted the discursive parameters of liberal imperialist discourse from its

crystallisation at the Frankfurt Nationalversammlung until well into the Nazi era.

Typical of the deployment of the tropes of imperialist discourse, and illustrative of the

discourse’s intergenerational consistency, is the delineation of the fundaments of

Germany’s colonial claims by the Deutsche Kolonialgesellschaft in its organ, the

Deutsche Kolonialzeitung, which offered a concise rehearsal of essentially nineteenth

century arguments as late as 1919. Germany, the newspaper argued, required colonies

for a number of reasons:

1. Weil wir ein wachsendes Volk sind, das sich in Zukunft… mehr als je zuvor auf eigenem Grund und Boden betätigen muß, wenn es selbstständig leben will. 2. Weil wir Produktionsländer für Rohstoffe… nötig haben. 3. Weil wir unseren Welthandel, unsere Weltwirtschaft neu aufbauen und ausbauen müssen. 4. Weil wir unserer Kultur, unseren Missionen ein erweiteres Feld der Tätigkeit eröffern müssen. 5. Weil wir den glauben an unser Volk aufrechterhalten, daß es einer neuen großen Zukunft entgegengeht, wenn es seine Weltaufgabe im Rate der Völker richtig erfaßt.5

5 DKG 36(3). 20th March, 1919. “Wir müssen unsere Kolonien zurückerhalten.” p.25 (frontispiece). It is noteworthy that these historic liberal goals, predating the revolutions of 1848, re-emerged only a year after Germany’s World War One attempt at asserting Continental hegemony via military means had ended in failure, demonstrating the obstinacy of liberal imperialism as a discursive formation, even in the face of such a momentous rupture in the socio-political context in which it was situated. Yet when seen in the light of the dogged persistence of liberal imperialist discourse in the post-1848 era, it is not Mythopoesis 88

In the first point, demographic concerns and the solving of the social question were

alluded to, in its identification of population growth and its concomitant threat of

growing poverty as a key future problem that could only be satisfactorily solved

through territorial expansion. In the second and third points, the primary resources

and trade topoi of the economist trope were reaffirmed as the basic material

arguments asserted by German liberals for imperialism.

Point four alluded to the national responsibility that Germany, in liberal eyes, bore to

culturally realign non-European civilisations in line with the operating priorities of

the German nation and economy – a mission that liberals at best naïvely, at worst

disingenuously portrayed as a process of enlightenment and progress rather than one

of wholesale socio-cultural engineering and in many instances destruction. The final

point, operating as the binding argument between liberal interests and national

aggrandisement, deployed the nationalist trope, confidently asserting that in the

fulfilment of Germany’s world mission, as defined in the preceding points (that is,

points 1-4), a German nation would be created that was a ‘first rank’ power – that is a

nation able to operate with a ‘free hand’ when and wherever it decided.

surprising that, even after a defeat such as that inflicted at the end of the First World War, German liberals were determined to reassert imperialism, operating as a vehicle for their nationalist metanarrative, as a means of simultaneously projecting and protecting their cultural, economic and political hegemony. On this, see the discussion of Hans Grimm and Heinrich Schnee in Chapters Eight and Nine. Mythopoesis 89

Importantly, these tropes cannot be seen as mutually exclusive or competing

paradigms of imperialist ideology, as they were often simultaneously apparent in pro-

imperialist texts, overlapping and informing one another, particularly prior to colonial

imperialism having been given an official profile.6 This may be largely explained by

the initially oppositional nature of imperialist discourse in the nineteenth century that

permitted, indeed encouraged, heterogeneous imperialist visions to co-exist for

tactical reasons. Strategically this meant that German liberal imperialism was a broad

church that attracted an equally broad constituency of would-be imperialists, each

harbouring their own particular ideal or vision of what a German empire should look

like.

Linked to this is the fact that imperialism was by no means a hermetically sealed,

clearly delineated discourse, whose limits and practical aims were agreed upon before

its implementation. Partly because of its initially oppositional nature, imperialist

theorising was fluid in nature, a fluidity that saw some discursive strands

foregrounded and others glossed over, according to the strategic needs of a given

context; that is, in accordance with the imperatives that arose whilst attempting to

gain the acceptance and adherence of the national public to the imperialist project.

That is, imperialist discourse utilised or dispensed with its constituting tropes

6 Contra W Smith The Ideological Origins of Nazi Imperialism. Smith has argued that two antipathetic discourses of imperialism, which he designates as Lebensraum and Weltpolitik, competed throughout the imperial age. Such a reification of the differences between two contiguous aspects of colonial discourse do not find an easy correlation to the major imperial texts of Germany, which moved fluidly between the various tropes outlined in this chapter. Mythopoesis 90 according to both the immediate social context and the particular theoretical inclination and preoccupations of the composer of the imperialist text being deployed.

The first of these tropes, the economic, focused on the utility of colonialism in the process of Germany’s capitalist development. In economist presentations of colonialism, the discussion included a perceived over-production crisis within

Germany, coupled with a desire to create ‘captive’ markets across the globe.

Similarly deployed were arguments concerning access to primary resources, the importance of benefiting from the economies of scale that colonial production could offer and the need for financial and physical security for Germany’s global traders that would arise as a result of both the ‘uncivilised’ regions that their economic activity penetrated, and through the controlling of territory in the vicinity of the colonies of other major European economies (notably Britain and France, who may through jealousy and avarice fall upon the hapless German trading outpost).

Immediately apparent in this discursive strand is the seeming contradiction between the ‘captive markets’ topos and that concerning the declared security requirements of

Germany’s traders. The former required large-scale colonial settlements if it were to be feasible, whereas the latter could have easily been fulfilled through a form of quasi

‘private sector’ colonialism that restricted the government’s role to the acceptance of the right of German companies to claim territory that the companies themselves would manage. Already a discernible inconsistency between a minimalist and a settler colonial imperialism is evident. Far from an oversight, this apparent inconsistency Mythopoesis 91

was an important example of the in-built flexibility of imperialist discourse, which

could thereby hope to appeal simultaneously to German free-traders and protectionist

interventionists. Only in the 1870s and 1880s, when these differences ossified in the

debates between progressive liberals and nationalist liberals, would such

inconsistencies become problematic for the translation of imperialist theory into

praxis.

The second trope, demographic in nature, viewed the emigration of German nationals,

in particular to the Americas, as pointing to a fundamental weakness in the German

state. The discussion here was of a sapping of strength, or as Friedrich List saw it, a

loss of those qualities that makes nations great – capital and energy.7 Economically,

these émigrés took with them whatever capital they had, with little hope of the fruits

of this capital returning to Germany, while culturally, they would inevitably be

assimilated (‘assimiliert’) or fused (‘verschmelzt’) with the larger American

population, speaking English and adapting to American civic institutions.8 Colonies,

it was argued, would ensure that Germany’s human capital was harnessed within the

German economic sphere, ensuring that Germany would not end up losing this form

of economic strength to other nations that, for their own profit, provided emigrants

with a destination within their own internationalised imperialist economies.

7 F List. Das Nationale System Der Politischen Ökonomie in A Sommer (ed) Friedrich List. Schriften / Reden / Briefe. Scientia Verlag, Aalen 1971.Vol.VI.pp.422-426. 8 ibid.pp.422-423. Mythopoesis 92

Also considered were the political dividends that colonialism offered the political

classes in Germany itself. It is this that Wehler and Bade, amongst others have

referred to as the attraction of a Sammlungspolitik,9 whereby the more conservative

elements of German society could externalise the growing political and economic

problems that had resulted from rapid modernisation and the concomitant

construction of an urban proletariat which was rapidly organising itself. Although

perhaps not in the manner in which Wehler views it, notions of pragmatic domestic

politics are evident in early colonialist discourse, however only in so far as

imperialism was seen as a solution to the social question, rather than as a means of

avoiding it. It appears to be the case that Wehler has indeed antedated the notion of

social imperialism,10 in as much as the extent of conservative and liberal co-operative

political action in the post-1848/9 era through to the beginning of active state

imperialism in 1884 was relatively minor, the role of reform conservatives in the

Frankfurt Nationalversammlung notwithstanding, with their relationship marked more

by confrontation than fellow purpose. Liberals did indeed see imperialism as a valid

answer to the social question which would render socialism an obsolete

metanarrative, however the positioning of imperialism as a social remedy was also at

odds with the conservative national metanarrative in the pre-colonial era. It is not

until after the turn of the century, in such instances as the so-called ‘Hottentot’

election of 1907 that liberals and newly pro-imperialist, increasingly bourgeois

conservatives made common cause to use the ascendant liberal imperialist discourse

9 HU Wehler. Bismarck und der Imperialismus. K Bade. Friedrich Fabri. 10 PM Kennedy. “German Colonial Expansion. Has the ‘Manipulated Social Imperialism’ Been Antedated?” in Past and Present (54) Feb. 1972.pp.134-141. Mythopoesis 93

to isolate the by then far more politically organised and ominous Social Democrats

through an appeal to an alternate national mission abroad.11

Colonial discourse also had its perceived moral dimension, in so far as it was viewed

as an exercise in bringing European civilisation to the savages.12 Missionary activity,

and more importantly, the bringing of the ‘saving virtues’ of work discipline to the

‘indolent natives’ of the extra-European world, were consistently discussed as being

the right and responsibility of an ‘advanced’ nation such as Germany. This is perhaps

the discursive strand that is more usually dismissed as sheer cynical racially-

motivated propaganda, however in so far as it was the form in which some of the

earliest forms of racial theoretics were cast, the moralist colonial trope, as a means of

conveying liberal Enlightenment notions of cultural progress and racial difference, is

deserving of serious attention.

Finally, nationalist sentiments were consistently appealed to in imperialist discourse.

Irrespective of the precise nature of the imperial dreams they harboured, contributions

to German pro-colonial discourse were infused with a certain national

competitiveness that viewed expansion and naval aggrandisement as a means by

which the new German nation could assert itself in the world. This conflation of

nationalism and imperialism was central to early German liberal nationalism. The

liberal desire for an ostentatious assertion of national power and strength in the

11 U van der Heyden. “Die Hottentottenwahlen von 1907” in J Zeller & J Zimmerer (Hg). Völkermord in Deutsch-Südwestafrika.pp.97-102. 12 For this see especially the works of Wilhelm Hübbe-Schleiden. Mythopoesis 94 external world through an expansionist foreign policy should be seen as the discursive nexus between the liberal proffering of the nation-state as their preferred mode of governance (as determined by their own material class interests) and the broader, contested debate between adherents to rival concepts of statehood and their preferred modes of governance. The deployment of the nationalist trope was the attempt to transform a partisan liberal interpretation of German statehood into a collective identification of the state with the liberal imperialist nation.

The central figure in the consolidation of these tropes of German imperialist discourse was Friedrich List. Amongst the composers of pro-colonial texts prior to the 1884 decision to endorse the National Liberals’ expansionist agenda, Friedrich

List stands out as the exponent whose pronouncements on colonialism established the rhetorical terrain upon which the imperial debate would be argued for almost one hundred years. It is in List’s consistent and closely argued texts that the nexus between imperialism and more general liberal aspirations was most firmly established, and later proponents of German colonies borrowed heavily from the lines of discussion established in the Listian corpus.

Casting some light on the broader historical context within which List was situated is

Heinrich August Winkler, who, in writing of changes brought about in the revolutionary era, summarised the processes at work in the following terms:

From the period preceding the March Revolution of 1848 to the founding years of the German Empire, the national slogan was primarily an expression of the desire for bürgerlich emancipation... the creation of a German national state would not least enable Germany to reduce its economic backwardness in comparison with Mythopoesis 95

industrially advanced England. In this respect, early nationalism was an ideology of modernization.13

Winkler’s argument correctly posits the various sub-strata of the German Bürgertum

as having been anxious to translate their socio-cultural preponderance into political

gain, with this desire for political power having a largely economic dimension to it. In

essence, German liberals hoped that, by controlling the political direction of the

nation, they could ensure that the liberal economic model would become the national

economic model. With a modern, capitalist economic model perceived as being

reliant upon overseas trade and therefore the integration of non-European territories

into the German politico-economic realm, an equation was made between the political

and economic utility of imperialism as a means of securing domestic political support

and furthering the economic hegemony of German liberals.

That said, it does not do to over-homogenise the clearly disparate theories of political

economy that were current in liberal circles during the 1848-1884 period, with the

glaring dispute amongst liberals at this time being the split between free traders and

protectionists, a dispute which, saw political unity fracture to such an extent that

liberal political power was severely undermined by their disunity.14 One side-effect

of this rupture was a reappraisal of the desirability of statist colonies by progressive

13 HA Winkler. “Nationalism and Nation-State in Germany.” in M Teich & R Porter. (eds.) The National Question in Europe in Historical Context. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1993.p.182. 14 The most notable example of this was the split in the National-Liberal party in 1879. See JJ Sheehan. German Liberalism.pp.186ff, D Langewiesche. Liberalism in Germany.pp.196ff. Mythopoesis 96

liberals, who, in the 1880s began to see in them protectionist economics translated

into foreign policy, as the Samoa affair of 1880 illustrates.15

In his still useful survey of the latter years of the dispute, Ivo Nikolai Lambi

accurately summarised the varying fortunes of Germany’s free traders and

protectionists as a decade’s long contest between adherents to the tenets of Adam

Smith and those of Friedrich List.16 Both positions were proffered as models for

Germany’s industrial and commercial development, models that would allow

Germany to develop a modern economy able to compete with the region’s capitalist

hegemons Britain and France.17 As fiercely competing proponents of divergent

economic pathways within the edifice of nascent German liberal capitalism, and with

each variously embraced and rejected by Germany’s economic theorists and

government and university economists, both protectionists and free traders attempted

to assert that their theoretical positions represented the best possible means by which

Germany could effectively internationalise its economy.

Yet despite the fierce competition between these two versions of economic

modernisation, the teleology of both was virtually identical – a robust German

capitalism with a strong commercial and industrial base that was able to compete

within an internationalised economy as a free trading nation. As Lambi has pointed

15 See below, Chapter Five. 16 IN Lambi. Free Trade and Protection in Germany 1868-1879. Franz Steiner Verlag, Wiesbaden, 1963, Ch.1.pp.1-22. 17 ibid.pp. 1,5. Mythopoesis 97

out, despite his reputation as the father of a form of German nationalist protectionism,

Friedrich List saw protectionism as the means by which Germany would arrive at the

same level of economic development as England and France – at which time tariff

protection would have no further legitimate role and would require dismantling:

“Essentially, List’s system admitted protective duties, but only as a means of

preparing the nation for free trade.”18

The teleological confluence of liberalism’s two programmes of economic

modernisation is of critical importance in the understanding of the place of the extra-

European periphery within liberal economics and politics. With both positions

positing, firstly, the need for economic modernisation and internationalisation, and

secondly, the need for Germany to be able to compete in a successful fashion with the

economies of its main European rivals, the necessity of foreign acquisitions or, at the

very least, foreign spheres of economic dominance were implicit in both positions. In

effect, this meant that, despite disagreements over its precise form, as a point of

agreement between liberal protectionists and liberal free-traders, imperialism

operated as a lynchpin discourse upon which both groups could agree, and which both

could use as the basis for a pan-liberal discourse of German national progress. That is,

imperialist discourse and praxis enabled liberals to offer a unified form of national

identity, which was congruent with both of the competing versions of a liberal

economic policy agenda.

18 ibid.p.9. Mythopoesis 98

Although certainly not the first to call for a German imperial project, Friedrich List

was one of the most influential early advocates of an imperialist foreign policy as a

central tenet of liberal politics. With his work, many of the tropes of imperialist

discourse in Germany were established, paving the way for decades of research,

journalism, pamphleteering and novel-writing, which would stretch beyond the

‘liberal moment’ of 1848/9. Constantly repeated and reinscribed, the central tenets of

his belief in the necessity of imperialism as a national mission were transmitted to the

next generation of liberal politicians and theorists who would become active at the

time of Germany’s unification. In this way, a discernible theoretical position on how

and why Germany should become an imperial power emerged, and in the post-

unification years of a liberal cultural, if not political, hegemony, this theoretical

position could finally realise itself in the world through an imperialist praxis.

Importantly, List’s prototypical enthusiasm for colonies was not extraneous to the

other liberal causes that he championed throughout his long and prolific career.

Rather, it was a cornerstone to his politico-economic Weltanschauung. Being so

deeply embedded in his theoretics, imperialism was for List an integral part of any

liberal ascendancy, as a means of both securing and safeguarding a (yet to be born)

liberal and national(ist) Germany.19 This liberal, trading Germany, he argued, would,

19 List’s commitment to liberal imperialism was in concert with his ‘infant industry’ protectionist economic policies, which, as IN Lambi points out, were aimed at nurturing German industries until such time as they could effectively rival British economic dominance. IN Lambi. Free Trade and Protection in Germany 1868-1879. Franz Steiner Verlag, Wiesbaden, 1963.pp.8-9. Mythopoesis 99

in concert with other liberal trading nations, extract enormous economic gain from

the ‘civilisation’ of lands outside of Europe:

Il n’y pas pour les nations les plus avancées de l’Europe et de l’Amérique du Nord, de plus grand intérêt que celui de la civilisation ou de la colonisation de tous les pays de l’Amérique méridionale, de l’Afrique, de l’Asie et de l’Australie. Toutes pourront, par ce moyen, agrandir à l’infini leurs exportations en merchandises fabriquées, leurs importations des productions étrangères et leur commerce de transport ou de transit.20

The interconnectedness of colonial imperialism, colonial trade and European

prosperity with the duty of Europeans to ‘civilise’ or harness non-European nations

was a theme to which List often returned, both in this major work and in others, parts

of which are worth a full reproduction:

Par l’importation des substances et des matières premières, la nation acquiert la possibilité de fonder des colonies et de se les attacher de la manière la plus avantageuse à l’une et à l’autre; c’est-à-dire en facilitant un commerce réciproque et lucrative; en empêchant cette importation, elle s’enlève un moyen si important de s’enrichir et de pourvoir les individus qui manquent de travail.21

In den Zuständen der Nationen herrscht indessen zur Zeit eine unendliche Verschiedenheit; wir gewahren unter ihnen Riesen und Zwerge, normale Körper und Krüppel, zivilisierte, halbzivilisierte und barbarische… Es ist die Aufgabe der Politik, die barbarischen Nationalitäten zu zivilisieren, die kleinen und schwachen groß und stark zu machen, vor allem aber ihnen Existenz und Fortdauer zu sichern. Es ist die Aufgabe der Nationalökonomie, die ökonomische Erziehung der Nation zu bewerkstelligen und sie zum Eintritt in die künftige Universalgesellschaft vorzubereiten.22

20 F List. Le Système Naturel d’Économie Politique, in A Sommer. Friedrich List.Vol.IV.p.228. 21 ibid.p.322. 22 F List. Das Nationale System. p.210. Worth noting here is the link between politico-economic nation building and the colonial project. It is also worth noting here that this ‘civilising of barbarian nations’ was seen as being necessary so as to ensure that “die Länder der heißen Zone… [geraten] in die Abhängigkeit der Länder der gemäßigten Zone.” ibid.p. 53 Mythopoesis 100

Mit den Manufakturen erst entsteht die Fähigkeit der Nation, fremder Handel mit minder kultivierten Nationen zu treiben, die Schiffahrt zu vermehren, eine Seemacht zu gründen und den Überfluß der Bevölkerung des Nationalwohlstandes und der Nationalmacht zu verwenden.23

Rhetorically positioning Germany as an industrialising, manufacturing nation (before

this became a self evident truth), List was simultaneously able to assert the necessity

of colonialism for Germany as a source of raw materials for a burgeoning industrial

economy whilst deflecting more reactionary or Romantic notions of an inherently

agricultural Germany. In doing so, List formulated the enduring tropes of liberal

imperialism: namely its economic, demographic and political utility:

Die höchste Blüte der Manufakturkraft, des darauf erwachsenden inner und äußern Handels, einer / bedeutenden Küsten- und Seeschiff-fahrt und großer Seefischereien, und endlich einer ansehnlichen Seemacht, sind die Kolonien… Die überschüssige Kraft der Mutternation an Bevölkerung, Kapital und Unternehmungsgeist erhält durch die Kolonisation einen wohltätigen Abfluß, der ihr mit Interessen wieder dadurch vergütet wird…Agrikulturnationen, denen schon die Mittel fehlen, Kolonien anzulegen, besitzen auch nicht die Kraft, sie zu benutzen und zu behaupten. Was die Kolonien nötig haben, können sie ihnen nicht bieten, und was sie bieten können, besitzt die Kolonie selbst…

Wollen auch die andern [d.h. außer England] europäischen Nationen an dem gewinnreichen Geschäft teilnehmen, wilde Lande zu kultivieren und barbarische oder wieder in Barbarei versunkene Nationen alter Kultur zu zivilisieren, so müssen sie damit anfangen, ihre inneren Manufakturkräfte, ihre Schiffahrt und ihre Seemacht auszubilden.24

The alternative, as List saw it, to an imperialist Germany, was a loss of the most

dynamic elements of German society, who would simply express their restless energy

23 ibid.p.238. 24 ibid.pp.289-90. Mythopoesis 101

by emigrating to and assimilating into other, more dynamic nations, thereby depriving

Germany of precisely those qualities that would enable it to safeguard its political and

economic power and status:

Was hilft es der deutschen Nation, wenn die nach Nordamerika Auswandernden noch so glücklich werden, ihre Persönlichkeit geht der deutschen Nationalität für immer verloren, und auch von ihrer materiellen Produktion sind nur unbedeutende Früchte für Deutschland zu erwarten… Wie viele Deutsche gegenwärtig in Nordamerika leben, doch lebt sicherlich kein einziger dort, dessen Urenkel nicht die englische Sprache der deutschen vorzöge… sie werden und müssen sich matur gemäß mit der vorherrschenden Bevölkerung verschmelzen.25

To ensure that this nightmare scenario of lost German ‘energy’ did not come to pass,

List, pre-empting the Frankfurt Nationalversammlung and the pro-naval sentiments of

Bennigsen and Miquel’s Nationalverein, recommended:

daß Preußen jetzt schon mit Kreierung einer deutschen Handelsflagge und mit Grundlegung einer künftigen deutschen Flotte den Anfang machte, und daß es Versuche anstellte, ob and wie in Australien oder in Neuseeland oder auf andern Inseln des fünften Weltteils deutsche Kolonien anzulegen wären.26

Regarding the matter of the cost of colonies, List invoked the colonial experts – the

English: “Herr Gladstone hat nachgewiesen, und sein Beweis kann auch nicht im

mindesten bezweifelt werden, daß die Kolonisation ihre Kosten selbst bezahlen

würde.”27

25 ibid.p.425. 26 ibid.pp.425-426. 27 F List. Die Politisch-ökonomische Nationaleinheit der Deutschen, in A Sommer. Friedrich List.Vol.VII. p.391. Mythopoesis 102

Even with this level of colonialist urging, List felt that he had not adequately

addressed colonialism, and complained about the constraints of space that

necessitated the removal of an even more detailed exploration of the issue of

colonialism.28

Interestingly, List illustrated elements of the differing strains of German imperialist

thought, in his advocacy of not only overseas colonies but also Eastern expansion.

Problematically for Woodruff Smith’s Lebensraum / Weltpolitik dichotomy,29 List,

throughout his imperialist theoretics, saw no contradiction in urging both overseas

mercantile expansion and settlement and Eastern commercial and settler expansion,

viewing both as twin arms of the same policy – imperialism, for the sake of politico-

economic betterment – based on the exchange of German manufactured goods for

largely agricultural products from the colonies.30

28 F List . Das Nationale System.p.650. List wrote that he had a series of ideas related to agriculture, emigration and colonialism that he had left out and would write about later (which he never did). “…Ideen über…Kolonisation usw., welche ich aus Mangel an Raum hätte zurückweisen müssen, ohne zu sagen, daß ich in Zukunft mit diesen und andern nationalökonomischen Materien noch ganze Bände anzufüllen gedächte”. This professed interest in colonialism makes it difficult to agree with Smith’s assertion that colonies “played a relatively small role in List’s overall thinking”. Smith’s separation of List’s views on Eastern ‘inner colonisation’ from his views on overseas colonies fails to respect the interconnectedness between the two that List saw. See W Smith. Ideological Origins.p.31, List. Das Nationale System. pp.424-5. 29 W Smith. Ideological Origins. Smith, in analysing the differing strands of German imperialism has constructed a somewhat overly schematic picture of a rupture between Weltpolitik and Lebensraum modes of imperialist thought. In fact, for many, Weltpolitik, as a primarily modernising force for economic imperialism that stressed the control of overseas resources for use in Germany and Lebensraum, as a settler and agrarian movement that looked for land to stave off the urbanisation of Germany, were interchangeable arguments used to express the desire for a more expansionist Germany. 30 List. Das Nationale System.p.425. Mythopoesis 103

This was made abundantly clear in Das Nationale System der Politischen Ökonomie,

in which he outlined in detail his reasons for recommending German colonial activity

in Central and South America,31 as opposed to post-Monroe Doctrine North America

(where settlers were fast becoming assimilated into the hegemonic Anglo-Saxon

culture) after which he went on to say “Gleiche Politik wäre in Beziehung auf den

Orient, die europäische Türkei und die untern Donauländer zu befolgen.”32 If any

split in colonial discourse occurred, its unity is demonstrably still intact at the time of

List. Indeed, his criterion for colonialism was not whether it was to be mercantile or

settler colonialism, overseas or adjacent territories, but only if the land to be

colonised was culturally, politically and economically inferior to Germany:

Hier ist ein ganz neuer und reicher Manufakturwarenmarkt zu erobern: wer hier feste Verbindungen angeknüpft hat, kann für alle Zukunft im Besitz derselben bleiben. Diese Länder, ohne eigene moralische Kraft, sich auf einen höheren Standpunkt der Kultur zu erheben, wohlgeordnete Regierungen einzuführen und ihnen Festigkeit zu verleihen, werde mehr und mehr zur Überzeugung gelangen, daß ihnen von außen – durch Einwanderung – Hilfe kommen müsse.33

31 An undertaking whose theoretical beginnings had already been made manifest in the early plans of Johann Sturz and would later continue with Hermann Blumenau, amongst others, who attempted to establish German colonies in South America in the years after 1850. Interestingly, List had initially opposed Sturz’s earliest plans for a German colony in Brazil, on the grounds that Sturz’s plans benefited the English rather than Germany. See F List. Die Ackerverfassung, die Zwergwirtschaft und die Auswanderung.pp.524-5, 678. 32 F List.Das Nationale System.pp.422-425. See also List. Die Ackerverfassung, p.499-500, and Die Politisch-Ökonomische Nationaleinheit.pp.521-523, 823-824. 33 F List. Das Nationale System.p.424. List’s hierarchy of civilisations and the following effect on the political economy of nations can also be found on p.49. See also H Best. Interessenpolitik und nationale Integration 1848/49. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen, 1980.pp.23-29. Mythopoesis 104

It is worth noting the use of moral language, the perceived cultural imperatives

underpinning imperialist activity – further illustrating the parallels with the later

Nationalversammlung, where the sittlich benefits of imperialism were similarly

foregrounded.

It is difficult to judge the concrete effect of List’s work on the generation of pro-

colonial text composers of the mid to late nineteenth century, however, it is

remarkable that both List’s argumentative method and persuasive technique,

formulated prior to the 1848 revolutions, reoccur in the textual production prior to

and during the second liberal ascendancy at the time of national unification and

beyond. The language of economic necessity, counterpoised against that of colonial

opportunity, the references to current territorial restrictions offset by expansionist

possibility, and the discussion of a hierarchy of culture and morality, and of a

strengthened German nation, all re-emerged, to a greater or lesser degree, in the

writings of later proponents of imperialism who shared List’s liberal inclinations.

Of similar interest is the work of the Leipzig professor Wilhelm Roscher, whose

methodically established typology of colonialism was a similarly seminal pro-

imperialist work. Curiously understudied, Roscher’s work in many ways prefigures

that of Friedrich Fabri, whose late-nineteenth century work is often mistaken for

German liberal imperialism’s theoretical point of origin.34

34 W Roscher. Kolonien, Kolonialpolitik unbd Auswanderung. (3. Aufl.) Winter’sche Verlagshandlung, Leipzig. 1885 Mythopoesis 105

To briefly summarise the contents of Roscher’s theorising, four major variants of

colonies were identified – Eroberungskolonien, Handelskolonien, Ackerbaukolonien

and Pflanzungkolonien. The first he identifies with the period of Spanish and

Portuguese imperialism, with the conquistadors in South America as the prototypical

example. The last, plantation colonies, he viewed as reliant upon slavery and

therefore morally impermissible. However trade and agrarian colonialism were

presented as possibilities befitting modern Germany in so far as they were by and

large liberal-democratic in nature35 as well as being suitable only for those nations in

which “das ganze Volk eine ziemlich hohe Stufe des Wohlstandes und der Kultur

erreicht haben, muß insbesondere eine tüchtige Mittelklasse vorhanden sein.”36 As

with List, colonialism was seen by Roscher as a task befitting those of a suitable

cultural and political standing, with a modernising economic base.

In his discussion of the reasons for colonialism, Roscher again offered four main

grounds: Übervölkerung, Überfüllung mit Kapital, Politische Unzufriedenheit and

Religiöse Begeisterung, with the first of the two being his most important.

Significantly, Roscher, like Max Weber after him, identified political discontent and

the necessity of ‘releasing’ a surplus proletarian population, not in the combative

sense employed by Wehler’s social imperialism thesis, but in the tradition of classical

(that is to say Roman), popular reform. Roscher, like Weber, sought to mobilise the

urban proletariat and the downwardly mobile Mittelstand, not out of fear of the

35 W Roscher. Kolonien. p.22. “In ihrem Innern besitzen die Ackerbaukolonien gewöhnlich einen sehr demokratischen Character.” 36 ibid.p. 28. Mythopoesis 106

spectre of socialism, as Wehler suggests, but rather in deference to the wisdom of the

ghosts of Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus.37 For Roscher, colonies did not meant that the

struggling middle and working classes would be beguiled by an imperialist diversion

enacted by cynical patrician liberals and conservatives, but rather that the proletariat

and its children would become healthy, well fed middle class adults in the colonies,

even as they supplied the raw materials required by German industry. As at the

Frankfurter Assembly, the leitmotif here was not class warfare, but social mobility

and economic potential.38 Colonialism could operate, Roscher argued, as a means of

solving the social question, not avoiding it. As for the revolutionary elements of

German society, the colonies could also accommodate the demands for social

mobility lying at the heart of socialist politics:

Kolonien haben vor alten Ländern den großen Vorzug, daß sie jeder stürmischen Kraft Spielraum genug öffnen, ohne doch die bürgerliche Gesellschaft dadurch zersprengen zu lassen.39

Once again, this was not framed in terms of attempting to divert the poor from a

socialist agenda through the deployment of an imperialist one, rather it was an

attempt to demonstrate that the liberal imperialist metanarrative superseded that of

socialism, in that it offered the possibility of simultaneously solving the outstanding

issues for German liberals – the consolidation of a liberal Germany and, in the

process, the betterment of the material conditions of those classes worst afflicted by

the changes heralded by modernity.

37 ibid.p.32. 38 ibid.p.35. “Kinder, die im Mutterlande vielleicht dem Proletariate anheim gefallen wären, dürfen mit Zuversicht auf eine wohlhabende Zukunft rechnen.” 39 ibid. p.38. Mythopoesis 107

For Roscher, as with List, the creation of an imperialist German nation was not

merely desirable, but rather “eine nothwendige Folge der neueren wirthschaftlichen

Entwicklung… [eine] Symptome einer energischen Lebenskraft…” and as such

required active support - “aus diesem Grunde freudig begrüßt werden müssen.”40 As

with other colonial enthusiasts, Roscher viewed imperial expansion as an economic,

cultural and political necessity that would secure Germany’s industrial modernity

and, as he remarked in his 1885 edition, consolidate the nationalist gains of 1871.

Roscher summarised the links between modernity, nationalism and cultural

development in his concluding remarks, which are worth quoting at length:

Daß das deutsche Volk die ihm obliegende kolonisatorische Mission im Sinne der Humanität, der geistige Freiheit, der religiösen Toleranz und der wirthschaftlichen Gleichberechtigung erfüllen werde, dafür bürgt seine Vergangenheit. Nicht abenteurliche, golddurstige Begierde treibt den deutschen Ackerbauer und Handwerker gleich den Conquistadoren übers Meer, in den Urwald, sondern die Fürsorge für die Zukunft seiner Familie; nicht das Schwert sichert ihm den Besitz des Bodens, sondern Pflug und Art schaffen ihm eine neue Heimat; nicht die Bekehrungswuth fanatischer Priester, sondern ein durch die deutsche Reformation und die deutsche Wissenschaft geläuterter Geist wird die Leitung und Herrschaft der tiefer stehenden Rassen übernehmen. Nachdem durch die großen Thaten der siebziger Jahre das deutsche Volk sich zur Nation emporgeschwungen und sein Selbstbestimmungsrecht wiedererlangt hat, muß es, getreu der Tradition seiner Väter, seinen Antheil an der Kultur der Welt wieder übernehmen.41

In this third, 1885 edition, Roscher picked up a theme that Max Weber would later

become renowned for expounding – that unification was a mere stepping stone to a

greater, imperial Germany that would see its surplus industrial, trade and cultural

40 ibid.p.359. 41 ibid.p.467. Mythopoesis 108

‘energies’ harnessed through a colonial policy that would ensure Germany’s supply

of raw materials and offer an outlet for those segments of the German people that had

as yet failed to benefit from the leap into modernity. Roscher, as did Weber, saw

Germany’s current problems in classical terms and saw the solution in classical terms.

As the Gracchi had broken up the latifundia to enable the Roman urban proletariat a

stake in the imperial state, so too did Roscher urge a harnessing of colonies as a

means of enabling Germany’s urban poor to become affluent. Roscher offered

imperialism as a route out of the social impasse which had been brought about by

rapid modernisation. Far from an attempt to divert the masses from the social

question, colonialism was for liberals, such as Roscher, an attempt to answer it.

A similarly early advocate of German colonialism was Alexander von Bülow, whose

work Auswanderung und Colonisation im Interesse des deutschen Handels built on

his years of colonial experience in the employ of the Belgian Colonial Society.42

Instrumental in the founding of the St Tomas colony in Guatemala, Bülow argued

strenuously that Germany was fast missing the opportunity to create its own colonial

empire that could strengthen German international business interests. In accordance

with the prevailing tropes of German imperialist discourse, Bülow situated his

argument firmly within the context of a perceived economic need for German

commerce to expand in order to satisfy its surplus capacity – arguments first clearly

delineated by List.

42 A Bülow. Auswanderung und Colonisation im Interesse des deutschen Handels. FS Rittler & Sohn, Berlin, 1849. Mythopoesis 109

Bülow made no secret of his theoretical indebtedness to List, quoting him at great

length and recommending List’s work on the relationship between commercial policy

and colonialism.43 For Bülow, List’s imperialist theorising was “die Basis für den

Beginn eines neuen Studiums über das Wesen der Colonisation in Nord-Amerika und

über die Möglichkeit derselben in Mittel-Amerika.” Subsequent to his exposure to

List’s theories, Bülow related, he contributed a number of articles to the Kölner

Zeitung on the subject, before undertaking his practical colonial work in Central

America. 44

Despite this overt presentation of his intellectual pedigree, Bülow’s work was no

mere recycling of List’s exhortations to empire. Rather, Bülow sought to blend the

dominant tropes of colonialist discourse with innovations of his own, drawn from his

experience in the colonies. Importantly, Bülow dismissed the overpopulation

argument for colonialism, arguing that Germany was neither overpopulated nor in

danger of becoming underpopulated through emigration,45 thereby clearing the

theoretical ground for the foregrounding of his own, more commercially orientated

arguments for a colonial destination for Germany’s emigrants. With demography not

an important consideration, Bülow argued that Germany’s real gain in establishing

colonies came in their ability to answer for Germany the question of why Germany

did not rank amongst the world’s industrial powers.46 According to Bülow, the

43 ibid.pp.108ff. 44 ibid.p.108. 45 ibid.pp.4, 7-8. 46 ibid.p.vi Mythopoesis 110

answer was not because Germans were emigrating en masse, but that it was the most

energetic, vital part of the nation that was seeking an outlet for their energy abroad. In

England and Ireland, he argued, only the most wretched of the poor opted for

emigration as a last resort whereas, in contrast, Germans were only too willing to

leave their homeland.47 Through colonialism, this exiting vitality could be retained

for Germany and subsequently made to bear economic fruits. It was a matter of

retaining the latent economic strength of Germany’s emigrants, and thereby solving a

host of social problems experienced by Germany’s fledgling industrial economy.48

As with the debate in the Frankfurt National Assembly, Bülow postulated the

organisation of Germany’s ranks of emigrants as of critical importance for the

national economy, however, he also viewed two other conditions as being of

importance, the same conditions also mentioned in the debates at the Paulskirche,

namely the establishing of a German naval fleet and national unification. Operating in

a complementary fashion, these conditions, the grounding of a national fleet and the

achieving of national unity, were seen as being instrumental in the establishment of

German colonies and critical in ensuring the capacity of a German nation to pursue an

independent commercial policy that could be supported by military might and that

would be respected by other European global powers. Furthermore, this centralisation

of control over a channelled emigration under the auspices of a unified German

47 ibid.p.vii. “In England erschien mir die Auswanderung der letzte verzweifelte Schritt, bei den Deutschen erschien sie mehr das Ergebniß einer Vorsicht.” 48 ibid.pp.viii-ix. Mythopoesis 111

government with access to naval strength would, Bülow argued, enhance the material

benefits of colonial imperialism.49 Somewhat prematurely, Bülow declared:

Deutschland, der dritte europäische Handelstaat, hat im Verhältniß zu den übrigen Handelstaaten bis her noch außerordentlich wenig gethan, um denjenigen Einfluß auf den Welthandel zu erlangen, welcher ihm naturgemäß gebührt. Wenn die Ursachen dieser Erscheinung vornehmlich in der politischen Stellung unseres Vaterlandes, in dem Mangel an einer Marine, in der Abwesentheit einer einheitlichen Leitung dieser hochwichtigen Interessen, kurz darin zu suchen sind, daß bisher ein Deutschland eigentlich nicht existierte, so dürfen wir jetzt, in der Regenerationsperiode unseres großen Vaterlandes, diese Hindernisse als überwunden betrachten und in freudiger Hoffnung einer Zukunft entgegensehen, welche uns von der unangemessenen Stufe auf die erhabene Stelle heben wird, welche die Intelligenz eines großen Volkes seinen materiellen Interessen erringen muß.50

Clearly, the resurrection of the previously existing linkage between national unity, a

maritime military capacity and an active policy of colonial imperialism, discussed

both in the Frankfurt National Assembly and in the works of Friedrich List, was

maintained by Bülow, both because it was viewed as a proven necessity and in the

hope that the resonances of that lineage would strike an already established chord

with the work’s liberal readership.

Bülow was, however, no mere theoretical imperialist, and in 1849 he established the

Berliner Kolonisationsverein, which had to partially compete with, and partially work

with, the shortly thereafter established Hamburger Verein für Kolonisation in

Zentralamerika. In 1851, Bülow’s organisation secured a settlement contract for

German settlers to colonise Costa Rica and in 1853, Bülow’s colony, Angostura,

49 ibid.pp.106-107. 50 ibid.pp.386-87. Mythopoesis 112

came into (an albeit short-lived51) being, with the arrival of one hundred German

families on a ship from Bremen.52 This Angostura project was just one example of

the attempts by liberal imperialist theorists to translate the discursive norms of the

nationalist liberal metanarrative into praxis a number of years after German liberals

had lost the political initiative at the national level.

Similarly active in an organisation striving to realise colonial goals was the theorist

Karl Gaillard, who also saw Central and South America as the correct site for the

emergence of a German colonial empire.53 His criteria for the positioning of colonies,

as with other theorists were climatic, economic and cultural. Could Europeans

comfortably live there, were there products available there that would be useful for

Germany and would the pre-existing laws in the area permit Germans to maintain

their unique national identity upon their initial arrival?54 Considering these factors,

and having rejected Asia, Africa, Eastern Europe and North America, Gaillard

enthusiastically declared, “Das Spanische Amerika. Dies ist unser Kanaan, das Land

51 Hendrik Dane quotes US envoy Squier as reporting “Baron Bülow, the projector of this company died in 1856, and it is probable that this scheme expired with him.” See H Dane. Die Wirtschaftlichen Beziehungen Deutschlands zu Mexiko und Mittelamerika im 19. Jahrhundert. Böhlau Verlag, Köln. 1971.p.140. 52 H Fröschle. “Die Deutschen in Mittelamerika” in H Fröschle.(Hg). Die Deutschen in Lateinamerika: Schicksal und Leistung. Horst Erdmann Verlag, Tübingen, 1979.pp.567, 574-5, 596. 53 K Gaillard. Wie und Wohin? Die Auswanderung und die Kolonisation im Interesse Deutschlands und der Auswanderer. Verlag von Carl Reimarus, Berlin, 1849. 54 ibid.p.8. Mythopoesis 113

für deutsche Niederlasungen im vollsten Interesse Deutschlands, der deutsche

Auswanderer und der Erhaltung ihrer Nationalität…”55

Not content with such a vague indication of direction, Gaillard outlined the starting

points for a South American German empire most likely to succeed. Naming St

Tomas in Guatemala and the coastal strip between Bluesfield and San Juan in

Nicaragua as good initial settlement points, Gaillard asserted that:

...von St Tomas aus sich die Deutschen leicht über Honduras und Guatemala und von dem bezeichneten Theile Moskitias aus zunächst über das besonders bevorzugte Nicaragua und die andere Staaten Centralamerikas ausbreiten können.”56

Far from marking the limits of Gaillard’s vision, this conquest of Central America

was seen as the necessary first step. Longer term, Uruguay was also seen as a

candidate for a thorough-going Germanisation:

Von allen Ländern des südlichen Amerikas ist keins günstiger für eine deutsche Kolonisation durch Klima, Bodenbeschaffenheit, Lage, spärliche Bevölkerung und die Größe des Raumes, welcher der Ausbreitung den Deutschen geboten wird, als Uruguay.57

The scope of Gaillard’s idea that Germany could come to dominate South America

just as the English had come to dominate North America is in line with the

expectations of many colonialist theorists of the time. In fact, Gaillard’s work is best

seen as the theoretical basis for the imperialist praxis of the Berliner Verein zur

Centralisation der deutschen Auswanderung und Kolonisation, whose statutes were

55 ibid.p.35-36. See also p.46. 56 ibid.pp.51-52. 57 ibid.p.64. Mythopoesis 114

added as an appendix to the work.58 In the context of a general desire for the direction

of Germany’s stream of emigrants, South America appeared to many theorists as a

logical choice for the establishing of a Neu-Deutschland by the new liberal German

nation.

The further linkage between German unity, naval power and colonialism in South

America can be found in the work of Prussia’s former envoy to Brazil, Johann Jacob

Sturz. One of his earliest major statements on the issue, Soll und kann Deutschland

eine Dampfflotte haben und wie?,59 constructed a direct relationship between a fleet,

emigration, national unity and colonial imperialism. Ostensibly focused on a

perceived necessity for a steam line between Germany and South America, Sturz’s

imperialist sensibility emerged slowly over the course of the text, at first as an

unspoken assumption, and finally as a direct exhortation to the grounding of a New

Germany.

Sturz introduced the colonial idea by postulating that the task of the German nation

was the establishment of a “dauerhafte feste Grundlage in Süd-Amerika,”60 however,

he soon went on to speak in less coy terms about the necessity of a German colonial

empire as the appropriate task for a German nation:

Die Auswanderung ist sonach nicht allein nicht schädlich, sie ist nützlich, sie ist nothwendig. Alles drängt immer mächtiger darauf hin, daß die Emigration und die

58 ibid.pp.81ff. See also p.79, in which a joint government / private sector undertaking was suggested. 59 JJ Sturz. Soll und kann Deutschland eine Dampfflotte haben und wie? F Schneider & Comp. Berlin, 1848. 60 ibid.p.12. Mythopoesis 115

mit ihr unmittelbar zusammenhangende deutsche Colonisation praktisch als eins der wichtigsten Nationalanliegen erfaßt werde, es ist Zeit, sie vom höheren nationalöconomischen, politischen, nicht minder vom historischen Standpunkte aus aufzunehmen.61

Only through a colonial policy, Sturz argued in accordance with the model

established by List, could Germany’s emigration be properly organised so as to

benefit Germany, rather than North America, which for Sturz (as for List) represented

a drain on German industry and the German nation.62 At this early stage, Sturz saw

the organisation of emigration as most likely to take the form of German emigration

to Brazil, which, he claimed, was suitable for German colonisation in terms of

climate.63

For Sturz, Germany’s naval capacity, industrial capacity and an imperial policy were

part of the construction of a new modern Germany, whose proper place was as an

actor upon the world stage. As he saw it, the German populace was clamouring for

Germany to become a great sea-power, and this should be taken as a sign that the

time had come to fulfil this national mission: “Deutschland steht an der Schwelle

einer neuen Epoche seiner Geschichte, berufen, eine veränderte Stellung im

Weltleben einzunehmen.” 64

61 ibid.p.19. 62 ibid.p.20. 63 ibid.p.21. 64 ibid.p.24-25. Mythopoesis 116

Like List and other German imperialists of the 1840s, Sturz viewed modernity and

empire as necessarily linked prospects. Sturz saw Germany’s future national

prosperity as dependent upon a well-executed foreign policy that would see Germany

standing shoulder to shoulder around the globe with the other great European colonial

powers. It should also be noted that Sturz’s plan for a German colony in Brazil was

far from the dream of a solitary theorist. Johann Gustav Droysen had in 1844 also

expressed his view that a Brazilian colony was perhaps Germany’s best imperial

prospect;65 indeed much of the discussion of the 1840s revolved around South

America rather than Africa or Asia as a preferred colonial destination. That Sturz

went on to revise his support for Brazil and nominate other countries in the region as

perhaps more suitable for German colonisation in no way lessened his firm

commitment to the exhibiting of Germany’s industrial modernity through the

prosecution of colonial imperialism in South America.66

Also discussing the necessity of colonies at this early stage was Hermann Blumenau,

who published an anonymous treatise on the subject in 1846.67 At this stage,

Blumenau had not yet formulated a specific plan to direct colonialism himself, as he

would in the post-revolutionary years, when he would articulate and carry out a form

65 Letter to Arendt, 18 Nov. 1844, in R Hübner (ed) Johann Gustav Droysen: Briefwechsel. (Band.I: 1829-1851). Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart, 1929.p300. See also. FL Müller. “Imperialist Ambition.”.p.366. 66 See Chapter Three. 67 H Blumenau. Deutsche Auswanderung und Colonisation. Verlag der JC Hinrichs’chen Buchhandlung, Leipzig, 1846. The editor, who contributed a warm introduction, was the Göttingen University geography professor, J Wappäus. Mythopoesis 117

of private sector colonialism.68 Rather, in the Vormärz era, Blumenau was one of a

number of voices calling for a government policy of colonial imperialism.

Blumenau too did not stray far from the liberal nexus between national identity, the

need for a German navy and the dire need for German colonies as a means of

retaining the surplus capital and labour power represented by German emigrants. For

Blumenau, “Die Auswanderungsfrage ist Lebensfrage für Deutschlands Zukunft,” and

the means of answering the problem lay with “die Begründung einer Deutschen

Colonie.”69 Blumenau argued for the direction of German emigrants to specifically

German colonies, where, “sie wenigstens ihrem Vaterlande nicht so weit entfremdet

werden, unter der Herrschaft einer fremden Macht auch fremde Sprache und Sitte

annehmen zu müssen und in alle Gegenden zerstreut zu werden.”70

The emphasis on the retention of German language and customs was continuously

foregrounded by Blumenau, not only as a means of ensuring the “materielle

Wohlsein” of the individual emigrant, which he saw as important in itself. Rather,

broader national interests – the assertion of a national German identity and the

economic interests of German trade and industry abroad – were seen as being at

stake:

Während für den einzelnen Auswanderer nur die Frage Bedeutung hat, wo und wie er am schnellsten zu Glück und Wohlstand gelangt, sind andere für das Wohl des Ganzen und das Interesse des Deutschen Mutterlandes von nicht geringerem Belange. Sie betreffen für die

68 See Chapter Three. 69 H Blumenau. Deutsche Auswanderung und Colonisation.p.3. 70 ibid.p.2. Mythopoesis 118

nächste und nähere Zukunft die Erhaltung der Deutschen Nationalität, Sprache und Sitte, die Belebung des Deutschen Handels und Fabrikwesens…71

The various possibilities and avenues for German imperialism were systematically

reviewed by Blumenau, with several factors highlighted as inhibiting the potential

success of various forms of German colonisation. In particular, the lack of a centrally

unified German nation directing the project – “eine Deutsche Großmacht an die

Spitze des Unternehmens” – and the absence of a “mächtige Flotte,” a “starke

Seemacht,” were two factors singled out as hampering German imperialism.72 Here,

Blumenau hinted, colonialism and national unification were linked projects, with only

national unity affording the possibility of attaining the sea power requisite for

colonial undertakings.

Blumenau was similarly convinced that the German colonies needed to be

autonomous, or at the very least comprise the hegemonic political class within their

colonies. For this reason, he argued “daß sich die künftigen Auswanderer weder nach

Texas noch nach den Vereinigten Staaten wenden mögen.73 The entire point of

colonialism was, according to Blumenau, that Germans could exercise rule over

themselves and any other inhabitants of their proclaimed colonies – it was, in his

view, critical:

…daß die Deutschen in ihrem neuen Vaterlande zu überwiegender Macht und Geltung gelangen, und demgemäß die Politik desselben leiten oder doch einen

71 ibid.p.7. On national identity, see also p.24. On the benefits to German trade and industry, see pp.25- 26. 72 ibid.pp.16-17. 73 ibid.p.4. Mythopoesis 119

Einfluß auf sie ausüben.74

This naturally held repercussions for the indigenous inhabitants in German colonies,

whom Blumenau envisaged as working solely towards the material priorities of the

German economy and in particular the colonial agribusiness and trading interests that

were to be the colonies’ major contribution to it.75

In this early work, the lack of a responsible central government complicated

colonialism in Blumenau’s eyes, although he would later go on to be the foremost

practitioner of private sector German colonialism. The reason Blumenau posited for

the traditional role of government was that, due to both the initial establishment costs

and the colonies’ deeper role and significance in terms of international power politics

for the colonising state, imperialism had hitherto always been a state-run affair aimed

not at the ‘improvement’ of the colonial land and people but the improvement of the

material and political position of the colonising power prepared to invest in the

settlement of non-European land:

…noch nie sind Colonien Zwecke gewesen, selbst wenn sie mit den ungeheursten Kosten gegründet und unterhalten wurden – immer wurden und werden sie nur als Mittel betrachtet, die Macht und den Reichthum des Mutterlandes zu befestigen und zu erweitern.76

As has been mentioned, Blumenau himself would later find a means of overcoming

these conceptual blockages, by simply bypassing the state, which had proved a

74 ibid.pp.7-8. 75 ibid.p.13. “Deutschland wird eine Colonie haben, deren eingeborne Bevölkerung an Deutsches Interesse gebunden ist…” 76 ibid.p.18. Mythopoesis 120

disappointing avenue for liberal imperialists in the post 1848/49 period. In the

process, he would assert the cultural and economic hegemony of German liberalism

at a time in which it was confronting the political obstructionism of those who had

not yet acceded to the radically new, industrialised, embourgeoised Germany.

Blumenau, at this stage still only a theorist of liberal imperialism, would remain

undaunted by the political reversals brought about by the post-1848/9 period. In fact,

the colony ‘Blumenau’ which he founded in 1850, during the period in which colonial

imperialism supposedly disappeared from the German liberal agenda, is arguably one

of the most long-lived and tangible manifestations of the nineteenth century German

liberal imperialist movement’s push to establish a Neu-Deutschland in South

America.

The construction of the tropes of liberal imperialism by Vormärz text composers such

as Friedrich List, Alexander von Bülow, Johann Sturz and Hermann Blumenau, (in

effect the theorists referred to by von Gagern at the Frankfurt Nationalversammlung),

established the intellectual terrain upon which the liberal imperialists would

consolidate liberal-imperialist nationalism in the 1850s and 1860s. These figures,

along with those who have already been closely scrutinised by Hans Fenske and

Frank Lorenz Müller,77 created a vital imperialist discourse, whose translation into a

form of state-sanctioned national praxis was not realised until the 1880s. Despite

this, the private sector and liberal civil society remained undeterred, picking up where

the state left off. Germany’s liberal imperialists came to at least partially realise their

77 H Fenske. “Imperialistische Tendenzen,” FL Müller. “Der Traum von der Weltmacht.” Mythopoesis 121 imperialist dreams both through continued political agitation and the private sector colonies that stemmed from the bürgerlich world of the Verein. Part Two: Reconstituting the Oneiric Empire in the ‘Post- Liberal’ Era. Tending the Flame - Praxis 123

Chapter Three. Tending the Flame: The ‘Retreat and Return’ of Liberal Imperialist Praxis 1849-1884. ‘Informal’ Empire and Private Sector Imperialism.

The period between the liberal ascendancy of 1848/9 and national unification in

1871 was an era which saw tremendous political instability, both in terms of the

diplomatic and military clashes between the various German states, Denmark, and

France, as well as in terms of the political suppression and, at least at a ‘national’

level, political marginalisation of Germany’s liberals. With the political

uncertainties that confronted German liberals in the mid-nineteenth century, it is

understandable that they feared for the future of their project for a united

Germany. For many, the frustration that stemmed from Prussia’s abnegation of a

leadership role in the unification process through the Treaty of Olmütz in 1850,1

combined with the prevailing mood of Kleinstaaterei, led to a pessimistic

assessment of the future of national unity under any model, let alone one that

accorded with the dictates of the liberal metanarrative of nationhood.2

Superficially, this era could be viewed in terms of liberal quietism and retreat,

however Germay’s liberals clearly did not disappear in the post-revolutionary era.

At least to the eyes of conservative Wilhelm Heinrich Riehl, Germany in 1851

was culturally and economically, if not politically bürgerlich. “In our day,” he

declared, “the Bürgertum unquestionably posesses overwhelming moral and

1 D Langewiesche. Liberalism in Germany.p.58. 2 J Sheehan. German Liberalism in the Nineteenth Century.p.112.ff Tending the Flame - Praxis 124

material power. Our entire era has a bürgerlich character.”3 Significantly, the

prevalence of German liberals functioning in the political arena at the state level,

to say nothing of within the multifarious strains of civil society, ensured that a

sustained, if somewhat constrained, pressure for political liberalisation continued

even throughout the most reactionary years of the early 1850’s.4 Furthermore, the

difficulties inherent in overt political activities did not impede the continued

cultural ascendancy of Germany’s liberals, as they came to assert their dominance

in the press, literature and the world of the Verein.5 In economic terms, the

expansion of industrial capitalism and the Wirtschaftsbürgertum continued

unabated between the 1840s and the 1870s, as both David Blackbourn and Jürgen

Kocka have argued.6

With regard to imperialism and its role in promoting national unity, liberal hopes

that territorial expansion would bring about the desired outcome of a strong,

unified state were if anything intensified, as internal political avenues appeared to

have been all but closed off to the liberals’ unificatory overtures.7 For example,

Heinrich von Treitschke, Johann Gustav Droysen and Ludwig August von

3 WH Riehl. Die bürgerliche Gesellschaft, quoted in J Sheehan. German History 1770-1860. pp.793- 794. See also D Blackbourn & G Eley. Peculiarities. p.183. 4 J Palmowski. ‘The Politics of the “Unpolitical German”: Liberalism in German Local Government, 1860-1880’ in The Historical Journal 42(3) 1999.pp.675-704. Seealso D Langewiesche.Liberalism in Germany.Ch.3. See also J Sheehan. German History.pp.863, 869,881. See also D Rebentisch “Zusammenfassung” in K Schwabe. Die Regierung der deutschen Mittel- und Kleinstaaten 1815-1933. Harald Boldt Verlag, Boppard am Rhein, 1983.p.208. 5 On the importance of civil society avenues for the exercising of social and cultural leadership, see G Eley. From Unification to Nazism: Reinterpreting the German Past. Allen & Unwin, London, 1986.pp.70-71. 6 D Blackbourn & G Eley. Peculiarities.pp.180-181. See also J Kocka. “Bürgertum und bürgerliche Gesellschaft im 19. Jahrhundert,” quoted in H Seier. “Liberalismus und Bürgertum.”p.201. 7 L Gall. ‘Liberalismus und auswärtige Politik.’p.44. Tending the Flame - Praxis 125

Rochau, amongst other prominent liberals, looked forward to an era in which the

stark choice between becoming an imperialist great power, or the threat of having

to submit to the will of one, would see Germans unify in order to act militarily as

a single nation on the world stage, as a prelude to a definitive act of national

unity.8

In light of the political failure of the initiatives canvassed by the Frankfurt

Nationalversammlung, the complexion of German imperialism during this era

came to change, as some of the more ambitious manifestations of imperialist

thinking, such as state-supported large-scale colonies on the British model, were

heavily modified, without being abandoned, in line with the prevailing political

conditions. Similarly, plans for a national fleet suffered the consequences of

having no nation to serve. However, the liberals’commitment to the foundation of

a German state as a liberal, militarily strong trading nation continued to hold

currency, as did the liberal belief that it was through Germany’s military

domination over distant lands and the peoples that lived there that Germany

would acquire the nationhood that they saw as being commensurate with their

economic and cultural strength.

8 Langewiesche Liberalism in Germany.p.59. Langewiesche’s assertion that such views “did not point forward to the imperialist liberalism of Wilhemine Germany” owes much to Mommsen’s contentious view that imperialist discourse represented the Verfremdung rather than the continuation of earlier German liberalism. Schulze-Delitzsch for example, during the Nationalverein debate over the navy and the Schleswig-Holstein debate, argued that the conflict could turn into a broader European conflict which could bring about a centralised German government, an eventuality that they had best prepare for. See Verhandlungen der zweiten Generalversammlung des deutschen Nationalvereins. Verlag der Expedition der Wochenschrift des Nationalvereins, Coburg, 1861.p.35. On the role of militarism in German nationalism, see D Langewiesche. ‘Nation, Nationalismus, Nationalstaat.” See also M Kittel. ‘Abschied vom Völkerfrühling.?’ N Buschmann. Einkreisung und Waffenbruderschaft. Tending the Flame - Praxis 126

Despite the fact that a central German government, and therefore the notion of

overseas colonies controlled by the nation-state, had been indefinitely postponed,

liberals, rather than give up on the idea of creating a ‘New Germany’ overseas,

continued to agitate for territorial expansion, albeit in a modified form, in the

realms of civil society and private enterprise. In the absence of hope for an

official, national colonial policy, liberals supported a series of private colonialist

ventures, trusting in Rochau’s prediction that these products of the liberal cultural

Zeitgeist could not be resisted in the long run by the forces of political reaction.9

What Rochau’s notion of the liberal Zeitgeist offered German liberals was the

hope of a gradual victory based on engagement with the realities of contemporary

politics, coupled with the consolidation of what he saw as an already existing

liberal cultural hegemony.10 Politics would in the end, he argued, have to follow

the common mode of thought, the new phenomenon of ‘public opinion’ that was

inherent to the Zeitgeist.11 The principles, Rochau argued, which informed this as

yet unsung liberal spirit of the age were precisely those of the years of 1848/9, the

last time that the cultural hegemony of liberal thought and praxis was matched

with a corresponding degree of political agency.12

9 LA v.Rochau. Grundsätze der Realpolitik. (Hg. HU Wehler). Verlag Ullstein, Frankfurt a.M. 1972. pp. 32-35. See also D Langewiesche.Liberalism in Germany.p.62. 10 LA v.Rochau. Grundsätze der Realpolitik.p.33. “Der Zeitgeist ist die zu bestimmten Grundsätzen, Anschauungen und Verstandesgewohnheiten konsolidierte Meinung des Jahrhunderts.” 11 ibid.pp.32, 34. 12 Exemplifying the way in which the spirit of 1848/9 continued to guide German liberals like Rochau in the 1860’s was the printing of the 1849 “Grundrechte des deutschen Volkes” in toto in a supplement to the Wochenschrift des Nationalvereins, No.154. 10th April 1863. Rochau was of course the editor of this Nationalverein publication. Tending the Flame - Praxis 127

Rochau, in conformity with the Kleindeutsch vision of the Nationalverein,

situated the hopes for a liberal political ascendancy with Prussian primacy. With

Prussia nominated as the chosen vessel for liberal hopes, those Germans

displaying anti-Prussian tendencies were defined as de facto anti-liberal

particularists, or more precisely, as being against the liberals’ unificatory

metanarrative, as defined by the package of policies pursued during the liberal

ascendancy of 1848/9:

Halten wir uns indessen an den heutigen Stand der Dinge, so fällt zunächst die sprechende Erscheinung ins Auge, daß die Bundesgenossenschaft der preußenfeindlichen Parteien eine ganze Reihe der wichtigsten Punkte des frühen allgemein gültigen nationalpolitischen Programms – die Einheit, die Macht, die Größe des Vaterländes, das deutsche Parlament, die deutsche Flotte, das kräftige Eingreifen in die europäische Politik, den Respekt Auslandes usw. – entweder stillschweigend hat fallen lassen, oder gar mit dreistem Munde verleugnet.13

Noteworthy in this list of the components of the “generally valid national political

programme” is the emphasis on a forward foreign policy and military power. The

desirability of a democratic or parliamentary Germany is certainly present,

however, in this formulation it is clearly overshadowed by the desire for a unified

nation able to assert itself beyond its own borders. The attempt to assert this

vision as a national vision further illustrates the mythopoeic function of inherently

militaristic and expansionist manifestations of national unity such as a German

fleet and the winning of respect for Germany abroad through their deployment of

military power and through their dominance in international trade. Such symbols

of German dominance, liberals argued, were also to operate as symbols of

national unification. This equation between external power and internal unity lay

13 ibid.pp.234-35. Tending the Flame - Praxis 128

at the heart of the liberals’ nationalist mythology, in the post-revolutionary era as

much as during 1848/49, manifesting itself both through the establishment of

private sector colonies and through the agitation of various pro-imperialist liberal

associations such as the Nationalverein and the Deutscher Kolonialverein.

i) Private Sector Imperialism

Far from peripheral to German liberals’ efforts to stimulate the various German

governments’ and maintain the public’s interest in German colonial imperialism

were the projects of Germany’s private sector imperialists, whose plans and

agitation spanned the entire period of time in which liberals were unable to force a

political commitment to state-authorised imperialist policies – whether in terms of

a commitment to a national fleet or or the construction of German colonies.

Convinced that the cultural hegemony of the German Bürgertum was sufficient to

force eventual change,14 civil society stepped in at the point at which the state

failed to enact the liberal vision of the national task.

Looking back over this civic movement that stretched from the Hamburg

Colonisations-Verein von 1849 through to his own 1880’s Westdeutscher Verein

für Colonisation und Export, the son of Friedrich Fabri, Timotheus Fabri

explained the importance of the private sector imperialist movement, in terms that

corresponded to Rochau’s belief in the inevitable drive of the Zeitgeist, which

would be furthered by German liberals acting as a nationalist imperialist

14 As per Rochau’s theory of a liberal Zeitgeist. Tending the Flame - Praxis 129

vanguard, in the knowledge that they stood, as it were, on the correct side of

historical development:

Die deutschen Colonialbestrebungen würden am schnellsten und wirksamsten durch ein Eintreten der Reichsregierung ihr Ziel erreichen, da aber dieser aus politischen und socialen Gründen bis jetzt sich in strenger Reserve halten zu müssen glaubt, so ist es umsomehr der Privat-Initiative die Aufgabe gestellt, durch praktische überseeische Unternehmungen des deutschen Handels, der deutschen Industrie und des deutschen Capitals die Erweiterung unseres Wirtschaftsgebietes zu bewirken; wie es anderseits eine patriotische Pflicht ist, das fragliche Bedürfnis in weitesten Kreisen klarzustellen und durch eine zielbewusste Agitation auch ein thatkräftiges Vorgehen der Regierung vorzubereiten und in Bälde herbeizuführen.15

The private initaitive ventures which Fabri alluded to were many and varied.

Between 1849 and 1884, a large number of liberal imperial and colonial

associations sprung up, which sought to further German influence abroad in just

this way, through their pro-imperialist propaganda by deed – often with not only

an absence of government support, but in the face of outright government

opposition, as was the case with Brazilian colonial plans.

It should not however be said that all mid-nineteenth century German private-

sector colonial imperialists were for-profit enterprises. Johann Sturz is an example

of an imperial activist who saw colonialism very much in terms of state

regulation, even if undertaken by non-governmental associations composed of

overseas traders (that is, the model initially embraced by Bismarck in 1884).

Continuing his revolutionary-era advocacy of South America as a destination for

German colonists in the post revolutionary-era, the former Prussian consul to

Brazil backed his 1848 call for a national colonial effort with a series of later

15 T Fabri in BA Berlin R8023 / 262 (Deutsche Kolonial-Gesellschaft).p.67. Tending the Flame - Praxis 130

works devoted to the subject, with his two works of 1862 amounting to his most

comprehensive treatment of the subject.16 By this time disinclined to countenance

the prospect of emigration to the United States, due to the civil war and the way in

which Germans were ‘Yankeeified,’17 Sturz focused his arguments on the

prospect of a German controlled colony on the Plata River between Argentina and

Uruguay,18 his preferred site upon which to build a “Neu-Deutschland,”19 a

project most aptly described as a blend of settler and mercantile colonialism.

Specifically ruling out the notion of sending German emigrants to the colonies of

other European powers, Sturz’s primary objective was the fulfilling of the

nation’s obligations to its emigrants by ensuring that they were safely conveyed to

distinctly German colonies,20 where they could remain economically useful to

Germany, as well as continue to be German “in Sitte und Sprache,”21 so as to

ensure that they did not become pariahs on the fringes of the colonial societies of

other European great powers.22 This vision, Sturz argued, was now realisable, as a

16 J Sturz. Die Krisis der deutschen Auswanderung und ihre Benützung für Jetzt und Immer. Ein Hebel für deutsche Schifffahrt, deutschen Handel, deutsche Rhederei und Gewerbe, zur deutschen Flotte und eine Gewährleistung für deutsche Einigung, Kräftigung und Selbstachtung diesseits und jenseits des Weltmeers. Hickethier Verlag, Berlin, 1862. J Sturz. Kann und soll ein Neu-Deutschland geschaffen werden und auf welche Weise? Ein Vorschlag zur Werthung der deutschen Auswanderung im nationalen Sinne. Striefe & Co, Berlin, 1862. 17 J Sturz. Krisis der deutschen Auswanderung.pp.7-8. See also Kann und soll ein Neu-Deutschland geschaffen werden? for Sturz’s fear that Germans would be veryankeet in the United States and helotisirt in Brazil. 18 ibid.pp.27ff. Kann und soll ein Neu-Deutschland geschaffen werden?pp.22, 24, 45. 19 J Sturz. Krisis der deutschen Auswanderung.p.42. Kann und soll ein Neu-Deutschland geschaffen werden?p. 24. 20 Demonstrating the degree of intertextuality within liberal imperialist discourse, Sturz in this respect cites approvingly the conviction of fellow liberal imperialist Julius Fröbel that German emigration required a German colony as a destination. See Krisis der deutschen Auswanderung.p.148. 21 ibid.p.7. 22 J Sturz, Kann und soll ein Neu-Deutschland geschaffen werden?p.21. Tending the Flame - Praxis 131

result of the contemporaneous efforts to forge a German nation, which had helped

overcome the main impediment to such efforts in the past – a lack of collective

Nationalgefühl.23

The question of the relationship between colonies and the construction and

identitification of a future German nation and its people was also discussed by

Sturz, who argued that the question of colonies was:

...eine Frage der deutschen Ehre, Macht und Größe…eine Frage von eben so unmittelbar practischer Wirkung, als von der weitreichenden Perspective in die Zukunft ungeborener Millionen, und ferner Epochen der Weltgeschichte.24

Colonies, Sturz argued, demonstrated the strength and power of the German

nation, in particular in comparison to Older European colonisers such as Spain

and Portugal, who currently claimed South America as their own, despite the

eclipse of their power on the European continent itself:

Ja, was wäre denn auch von der deutschen Nation ‘zu halten, ohne Colonisationsfähigkeit? Denn was ist überhaupt die Colonisation? Nichts anderes, als die Fortpflanzung der Nationen und Staaten, und Nichtcolonisationsfähigkeit bedeutet für eine Nation nicht mehr und nicht weniger als Impotenz. So steht es aber nicht mit den deutschen Völkern, welche vielmehr eine weit kräftigere Potenz besitzen als die romanischen Völkern. Um so trauriger, wenn sie ihren Saamen auf fremden Fluren vergeuden, wo nur Fremde die Frucht ernten.25

The degree of success anticipated by Sturz in his colonial theorising was certainly

ambitious, as illustrated in his assertion that in less than half a century, Germany

23 J Sturz. Krisis der deutschen Auswanderung.pp.6-7. 24 J Sturz. Kann und soll ein Neu-Deutschland geschaffen werden?p.6. 25 ibid.p.13. See also p. 14, which discusses the shame that comes with Germany being shut out from global expansion by such insignificant powers as Portugal and Holland. Linking colonialism to naval capacity, Sturz argued that in the past Germany had been unable to compete globally for territory because of its unfortunate lack of naval power that saw it unable to enforce territorial claims. Tending the Flame - Praxis 132

could exercise hegemony over the entirety of the South American continent in the

same way that English speakers had virtually monopolised North America.26

Through higher emigration rates and birth rates than the Spanish, and higher

education and activity rates than the ‘erschlaffte’ indigenous and minor settler

populations in the more northern tropical zones, Germany could reasonably

expect numerical parity and the “Uebergewicht der inneren Kraft” with others

living in the region within forty years.27 The task of Germanising South America,

Sturz pointed out, would be far easier than that already successfully carried out in

Germany’s formerly ‘Slavic East.’28

The establishment of German colonies in South America, Sturz argued, was, in

the clear absence of government support for the necessary colonising task,29 to

fall to a colonial Gesellschaft30 that would support the project, as well as a Central

Bureau that could strictly enforce controls on how the emigration was carried out,

so as to avoid the shortcomings that he saw with the emigration programmes

operating in Brazil, the United States and Peru.31 Interestingly, Sturz saw the

natural supporters of his calls for German colonialism and in particular for its

support in a civil society association as lying with the premier German national,

liberal political organisation, the Nationalverein, whose lobbying for a national

26 ibid.pp.40ff. 27 ibid.pp.41-42. 28 ibid.p.43. 29 ibid.p.47. 30 ibid.pp.49-51. See also J Sturz. Krisis der deutschen Auswanderung.pp.46-50. 31 J Sturz. Krisis der deutschen Auswanderung.pp.48ff. Tending the Flame - Praxis 133

fleet he saw as complementary to his own colonial plans.32 Ensuring that his point

was clearly made, Sturz called upon Bennigsen and Schultze-Delitzsch as well as

other prominent liberals by name, as the natural supporters of his programme.33

Under their direction, Sturz argued, a national government would be forced to

protect Germans in their South American colony, via diplomatic and commercial

representation, as well as through German naval power.34

Perhaps with the colonising endeavours of operators less scrupulous than

Hermann Blumenau and Alexander von Bülow in mind, Sturz stressed that the

planning of German colonies required a regulatory body independent of

commercial considerations, that would work at arm’s length from the type of

private colonial enterprises that Sturz considered might be tempted to foreground

financial concerns rather than the welfare of the German colonists.35 Similarly,

the envisaged body of independent liberal imperialists had to be able to co-

ordinate and elaborate a colonial policy that accorded with a truly national

perspective:

Dieses Institut müßte unentgeldliche und von Privatinteressen gänzlich unbeeinflußte Auskunft an alle Personen… ertheilen. … Aufklärung über deutsche Emigration im nationalen Sinne [müßte] in allen Winkeln des Vaterland verbreitet…”36

32 ibid.p.161. “Leicht wäre es für den deutschen Nationalverein und in vollem Einklang mit seinen Bestrebungen für eine deutsche Flotte, einen Ausschuß zu bilden, und dem die beregte Sache anzuvertrauen.” 33 ibid.p.45. This support was eventually reciprocated, with Bennigsen ensuring that some of the Nationalverein’s funds made their way to Sturz’s fund. See below. 34 ibid.p.161. 35 Curiously, the shorter of the two works, Kann und soll ein Neu-Deutschland geschaffen werden? appears more open to the possibility of leaving the project in the hands of the private sector. See esp.pp.47-48. 36 J Sturz. Krisis der deutschen Auswanderung.p.161. Tending the Flame - Praxis 134

Consistency was not Sturz’s strength and, largely as a result of the clash between

rival German colonial imperialists Sturz and Blumenau, the notion of a German

colony in Brazil became a somewhat controversial topic during the second half of

the nineteenth century, with Sturz strenuously attempting to dissuade German

settlers from emigrating there, with various reports reaching Germany of ‘white

slavery’ and general overwhelming hardships being experienced by the settlers.37

Amongst others, Hermann Blumenau and Henry Lange reacted by charging Sturz

with negating rival forms of German colonialism not so much out of a sense of

moral obligation as for financial reasons, having in 1860 attempted to set up a

scheme whereby the English government should pay him a finder’s fee for each

German colonist he convinced to emigrate to a British colony – thereby

compromising himself by being involved not only in the unsavoury practice of

Menschenhandel but also assisting in the de-Germanisation of German

emigrants.38 Despite these accusations of disloyalty, Sturz retained the support of

numerous prominent individuals for his increasingly idiosyncratic colonising

plans, not the least of whom was Nationalverein director Rudolf von Bennigsen.39

37 Fritz Sudhaus’ Deutschland und die Auswanderung nach Brasilien im 19. Jahrhundert. Hans Christian Verlag, Hamburg, 1940 remains the best commentary on this intricate debate. See also D Bendocchi Alves. Das Brasilienbild der deutschen Auswanderungswerbung im 19. Jahrhundert. Wissenschaftlicher Verlag, Berlin, 2000.pp.68-70, 102-114. 38 For a late example, see H Lange in Wissenschaftliche Beilage der Leipziger Zeitung. No. 65, 13th August 1868, in Niedersachsisches Staatsarchiv, Wolfenbüttel. 192N (Nachlass Hermann Blumenau VIII, 5.p.24. 39 In March of 1865, a public fund was set up to support Sturz in his retirement, having lost his state pension as a result of his remarks about Brazil. Amongst the largely well-to-do contributors to the fund was Bennigsen. See NsSA. 192N, VIII, 5.p.21. “Aufruf zu einer Oeffentlichen Subscription für Herrn General-Consul Sturz.” Tending the Flame - Praxis 135

As a result of a series of well-aimed polemics partially discrediting his

commitment to German colonial imperialism by rival German imperialist

theorists and practitioners such as Hermann Blumenau and Henry Lange,40 Sturz

was forced to restate a final, slightly finessed version of his original plan for a

South American New Germany in late 1867, so as to defend his reputation from

his imperialist rivals in Germany.41 Regarding Rio Grande do Sul, he wrote:

Es ist… wünschenswerth, dass der Auswanderung Deutscher nach dieser Theile Brasiliens für die Zukunft von keiner Seite mehr Hindernisse im Wege stehen. Die deutschen Colonien Rio Grandes befinden sich auf einem zur Verbreitung deutscher Cultur höchst wichtigen Punkte Südamerikas und eine kräftige Entwickelung dieser Colonien kann der deutscher Nation nur zum grössten Nutzen gereichen…42

Still firmly convinced of the unsuitability of much of Brazil, Sturz continued to

focus on the Rio Grande do Sul region and neighbouring Uruguay, as more

suitable destinations.43

To the claims of those that remembered his earlier programme for a broader

colonising effort in Brazil, Sturz replied that he had insisted that this had always

been contingent on the alteration of political and cultural impediments there,

thereby enabling him to argue that those conditions had not been met and that

those emigrants that had gone to Brazil had failed to understand the subtleties of

40 See for example Hermann Blumenau’s vituperative Abwehr. Zur Charakteristik der Wirksamkeit des Hrn. Sturz in der deutschen Auswanderung. F.priv.Hofbuchdruckerei, Rudolfstadt, 1868, itself a response to Sturz’s anti-Brazilian supplement to the National-Zeitung on the 3rd of July that year. (No.305). Blumenau. Abwehr.p.1. 41 This alteration in his position was first published in book form in Sturz’s 1868 work Die deutsche Auswanderung und die Verschleppung deutscher Auswanderer.Kortkampf Verlag, Berlin, 1868. 42 NsSA, Wolfenbüttel. 192N, VIII, 5.p.19. JJ Sturz. “Deutscher Auswanderung nach Brasilien.” Berlin, 25th Dec. 1867. 43 F Sudhaus. Deutschland und die Auswanderung.p.100. Tending the Flame - Praxis 136

what he had written.44 In this 1868 work, Sturz remained firmly in favour of a

German colony in South America, particularly after the Monroe Doctrine had

closed off the possibility of autonomous German settlement in North America.45

In support of his claims, Sturz cited everything from German industriousness

through to the size of the German family as grounds for a colonial New Germany:

Aber nur durch Deutsche kann die Bestimmung Rio Grandes und der ihm südlich und westlich angrenzenden Länder je erfüllt werden. Keine der dort bestehenden Nationalitäten besitzt die physische und geistige Kraft in deren ungetheilten Besitz sich zu behaupten. Nur der Deutsche führt den Pflug und lebt sich überall, besonders auf dem ihm eigen gehörigen Boden, ein. Seine stets zahlreichen Kinder legen sich um ihn herum und breiten die Cultur organisch wachsend über das Land aus…. Das Vaterland seiner Kinder wird ihm zum eigenen, das engere zum weiteren, denn, “so weit die deutsche Zunge reicht” war seine Heimath dem Gemüthe nach, jetzt ist es in der That. Das ihm deutsche Wissenschaft, Kunst und geistige Nahrung erschaffende und spendende Land bleibt Deutschland für alle Zeiten und ist es an allen Orten, wo nicht eine brasilianische Urwaldsnacht das Licht erstickt… Es ist für Deutschlands künftigen Einfluß auf die Weltangelegenheiten, zu dem es durch seine immense Productivität geistiger und physischer Ausflüsse berechtigt ist, von Wichtigkeit, die Auswanderung anzuerkennen und selbst zu begünstigen, jedenfalls aber zu schützen…46

Sturz’s enthusiasm for the concept of Deutschtum abroad was continuously

reinforced throughout the work, mentioning Uruguay, areas of Brazil, Chile and

other South American areas as suitable sites for Germany’s expanding Volk.

Clearly, despite the setbacks experienced by Germany’s emigrants in Brazil, Sturz

remained undeterred in his enthusiasm for German colonialism, seeing controlled

44 Sturz.Verschleppung deutscher Auswanderer.p.14. 45 ibid.p.7. 46 ibid.p.21. The reference to the poetry of the nationalist Ernst Moritz Arndt is instructive in its illustration of the close relationship between two forms of imperialist mythopoesis – poetry and political theorising. Tending the Flame - Praxis 137

and directed colonisation as a means of ensuring that “Deutschlands Rang wird

dereinst in der Weltgeschichte um so mehr der Erste sein.”47

Like Droysen, Blumenau and others interested in the idea of South America as a

German colony, Sturz viewed such colonies as not necessarily relying on state

financial support. More feasibly, he saw them as the product of mass, directed

emigration and the work of financially independent emigration Vereine, who

through their dedicated efforts would create for Germany a series of well

regulated, inexpensive colonies,48 the existence of which would further German

industry and trade and expand German interests and culture around the world.

The points of the map ripe for a supersaturation of German emigrants were to be

determined according to a number of criteria: “Liberale and wohlbefestigte

Institutionen, Religionsfreiheit, freier Bodenbesitz, Fruchtbarkeit des Bodens,

gute Lage für den Welthandel, Seehäfen sind die Hauptbedingungen für von uns

zu billigende Ziele für Auswanderung unserer Landsleute.”49 The call here for

liberal political institutions and the emphasis on facilities for mercantile activity

mirrored, of course, not only the political demands and the economic

requirements of Germany’s own liberal movements (such as the Nationalverein),

but were also posited to meet the requirements of German trade and industry

abroad.

47 ibid.p.21. 48 ibid.pp.21-22. 49 ibid.pp.22-23. Tending the Flame - Praxis 138

A more strikingly private sector, civil-society attempt at embarking upon a course

of colonial imperialism was the application of imperialist theory into practice by

Hermann Blumenau, whose Brazilian colony enjoyed a modest success despite

the criticisms of Johann Sturz and the Prussian government’s regulation of

emigration to Brazil. Apparently unperturbed by the setback to the colonial cause

that had been brought about by the political reversals of the post-revolutionary

era, Blumenau was also able to successfully establish his private enterprise

German colony in Santa Catarina, Brazil in 1850. As has been discussed,

Blumenau had established the theoretical grounds for this colonial enterprise in

his 1846 treatise on the climatic, economic and political suitability of Brazil for

German colonial emigration, and he had quickly followed this up with one in

1850 that accompanied the establishment of his Brazilian colony.50 An outgrowth

of an article for the Allgemeine Auswanderungs-Zeitung,51 the 1850 treatise

introduced Brazil as “ein wahrer Diamant, dem nur ein tüchtiger Meister fehlt,52

a role that Blumenau envisaged as being fulfilled by German settlers.

Throughout Blumenau’s work, Brazil was favourably compared with other

emigration destinations, such as Chile, the United States and Australia, as a land

in which an independent German colony could be reasonably easily constructed.53

With Germans, according to Blumenau, already viewed as the colonial equals of

50 H Blumenau. Deutsche Auswanderung und Colonisation. Verlag der JC Hinrichs’chen Buchhandlung, Leipzig, 1846. H Blumenau. Südbrasilien in seinen Beziehungen zu deutscher Auswanderung und Kolonisation. G Froebel Verlag, Rudolfstadt, 1850. 51 H Blumenau. Südbrasilien.p.iii. 52 ibid.p.1. 53 ibid.p.13. “Alle jene Länder liegen ferner von Europa und die Reise ist kostspiegeliger und beschwerlicher, ohne daß sie mehr Vortheile, ja nur dieselben gewähren, wie Südbrasilien, wo eine Kolonisationsgesellschaft Fürstenthümer fast umsonst erwerben könnte.” See also.pp.32, 88-90. Tending the Flame - Praxis 139

the British in Brazil,54 and the Brazilian constitution ensuring the type of liberal

political institutions that could only be wished for in Germany,55 Blumenau had

no hesitation in declaring:

…die Aussichten auf materiellen Erwerb für den einzelnen Einwanderer sind günstiger, die Concurrenz ist geringer, der Markt geschützter und den Deutschen mehr gesichert, als in irgend einem andern von diesen aufgesuchten neuen Lande… Die sociale Stellung des Deutschen in Südbrasilien ist unter allen Umständen höher als unter Engländern und Nordamerikanern, daher die Erhaltung seiner Sprache und Sitte gesicherter. - Für eine geregelte, großartige, unmittelbar an der Seeküste beginnende deutsche Kolonisation bietet Südbrasilien einen Spielraum und gewährt eine Zukunft, wie kein anderes Land der Erde, die Banda oriental, Entrerios und Corrientes ausgenommen…56

As a result of Sturz’s later accusation of white slavery in Brazil, Blumenau, on

behalf of his and other neighbouring German colonies, was forced to defend his

colonial undertaking. Accordingly, Hermann Blumenau, in his 1868 publication

Abwehr. Zur Charakteristik der Wirksamkeit des Hrn. Sturz in der deutschen

Auswanderung,57 attacked the “Verleumdungen” and “ungeheuere Summen zur

Fälschung der öffentlichen Meinung.”58 Demonstrating a characteristic concern

with the European ‘soziale Frage,’Blumenau compared the position of emigrants

in Brazil to that of the poor in Europe, asserting that emigrants to Brazil were

indeed far better off than thousands of “besitzlose arme Arbeiter in Europa.”59

54 ibid.p.18, 89. 55 ibid.p.21. The liberal constitution appears to have been an obvious selling point in Blumenau’s eyes, to the extent that he appended his German translation of it to the work. See pp.91ff. 56 ibid.p.89. 57 H Blumenau. Abwehr. Zur Charakteristik der Wirksamkeit des Hrn. Sturz in der deutschen Auswanderung. Hofbuchdruckerei, Rudolfstadt, 1868. 58 ibid.p.2. 59 ibid.p.8. Tending the Flame - Praxis 140

In an attempt to further discredit Sturz, Blumenau cited Sturz’s proposal to the

British government to assist in the bringing of German emigrants to British

colonies in return for a commission.60 Blumenau (rightly) pointed out the extent

to which this proposal was quite at odds with the pro-German, nationalist

imperialism that Sturz had championed in his German publications. In the waging

of this colonial debate, Blumenau was not alone, supported as he was by other

colonists such as Henry Lange.

In terms of broader support, Blumenau was not left unrecognised by the broader

German and indeed European community for his successful private colonialism

efforts. In 1859 he was given honorary membership to the arch-liberal Freie

Deutsche Hochstift zu Frankfurt am Main and entered into their Ehrenbuch des

Deutschen Volkes. Perhaps of more interest is his taking of a gold medal and ten

thousand francs at the Paris World Fair in 1867, indicative perhaps of the interest

his project had aroused in international mercantile circles.61

ii) Hamburg: the House of Godeffroy, the Colonisations-Verein von 1849 and the

role of the Wirtschaftsbürgertum.

Hamburg has been viewed by several historians as seemingly lying outside of the

main trajectory of the history of German nationalism and the push towards

unification, resistant as it was was to all encroachments on its republican

60 ibid.pp.11ff. 61 J Blumenau-Niesel. “Humanitäres Ziel. 150 Jahre Blumenau in Santa Catarina, Südbrasilien.” Tópicos (3) 2000.p.35. Tending the Flame - Praxis 141

independence – particularly encroachments made by Prussia, which seemed to be

slowly dominanting the other German states through such mechanisms as the

Zollverein and the Norddeutscher Bund.62 As a city whose rhythms, politics,

economy and culture were organised in accordance with the requirements of

internationalised capital and the somewhat oligarchic liberal bourgeoisie in whose

hands it rested,63 Hamburg was a city-state in which the notion of expansionist,

internationalised trade held a great deal of currency. Indeed, as a state which had

162 consulates throughout the world as early as 1846, whose political masters had

spent their youth working in Africa, Asia and the Americas,64 and whose harbour

was undergoing massive expansion in the volume of trade to the rest of the world

during the nineteenth century,65 Hamburg was in many ways the precocious face

of German expansionist energies.

Arguably exemplifying this expansionist energy were the activities of the

merchant house Johann Cesar Godeffroy & Sohn in the Pacific region, in

particular in Samoa.66 Later to be instrumental in bringing the issue of

colonialism to a head in the Reichstag, the Godeffroy merchant house was in its

origins an outgrowth of the Wirtschaftsbürgertum embracing nationalist, state-

62 R Evans. Death in Hamburg: Society and Politics in the Cholera Years 1830-1910. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1987.pp.2-12. 63 ibid.p.33. “Virtually everything was ruthlessly subordinated by the Senate and the administration to the interests of trade.” Evans also points out that the Senatorial party, the Fraktion der Rechten, were by and large supportive of the agenda of the National Liberals at the national level. See p.45. 64 ibid.p.4. 65 ibid.pp.28-9. 66 See A SkĜivan. “Das hamburgische Handelshaus Johann Cesar Godeffroy & Sohn und die Frage der deutschen Handelsinteressen in der Südsee” in Zeitschrift des Vereins für Hamburgische Geschichte. Band 81, 1995.pp.129-155. and K Schmack JC Godeffroy & Sohn: Kaufleute zu Hamburg. Leistung und Schicksal eines Welthandelshauses. Verlag Broschek & Co, Hamburg, 1938. Tending the Flame - Praxis 142

driven imperialism until the Nachmärz political climate saw them transform their

position in favour of private sector imperialism. Beginning with the presence of

Gustav Godeffroy at the Frankfurt Nationalversammlung,67 and the offering of

the firm’s ship ‘Godeffroy’ to the German navy, under the symbolic name of the

‘Deutschland,’68 the Godeffroy firm was energetic in its early enthusiasm both for

national unification and a national naval force during the revolutionary period.

Despite the ultimate failure of this attempt to create a German navy, the firm

achieved its own expansionist success in the private sector, through their efforts

aimed at mercantile penetration of Samoa during the 1840s. By 1860, as a result

of British and American competition in the region, and in the absence of a

German nation-state, they had petitioned for an official state presence in the form

of a Hamburg Consulate in Apia to protect their domination of the region’s trade

interests. The Hamburg Senate agreed to this measure in February of 1861,

bestowing upon Godeffroy employees August Unshelm and then later Theodor

Weber the position of consul.69 This consular gradually expanded from that of

consul of Hamburg to that of the Norddeutscher Bund in 1868 and finally to that

of the German Reich in 1872.70

67 H Best & W Weege. Biographisches Handbuch.pp.156-157. Godeffroy participated as a member of the Centre-Left Augsburger Hof and was a member of the naval committee in April 1849. 68 K Schmack. JC Godeffroy & Sohn.p.81ff. As a firm based in Hamburg, obviously the fear of a Danish blockade rode high in the minds of the Godeffroys, however there is no reason to doubt the sincerity of their belief that Germany could only continue its progress through a blending of mercantile and military expansion. 69 A SkĜivan. “Das hamburgische Handelshaus”.p.130-2. Hamburg’s first consul, August Unshelm drowned off the coast of Fiji in March 1864. He was replaced by the highly productive Theodor Weber in the April of the same year. Weber also became consul for the Norddeutscher Bund in 1868, allowing other German firms to expand more rapidly in the region. 70 ibid.pp.130-132. See also FM Spoehr. White Falcon. The House of Godeffroy and Its Commercial and Scientific Role in the Pacific. Pacific Books, Palo Alto, 1963.p.45. Tending the Flame - Praxis 143

Through the agency of their employee consuls Unshelm and Weber, the

Godeffroys’ firm consolidated its enormous system of coconut plantations

supplying copra and other ‘colonial wares’to Europe with such success that the

firm was labelled by the British as the ‘South Sea Kings.’71 Eye witnesses of the

time noted the extent to which the firm had transformed the Samoan capital Apia

into a German town, with “buildings, dwellings, warehouses, shipyards, in fact,

the entire west side of the town” owned outright by the the House of Godeffroy.72

To the British travel writer Constance Gordon-Cumming, the Godeffroys were the

‘Grab-Alls of the Pacific.”73

Yet, despite their successes in the region, the Godeffroy Trade House, through its

exposure to Ruhr mining industries, was facing financial ruin by 1878.74 In an

attempt to salvage the position, the firm separated its Pacific interests from the

rest of the firm in March 1878, establishing a new legal entity, the Deutsche

Handels- und Plantagen-Gesellschaft der Südsee-Inseln zu Hamburg.75 It was

this entity that was eventually offered to the German government in 1880 and

71 A SkĜivan. “Das hamburgische Handelshaus”.p.132. See also W Nordmeyer. Die Geographische Gesellschaft in Hamburg 1873-1918: Geographie zwischen Politik und Kommerz. Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart, 1998.pp.76-81. 72 French captain Theophile Aube, quoted in FM Spoehr. White Falcon.pp. 38-39. 73 CF Gordon-Cumming, A Lady’s Cruise in a French Man-of-War, quoted in FM Spoehr. White Falcon.p.39. 74 A SkĜivan. “Das hamburgische Handelshaus.”pp.136-7. 75 ibid.p.138. See also StA Hamburg. 621-1:1 Handels-Gesellschaft: Handels- u. Plantagen- Gesellschaft der Südsee Inseln zu Hamberg, which includes the statutes of the newly established firm. Tending the Flame - Praxis 144

which is in some quarters credited as marking the beginnings of a governmental

interest in colonialism.76

Admittedly, the firm Godeffroy did not attempt to transform the Pacific Islands

into a German settler colony, preferring instead to exercise its network of control

via agreements and contracts with both the indigenous people who worked on the

plantations, as well as with the other two major powers in the region, the British

and the Americans. However this seemingly mercantile, ‘informal empire,’ in

addition to the presence of a German consul, also enjoyed the occasional support

of a visiting German naval vessel which could serve as a reminder as to the

seriousness with which Germany treated its Pacific income and influence,

ensuring “daß die Deutschen in Übersee nicht mehr ohne jeden staatlichen Schutz

waren.”77

To contextualise all of this, as Gallagher and Robinson pointed out in the early

days of the historiography of imperialism, “it would clearly be unreal to define

imperial history exclusively as the history of those colonies coloured red on the

map.”78 With this suitably extensive definition of imperialism in mind, ignoring

the global reach of the German private sector, as exemplified by such firms as

Godeffroy, is to deny the imperialist nature of the wholesale restructuring of

indigenous economies in order that they became compatible with European

76 See for example W Nordmeyer.Die Geographische Gesellschaft.p.66. 77 K Schmack. JC Godeffroy & Sohn.pp.217-18. A SkĜivan. “Das hamburgische Handelshaus.”pp.134- 5) doubts the probable efficacy of such naval visits, however, while not tantamount to ‘gunboat diplomacy,’ they were a signal that Germany intended to protect its interests abroad, no matter how far flung they were and irrespective of their private sector nature. 78 J Gallagher & R Robinson. “The Imperialism of Free Trade.” p.1. Tending the Flame - Praxis 145

economic priorities. It is also to ignore any analysis of whose economic and

socio-political benefit these trading empires served. Despite the lack of formal

governmental control and indeed of large numbers of German settlers, the house

of Godeffroy illustrates neatly the deep interconnectedness between liberalism,

nationalism and expansionist discourse and praxis. From their support and partial

supplying of a national fleet in 1848 through to the establishment of an extensive

and highly profitable German Pacific trade empire,79 Godeffroy & Sohn, like the

house of Woermann in Africa, illustrated the extent of the embeddedness of

Hamburg’s Wirtschaftsbürgertum in the processes of imperialism – whether

formal or informal, governmental or private sector.

Similarly stemming from Hamburg was the overtly colonial settlement

established by the Colonisations-Verein von 1849 in Hamburg in the Brazilian

region of Dona Francisca, also known as Joinville. A cartel of high profile

Hamburg traders and political personalities, the Colonisations-Verein was an

organisation that attempted to satisfy the perceived economic and strategic

necessity of strengthening Germany’s grip over trade in and with South America,

through colonial endeavours. Their project exhibited a mix of economic

pragmatism and the paternalistic sense of noblesse oblige characteristic of the

high bourgeoisie of Hamburg, as evinced by their desire to establish a

concentrated, independent German colony composed of the economically

79 Godeffroy’s Samoan holdings were offered to the German government as a result of the firm experiencing a financial crisis, brought about by exposure to industrial holdings in the Ruhr and had nothing to do with the profitability of their Samoan concerns. Tending the Flame - Praxis 146

disenfranchised, who would facilitate German trade and agricultural expansion in

the area.80

The Colonisations-Verein was in many ways the activist arm of a broader

emigration / colonial movement made up of prominent Hamburg liberals who

attempted to link the demands of expanding German industry and trade with the

welfare of German emigrants.81 Combined with the Hamburger Verein zum

Schutze von Auswanderung,82 their emigration and foreign trade orientated

newspaper Hansa, and even to a certain extent the later Geographische

Gesellschaft of Hamburg,83 the Colonisations-Verein attempted to bring about a

German colonial empire despite not only a lack of cooperation from German

governments, but after 1859, the direct opposition of the influential Prussian

80 The primary sources for the Colonisations-Verein von 1849 in Hamburg are the series of files kept in the StA, Hamburg (373-7i: Auswanderungsamt I: IIF1a.) and those in the Bundesarchiv, Berlin (R8023/259, R8023/260 Deutsche Kolonialgesellschaft). 81 On the convoluted interpenetration of private sector imperialists within Hamburg, see H Kellenbenz. “Die Auswanderung nach Lateinamerika und die deutschen Kaufleute (vornehmlich am Beispiel Brasilien)” in K Friedland (ed.) Maritime Aspects of Migration – Sonderdruck. Böhlau Verlag, Köln, 1989. pp.215-241. 82 Itself an organisation linked to the Berliner Verein zur Centralisation der Deutschen Auswanderung und Colonisation, under the direction of Alexander von Bülow. 83 W Nordmeyer. Die Geographische Gesellschaft.pp.64ff. “Allein schon aus den Tatbeständen, daß die Kolonialpolitik des Deutschen Reiches unter Bismarck ursprünglich deutsche Handelsinteressen in Übersee… zu schützen versucht hat, diese Handelsinteressen im wesentlichen die von hamburgischen und anderen hanseatischen Kaufleuten waren und die hamburgische Geographische Geselleschaft zu großen Teilen aus Kaufleuten… bestand, muß unweigerlich folgen, daß auch die Geographische Gesellschaft in Hamburg in die deutsche Kolonialpolitik verwickelt war.” In particular, Nordmeyer singles out Ludwig Friederichsen, Wilhelm Hübbe-Schleiden and numerous members of the Godeffroy family as actively pro-imperialist members of the Geographische Gesellschaft. Tending the Flame - Praxis 147

government, which, in response to unsavoury reports of indentured servitude in

Brazil, imposed heavy restrictions on emigration to Brazil.84

The main identities in this circle included the Verein directors Senator Christian

Matthias Schröder, Georg Wilhelm Schröder, and Adolph Schramm,85 all of

whom had business and political links with other like-minded international traders

and politicians such as the Godeffroy Trading House.86 In terms of the purpose of

the Verein, the 1848 ideal of concentrated German emigration as a means of

establishing a beachhead for German economic, political and military interests

abroad informed the organisation. As a private sector enterprise, such notions

were expressed in terms of economic nationalism:

…das Werk, welches wir in’s Leben riefen, nicht allein günstige Resultate für die Interessenten unseres Vereins bringen, sondern ebenso bedeutsam für die Wohlfahrt der deutschen Auswanderer als gewinnbringend für den Handel und die Industerie Deutschlands…87

As members of Hamburg’s patrician liberal governing community, the members

of the Hamburg Colonisations-Verein saw in the organisation of Germany’s

emigrants a means of alleviating the social pressures generating by urbanisation,

which had in their opinion created not so much a proletariat as an underclass

lumpenproletariat. It was these marginalised elements of German society that

were to not only find a new social role through colonialism, but who were to

84 JL da Cunha. Rio Grande Do Sul und due deutsche Kolonisation: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der deutsch-brasilianisch Auswanderung und der deutschen Siedlung in Südbrasilien zwischen 1824 und 1914. Gráfica Léo Quatke, Santa Cruz do Sul, 1995.p.261. 85 Statuten des in Hamburg errichteten Colonisations-Verein von 1849. StA Hamburg. 373-7i: IIF1a. 86 H Kellenbenz. Die Auswanderung nach Lateinamerika.pp.233-36. 87 Vierter Bericht der Direction des Colonisations-Vereins von 1849 in Hamburg (Mai 1852).p.8. Repeated also in Fünfter Bericht (Dec. 1855). StA Hamburg 373-7i: IIF1a. Tending the Flame - Praxis 148

become the ‘Trojan horse’ for German expansionism.88 In offering the prospect of

prosperity in the colonies and attempting to halt the geographic concentration and

the deterioration in the material state of this surplus workforce, the Colonisations-

Verein sought to demonstrate the ability of the liberal imperialist metanarrative of

German imperialist nationhood to solve the social problems engendered by

modernisation. With the materially disenfranchised excised from the urban

German setting and employed profitably in German colonies, liberalism’s

metanarrative rival, socialism, was to have been rendered redundant through the

liberal’s recourse to imperialist praxis. The liberal promise of colonial prosperity

held out by the Colonisations-Verein, as a means of the addressing of the

Sozialfrage, was indeed a form of social imperialism, however not in the sense of

it operating as a diverting prestige programme, as the term has been employed by

Wehler,89 but as understood by Eley, as a paternal, liberal, reformist solution to

the apparent material poverty experienced by the urban poor as a result of the

burgeoning capitalist social and economic order.90

In keeping with this end, the national utility and economic significance of the

colonies was foregrounded by the Verein, in a manner that placed it firmly within

the preceding tradition of liberal imperialist discourse:

Wenn wir uns in erster Beziehung das Ziel gesetzt hatten, dem deutschen Auswanderer eine Stätte zu bereiten, [und] seine heimische Gebräuche und Gewohnheiten beizuhalten und ihn so der alten Heimath so wenig als möglich entfremde, - wenn wir es auf diese Weise zu erreichen hofften, dass der unserer Einladung folgende Theil der

88 On the social composition of potential colonists and the way in which colonialism was seen as an answer to the social question, see Bericht der Interimistischen Direction des Colonisations-Vereins von 1849 in Hamburg. 1851. StA Hamburg. 373-7i:IIF1a pp.3-4. 89 HU Wehler. Bismarck und der Imperialismus. 90 G Eley. From Unification to Nazism.pp.162-3. Tending the Flame - Praxis 149

Auswanderung dem Mutterlande nicht verloren gehe… sondern durch dauernde Anghänglichkeit und lebhafte Wechselbeziehung auch in der Ferne noch zur Hebung deutschen Gewerbfleisses und Handels beitragen möge, und dass auf diese Weise die einmal nicht zu hindernde Auswanderung für Deutschland statt eines scheinbaren Verlustes einen segenreichen Gewinn bringen möge, so glauben wir von diesem Gesichtspunkte aus mit Genugthuung auf die Erfolge unseres Wirkens hinblicken zu dürfen.91

The instrumentalisation of more overtly nationalist-imperialist discourse was

noticeably heightened in the protests against Prussia’s restriction of emigration to

Brazil, in which both the Verein’s colonists and those of Blumenau attempted to

deploy the culturally resonant notion of establishing a New Germany abroad that

could both reflect and assist the newly unified Germany of the old world:

Wird denn Preußen, das mit kühner Hand daheim den politischen Neubau Deutschlands begonnen, wird es nicht endlich auch für die aus der Heimath scheidenden Deutschen, statt mitt kleinlichen Beschränkungen zu spielen, seiner neuen Größe würdige Ziele in’s Auge fassen und zu dem Ruhmeskranze für die Neugestaltung des alten Deutschland den zweiten gesellen für die Begründung eines neuen Deutschland in Brasiliens Süd-Provinzen?92

It has often been assumed by historians that Hamburg was reluctant to support the

colonial ideal, and that they resisted the Reichstag’s eventual embracing of a

colonial policy.93 This seems to mischaracterise the situation. Certainly, pro-

private sector expansionist Eugen Richter, leader of the German Fortschrittspartei

91 Drei und zwanzigster Bericht. (Nov.1874). StA Hamburg. 373-7i:IIF1a p.3. 92 “Noch ein Protest aus Brasilien (aus der Colonie Blumenau) gegen geflissentlich verbreitete verdächtigungen und Verläumdungen.” (July 1868, StA Hamburg. ) 373-7i:IIF1a. On the effect of the Prussian restrictions on the colony, see Neunter Bericht (Sept. 1860).pp.3-4, Fünfzehnter Bericht. (Nov. 1866)p.6, Achtzehnter Bericht (Nov. 1869).p.3. 93 See for example R Evans. Death in Hamburg.p. 28. “Colonial propaganda received almost no support in Hamburg…” Tending the Flame - Praxis 150

saw it otherwise, believing in 1888 that pro-imperialist pressures in Germany

stemmed largely from Hamburg, as he made clear in the Reichstag:

Wenn die Kaufleute auf Abenteuer ausgehen wollen, dann mögen sie es aus eigener Tasche tun und nicht die Reichskasse und das deutsche Volk in Anspruch nehmen... Wenn die Herren in Hamburg wirklich so überzeugt wären von dem Nutzen einer energischen weitergehenden Kolonialpolitik in Ostafrika, dann begreife ich nicht, warum sie die Tashen so absolute gerade in Hamburg zugeknöpft halten... Warum geben sie denn kein Geld dazu? Sie haben es ja dazu!94

In so far as the traders of Hamburg had been undecided on the issue, this

hesitancy was far from representing a resistance to the notion of German

imperialism, which they themselves had been conducting since the 1840’s.

Rather, it was a residual concern over the effects of a protectionist stance in

matters of international trade.95 If Bismarck attempted to revive a form of arch-

Listian autarky, then retaliatory action by other powers such as England, France

and the United States could see Hamburg’s previously lucrative international

trade between their own colonies and those of other nations effectively shut down

– particularly if Germany’s colonies could not be maintained by naval force. In

Hamburg, the guiding ethos was that Germany did indeed need to expand abroad,

however that the state needed to tread carefully rather than aggressively, so as not

to provoke other colonial powers into excluding German traders from their

colonies. Both the Reichstag and Hamburg’s merchants agreed on the need for

overseas expansion, however the question was how this should be done.

Yet even this hesitancy has been somewhat over-emphasised, and it is worth

remembering that not only was Hamburg not insulated from colonial propaganda,

94 Quoted in IS Lorenz. Eugen Richter. Der entschiedene Liberalismus in wilhelminischer Zeit 1871-1906. Matthieson Verlag, Musum, 1980.p.108. 95 So Evans. Death in Hamburg.p.28. Tending the Flame - Praxis 151

as Richard Evans has suggested, but perhaps the most influential colonial

propagandist besides Friedrich Fabri of the early 1880s, Wilhelm Hübbe-

Schleiden, lived, profitably traded and wrote in Hamburg, and he was far from a

lone voice in the wilderness,96 with the influential liberal merchant milieu of

Hamburg including a healthy number of Germany’s most ardent supporters of the

broader national imperialist ideal.97 Elements of the Hamburg press, in particular

the Hamburger Fremden-Blatt also published a number of pro-imperial articles,

including the press releases of the Kolonialverein, with the understanding that

“Die Frage der deutschen Colonisation wird von Tage zu Tage dringender…”.98

Surrounded by like-minded individuals in Hamburg, Hübbe-Schleiden published

a number of works that sent a wave of colonial enthusiasm throughout

Germany.99

96 W Nordmeyer. Die Geographische Gesellschaft in Hamburg. Nordmeyer, in a short summary of the more prominent pro-colonialism movement in Hamburg discusses, besides Hübbe-Schleiden, Ludwig Friederichsen, Johann Cesar Godeffroy sen, Adolph Woermann and William Henry O’Swald, all of whom were actively involved in pro-imperial lobbying and private sector imperialist praxis in the pre- 1884 era. 97 Thus, of the 38 members of the Kolonialverein from Hamburg listed in 1884, twenty-five were merchants or traders, with two bankers, along with institutional members such as Godeffroy’s Sudseeinseln company, A Woermann from C Woermann & Co and L Friederichsen, Secretary of the Hamburg Geographical Society, and the publisher of Hübbe-Schleiden’s works. See BA Berlin R8023/253. Deutsche Kolonialgesellschaft.p.136. 98 BA Berlin. R8023/256a.p.194. Erste Beilage zum Hamburger Fremden-Blatt. 22nd November, 1882. See same, 21st October 1882 for the positive review of Maltzan’s Handels-Colonien, eine Lebensfrage für Deutschland, which concludes with the statement “Die Haputstraßen in das Innere Afrika’s… gelangen von Tag zu Tag mehr in die Hände der französischen und englischen Nation und doch ist es für Deutschland eine Lebensfrage, sich an dem täglich erweiternden Verkehr mit dem Lande der Zukunft, Afrika, zu betheiligen.” This support was not, however, monolithic, with the Fremden-Blatt conversely declaring on 11th August 1882 that if the Junker Eastern latifundia estates were broken up, overseas colonisation would become unnecessary. Not entirely anti-colonial in its logic, it situates the necessity of colonies in terms of the Junker’s territorial preponderence in the East. 99 On Hübbe-Schleiden’s literary output, see below. Tending the Flame - Praxis 152

Furthermore, apart from the writing of colonial tracts and the conducting of

private-sector imperialism, the political institutions of Hamburg were not just

sympathetic to a national foreign policy that assumed an imperialist stance, but

were also involved in the encouragement of the Reich government to adopt just

such a stance, as can be clearly seen in the case of the Denkschrift from the

Hamburger Handelskammer to the Berlin government (via the Hamburg Senate)

in July 1883.100 Composed by Adolph Woermann, heir to his father’s immense

African trading firm C Woermann (an African version of Godeffroy’s Samoan

empire), and member of not only the Handelskammer and the Hamburg

Bürgerschaft but in the following year the holder of a Reichstag seat for the

National Liberal party, the Denkschrift, ratified by the Handelskammer, called for

a number of aggressive foreign policy options in the light of French and English

imperialist activity in Africa.101

The meeting of the Hamburg Handelskammer at which the Denkschrift was

approved took place on the evening of Friday the 22nd of June 1883, 102 during

which the necessity of state-sanctioned colonising activity was debated, in light of

the new situation. At the meeting, various combinations of naval power,

diplomatic pressure and colonial acquisitions were discussed. Woermann argued

100 W Nordmeyer. Die Geographische Gesellschaft in Hamburg.p.82. 101 ibid.p.82. See also H Pogge von Strandmann. “Consequences of the German Empire: Colonial Expansion and the Process of Political-Economic Rationalization” in S Förster, WJ Mommsen & R Robinson. Bismarck, Europe and Africa. The Berlin Africa Conference 1884-1885 and the Onset of Partition. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1988.p.110. 102 A partial transcript of the meeting and Woermann’s petition can be found in G Klein (Hg). Dokumente zur Geschichte der Handelskammer Hamburg. Th. Dingwort & Sohn. Hamburg. 1965.pp.167ff. Tending the Flame - Praxis 153

that there was no point in having a navy if it could not intervene on Germany’s

behalf in foreign lands, and that the seizing of colonies would in effect pay for the

upgrading of the German naval presence in Africa.103 In the end, the

Handelskammer voted to send Woermann’s petition as it stood to the Senate, with

only two members voting against it. The Senate then passed the petition on to the

national government, which looked upon the proposals favourably.104

The actual petition, in its summary, called for the following measures:

1. Ernennung eines deutschen Konsuls an der Goldküste. 2. Abschluss von Verträgen mit England, event. auch Frankreich, durch welche den Kolonien dieser Staaten in jeder Beziehung, namentlich bezüglich des Erwerbes von Grundeigenthum, gleiche Rechte mit Angehörigen gewährleistet werden…. 3. Einwirkung auf Frankreich zwecks Aufhebung der Benachtheiligung des deutschen Handels, wie sie durch das Verbot der Einfuhr von Gewehren in der Kolonie Gaboon und die gleichzeitige Einfuhr grosser Quantitäten zum Handel bestimmter Gewehre durch de Brazza herbeigeführt wird. 4. Bewirkung der Anerkennung des Inkraftbestehens des Handelsvertrages durch die Liberianische Regierung; eventuelle Revision des Vertrages und Sicherung gleicher Behandlung der Deutschen in Liberia mit den Angehörigen anderer Staaten. Schutz der deutschen Interessen in den von unabhängigen Negerstämmen bewohnten Distrikten durch Abschluss von Verträgen mit den Häuptlingen, und durch Stationirung von Kriegsschiffen zu dem Zwecke… 5. Neutralisirung der Congo-Mündung und des benachbarten Küstenstriches. 6. Begründung einer Flottenstation (Fernando Po). 7. Erwerbung eines Küstenstriches in West-Afrika zur Gründung einer Handelskolonie…105

As Gottfried Klein has suggested, it was this petition, addressing the dual

concerns of free trade and colonialism, that led Bismarck to ask Woermann to

103 ibid.pp.170-1. “Wozu hätten wie eine Kriegsmarine, wenn nicht zum Schutz unserer Beziehungen zu fremden Ländern?!” 104 ibid.p.176. 105 ibid.pp.175-6. Tending the Flame - Praxis 154

brief the soon to depart Imperial Commisioner to Africa, Dr Gustav Nachtigal

who, as Walter Nuhn records, on a “streng geheime Mission,”106 would declare

Togo and Cameroon German protectorates in 1884, in line with the Hamburg

request for German possessions along the West coast of Africa.107

In the face of such lobbying for a mix of strong diplomatic pressure, gunboat

diplomacy, naval consolidation in Africa and active state colonialism, it is hard to

maintain that, in the years preceding ‘Bismarck’s’ colonial Umschwung, the

merchants of Hamburg were less than enthusiastic about German imperialism or

indeed a foreign policy based on colonial protectionism. Apart from the

expansionist enterprises of Woermann and Godeffroy, which had reorientated the

economies of entire non-European regions so as to benefit their firm and the

German economy, the liberal-dominated Hamburg Chamber of Commerce, via

the liberal-dominated Hamburg Senate actively requested that the German

government undertake a more interventionist, imperialist foreign policy. Although

this request had its immediate origins in contemporary events in Africa, it was

also in keeping with the tenets of liberal nationalist imperialism that had existed

in Hamburg since the time that the firm Godeffroy had bequeathed his ship, the

106 W Nuhn. Kolonialpolitik und Marine: Die Rolle der Kaiserlichen Marine bei der Gründung und Sicherung des deutschen Kolonialreiches 1884-1914. Bernard & Graefe Verlag, Bonn, 2002.p.48. On Nachtigal’s later role in establishing Germany’s African colonies, see A Tunis. “Gustav Nachtigal – Gefeierter Afrikaforscher und umstrittener Kolonialpionier” in U van der Heyden & J Zeller (Hg.) Kolonialmetropole. Eine Spurensuche. Berlin Edition, Berlin, 2002.pp.96-102. 107 G Klein. Dokumente zur Geschichte der Handelskammer Hamburg.p.176. This notion is also supported by the polemic but not inaccurate work of Renate Hücking & Ekkehard Launer, Aus Menschen Neger Machen. Wie sich das Handelshaus Woermann an Afrika sich entwickelt hat. Galgenberg, Hamburg, 1986.pp.47ff. Tending the Flame - Praxis 155

symbolically renamed ‘Deutschland’ to the Frankfurt Nationalversammlung’s

national navy in 1848.

As exemplified in the case of Hamburg, Germany’s mercantile liberal middle

class were able to assert German influence abroad via foreign investment and

trade and colonial projects of both the trade and settler type. In this manner, they

attained in some regions the type of supra-national economic preponderance that,

given its relative antiquity as a form of expansionist praxis, cannot be accurately

described as ‘neo-imperialism.’ Far from a new phenomenon, the actions of a

number of German companies demonstrates the extent to which German

penetration and domination of international markets had always been a means of

simultaneously supporting liberal Germany’s claims to great nation status and of

underwriting the prosperity of the German middle classes.

As Thomas Schoonover, in his pithy article on German activity in Central

America has shown, the lack of a formal governmental policy of colonialism did

little to slow the rate of German penetration in the region, to the extent that US

Minister George Williamson was warning, “The Germans and not the British are

our real competition for the trade of the whole of Spanish America.”108 From the

Hamburg based trade interest in Central America, through to the Prussian

government’s involvement in the searching for trade and colonial possibilities that

would secure transit rights across the Central American isthmus for German

108 T Schoonover. “Germany in Central America, 1820s to 1929: An Overview.” Jahrbuch für Geschichte von Staat, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft Lateinamerikas. 25 / 1988.pp.33-59. For citation, see p.44. Tending the Flame - Praxis 156

merchants, German states, on the behalf of and in conjunction with their

mercantile liberal traders, had been intensively involved with the region.109

An excellent example of this is to be found in the case of Guatemala, where, as

Katharina Trümper has demonstrated, Germany exercised a form of economic

imperialism that established itself so successfully in the nineteenth century that it

caused the turn of the century German diplomat FC Erckert to remark:

In keinem außerdeutschen Gebiete, unsere eigenen Kolonien nicht ausgenommen, ein, wenn nicht absolut, so doch relativ so umfangreicher und örtlich so konzentrierter ländlicher Grundbesitz in deutschen Händen ist wie in Guatemala.110

The basis for this economic control lay with the penetration of the Guatemalan

coffee market, and in particular the astute vertical integration of German

companies, that saw the entire process funded by German banks, controlled by

German producers and shipped by German vessels to European markets, assisted

by what Michael Rieckenberg has called a Guatemalan “Liberalen

Entwicklungsdiktatur”111 whose efforts amounted to, as Trümper’s paraphrasing

of Rieckenberg renders it, “einen mißglückten Versuch” at developing Guatemala,

managing only to bring about a “verstärkte Abhängigkeit von ausländischen

Nationen und dem Weltmarkt.”112

109 ibid.pp.34-41. Schoonover describes this process as Prussia drifting “into the imperial competition between Britain and the United States.” See p.35. 110 FC Erckert. “Die wirtschaftlichen Interessen Deutschlands in Guatemala,” Beiträge zur Kolonialpolitik und Kolonialwirtschaft (1901-2).pp.225-238, 269-284. Quoted in K Trümper. Kaffee und Kaufleute: Guatemala und der Hamburger Handel, 1871-1914. Lit Verlag, Hamburg, 1996.p.34. 111 M Riekenberg. Zum Wandel von Herrschaft und Mentalität in Guatemala. Ein Beitrag zur Sozialgeschichte Lateinamerikas. Böhlau Verlag, Köln, 1990.p72ff. See also Trümper. Kaffee und Kaufleute.p.6. 112 M Riekenberg. Zum Wandel von Herrschaft und Mentalität in Guatemala.pp.76ff. See also Trümper. Kaffee und Kaufleute.p.6. Tending the Flame - Praxis 157

As Trümper has argued, the position of influence held by such German firms as,

Hockmeyer & Rittscher, and Schlubach and Thiemer & Co in Central America,

(like Jantzen & Thormählen and C Woermann in Africa or Godeffroy & Sohn in

the Pacific) demonstrates the extent of the control over extra-European lands

exercised by the commercial representatives of a de facto, ‘informally’ colonising

German nation.113 It further illustrates the translation of liberal imperialist

discourse into a theoretically informed private sector praxis. A bringing together

of emigration based colonialism, German capital and its coercive power over the

political decision making of the colonial government, Guatemala exemplified this

private sector German liberal imperialism, undertaken in an era in which liberals

were politically unable to realise their expansionist goals via political, statist

means. Despite the inability of liberals to translate growing cultural and economic

hegemony into national political control within Germany itself, Germany’s

Wirtschaftsbürgertum nonetheless exercised real imperialist power over the

economic base of colonial nations, as the Guatemalan example demonstrates:

Diese Epoche ist ein Beispiel dafür, wie sich ausländische Unternehmer ab der Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts – mit Beginn der Ausbildung eines modernen Weltmarktes – in das Wirtschaftssystem eines ökonomisch unterentwickelten Staates intergrierten und es entscheidend prägten. Die Hamburger Kaufleute kamen in ein Land, das sich politisch und wirtschaftlich im Umbruch befand. Ausgerüstet mit höchstem technischen und kaufmännischen Wissen und abgesichert durch ihre Verbindungen zum Hamburger Handel besetzen die Kaufleute innerhalb kürzester Zeit Schlüsselpositionen bei der Finanzierung, der Produktion und dem Export von Kaffee.114

Of course, not all German activity in the area during the pre-colonial era went

without government assistance. As Schoonover explains, by 1877/8, Germany felt

113 K Trümper. Kaffee und Kaufleute.pp.30-31. 114 ibid.pp.76-77. Tending the Flame - Praxis 158

that its interests in Central America were of such significance as to warrant the

despatching of a five-ship squadron to Nicaragua to gain satisfaction in a dispute

involving the German consular officials and traders Paul and Christian Moritz

Eisenstück.115 Clearly, there were limits to the disinterested stance of the German

government in the ‘pre-colonial’ era of ‘informal empire.’

The Colonisations-Verein von 1849 in Hamburg and indeed Hermann Blumenau

were perhaps prime examples of a form of private sector liberal colonialism that

continued throughout the post-1848 and pre-1884 period, however, they were far

from alone in their efforts to establish autonomous German colonies in South

America. Notable other attempts included the remarkable colonisation of Pozuzo

and other regions in Peru, at the behest of the German explorer, Damian Frh. von

Schütz-Holzhausen during the 1850’s116 as well as Jakob Rheingantz’s Sao

Lourenço colony in Brazil in 1858.117 Similar private initiative colonies were also

established in this period by Bernhard and Rudolph Phillipi in Chile,118 and

Hermann Frers in Argentina.119

115 T Schoonover. “Germany in Central America.”p.44. For the one of the commanding naval officer’s memory of events, see K Paschen. Aus der Werdezeit zweier Marinen: Erinnerungen aus meiner Dienstzeit in der k.k. österreichischen und kaiserlich deutschen Marine. Ernst Siegfried Mittler & Sohn, Berlin, 1908.pp.186ff. 116 G Petersen & H Fröschle. “Die Deutschen in Peru” in H Fröschle. Die Deutschen in Lateinamerika: Schicksal und Leistung.pp.703-706, 739. 117 KH Oberacker & K Ilg. “Die Deutschen in Brasilien” in H Fröschle. Die Deutschen in Lateinamerika.p.197. See also D v.Schütz-Holzhausen. Der Amazonas: Wanderbilder aus Peru, Bolivia und Nordbrasilien. Herdersche Verlagshandlung, Freiburg, 1895.pp.221ff. 118 C Converse. “Die Deutschen in Chile” in H Fröschle. Die Deutschen in Lateinamerika. pp.304-311. 119 W Hoffman. “Die Deutschen in Argentinian.” in H Fröschle. Die Deutschen in Lateinamerika.p.86. According to Werner Hoffman, in the period 1856-85, 46 predominantly German colonies were established in the Argentinian province of Santa Fe. See p.146. Tending the Flame - Praxis 159

Of further interest are the efforts of Ernst Hasse of Leipzig, whose

Südamerikanische Colonisations-Gesellschaft zu Leipzig was an interesting

example of a colonisation society in a city far removed from the German

coastline, which nonetheless saw the broader national interest as interlinked with

the furthering of maritime imperialism. The Leipzig Colonial Society, like most

liberal imperialist associations, stated its aims as being the direction of German

emigration to a region in which the German population would constitute a

majority and where they would wield the largest share of the economic power.

Mooted were ideas for Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay or Chile as potential sites,

but in the end, it was Paraguay that was seen as being most promising.120 This

society was also firmly committed to the principle of private sector

imperialism.121 In fact, it appears as one of the final examples of the private sector

imperialism that had become institutionalised in the 1850’s as a result of the

failure of revolutionary period attempts at implementing a statist liberal

imperialism.

120 BA Berlin. R8023/261 Deutsche Kolonialgesellschaft. Of particular interest is the pamphlet “Die Südamerikanische Colonisations-Gesellschaft. Ein Beitrag zur praktischen Lösung der deutschen Colonisationsfrage.”p.18, as well as the extensive correspondence between Ernst Hasse and Wilhelm Hübbe-Schleiden of Hamburg (pp.4ff.), which developed into a Denkschrift by Hübbe-Schleiden in 1881, entitled “Entwurf einer Paraguay-Gesellschaft,” in essence a feasibility study of creating a German colony in Paraguay, including a description of constructing railroads and the establishment of a cash crop economy based on tobacco, sugar and coffee. See BA Berlin R8023/262 Deutsche Kolonialgesellschaft.pp.101ff. Such national interpenetration of seemingly discrete, regional colonial associations was the norm rather than the exception (as further evinced by the Düsseldorf-based Timotheus Fabri’s role in the Leipzig Society). 121 BA Berlin. R8023/261.p.18. “Diese Vorgang muß m.E. privatrechtlich (durch Ankauf geeigneter Ländereien) vollziehen und bedarf der staatsrechtlichen Formen (Annexion) über welche man so viel streitet, überhaupt nicht.” The ‘suitable estates’ were found in Paraguay – namely Estancia Germania. (Ibid.p.22). Tending the Flame - Praxis 160

Also of interest is the social composition of the organisation, which bore all of the

hallmarks of other private-sector imperialist organisations in the German pre-

(statist) colonial era. Apart from Ernst Hasse, who was also the chairman of the

Leipzig Verein für Handelsgeographie, prominent members included the

Düsseldorf-based son of the renowned colonial theorist Dr Friedrich Fabri, Dr

Timotheus Fabri, himself heavily involved in the Westdeutscher Verein für

Colonisation und Export, and the organisation’s chairman, Kaufmann Hermann

Schnoor, of the firm Schnoor & Co, a member of the Leipzig Handelskammer and

the German Handelstag. Of the other members of the Society’s Board of

Directors, three bankers and two manufacturers, a lawyer, an agriculturalist with a

doctorate and a Count were also listed as responsible for the Society’s

undertakings.122

Contrary to the assertion of Holger Herwig,123 such colonial plans and ventures, if

not in themselves successful “Trojan horses” for the further penetration of South

America, were at least designed with that function in mind. For Sturz, Blumenau,

Hasse and the Hamburg Colonisations-Verein, the establishment of private sector

colonies in South America was the first step towards the establishment of German

hegemony over South America – once the indolent imperial presence of the

Spanish was swept aside through the force of numbers and diligent efforts of

German emigrants. Concerned about the loss of German identity in North

America, the Monroe Doctrine’s exclusion of foreign powers from establishing

colonial beachheads within North America, and wishing to international trade and

122 ibid.p.21 for November 1882, p.82 for March 1884. 123 H Herwig. Germany’s Vision of Empire in Venezuela 1871-1914. Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1986.pp.47ff. Tending the Flame - Praxis 161

their own access to resources, liberal Germans engaged in imperialist practices as

a means of ensuring that Germany would be able to keep pace with the economic

and colonial penetration of the extra-European world that was being carried out

by European powers such as Britain. Unable to call upon their national

government to assist them in their various projects, they attempted to undertake

this modernising project through private initiative.

Such plans, far from a retreat from the aim of establishing a liberal German

empire, represented an attempt to further this early nineteenth century liberal goal,

in the face of overwhelming political opposition, particularly from Prussia. For

Germany’s liberal imperialists, colonies stemming from the world of civil society

were a pragmatic answer to the question of how Germany could expand without

any central government. These colonial plans were a sublimation of the desire for

a united Germany into the idea of a united, liberal New Germany abroad, however

they were also a furthering of a liberal economic and social agenda that in the

post-revolutionary era lacked official political sanction within Germany. Such

colonial theories, whose earlier origins can be seen in Johann Tellkamp’s advice

to the Frankfurt Assembly the theories of Blumenau and Sturz and in the

grounding of the Hamburg-based colonial associations in the 1840’s,124 offered

private sector imperialism as a form of ersatz national foreign policy, at times

when Germany’s indigenous political liberalism was on the backfoot.

Culturally speaking, colonies stemming from the liberal world of the Verein were

an external manifestation of the embourgeoisment of German society, as liberal

124 L E Wirth. Protestantismus und Kolonisation in Brasilien.Verlag der Ev.-Luth. Mission, Erlangen, 1992.p.35. Tending the Flame - Praxis 162

society sought other avenues to furher their interests when formal political

institutions could not deliver the results they demanded. As Fritz Sudhaus has

argued with reference to the colonial ventures of this era based in Hamburg, “Die

Koloniegründung des Hamburger Kolonisationsvereins war ein geglückter

Versuch, durch Privatinitiative dem Versagen der deutschen Regierungen in der

Leitung der Auswanderung eine positive Lösung entgegenzustellen.”125 With

German governments sluggish to respond to both the needs of emigrants and the

aspirations of German liberals, particularly Germany’s liberal traders, colonial

societies and organisations set about preparing the ground for a German

imperialist foreign policy, or put another way, set about prosecuting a form of

German imperialism irrespective of the wishes of the various German

governments.

If colonial theorising and experiments in Brazil demonstrated anything, it is that

Germany’s liberal imperialism, as an organic movement necessitating an eventual

response from government, had its intial impetus in the broader liberal milieu of

the Wirtschaftsbürgertum, whose grassroots activities and pressure forced a

political solution in the end. Mid-nineteenth century German liberals were fully

aware of this, as Langewiesche has pointed out with reference to Rochau, who, as

has been stated, argued in 1853 that politics must inevitably follow “the opinion

of the century which has consolidated to form certain principles, views and habits

of understanding.”126 Unable to obtain outright political dominance, German

liberals wasted no time in attempting to assert their cultural hegemony, with an

125 F Sudhaus. Deutschland und die Auswanderung.pp.69-70. 126 LA von Rochau, quoted in D Langewiesche. Liberalism in Germany.p.62. This echoes Renan’s notion of the idea of nation as a “daily plebiscite,” deciding how the identity of the nation is delineated. Tending the Flame - Praxis 163

intuitive understanding that over time, the superstructural forms of political rule

would adapt to correspond to the socio-economic base and the cultural practices

and priorities of a nascent bourgeois Germany. The only other possibility open to

anti-liberal political elites, liberals knew, was an indefinite period of coercive rule

in the rather unrealistic hope that the economic and cultural conditions for

monarchic rule would somehow return.127 Seen through the prism of nineteenth

century liberalism, the linked discourses of imperialism and nationalism, as

components of the superordinate metanarrative of liberalism, were necessary

elements of an inevitable evolution of the German state that was dictated by

seemingly iron laws of historical development.

127 In his discussion of the power of public opinion, Rochau asserted that even the power of ‘oriental despotism’ must bend to it. Further, he wrote, a Staatspolitik that attempted to run counter to the Nationalgeist created an environment in which an oppositional Volkspolitik, such as the cultural resistance and political lobbying of the Nationalverein, was necessitated. See Rochau Grundsätze der Realpolitik.pp.33-36. Tending the Flame - Politics 164

Chapter Four. Tending the Flame: The ‘Retreat and Return’ of Liberal Imperialist Politics 1849-

1884. Bürgerlich Agency and the World of the Verein.

Complementing the civil society and private sector associations for liberal colonialism, which were independent of the state yet sure of their necessity in terms of their congruence with the cultural ascendancy of the liberal middle-classes (or what Rochau termed the national Zeitgeist), the persistence of liberal Germans’ enthusiasm for a national navy to support its mercantile fleet and secure Germany’s position as a global great power was evident in the platforms of other organisations in pre-unification

Germany that were not solely dedicated to promoting expansionism. Foremost amongst these were the policies and pronouncements of the Nationalverein, the Kleindeutsch, nationalist liberal association whose role as the voice of the German middle classes was broadly recognised and the effects of whose lobbying and political agitation on the

German states was far from negligible.1 Operating as a bridge between the 1848 generation of liberal politicians and agitators and that of the Reichsgründung, 2 the

1 S Na’aman. Der Deutsche Nationalverein: Die politische Konstituierung des deutschen Bürgertums, 1859-1867. Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf, 1987. p.17 See also A Biefang. Politisches Bürgertum in Deutschland 1857-1868: Nationale Organisationen und Eliten. Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf, 1994, and A Green. “Representing Germany? The Zollverein at the World Exhibitions, 1851-1862.” in JMH. 75 (Dec 2003)pp.836-863. 2 For a short biography of prominent Nationalverein members, see A Biefang (Hg). Der Deutsche Nationalverein 1859-1867: Vorstands und Ausschußprotokolle. Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf, 1995. pp.xxix-xxxv. Tending the Flame - Politics 165

Nationalverein was home to such liberal luminaries as Rochau,3 Rudolf von

Bennigsen,4 Ernst Keil,5 Franz Hermann Schulze-Delitzsch,6 and Johannes Miquel.7

Their role, as they saw it, was to ensure “die Unabhängigkeit und Macht Deutschlands nach außen und die Entwicklung seiner geistigen und materiellen Kräfte im Innern,”8 and they operated as both an expression of, and the driving force for, German liberalism and its attempt to construct a liberal German nation via all means, including through the manipulation of foreign policy crises.9

Belying WJ Mommsen’s assertion that “während der Periode der Vorherrschaft des

Nationalliberalismus von 1867 bis 1879 spielten koloniale Bestrebungen in der deutschen Öffentlichkeit allerdings noch keine sonderlich bedeutsame Rolle,”10 in both the minutes of their meetings and in their mouthpiece weeklies, the Wochenschrift des

Nationalvereins (1860-65) and the later Wochen-Blatt des Nationalvereins (both edited by Rochau11) the Nationalverein discussed and endorsed the proposition that Germany

3 Author of the influential Grundsätze der Realpolitik. 4 Future leading figure in the Nationalliberale Partei and the Deutsche Kolonialgesellschaft. 5 Editor of the influential weekly liberal family periodical Die Gartenlaube and the Leipzig Allgemeine Deutsche Turnzeitung. For confirmation of Keil’s membership, see A Biefang. Der Deutsche Nationalverein.p.156. Keil was also present at the fourth Generalversammlung of the Nationalverein. See Verhandlungen der vierten Generalversammlung des deutschen Nationalvereins. Verlag der Expedition der Wochenschrift des Nationalvereins. Coburg, 1863.p.39. 6 Future leading figure in the Deutsche Forschrittspartei. 7 Future leading figure in the Nationalliberale Partei and the Kolonialgesellschaft. 8 H Oncken. Rudolf von Bennigsen: Ein deutscher liberaler Politiker: Nach seinen Briefen und hinterlassen Papieren .Band I. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart, 1910.p.342. 9 A Biefang. Der Deutsche Nationalverein.p.xix-xx. 10 WJ Mommsen. Geschichte Deutschlands 7 (1).p.508. 11 S Na’aman. Der Deutsche Nationalverein.p.354. Tending the Flame - Politics 166 required an expansionist foreign policy as a matter of urgency. As with the discussions in the Paulskirche in 1849/9, the context was once again the necessity of a naval force in light of the continuing Schleswig / Holstein issue, however, the debate was by no means contained to the discrete issue of a perceived threat from Denmark.

The view that Germany required a fleet was argued in several different ways throughout the life of the Nationalverein. Strikingly, the broader societal call for a

German fleet was at first seemingly negated by the Wochenschrift des Nationalvereins, however, illustrating the inextricable links the discourse of empire and nationhood, this negation appears to have been deployed as a strategic reminder of the centrality of the issue of unification. There could be no German fleet, it was argued, because there was no German nation to equip, maintain and utilise such a fleet. It was true, the paper argued, that “Alle Stämme unseres Volk lechzen nach nationaler Ehre und nach militärischer Macht…” however this could not be satisfied without an act of national unification: “Ohne deutsches Staatwesen… kein deutsches Heer und keine deutsche

Flotte.”12

This position was reiterated the following week, with the Wochenschrift declaring that

“für den deutschen Staatenbund gibt es so wenig eine deutsche Flotte, wie ein deutsches Heer und eine deutsche Politik.”13 However, the tone soon changed after the committee meeting of the 22nd of August 1861 and the Generalversammlung of the 23rd

12 “Der fromme Wunsch einer deutschen Flotte.” Wochenschrift des Nationalvereins (WS).No.3, 15th May, 1860.p.21. 13 “Die deutsche Küste unter nationalem Gesichtspunkte” WS. No.4, 22nd May, 1860.p.27. Tending the Flame - Politics 167 and 24th of August 1861, in which it was decided, after some debate, to alter the previous stance of the Nationalverein and to begin to collect contributions for a German navy, which in the absence of a central government would be entrusted to the Prussian naval ministry.14 When Prussia expressed a reluctance to take up the role assigned it by the Nationalverein, Hamburg and Bremen were counted amongst the possible hosts for such a fleet.15

This change in policy was welcomed by publications that were generally supportive of the Nationalverein, with, for example, the Magdeburgische Zeitung dutifully reporting the development on the 17th of September 1861, discussing the importance of a naval fleet firstly in terms of material military necessity for a trading sea power such as

Germany, and secondly in terms of its contribution to a sense of German national unity, as a symbol of the German nation:

Die Errichtung einer Kriegsmarine, die von keinen Küsten besitzenden und Seehandel treibenden Volke, noch weniger von einer wirklichen Großmacht jemals ungestraft entbehrt werden kann, ist abweisbar in diesem Ziele inbegriffen. Der Erreichung dieses Ziel mit allen Kräften und gesetzlichen Mitteln sich hinzugeben, haben die Mitglieder des Nationalvereins durch ihre unterschrift gelobt… So viel Werth nun auch der Nationalverein mit Recht darauf legen muß, daß die patriotischen Gaben der nach Einheit und Stärkung des Vaterlandes strebenden Glieder desselben, durch ihn gesammelt und concentrirt, als Symbol und Bekundung einer schon thatsachlich bestrebenden Einheit des Deutschen Volkes der von ihm designirten Centralgewalt, der Preußischen Krone, dargebracht werden, so steht doch das direkte Interesse der Flotten… Die Hauptsache bleibt die Erzielung einer großartigen Leistung der Nation zu Gunsten

14 A Biefang. Der Deutsche Nationalverein.pp.135, 137, 151. See also Verhandlungen der zweiten Generalversammlung des Nationalvereins. Verlag der Expedition der Wochenschrift des Nationalvereins, Coburg, 1861.pp.32ff. 15 WS. No.221. 21st Jul 1864.p.1874. “Bremen und die Flotte.” Tending the Flame - Politics 168

der Streitbarkeit auf dem Wasser. Erst in zweiter Linie ist dahin zu trachten, daß als Zeichen und Symptom der Einigikeit aller Deutschen Provinzen der Nationalverein an dieser Leistung sich vorzugsweise wesentlich betheilige.16

Just a few days later, the same paper made the link between the Nationalverein, its new naval policy and German international trade and colonialism:

Ein industrielles Handelsvolk ohne Kriegsmarine treibt Handel ohne Assecuranz… Ueberall, wohin Deutscher Handel und Deutsche Colonien dringen, wo Deutsche Ehre und Deutsches Gut zu vertheidigen und zu vertreten ist, da muß auch die Deutschland schützende Preußische Flagge wehen!17

Initially presented as a defensive navy to guard the coastline of the German states,18 over time the perception of the fleet’s utility was expanded to encompass the types of broader foreign policy objectives that had been discussed at the Frankfurt

Nationalversammlung in 1848/9 and the treatise of Prince Adalbert. In February 1862, the Wochenschrift declared that without a naval fleet, the German nation was a

“Krüppel” that could never be a “Großmacht” unless it could manage “auch auf dem

Weltmeere sich geltend zu machen.”19 Later that year, the ‘shameful’ state of

Germany’s naval affairs was again reported on, with the competency of other nations directly compared with Germany’s dolorous position. Nostalgically ruminating on

Germany’s naval strength in Hanseatic times, the article’s author asserted that Germany

16 BA Berlin. R8031/24. Deutscher Nationalverein.p.258. 17ibid.p.295. 18 Biefang. Der Deutsche Nationalverein.p.151. 19 WS. No.95. 21st Feb. 1862.p.778. “Zur Flotten-Literatur” Tending the Flame - Politics 169 had the capacity to become a great naval power – “Oh! Deutschland über Alles, wenn es nur will!”20

The liberals of the Nationalverein viewed their attempts at establishing a German fleet in historical terms, constructing a theory of historical determinism that was supposed to dictate the necessity of a navy. Commenting on the role that naval power had played in the ascendancy of such nations as Britain, France and Spain, the Wochenschrift asserted that naval strength and involvement in global trade could be used as indicators of the extent to which a nation had developed into a world power, stating:

Es ist eine anerkannte geschichtliche Thatsache, daß jedes Volk, sobald es sich zu einer Rolle in der Welt berufen fühlt, dem Seehandel zustrebt und zum Schutze desselben eine Seemacht zu werden sucht.21

Evident here is the conflation of the political and economic priorities of Germany’s liberals with not only the ‘national’ interest but also a broader teleological narrative of national progress as measured by expansionist capabilities. Basing their version of historical progress on the example of earlier imperialist powers, German liberals viewed the instrumentalisation of the extra-European world and a forward foreign policy as exemplifying Germany’s liberal industrial modernity, with a navy operating not merely as a symbol of national unity but also of national strength, enabling

Germans to come to accept “daß Deutschland eines Tags eine Seemacht ersten Ranges

20 WS. No.133. 14th Nov. 1862.p.1116. “Die deutsche Kriegsflotte.” 21 WS. No.203. 17th Mar. 1864.p.1719. “Noch einmal: Die deutsche Flotte.” Tending the Flame - Politics 170 sein muß.”22 Rather, through the expansion of its military, economic and diplomatic strength abroad, Germany could fulfil its great power destiny:

Wenn künftig in Deutschland nur die Reichsgewalt die vökerrechtliche Vertretung Deutschlands nach Außen hin in Händen hat, wenn es nur deutsche Gesandte gibt, die eine Bevölkerung von 40 Millionen im Ausland vertreten, und das Schwarz-roth- goldene Banner von allen deutschen Consulatgebäuden des Erdballs und von zahlreichen deutschen Kriegsschiffe achtunggebietend weht… Wenn künftig nur der Reichsgewalt die gesammte bewaffnete Macht Deutschlands zu Lande und zu Wasser zur Verfügung steht, und sie mit einer solchen Macht, größer als irgendeine, ihr Schwert in die Waagschale der Geschicke der Völker entscheidend werfen kann…23

The scope of such expansionist thinking was revealed in an uncharacteristically forthright article in 1865, in which the themes of national unity, naval power and imperial desires were brought together.

Es ist eine unbestrittene Thatsache, daß Deutschland, nachdem es seine geistigen und materiellen Hülfsquellen im Innern seines Landes bis zu einem, jeden andern Staat überflügelnden Grade entwickelt und ihnen Geltung verschafft hat, das Bedürfniß fühlt, sich auch jenseits seiner Grenzen auf dem Meere diejenige Geltung zu erobern, welche ihm seiner Größe, seiner geographischen Lage und der Intelligenz seiner Bewohner nach rechtmäßig zusteht. Es will Theil haben am Welthandel und damit in die Geschicke der Völker thätig eingreifen. Mit dem Streben nach Einheit auf dem Lande ist auch gleichzeitig das Streben einer Geltung zur See in den Gemüthern des Volkes aufgetaucht…

Trotz aller Ungunst und allen Neides von Seiten anderen Nationen, trotz der Einsprache Englands gegen die Befestigung Kiels, wird Deutschland in kurzer Zeit eine Flotte, und zwar eine mächtige Flotte besitzen, um seine Schiffe zu schützen, deren Kiele bereits alle Weltmeere durchfuhren… Die germanische Race ist von der Vorsehung bestimmt, die Weltherrschaft zu führen. Sie ist physisch und geistig vor allen andern bevorzugt, und die halbe Erde ist ihr fast unterthan. England, Amerika, Deutschland, das sind die drei Zweige des mächtigen germanischen Baumes, der auf den Hochebenen Asiens gekeimt,

22 WS. No.232. 6th Oct. 1864.p.1999. “Die Flotten Sache.” 23 Was der deutsche Nationalverein will. Eine Skizze. Coburg, 1863. in BA Berlin N2350 / 291 (Nachlass – Rudolf v. Bennigsen).p.43. Tending the Flame - Politics 171

im Herzen Europas Wurzel getrieben hat, und unter dessen Schatten einst die ganze Erde ruhen wird.24

Calls for a German fleet worthy of an ascendant liberal nation continued to be issued by the Nationalverein until its dissolution in November 1867. In February of 1867, it was recalled that Germany’s citizens had been striving for a naval fleet for a generation, as a means of satisfying the extent of Germany’s power and greatness.25 The fleet, it was asserted, remained the concern of the entire German nation and remained an enabling symbol of the nation’s unity – “Deutschland ist wenigstens nach der Seeseite hin zur

Einheit gelangt.”26

With the continual disappointments and setbacks faced by the Nationalverein in their attempts to establish a national navy, it is perhaps unsurprising that the prospect of establishing colonies underwritten by a central German government appeared to the association’s members as being on the outer range of their potential successes, and was therefore somewhat under-emphasised in comparison to their more immediate task of unifying Germany under the auspices of Prussian pre-eminence. However when discussed, colonies were portrayed as an integral part of any nation claiming great power status, and as another yet example of how Kleinstaaterei had prevented Germany both from being able to become the power it deserved to be, and from protecting its multitudes of emigrants:

24 Wochen-Blatt des Nationalvereins. (WB). No.23. 7th Sept. 1865.p.183. “Die deutsche Seemannsschule in Hamburg in ihrer Bedeutung für die Zukunfts-Marine Deutschlands.” 25 WB. No.92. 21st Feb 1867.p.724. “Die deutsche Flotte und Herr Wichman in Hamburg.” 26 ibid.p.724. Tending the Flame - Politics 172

England, Holland, Frankreich, Rußland haben ihre ausgedehnten Colonieen. Ihre

Angehörigen, wenn sie auswandern, bleiben in Verbindung mit dem Mutterlande, und

hören nicht auf – wenigstens indirekt – für dasselbe zu arbeiten… Deutschland allein hat

keine Colonie, und doch hat es so viel seiner Kinder, wie kein anderes Land der Erde, in

die Fremde entsandt, wo sie ohne Schutz für ihre Personen wie für ihre Vermögen dem

Mutterlande für immer mit Beiden verloren gehen.27

Broadly speaking, the Nationalverein saw a centrally directed emigration programme as most certainly desirable:

Es ist zwar sicherlich nicht zu leugnen, daß es, aus vaterländischen wie aus rein menschlichen Gesichtspunkten, schön wäre, wenn wir den Strom der regelmäßigen deutschen Auswanderung, mit so wenig Verlust wie möglich, in das Bett einer oder mehrer nationalen Colonien leiten könnten.28

The desirability of colonies lay in their Malthusian utility, as a means to economically harness and humanely deal with Germany’s perceived superfluous poor. In the case of formal national colonies, it was a task for the post-unification future, or in the case of private colonies, a continuing task for Germany’s mobile emigrant and merchant community.29 As for the more immediate practical application of imperialist plans, the

Nationalverein was firm in its conviction that at that precise moment of historical

27 Was der deutsche Nationalverein will. Eine Skizze. Coburg, 1863. in BA Berlin N2350 / 291(Nachlass – Rudolf v. Bennigsen).p.39. 28 The major statement on the issue was made in WB. No.108. 13th June 1867. pp.845ff. “Nationale Colonialpolitik.” The concern for both the fate of Germany’s emigrants and the drain on national strength and resources they represented is discernible as early as the first issue of the Wochenschrift. See WS. No.1. 1st May, 1860. p.7. “Was Deutschland bei der Auswanderung verliert.” 29 WB. No.108.p.846. Tending the Flame - Politics 173 national development, colonies were only to be achieved via the efforts of private associations.30

This did not discount an interest in the ‘civil society imperialism’ of German liberals. In fact, as the minutes of the Nationalverein reveal, their approval of Sturz’s anti-

Brazilian, pro-Uruguayan colonisation project, planned so as to be firmly controlled and with the protection of the colonists in mind, resulted in the granting of funding to

Sturz’s organisation on at least one occasion in 1862, at the behest of the

Nationalverein chairman Rudolf Bennigsen, with further contributions stymied only as the financial position of the Verein became more precarious in 1865.31 As a favoured cause of the Nationalverein, Sturz’s South American colonialism, well planned and well structured, exemplified the type of liberal imperialism to which the Nationalverein and its supporters continued to be attracted. For his part, Sturz had all but relied upon the Nationalverein as the appropriate vehicle for his colonial programme.32

The Nationalverein was also supportive of supporting German nationals in their encounters with a resisting colonial world continued, with the Nationalverein contributing financially to German colonists who had been attacked by indigenous

North Americans in the colony of Neu-Ulm.33 Furthermore, Bennigsen’s interest in assisting the Heuglin expedition to Africa in search of the German researcher Eduard

30 WB. No.108.pp.845ff. 31 A Biefang. Der Deutsche Nationalverein.pp.189, 193, 356. Bennigsen later donated further to a fund to sustain Sturz in his retirement. See NsSA. 192N, VIII, 5.p.21. 32 J Sturz. Krisis der deutschen Auswanderung.p.161. See Chapter Three. 33 A Biefang. Der Deutsche Nationalverein.pp.212, xxvii. Tending the Flame - Politics 174

Vogel34 demonstrated, not only his personal interest in the events surrounding

Germany’s exploration and research into potential trading and settlement outposts around the globe, but also his commitment to institutionalising the support of such efforts as part of the tapestry of Nationalverein policy. It is perhaps worth noting that, in financially supporting the ‘opening up’ of Africa through the efforts of German explorers, the Nationalverein contributed to the project in an obvious, material sense, whilst lending it a form of ideological legitimacy in liberal circles. The Nationalverein, that is, contributed to both the production and legitimation of the type of colonial and pre-colonial knowledge created via the scientific surveillance of alterity that has been theorised by Homi Bhabha.35

That Bennigsen was pushing for the financial support of expansionist causes in a pre- colonial German organisation as early as 1862, points to the conclusion that

Bennigsen’s and Miquel’s role in the establishment of the Deutscher Kolonialverein in

188236 was not a result of newfound colonial enthusiasm, but rather that they had carried long-term imperialist ambitions for the new liberal nation and sought to agitate for them and eventually implement them when it became politically possible to do so.

Bennigsen’s, Miquel’s37 and for that matter the Nationalverein’s support for German

34 A Biefang. Der Deutsche Nationalverein.pp.73, xxvi. 35 H Bhabha. Location of Culture.p.70. 36 H Oncken. Rudolf von Bennigsen. Band II.p.510. Bennigsen’s membership application to the Kolonialverein can be found in BA Berlin R8023/256a. Deutsche Kolonialgesellschaft.p.54. The same application lists the Verein’s committee, among whom Miquel’s name is to be found. 37 For Miquel’s address at the establishment of the Deutscher Kolonialverein, see J Miquel. “Die Begründung des Deutschen Kolonialvereins,” Frankfurt, 6th Dec. 1882, in W Schultze & F Thimme (Hg.). Johannes von Miquels Reden: Dritter Band: 1878 bis 1891. Verlag der Buchhandlung des Tending the Flame - Politics 175 imperialism clearly does not appear to have been contingent on the fluctuations of the business cycle, nor a sense of crisis accompanying social ferment38 but rather appears in keeping with German liberalism’s broader and longstanding commitment to the notion that Germany’s national task lay outside its own borders, in the penetration and incorporation of the extra-European world.

It was to this commitment that Bennigsen appealed in his toast to Deutschtum abroad at the Second Bundesschießen in Bremen in 1865.39 The Bundesschießen, as the sporting equivalent of the Nationalverein in their agitation for national unity, were an appreciative audience, with constant cries of ‘bravo’ meeting Bennigsen’s laudatory remarks regarding the role of German emigrants and traders throughout the world, metaphorically positioning them as symbols of Germany’s international competitiveness and expansionist drive:

Der deutsche Kaufmann, der deutsche Schiffer, der deutsche Handwerker, er kann jetzt offen auftreten in einem Wettkampf mit allen Nationen; er überwindet alle Schwierigkeiten, er verschafft sich Achtung und Macht gegenüber England und den Angehörigen der größten und mächtigen Nationen.40

Miquel, for his part, made repeated calls for an active imperial naval policy in several of his speeches, stretching over the period of his involvement with the Nationalverein,

Waisenhauses, Halle, 1913.pp.110ff. See especially Miquel’s foregrounding of the colonial association’s role in promoting a sense of national purpose. 38 Contra. Wehler. Bismarck und der Imperialismus.p.142. 39 R Bennigsen. “Die Deutschen im Auslande” in W Schultze & F Thimme (Hg.) Rudolf von Bennigsens Reden: Erster Band 1857 bis 1878. Verlag der Buchhandlung des Waisenhauses, Halle, 1911.pp.160- 161. 40 ibid.p.160. Tending the Flame - Politics 176 the Norddeutscher Reichstag and the German Reichstag. Within the context of the

Nationalverein, Miquel insisted that the contributions from the German public, which had been collected by the association, should only be directed to the creation of a national fleet. It was, he argued, unthinkable that the trust of the German nation could be betrayed – even if the money were to be spent on arguably naval related causes such as a naval school.41 Relentlessly, Miquel argued for the fleet as a question of arousing and defining the national spirit and purpose of the liberal German nation, arguing that

“die Flottensammlungen ein Produkt der nationalen Begeisterung waren,”42 and that

“diese Flottensache das beste Beispiel ist von dem, was wir von der Nation erwarten, von den Mitteln, die die Nation in Bewegung setzen kann, von dem politischen Weg, in den wir die Nation hineinbringen wollen…”43

Politically speaking, Miquel saw beyond the purely monetary benefits of the

Nationalverein’s naval collection. Not only was the money a step towards the financing of a national fleet, of “eine große und mächtige Flotte,” it had also provided the

Nationaverein and indeed German liberalism with a tactical advantage, the accumulation of “das politische Kapital.”44 Not only was it the case that “Heutzutage wissen die Kinder auf der Straße, daß uns eine deutsche Kriegsflotte so notwendig ist wie das liebe Brot.”45 Germans, through their decision for a national fleet had

41 J Miquel. “Der Nationalverein und die deutsche Flottenfrage” Coburg, 6th Oct. 1862, in W Schultze & F Thimme (Hg.) Johannes von Miquels Reden. pp.36-45. On the naval school, see pp.43-44. 42 ibid.p.38. 43 ibid.p.39. 44 ibid.p.40. 45 ibid.p.40. Tending the Flame - Politics 177 demonstrated that political liberalism, with its understanding of the necessity of a national navy, was the true vessel for their nationalist sentiments, and that the attempt of conservatives to stymy the progress towards a national fleet which might threaten the conservative pet military project, that is the Prussian army, needed to be met with resistance:

Ein Volk, welches politisch handelt, sich einen großen, hohen Zweck vorsetzt, das darf sich nicht alterieren lassen in seinem politischen Handeln durch so klägliche Versuche einer bereits toten Reaktion.46

Should conservative opposition continue, Miquel continued, it was, in the long run, of little consequence. Echoing Rochau’s invocation of the Zeitgeist, Miquel affirmed:

…ich bin nach wie vor der Meinung, es werde in Preußen die Zeit kommen, wo wir dieses Geld und das noch hinzukommende vertrauensvoll in die Hände einer liberalen preußischen Regierung legen können…47

Interestingly, Miquel had begun his speech with reference to the need for the coastal defence of Germany’s north, however, by the end of his address to his fellow members of the Nationalverein, he was invoking the plight of German emigrants abroad and their need for protection in the strongest of terms:

…wohl mögen unsere deutschen Brüder hinausblicken auf das weite Meer und sie werden vergeblich harren und hoffen, ob nicht ein mächtiges Kriegsschiff mit der schwarz-rot- goldenen Fahne kommt sie zu beschützen!

Meine Herren, keine Nation hat so viele Landsleute, die treu am Vaterlande hängen, soviel freie Kolonien wie wir im Auslande, keine Nation auf dem Kontinent hat eine so große Handelsflotte wie wir, keine Nation fast hat so große Küsten, die zu beschützen sind, keine Nation fast hat so große Kapitalien und Interessen auf dem Spiele, und diese Nation von

46 ibid.pp.40-41. 47 ibid.p.43. Tending the Flame - Politics 178

40 000 000 hat nicht ein einziges Kriegsschiff zu Gebote stehen; Schmach und Schande, sage ich, Schmach und Schande auf diejenigen, die diesen Zustand herbeiführten, auf diejenigen, die uns dahin brachten…48

Miquel’s pro-fleet tendencies were also demonstrated in the Norddeutscher Reichstag debate on the 15th of June 1868, in which he and his fellow National Liberals were attacked by the Forschrittspartei for embracing naval budgetary legislation that they viewed as weakening the power of the parliament.49 That the National Liberals, just as the Progressives, wished to see the development of constitutional rule within Germany,

Miquel argued, was beyond question. Where the difference between the two lay, in his opinion, was in the Progressives’ willingness to play with the military preparedness of

Germany for short-term political gain – “Aber wir gehen davon aus, daß die Not des

Vaterlandes kein Mittel ist, um die Rechte des Volkes zu vermehren…”50 With this in mind, Miquel asserted that budgetary savings needed to be sought elsewhere, not at the cost of the naval programme: “Wir sind der Meinung, daß es nicht notwendig war, die

Flottenarbeit einzustellen und da Ersparungen und Sistierung eintreten zu lassen…”51

The following year, a similar pronouncement was made by Miquel in the North

German Reichstag, as he once again argued that budgetary savings should not come at

48 ibid.p.44. 49 J Miquel “Für die Marineanleihe: über die grundsätzliche Verschiedenheit von Nationalliberalismus und Fortschrittspartei.” 15th June 1868, in W Schultze & F Thimme. Johannes von Miquels Reden.pp.299ff. 50 ibid.p.300. 51 ibid.p.301. Tending the Flame - Politics 179 the expense of the navy,52 the development of which “für eine Nation wie die deutsche absolut Notwendig ist.”53 It was true, he argued, that the budget was under strain, and given the current political climate, the reduction of infantry forces was hard to imagine.

However, a short-term liquidity crisis should not discourage the Reichstag from securing a loan for the development of the navy, nor should it be an inducement to raise the level of taxation in an attempt to pay for a fleet out of the government’s taxation revenue. Besides, Miquel argued, all problems of liquidity would be solved in the future - “eine Zukunft, wo hoffentlich die nationale Einigung vollständig zum Ziele gekommen ist,”54 in which case southern Germany would also contribute to the naval repayments.

In the post-unification era, Miquel continued to lobby for a strong national navy, capable of coastal defence and the restitution of the national honour wherever Germans abroad were abused.55 Perhaps, Miquel remarked caustically, if the Reichstag felt unable to pay for a national navy, then everything should simply be put under the hammer, as had happened in the 1850s. However, warned Miquel, the German nation would not be in accord with such a course of action, having shown their approval in

1867 for the development of a naval fleet – and after all, what had changed since that time?

52 J Miquel. “Flottenausgabe, Bundessteuern und Matrikularumlagen,” 13th Apr. 1869. in W Schultze & F Thimme. Johannes von Miquels Reden.pp.328ff. 53 ibid.p.329. 54 ibid.p.330 55 J Miquel. “Die Notwendigkeit eines umfassenden Flottenplanes.” In W Schultz & F Thimme. Johannes von Miquels Reden: Zweiter Band: 1870 bis 1878. Verlag der Buchhandlung des Waisenhauses, Halle, 1912.pp.114ff. Tending the Flame - Politics 180

Ist unsere Macht etwa schwächer geworden seit 1867, sind unsere Finanzkräfte schwächer geworden seit 1867, sind die kommerziellen Aufgaben, die wir zu vertreten haben, geringer geworden, ist die Ehre der Nation, die wir zu verteidigen haben im Auslande, eine andere geworden?56

In his consistent defence of the idea and reality of a German navy, Miquel constantly referred to the national and nationalist implications of its success or failure. As not only a means of defending the German coastline or German trade, but also as a symbol of

German honour, power and military reach, the German navy was for Miquel an embodiment of the strength that came with German national unity. As such, his emphasis upon the Ehre of the German nation was far from fatuous nationalist pride, but was rather a recognition that the fleet served an important symbolic purpose in terms of the positioning of an expansionist, liberal Germany amongst the other first rank, expansionist powers of Europe.

Miquel’s involvement in the agitation for German imperialism did not of course begin and end with calls for a German naval fleet. As a founding member of the Deutscher

Kolonialverein in the early 1880’s, Miquel was optimistic about the chances of the

Reichstag endorsing colonial imperialism, urging the other Kolonialverein members to shrug off the sense that the Godeffroy / Samoa debate in parliament in 1880 had decided the question of colonialism in the negative.57 That had, he argued, been a question of supporting a bankrupt trading firm, and not a decision as to whether or not

56 ibid.p.117. 57 For the Reichstag Samoa debate (27th August, 1880), see Stenographische Berichte über die Verhandlungen des Reichstags. 4 / III /ii. (1880). Verlag der Buchdruckerei der Norddeutschen Allgemeinen Zeitung, Berlin, 1880.pp.945ff. Tending the Flame - Politics 181 the government should support a policy of colonial imperialism per se. This was a different question – the question of “der Interessen unserer Landsleute.” Colonial imperialist agitation was for Miquel a national duty, as a means of expressing the will of the nation, the national Zeitgeist. As such, his view of the role of the Kolonialverein was very clear: “Wir müssen das Gefühl einer marit. Kolonisation, das in den

Gemütern der Nation lebt, endlich zum Ausdruck bringen.”58

Despite a late beginning, the Deutscher Kolonialverein59 was an organisation that was confident in the long heritage of the imperialist discourse and praxis that it sought to promote. Established in 1882 through the efforts of Hermann Maltzan,60 the organisation quickly outgrew its founder, as it became swamped with some of the leading liberal personalities and organisations of the era, in particular liberal politicians, and representatives of both the Wirtschafts- and the Bildungsbürgertum.61 Apart from

Maltzan, the membership included National Liberal Johannes Miquel (who was on the

58 Minutes of Kolonialverein meeting, 26th Aug. 1882 in BA Berlin R8023/253 Deutsche Kolonialgesellschaft.p.6. 59 For the Kolonialverein see also HU Wehler. Bismarck und der Imperialismus.pp.158ff. 60 On Maltzan’s role, see BA Berlin R8023/256a. Deutsche Kolonialgesellschaft.p.185. Article from Bremen Handelblatt describing Maltzan as the “Urheber der Idee.” For Maltzan’s Rede des Freiherrn von Maltzan aud der constituirenden Generalversammlung des Deutschen Kolonialvereins zu Frankfurt am Main am 6. Dezember 1882. J Sittenfeld, Berlin, 1882, see same, pp.238-242, especially p.239, where the work of the Kolonialverein was explicitly described as a national undertaking that “wohl des Strebens einer großen Nation werth ist.” See too p. 240 “Um etwas für die Zukunft Deutschlands Bedeutungsvolles zu schaffen, dazu gebrauchen wir die Mitwirkung der Nation.” See also Maltzan’s Handels-Kolonien. Eine Lebensfrage für Deutschland. Julius Sittenfeld, Berlin, 1882. in same pp.264- 273. 61 For a comprehensive breakdown of the Kolonialverein, see HU Wehler Bismarck und der Imperialismus.p.165. Tending the Flame - Politics 182 board of directors62), National Liberal Rudolf von Bennigsen, as well as the well- known colonial propagandists Friedrich Fabri, his son Timotheus Fabri, Franz

Moldenhauer, Hamburg’s Wilhelm Hübbe-Schleiden and the renowned merchant and publisher Friederichsen of L Friederichsen & Co.

The role of the Kolonialverein, as its name suggests, was the overt support for a

German overseas empire:

Die Colonialbestrebungen im deutschen Volke zu unterstützen, in besondere 1. den dazu geeigneten in überseeischen Ländern bestehenden deutschen Handelsfactoreien, welchen den Schutz einer civilisirten Macht nicht zur Seite steht, den nationalen Schutz zu erwirken; 2. die zur Errichtung von Handelsfactoreien geeigneten Plätze zu ermitteln und überseeische deutsche Niederlassungen zu begünstigen, ohne selbst an deren Begründung theilzunehmen.63

These aims, as well as the intellectual and practical pedigree of the imperialist discourse that the association sought to disseminate, were further elaborated by

Timotheus Fabri, editor of the Colonialpolitisches Correspondenz, which would become the Kolonialverein’s official organ:

Nun wir stehen im Begriff, zu begreifen, daß heute aus europäischer Cultur Weltcultur geworden, daß jede große europäische Nation, sie mag wollen oder nicht, in politischer und comercieller Hinsicht vor Weltaufgaben gestellt ist, will sie selbst nur ihre continentale Stellung auf die Dauer behaupten. Wir wollen mitarbeiten, den Ruf der Ausbreitung überseeischer Macht- und Wirtschaftssphäre unseres Vaterlandes zum Rufe des Volkes zu gestalten, wir wollen mithelfen an der praktischen Lösung der Colonialfrage… Große nationale Bewegungen sind nicht das Ergebnis einzelner Thaten, einzelner Jahre; sie stehen vielmehr unter dem Gesetze eines langsamen, gleichsam

62 ibid.p.54. 63 BA Berlin. R8023/256a.p.32. Tending the Flame - Politics 183

geheimen Wachstums… So ist auch die Colonialfrage, die Frage überseeischer Erweiterung unseres Macht- und Wirtschaftsgebietes nicht lediglich ein Erzeugnis unserer Tage. Schon seit Schluß des vorigen Jahrhunderts sind solche Mahnrufe laut geworden, die allerdings meistens mehr Vaterlandsliebe als Kenntnis überseeischer Verhaltnisse verrieten. Greifbarere Gestalt gewonnen die Vorschläge in Folge des Jahres 1848. Was die Heimat nicht bot sollte die Fremde geben.64

Timotheus Fabri’s account then carefully described some of the theorists and individuals that he considered to be direct landmark forerunners of the organisation, beginning with the Hamburger Colonisations-Verein von 1849 and including the

1878 Berlin organisation, the Centralvereins für Handelsgeographie und Förderung deutscher Interessen im Auslande, the Westdeutscher Verein für Colonisation und

Export in Düsseldorf, the Leipziger Verein für Handelgeographie, as well as

Roscher’s 1856 work, Colonien, Colonialpolitik und Auswanderung and the works of Friedrich Fabri and Wilhelm Hübbe-Schleiden.65

Far from seeing itself as an innovative organisation, the Kolonialverein was at pains to link itself to the pre-existing discourse of imperialism, a discourse that posited imperialism as the economic prerequisite and the metaphorical embodiment of the particularly liberal metanarrative of the German nation-state. These discursive ties, as well being overtly referenced in statements like the preceding example from

Timotheus Fabri, were also embedded in the tropes of the Kolonialverein’s argumentation in favour of an imperialist foreign policy. In his foundation statement on the need for German colonies, and therefore a colonial association to

64 ibid.p.278. 65 ibid.p.278. Tending the Flame - Politics 184 agitate for their establishment, Hermann Maltzan’s arguments were precisely those used at the Frankfurt Nationalversammlung in 1848 and by a range of imperialist theorists and practitioners ever since.66 Germany, as a modern, outward-looking nation, needed to be able to overcome the overweening influence of England and

France in the extra-European world, which could possibly ‘lock out’ German trade.

Besides, he argued, Germany was overpopulated and it was economically necessary for the nation to retain the “Arbeitskräfte” of German emigrants. Colonies would provide the required raw materials for German industry as well as providing agricultural goods. 67 Colonies would see German industry and trade able to assert its independence from, and ability to compete with, its European economic rivals.68

In publicising the Kolonialverein, the organisation was rhetorically posited as transcending the interests of any one segment of Germany society. Despite its overwhelmingly liberal complexion, it was claimed of the Verein that “Männer aller Parteien, alle Stände hat er zur Lösung einer nationalen Aufgabe…geeint.”

Together, this alleged cross-section of German society was forging a common mission for the new nation, irrespective of social class. Their common goal, it was claimed, was:

…das Bewusstsein zu erwecken und zu kräftigen, dass die Colonialfrage sich ausbleiblich zu einer Lebensfrage des neuen deutschen Reiches gestalten wird, dass sie berufen und geeignet sind, die innere Entwicklung unseres Vaterlandes neu zu beleben, Deutschlands europäische Stellung zu kräftigen, unseren Weltberuf

66 H Maltzan. Handels-Kolonien. BA Berlin R8023/256a.pp.264-273. 67 ibid.pp.266-68, 272. 68 ibid.p.272. Tending the Flame - Politics 185

zu begründen.69

Imperialism, as a means of reviving the internal development of the nation (seen broadly in terms of the task of nation building as well as economic development), was delineated, through recourse to the the pre-existing tropes of a well understood disourse by the Kolonialverein, as the preferred national teleology, in the pursuit of which

Germany would demonstrate its internationalist credentials in the same way that

England and France had already been able to do. The liberal press, largely supportive of the Kolonialverein’s project, did not fail to pick up on this linkage between the establishment of a German overseas empire and the construction of a German national identity that, despite its alignment with liberal imaginings of the national unit, was able to transcend Germany’s social cleavages. In November of 1882, the Norddeutsche

Allgemeine Zeitung approvingly quoted the National Liberal organ, the Hannoversche

Courier, which had made known its joy that the Kolonialverein included members from

“alle politischen und wirthschaftlichen Parteien.” Finally, the papers proclaimed,

“haben wir… eine nationale Frage, die über den kleinlichen Parteihader des Tages erhaben ist.”70 The Oberfränkische Zeitung, under the heading “Ein neues deutsches

Unternehmen,” similarly remarked on the necessity of a colonial solution as an appropriate “Lösung der sozialen oder Magenfragen.”71

69 R8023/256a.p.277. Newspaper advertisement – ‘Aufruf.’ 70 ibid.p.198. Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung. 24th November, 1882. 71 ibid.p.211. Oberfränkische Zeitung. 28th November, 1882. Tending the Flame - Politics 186

Similarly, Der Reichsbote welcomed the Kolonialverein’s pro-colonial agitation in terms that neatly encapsulated the breadth of domestic support for imperialism, the economic and nationalist imperatives behind it, as well as the lack of novelty to the

Kolonialverein’s goals and aims:

Die seit Jahren von uns hervorgehobene Notwendigkeit für das deutsche Reich zur Erwerbung von Kolonieen, um seine Industrie von der Vermittlung Englands und Frankreichs zu befreien und ihr den für die Konkurrenzfähigkeit mit jenen Ländern unerläßlichen Vorteil direkter Bezüge von Rohmaterial und direkten Absatzes der Fabrikate zu verschaffen, findet in immer weiteren Kreisen Anklang.72

The Andernacher Zeitung, not as concerned for the socio-economic base and discursive traditions of German imperialism, simply concentrated on the need for the new German nation to proclaim itself to the wider world through a policy of colonisation, in its serialised article on the necessity of colonialism, which focused on Germany’s position vis-à-vis the other European great powers, citing Hübbe-Schleiden’s assertion that

“Ueberseeische Politik allein vermag… den Grund zu legen zu einer WELTMACHT

DEUTSCHLANDS.”73

As an organisation that attempted to reassert imperialism as a basis for both German prosperity and German national identity, the Deutscher Kolonialverein was instrumental in refocusing the debate on German colonialism, away from the piecemeal programmes of the various post-1848/9 colonial associations, towards a truly national approach. Similarly, as an organisation devoted solely to colonialism, it could focus on expansionism in a way that was not possible for the Nationalverein, the hopes of

72 ibid.p.11. Der Reichsbote. 23rd July, 1882. “Zur Kolonialfrage.” 73 ibid.pp.164-165, 169-170. Andernacher Zeitung. For quote, see p.170 (emphasis in original). Tending the Flame - Politics 187

Bennigsen and Sturz notwithstanding. Whilst claiming for themselves the heritage of these groups, which had perpetuated liberal imperialist theory and praxis during an era of active government opposition and liberal political difficulty, the Kolonialverein was able to put behind it the “Disziplinlosigkeit” of the various imperialist associations,74 and translate German liberalism’s cultural hegemony into political facts. With the

Kolonialverein successful in having its objectives met in 1884, Rochau’s trust in the inevitable triumph of the liberal Zeitgeist appeared to have been borne out.

74 ibid.p.15. Diagnosed as the single greatest hindrance to earlier German colonising attempts by the Berliner Tageblatt of the 1st August, 1882, in its leading article “Die Hindernisse deutscher Kolonialpolitik.” This is of course to overlook governmental, not the least of which was Bismarckian hostility to colonialism. The Colonial ‘Umschwung’ 188

Chapter Five. Bismarck and the Socio-Political Context of the Colonial ‘Umschwung.’

In the years prior to 1884, Bismarck had taken every opportunity to declare his opposition to a German policy of colonial imperialism as well as to exhibit his animosity towards the notion of Germany as a naval power. In 1881, Bismarck declared, “So lange ich Reichkanzler bin, treiben wir keine Kolonialpolitik. Wir haben eine Flotte, die nicht fahren kann…und wir dürfen keine verwundbaren

Punkte in fernen Weltteilen haben, die den Franzosen als Beute zufallen, sobald es losgeht”. Colonies for Germany were, according to Bismarck, “genauso wie der seide Zobelpelz in polnischen Adelsfamilien, die keine Hemden haben”.1 As Horst

Gründer records, Bismarck had earlier categorically ruled out the confiscation of

French colonial possessions as reparations after Sedan, proclaiming, “Ich will auch gar keine Kolonien”,2 and again in the same context in relation to Viet Nam “Das ist aber ein sehr fetter Brocken für uns; wir sind aber noch nicht reich genug, um uns den Luxus von Kolonien leisten zu können”.3 As late as 1883 Bismarck was heard to restate this position to Caprivi.4

1 Quoted in H Gründer Geschichte der deutschen Kolonien.p.22. See also K Hildebrand Das Vergangene Reich.p.87. 2 ibid.p.22 3 ibid.p.51. 4 Quoted in H Gründer Geschichte der deutschen Kolonien. Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn, 1985.pp.51 The Colonial ‘Umschwung’ 189

Yet within a year, Bismarck had apparently completely reversed this vehement anti- colonialism and had come to champion the cause of German imperialism, to the loud cheers of many German liberals, for whom colonialism had long been a cherished dream. Precisely how Bismarck’s apparent volte-face came to pass has been a problem that has exercised several historians, yet there exists no consensus as to how this leap into overseas imperialism came about. 5 By the same token, despite a number of studies examining the complexion and composition of pro- imperialist pressures during the colonial era,6 the social origins of nineteenth century German imperialism, as seen from a long-term perspective, have hitherto not been adequately explained. In the absence of such studies of la longue durée capable of carefully recovering the voices clamouring for a German colonial imperialism prior to the construction of a unified Germany, as well as during the time of Bismarck’s policy of das saturierte Reich, historiography has been unable to accurately trace German imperialism from its pre-1848 origins through to its later textual and actual manifestations. As such, the careful reconstruction of the historical context that obliged Bismarck to turn to colonialism has foundered and gradually ossified into two opposing schools – the so-called Bielefelders, focusing on domestic origins of imperialism, and neo-Rankeans who have explained events

5 Although by no means an exhaustive list, the views that will be considered here are those of AJP Taylor, E Eyck, K Hildebrand, H Ulrich-Wehler, H Pogge von Strandmann and L Gall. The views expressed in the various works of these historians are sufficiently diverse to enable the major areas of contention to emerge. 6 See for example R Chickering. We Men Who Feel Most German. A Cultural Study of the Pan German League 1886-1914. Allen & Unwin, Boston, 1984. See also V Berghahn. Der Tirpitz-Plan. Genesis und Verfall einer innenpolitischen Krisenstrategie unter Wilhelm II. Droste, Düsseldorf, 1971. See too S Förster. Der doppelte Militarismus. Die deutsche Heeresrüstung zwischen Status- Quo-Sicherung und Aggression 1890-1913. Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart, 1985. The Colonial ‘Umschwung’ 190 in terms of foreign policy developments within Europe.7 Interestingly, both schools have attempted to situate the decision within a seemingly self-contained

Bismarckian period, without reference to the sixty years of pro-imperialist agitation that had preceded it. Through diametrically opposed argumentation stressing either the endogenous or exogenous origins of the decision to adopt a policy of colonial imperialism, both have failed to take into account the longevity and pervasiveness of the expansionism that finally saw its expression through statist praxis in 1884.

That is, both the ‘Bielefelders’ and the ‘neo-Rankeans’ have excised the colonial history of the 1880s from the longer term historical trends that traversed the nineteenth century.

Yet, with these pre-existing forms of expansionism in mind, it is nevertheless necessary to focus upon the events surrounding the transition from ‘informal’ or private-sector imperialism to state imperialism. In doing so, it is critical to not only question the extent of Bismarck’s personal agency in the revision of Germany’s official opposition to colonialism, but to also more firmly embed German colonial politics of the 1880s within the continuing intra-Liberal debates over national identity that had their origins in the early 1840s. Without reference to the terrain upon which the ongoing conflict between mutually exclusive narratives of statehood and identity were being fought out by liberals, conservatives, socialists

7 For a detailed view of the debate regarding the primacy of domestic or foreign policy, see K Hildebrand. Deutsche Aussenpolitik 1871-1918. R Oldenbourg Verlag, Munich, 1989.p.93ff. See also G Eley’s critique of Hildebrand’s neo-Rankean approach in G Eley. “Society and Politics in Bismarckian Germany”, German History 15(1), 1997, esp. p.114. For a somewhat more disparaging discussion, see Volker Berghahn in “The German Empire, 1871-1914: Reflections on the Direction of Recent Research”, CEH 35 (1) pp.75-81. The Colonial ‘Umschwung’ 191 and Catholics, the rationale and processes by which Germany acquired an overseas empire cannot be understood.

If Bismarck’s own statements are to be believed, he was steadfastly opposed to all forms of exposure to risk represented by German overseas expansion, yet there had been an alternative strand to Bismarck’s Kolonialpolitik, as evinced through his often overlooked support for the nationalisation of the failed Hamburg-based South

Sea Islands trading house of Godeffroy. Under this proposal, supported by many

National Liberals, the German nation was to take over the firm’s role in the Pacific, thereby creating a de facto colony. In essence, the legislation that Bismarck attempted to pass on the 27th of April 1880, on behalf of the Wirtschaftsbürgertum of Hamburg,8 was to have marked a shift from private sector imperialism to state imperialism some four years before the annexation of African territories.

Somewhat confusingly, the Reichstag debate over Samoa was run along two completely separate lines of argument. The first was the question of state colonial imperialism and its efficacy and necessity, whereas the other was the rather more hard-headed, economic question of the advisability of setting a precedent for the financial support of a failed business by the nation.9 Despite the bill being supported by luminaries such as Bismarck, Delbrück and Bennigsen, it was soundly defeated.10 Yet, far from a condemnation of imperialism per se, the vote was lost because, as the foundation of a colonial policy, it was simply not imperialist enough

8 See Chapter Three. 9 Stenographische Berichte über die Verhandlungen des Reichstags. 4 / III /ii (1880). Verlag der Buchdruckerei der Norddeutschen Allgemeinen Zeitung, Berlin, 1880.pp.945ff. 10 The vote was 112 for the proposal, with 128 against. ibid.p.962. The Colonial ‘Umschwung’ 192 to achieve the outcomes that those who had supported imperialism had always targeted. It was seen by the Reichstag as unwise to initiate an imperial policy in such a timid fashion, in a manner that would do nothing to solve the twin crises of excess emigration and poverty, the grounds usually cited for justifying a policy of state imperialism:

Unsere Kolonialpolitik kann durch die Akquisition dieser armseligen Inseln

nicht gefördert werden. Wohin wollen Sie den Strom der Auswanderer leiten?

Nach den Samoainseln? Glauben Sie, daß diejenigen, die aus irgend welchen

Gründen auswandern, nach den Samoainseln gehen werden?… Ist das nun wohl

eine Gelegenheit, mit einem solchen Unternehmen eine neue Kolonialpolitik zu

inauguriren? Hat das mächtige Deutschland keine andere Gelegenheit?… Sind wir

so armselig, daß wir anfangen müssen, wo Godeffroy aufgehört hat!11

The reference to Godeffroy hints at the second ground for the Reichstag’s refusal of the Samoa plan can also be seen - that to rescue the firm Godeffroy would be to establish an improper relationship between the state and the private sector. Quite simply, it was seen as thoroughly unsound economic practice to offer a failing business the unlimited resources of the state as a means of saving it from financial collapse. As Miquel later reported, the Reichstag vote on Godeffroy’s Samoa was largely fought not as a question of whether Germany should become a colonial power, but rather as a question of how to deal with failed private enterprises.12 On these grounds, which were demonstrably not those of a principled anti-imperialism,

11 Speech by Loewe, ibid. pp.946-8. 12 BA.Berlin R8023/253.p6. Deutsche Kolonialgesellschaft. Minutes of Kolonialverein meeting, 26th Aug. 1882. Miquel stated “In der Samoa-Frage hat nicht die Frage der Kolonisation die Sache zum Falle gebracht, sondern der Zipfel, mit dem man es angefasst hat, das Stützen eines bankrotten Hauses, die Subvention.” The Colonial ‘Umschwung’ 193

Bismarck’s first attempt at altering the course of German foreign policy, towards one more in keeping with that espoused by Bennigsen’s liberals, foundered.

Clearly, as early as 1880, Bismarck was not quite as staunchly opposed to colonial imperialism as he had led the nation to believe. Similarly, his preparedness to co- operate with Woermann and the Hamburg Handelskammer and Senate, in assessing the feasibility of German colonies in Africa in the early 1880s, suggests a more open attitude towards overseas imperialism.13 Yet his decision of 1884 to usher in a

German imperial policy was seen as a surprising development, as a complete directional change in German foreign policy.

Several arguments have been posited for this policy shift. Some earlier arguments, such as AJP Taylor’s, focused on international affairs and the diplomatic manoeuvring undertaken by Bismarck to widen the rift between Britain and France in order to bring France closer to Germany, thereby minimising the risk of France being driven to war out of a sense of isolation.14 This argument has also been repeated more recently by Klaus Hildebrand.15 According to this argument,

Bismarck is supposed to have used domestic Anglophobia as a convenient diplomatic backdrop to be instrumentalised in an attempt to negotiate colonial

13 G Klein.Dokumente zur Geschichte der Handelskammer Hamburg.p.176. See also Renate Hücking & Ekkehard Launer, Aus Menschen Neger Machen.pp.47ff. 14 AJP Taylor Germany’s First Bid for Colonies 1884-1885: A Move in Bismarck’s European Policy. WW Norton & Co. 1970. 15 K Hildebrand. “Opportunities and Limits of German Foreign Policy in the Bismarckian Era, 1871-1890: A System of Stopgaps?” in G Schöllgen (ed.) Escape into War? The Foreign Policy of Imperial Germany. Berg, Oxford, 1990.p.81. “What was at issue here was a rather tentative attempt to set the Reich in Europe and the world on a more advantageous basis through a settlement with France effected on overseas terrain over British opposition.” The Colonial ‘Umschwung’ 194 concessions from England at a time when it had its hands full dealing with the

French in Egypt, the Russians to the north of India and an increasingly fractious

Boer population in South Africa16.

Taylor’s diplomacy-orientated analysis mirrors, or rather has been reflected in, much German historiography as the example of Hildebrand shows. This line of argument has conscientiously observed the Rankean precept of the primacy of foreign policy, focusing on the jiggery-pokery of international diplomacy and its fruits, without, it must be said, considering the domestic social basis upon which this diplomacy was based.17 In attempting to exclude social imperialism as a cause for Kolonialpolitik,18 such accounts have relegated the entire domestic sphere to the level of an irrelevance when compared with the high politics of diplomacy.

This has in large part been contested by a series of scholars whose focus has been the social forces that shaped foreign policy, that is, the extent to which these policies had their origins in the pressures of Germany’s domestic politico-economic position and societal structures. The highlighting of endogenous rather than exogenous influences quickly became an alternative analytical paradigm.

Eckart Kehr is seen as the usual starting point for this scholarly direction, which culminated in the ‘Bielefeld School’ and Hans Ulrich Wehler’s Bismarck und der

16 AJP Taylor. Germany’s First Bid for Colonies. pp.11, 80-86. 17 For recent examples of the foregrounding of foreign policy considerations at the expense of German domestic socio-political conditions, see K Hildebrand. Das Vergangene Reich.p.86ff, L Gall. Bismarck: der weiße Revolutionär. Propyläen Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, 1980.pp.615-618. See also G Eley’s critique of this approach in, G Eley. “Society and Politics in Bismarckian Germany”, esp. p.114. K Hildebrand. Deutsche Aussenpolitik.p.93ff. 18 K Hildebrand. “Opportunities and Limits” p.81. The Colonial ‘Umschwung’ 195

Imperialismus.19 As is well known, Wehler’s thesis was essentially that the

Bonapartist Bismarck embarked upon a colonial policy as a means of deflecting the internal economic and political tensions that were beginning to arise as the result of modernisation, democratisation and a precocious Social Democratic movement that threatened to undermine what Wehler has called the ‘conservative utopia’. In order to safeguard this conservative utopia, Wehler has argued, Bismarck embarked upon a course of ‘social imperialism’ designed to ensnare a feudalised bourgeoisie in a diversionary colonial project, whilst similarly diverting an increasingly militant proletariat so that they would not be lured to the organised Left by the Socialists’ siren song.20 In his attempt, “die Deutschen auf neue Bahnen zu lenken,” Wehler argued, Bismarck strove to integrate Germans not into a burgeoning liberal nation, but “im System des autokratischen Pseudokonstitutionalismus,”21 via the

“Ablenkung von den Problemen im Inneren.”22

Wehler’s useful focus on the domestic, politico-economic genesis of foreign policy and his notion of the prophylactic utility of imperialism in dealing with late nineteenth century German socialism, whilst not uncontested, has enjoyed much support as an alternative analytical paradigm for the study of German imperialism.

Perhaps less deservedly, the ideas of a Flucht nach vorne and of a liberal-

19 On this lineage, see V Berghahn “The German Empire, 1871-1914.” pp.75-81. 20 H Wehler. Bismarck und der Imperialismus. Kiepenheur & Witsch, Köln, 1969.For a distilled version of this work, cf. H Wehler “Bismarck’s Imperialism, 1862-1890” (trans.N Porter, J Sheehan, TW Mason) in Imperial Germany (ed. J Sheehan) Franklin Watts New York 1976.pp180-222. Wehler himself summarised Social Imperialism as an attempt “to direct the dynamic forces of the economy and the social and political struggles for emancipation into external expansion...” Wehler, “Sozialimperialismus,” quoted in G Schöllgen. “Introduction. The Theme Reflected in Recent German Research” in G Schöllgen. Escape into War?p.8. 21 H Wehler. Bismarck und der Imperialismus.p.469. 22 ibid.p.470. The Colonial ‘Umschwung’ 196 conservative Sammlungspolitik, viewed as necessary paradigmatic assumptions implicit in Wehlerite domestic policy analysis have also gained acceptance, notwithstanding the counter-arguments offered by Blackbourn and Eley, whose diagnosis of the effect of the subterranean forces of embourgeoisement at work in late nineteenth century Germany widened the scholarly focus.23 Eley in particular has usefully attempted to focus on the cultural agency of Germany’s middle classes, rather than their limitations.24 In terms of the existence of a ‘conservative utopia,’

Wehler’s pessimism and Eley’s ambivalence about the degree of parliamentary power exercised by Germany’s liberal middle classes has also been credibly critiqued.25

Similarly foregrounding domestic considerations in explaining German colonial imperialism, Erich Eyck asserted that colonialism was Bismarck’s way of ensuring that Germany had a means to break with England (over colonial issues) to assist in the whipping up of Anglophobia should it be necessary. Superficially bearing the hallmarks of Taylor’s neo-Rankean analysis, in fact the real aim here was the deflecting of any English influence over Germany’s Progressive Liberals that were

23 D Blackbourn & G Eley. The Peculiarities of German History: Bourgeois Society and Politics in Nineteenth Century Germany. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1984. By and large, the argumentation of Blackbourn and Eley has not yet entirely overturned or in some instance even penetrated the analysis of the ‘Bielefelders,’ despite some lively exchanges between the two camps. See H Ulrich-Wehler, “A Guide to Future Research on the Kaiserreich?” CEH 29 (4) pp. 541-572 and Eley’s response “Problems with Culture: German History after the Linguistic Turn” in CEH 31(3), pp.197-227. 24 G Eley. “Problems with Culture” pp.197-227. See esp. p.227. 25 M Kreuzer. “Parliamentarization and the Question of German Exceptionalism: 1867-1918.” CEH 36(3), 2003.pp.327-357. See esp.pp.332-333. The Colonial ‘Umschwung’ 197 the supposed favourite of Germany’s Crown Prince.26 On this reading, Eyck saw colonialism as being formed through the blending of Bismarck’s antipathy to the nascent forces of progressive liberalism and his worries about the political complications implicit in the imperial succession.

Both Wehler’s and Eyck’s approaches, it would appear, are half right in their contextualisation of German foreign policy in terms of German political developments. However, the view that Bismarck was relying on colonialism as a hedge against the death of the emperor remains purely conjectural, as does the assumption that this was linked to a perceived need to stifle the Left Liberals before they could become ensconced in power courtesy of an approving Crown Prince.27

Hartmut Pogge von Strandmann has offered a perhaps more nuanced analysis of events leading up to Bismarck’s colonial Umschwung.28 In a closely argued article that at some points intersects with the detail of Wehler’s analysis, Pogge von

Strandmann illustrated the nexus between Bismarck’s timing of his public embrace of colonialism and the political pressure placed upon him as a result of the 1881 collapse of the National Liberal vote – a collapse accompanied by a concomitant explosion in the progressive Left-Liberal vote. In other words, for Pogge von

Strandmann, Bismarck’s colonial Umschwung had its origins in his desire to resurrect the fortunes of the National Liberal party.29 This appears a constructive

26 E Eyck. Bismarck and the German Empire. Allen & Unwin, London, 1968.p.274ff. Discussed by H Gründer, Geschichte der deutschen Kolonien.pp.53-54. 27 E Eyck. Bismarck and the German Empire.pp.284 – 289. 28 H Pogge von Strandmann. “Domestic Origins of Germany’s Colonial Expansion Under Bismarck”. Past and Present 42(1), 1969. p.140ff. 29 ibid.p.145. The Colonial ‘Umschwung’ 198 approach, in that it matches with contemporaneous political conditions, whilst allowing for the existence of a broader historical linkage between liberalism and imperialist discourse. It is also illuminative in its illustration of the fact that, in terms of the Bismarckian dichotomy between Reichsfeinde and Reichsfreunde, the major shift in domestic political strength preceding the announcement of a colonial policy came, as Pogge von Strandmann makes clear, in the 1881 election, in which the National Liberals haemorrhaged votes and seats, dropping from 99 seats down to 47.30 Meanwhile, the Progressive Liberals saw their combined vote almost triple, shifting the parliamentary balance awkwardly to the Left. Reliant as he was upon the parliamentary support of the Nationalliberalen, this was a problematic turn of events for Bismarck.31

Importantly, at the same time, far from constituting a threat, the Social Democratic vote managed only a feeble rise from nine seats to twelve – demonstrating the obvious strain placed upon the party by the 1878 Sozialistengesetz. Despite these constraints, it was nonetheless a low number of seats, given that German liberals were still suffering the disruptive effects of the free trade dispute and the schism between Bennigsen’s Right wing of the National Liberals and Lasker’s free traders.

30 The following statistics have been drawn from: German Bundestag Publications Section. Fragen an die deutschen Geschichte. Ideen, Kräfte, Entscheidungen von 1800 bis zur Gegenwart. (English ed.). German Bundestag Publications Section, Bonn, 1989. Supplement: ‘The Development of the Parties 1871-1987.’ 31 Importantly, as Pogge von Strandmann has argued elsewhere, the collapse of the national vote for the National Liberals did not signal their social demise. Their continued dominance in municipal and city elections demonstrated that, particularly at the level of face-to-face local politics, the liberals were a dominant force up to the outbreak of World War One. See H Pogge von Strandmann. “The Liberal Power Monopoly in the Cities of Imperial Germany” in H Lehmann, KF Ledford (eds.) Elections, Mass Politics, and Social Change in Modern Germany. Cambridge University Press, New York, 1992.pp.93-118. The Colonial ‘Umschwung’ 199

At least in parliamentary terms, the Socialist threat had been well and truly contained, despite Bismarck’s tub-thumping that suggested otherwise. At the other end of the spectrum, the two conservative parties lost a little ground, with the losses of the Free Conservatives being perhaps noteworthy.32 The Centre continued to enjoy its rock-solid 100-seat result, which seemed impervious to the effects of day- to-day politics.

Clearly, the momentous results that stood to harm Bismarck’s governing coalition were the collapse in the National Liberal vote and the meteoric rise in the Left

Liberal vote. Plainly put, Bismarck’s problem post-1881 was one of liberalism – how to revive the nationalist liberals and harm the left-leaning progressives. If

Bismarck was to survive as Reichskanzler, he needed to find an issue that would isolate the Left Liberals whilst bringing the National Liberals to the fore.

Expansionism, although a long-standing point of agreement between German liberals, was just such an issue. With it Bismarck hoped to save himself by simultaneously resurrecting the National Liberals and marginalising progressive liberals, who, both he and the Nationalliberalen knew, would find it difficult to accept colonialism if it was presented as a part of a Bismarckian protectionist agenda, rather than as an imperialism of a politically liberal Germany. Through his clumsy choice of Godeffroy’s Samoa holdings as an initial step in 1880, Bismarck had failed to successfully attach himself to the colonial policy advocated by the

National Liberals prior to the election of 1881, despite their support for what was a deeply flawed proposal. In the aftermath of the 1881 election, however, he was in a

32 From their 1878 record high of 57 seats to 1881s result of 28 seats, which took them back slightly below the realm of their pre 1878 results in the mid 30s range of seats held. The Colonial ‘Umschwung’ 200 position where he needed to try again in a way that would enable him to drive a visible wedge between the liberal groupings in a manner that would make the

National Liberals far more appealing to the liberal electorate.

It is arguable that, by ultimately rejecting the idea of bringing Bennigsen into the

Prussian State Ministry, and by introducing the socialist laws, the tobacco monopoly and trade tariffs, Bismarck had been intimately, indeed malevolently involved with the collapse of the National Liberals in the first place.33 That might indeed be the case without it negating the fact that, firstly, Bismarck was not to know that this would bring about a dramatic split in National Liberal circles, and, secondly, that Bismarck was very much interested in supporting the National

Liberals for the 1884 polls. Bearing in mind Lothar Gall’s characterisation of

Bismarck’s position within the matrix of German politics, as the sorcerer’s apprentice without a competent master to clean up his political messes, it is arguable that Bismarck is best seen not as imbued with the shrewd cunning and guile, remarkable foresight and omnipotence with which he credited himself and to which his opponents blamed their lack of success.34 As a practitioner of intrinsically conservative politics, Bismarck simply wavered between an aversion to

33 For example, cf. Eyck. Bismarck and the German Empire.pp.240, 261. 34 L Gall. Bismarck: der weiße Revolutionär. Translated into English as the two volume Bismarck: The White Revolutionary by JA Underwood, Unwin & Hyman, London 1986.Gall is scathing of Wehler’s ‘social imperialism’ thesis, which he sees as “having the fascinatory power of a universal explanation that promises to order the confusing flood of details under a single broad concept,” stating that “in truth things are far more complicated and not so easily reduced to a common denominator.” (p.615). However, his own return to Ranke, in nominating foreign policy motivations as primary in Bismarck’s colonial policy reversal ignores the underlying weakness of Bismarck’s domestic political position. (See page 618). Despite this somewhat antiquated approach, Gall’s imagery of a vacillating Bismarck responding to immediate crises rather than implementing carefully plotted political masterstrokes remains instructive. The Colonial ‘Umschwung’ 201 working with liberals of all shades, and an understanding of the inescapable necessity of supporting at least the National Liberals to ensure his own position.

Knowing of the progressive liberals’ likely rejectionist stance, that stemmed from their concerns over protectionism and parliamentary legitimacy, Bismarck returned to imperialism in 1884, despite the failure of the Samoa Bill in 1880, confident that he would not suffer the embarrassment of Left Liberal support as he underwrote the liberal notion of a colonial Weltaufgabe.

This view runs counter to that of Wehler, whose portrait of Bismarck is, as Gall has charged, a version of negative hagiography,35 in which each move that frustrated the political ‘progress’ of the ‘deceived’ liberal bourgeoisie and the burgeoning socialist wave is blamed upon the ‘Bonapartist’ dictatorship of Bismarck. A corrective to this simply places Bismarck within the context of a complex web of power relations, that saw him, however unwillingly, forced into a series of symbiotic relationship with others within that web, ranging from the Kaiser and the

Reichstag through to the press and public opinion. Bismarck did not exist, as

Wehler suggests, at the apex of a power pyramid, indeed the difficulties he had experienced since 1881 forced him to an understanding that “Alleinherrschaft auf der Spitze der Machtpyramide” 36 was simply impossible, and that concessions to liberal policy were a price he would necessarily pay if he wished to play any further role in the governance of a Germany that was increasingly marked by the hegemony of its liberals.

35 So Gall’s complaint regarding the “negativen Bismarck-Bewunderung… Erfolgsgeschichte mit veränderten Wertungen”. L Gall. Bismarck: der weiße Revolutionär. p.527. 36 Wehler Bismarck und der Imperialismus. p. 486. The Colonial ‘Umschwung’ 202

This also casts light on the notion of a ‘liberal capitulation’ to Bismarck or that of a

“bürgerliche Verfall.”37 The diminishing parliamentary dominance of the National

Liberals (and the growing strength of the Left Liberals) was clearly not the result of an overarching Bismarckian master plan. Rather, as the National Liberals came to terms with the differences between being a focused movement of national unification, an oppositional mass movement (such as the Nationalverein), and a party working for incremental change through compromise politics within the constraints of a semi-parliamentary setting, they faced an unsurprising Left – Right split within the party. Differences, such as that over what constituted political legitimacy, which had not been critical as long as liberals were an oppositional force, became pivotal as they became a party with a stake in government. To place the blame for the growing internal contradictions amongst liberals, and their consequences, at the feet of Bismarck, is to suggest that the German liberals were so politically naïve as to not understand their own internal ruptures and the consequent shifts in the areas of debate and the political agenda, that directly affected them and brought into question their previous ideological underpinnings. It is also to assert that otherwise astute political operators had become mere unwitting pawns in Bismarck’s masterful national plan.38

In fact, the tortuous self-examination and re-examination undergone by National

Liberals at this time illustrates the extent to which they were fully conscious of the ramifications of the shift in political discourse in Germany. The destabilising 1879 /

1880 splits with the party by Lasker and his fellow secessionists, and the March

37 ibid.p.459. 38 Contra D Langewiesche Liberalism in Germany. pp. 194 –199. The Colonial ‘Umschwung’ 203

1884 Heidelberg Declaration39 spelling out the party’s new direction under Miquel demonstrated the self-conscious seriousness with which the National Liberals treated the shift in the political terrain after the task of unification had been completed. The Left wing of the party decided on a more pronouncedly oppositional role, while the Right, freed from the constraints of compromise by the secession of the party’s Left wing, were free to reconfigure policy according to their own more overtly nationalist impulses – including a renewed emphasis on their historically resonant policy of naval power and colonial imperialism. Put simply, the reason for the National Liberals’ apparent shift to the Right was not so much a capitulation in the face of the machinations of Bismarck as the lack of internal dissent from an internal Left wing. With a clean breast made of outstanding policy issues once dissident liberals had exited the party, the scene was set for the remaining National Liberals to pressure Bismarck into redeploying their politically resonant Kolonialpolitik as a means of resurrecting their electoral fortunes, understanding that the anti-protectionist, anti-Bismarckian progressives would find it difficult to support en bloc.

In terms of evidence for Bismarck’s gradual acquiescence to the National Liberals’ historic commitment to the colonial imperialist project, Bismarck’s statement that

“die ganze Kolonialgeschichte ist ja Schwindel, aber wir brauchen sie für die

Wahlen”40 illustrates his need of the National Liberals rather than their need of him.

The extent to which Bismarck actually believed colonialism was in fact a ‘swindle’ is of course doubtful, given his support for the Samoa Bill of 1880, which was

39 ibid.p.199ff. 40 Quoted in H Gründer. Geschichte der deutschen Kolonien.p.58. See also H Wehler.Bismarck und der Imperialismus.p.475. The Colonial ‘Umschwung’ 204 consistent with his other protectionist moves, and his subsequent accommodation of the wishes of the expansionist Hamburg liberal Wirtschaftsbürgertum. Similarly,

Bismarck’s communications with Münster, in which he characterised the critical nature of colonialism in terms of immediate and domestic political terms, illustrates

Bismarck’s reliance upon not only the role of the National Liberals in the

Reichstag, but also upon Rochau’s “öffentliche Meinung,” the cultural hegemony of nationalist liberals committed to the enactment of a German Weltaufgabe. Bismarck was forced to admit that the Colonial question was, “schon aus Gründen der inneren Politik” already a “Lebensfrage.” With recourse to Rochau’s notion of the increasing power of public opinion, he continued, “Die öffentliche Meinung legt gegenwärtig in Deutschland ein so starkes Gewicht auf die Kolonialpolitik, daß die

Stellung der Regierung im Innern von dem Gelingen derselben wesentlich abhängt.”41 What this shows is the extent to which Bismarck’s Alleinherrschaft of a

‘conservative utopia’ was in fact a chimera, a reactionary facade obscuring the extent to which the political contours of the Kaiserreich were coming to be shaped the discursive substance of the liberal’s nationalist metanarrative.

The minimalist, ‘informal empire’ model of colonialism Bismarck presented – imperialism that continued to be based upon control by a private sector underwritten by state support – illustrated not so much his continuing ambivalence towards the direction he had chosen as his acceptance of the idea that Germany’s

Wirtschaftsbürgertum should be given a free hand in their international operations, albeit with the entire weight of the German nation acting as a protecting guarantor

41 Dispatch to Münster, in R Gavin & JA Bentley (eds / trans.) The Scramble for Africa: Documents on the Berlin West Africa Conference and Related Subjects 1884-5. Ibadan University Press, Ibadan, 1973.p.413. See also H Gründer.Geschichte der deutschen Kolonien.p.57. The Colonial ‘Umschwung’ 205 for their endeavours. This stance, whilst satisfying the immediate concerns of an increasingly pro-protectionist German commerce, had the benefit of allowing those elements of the Bildungsbürgertum more concerned with the satisfactory resolution of the Sozialfrage (as a Malthusian problem of demographics rather than one of socialism) to see this as the thin edge of the colonial wedge. It was a policy crafted to meet both the immediate political requirements of Bismarck and the economic necessities of an industrialised, internationally orientated economy under the waxing political control of a bürgerliche Gesellschaft.

Through colonialism, Bismarck had attempted to rectify his earlier mistake of undermining the position of the already internally divided and therefore somewhat weakened National Liberals. In doing so, he reflected the political importance, indeed centrality of liberalism in Germany at the time – both in positive and negative terms. Positively, in that Bismarck was forced to tacitly admit the necessity of supporting the National Liberals and the imperialist praxis dictated by their metanarrative of German nationhood, and negatively, in that the newfound success of the Left Liberals was shown to constitute a serious threat to the parliamentary hegemony of, to Bismarck’s mind, the acceptable face of liberalism, in a way that the Social Democrats would not do until the turn of the century. In coming to accept the longstanding liberal dream of empire, Bismarck not only strengthened his own claim to power by projecting himself as in step with a significant element of nationalist liberal aspirations and with public opinion more broadly, he also granted imperialist liberalism an official credence that it had been hitherto strenuously denied. The Colonial ‘Umschwung’ 206

Just as importantly, in terms of how this imperialist turn of events impacted on broader issues of national identity, that section of society that saw colonialism and active imperialism as a necessary part of Germany’s world mission, as a result of

Bismarck’s support for it, became stronger, more confident and in numerical terms larger, and as such it is possible to speak in this context of an accompanying

Kolonialrausch. Yet, in the context of the late nineteenth century, this enthusiasm for expansionism did not separate German imperialism from any other European form of nationalist imperialism. Indeed, for many German liberals, the desire to imitate other powers such as Britain and to a lesser extent France, as global trading powers, was central to their concept of national identity, and the winning over of

Bismarck marked a shift from colonialism as an oneiric discourse or the realm of private enterprise, unfulfilled at the governmental level, to a concrete and feasible political agenda with the backing of arguably the strongest segment of German society.

Clearly, this support for German expansionism had not been created by Bismarck, nor for that matter by the National Liberals of the 1880s. As has been argued,

German liberals, since the time of Friedrich List, irrespective of whether they were free traders or protectionists, had argued strenuously for a German Weltaufgabe.42

After unification, this hankering after an overseas mission had remained central in differentiating nationalist liberals’ notion of German identity from the various rival

42 For an account of the early liberal colonial / imperialist movement and its relationship with liberal notions of how any future German nation should be characterised, see Frank Lorenz Müller’s article “Imperialist Ambitions.”pp 346-368. For an innovative discussion of the intellectual heritage of German colonialism, see Susanne Zantop’s Colonial Fantasies. Zantop consciously focused on colonial “fantasies,” as opposed to the more overtly political “statements of opinion or intent” under consideration here. See Colonial Fantasies.pp.4-5. The Colonial ‘Umschwung’ 207 metanarratives of the Left, of the Elbian agribusiness Right and of Catholics, and, significantly, had also in the 1880s become a means of differentiating between nationalist and progressive liberals. Imperialism, where it had once united all liberals, continued in its mythopoeic function within nationalist liberal circles, remaining central to their conception of national unity, a way to fulfil what Horst

Gründer has described as an Identitätssehnsucht,43 a yearning for national self- definition in contradistinction to all other metanarratives proffering alternative elaborations and narrations of the nation-state’s political, cultural and economic identity.

The deployment of colonialism as a form of demarcation meant to divide the progressive from the nationalist liberals is interesting, given that imperialism and expansionism had operated historically as a point of unity within liberal circles.

Indeed, as Ina Lorenz has argued, the anti-colonialism of progressive liberals in

1884 was by no means monolithic (as exemplified by Georg von Siemans’ support for colonialism), relatively short-lived (until 1896) and best characterised as a position of “Nein, aber,”44 aimed at facilitating the creation of a certain amount of wriggle-room on the issue. Furthermore, as Lorenz has shown, the progressives’ critique was not against expansionism in toto, but was in essence an immanent critique of the economic benefit of Bismarck’s proposed course – a course in their view prone to exacerbate protectionism internationally and likely to be unprofitable to Germany in the long run. However, expansionism itself was not ruled out, as

Eugen Richter’s statement in the Reichstag in 1884 made clear:

Das ist ganz selbstverständlich, daß wir dem deutschen Handel den überseeischen

43 H Gründer. Geschichte der deutschen Kolonien.p.30. 44 IS Lorenz. Eugen Richter.pp.98-111. The Colonial ‘Umschwung’ 208

Schutz mittels Konsulate und Marine zuteil werden lassen... Im übrigen, ob man im einzelnen Falle weiter geht, das muß von dem einzelnen und besonderen Fall der betreffenden Vorlage abhängen.45

Seen as a natural extension of Bismarck’s earlier divisive protectionist policies, at this particular juncture (that is, in light of the recent Sezession and the strident opposition to protectionism provoked amongst progressives loyal to the economic liberalism of John Prince Smith) colonialism, as a form of globalised protectionism,46 was in essence a project impossible for progressive liberals to support in the short term, particularly under the auspices of ‘Bismarckian’ rule, as opposed to that of a liberal imperialist nation-state.47 With progressives unwilling or unable to come to terms with what they saw as protectionism masquerading as imperialist policy, prosecuted in what they saw as Bismarck’s illiberal nation-state, the Left Liberals were unable to endorse statist forms of German expansionism in both in 1880 and 1884.

On the other hand, for National Liberals, far from imperialism representing their

“Sündenfall,” their continued adherence to expansionist policies came to be presented to the liberal electorate as emblematic of their status as the true heirs of liberalism’s historic imperialist longings, as previously made manifest in the politics of the Frankfurt Nationalversammlung and the more recent Nationalverein.

In this manner, it came to be the progressives that could be constructed by the

45 Quoted in IS Lorenz. Eugen Richter.p.108. 46 As per Friedrich List. 47 IS Lorenz. Eugen Richter.pp.100-102. The Colonial ‘Umschwung’ 209

Nationalliberalen as betraying liberalism’s heritage – precisely the claim levelled by historians at the nationalists.48

Under Richter, the Progressive Liberals had for their part enjoyed a sense of collective identity built on the notion of ‘loyal opposition’, defining themselves in contradistinction to not only Bismarck but also the National Liberals, constructed by the progressives as having become a Bismarckian party. In their calls for an increase in the powers of parliament, and in their opposition to the political direction taken by Bismarck, they had constructed a political identity that was largely a negative identity, in that it foregrounded what they were against – the

Bismarckian state. As the respectable (that is to say non-socialist) opposition party of the Left, the Progressive Liberals had been able to carve for themselves a clearly delineated role within Reich politics, leaving, in their minds, the National Liberals to wrestle with the sense of malaise brought about by collaborating with Bismarck.

The reintroduction of colonial imperialism to the national political landscape afforded the National Liberals a clearly defined, historically supported agenda, and a means of unifying themselves and thereby, it was hoped, renewing and widening their electoral base, at the expense of the Progressive Liberals, whose success in

1881 appeared to have been generated by National Liberal losses.49 This is not to say that colonialism was a mere electoral trope with no real resonance outside of its rhetorical and short-term electoral utility, as Bismarck’s overly glib comments at the time would suggest. Clearly, colonialism had been an integral part of German

48 See for example WJ Mommsen “Wandlungen der liberalen Idee.” 49 German Bundestag Publications Section. Fragen an die deutschen Geschichte. Supplement: ‘The Development of the Parties 1871-1987.’ The Colonial ‘Umschwung’ 210 liberalism since the early nineteenth century. Indeed an entire pro-colonial movement had seethed away under the surface of German liberal politics in the writings of prominent and not so prominent German liberals, with arguments borrowed heavily from Friedrich List’s original arguments regarding such things as an overproduction crisis, surplus population, as well as a German civilising mission to under-developed peoples abroad and to Germany’s East. As early as List, the economic and industrial development of a nation was seen by Liberals to be inextricably linked with its ability to assert its national power abroad and to maintain colonies.

A partial explanation for the return of imperialism to the national agenda was the simple desire of liberals to remain relevant in the post-unification era. With the debates over the politico-institutional shape of the nation reaching an impasse, it was not surprising that other polices with long liberal pedigrees such as colonialism re-emerged as the Nationalliberalen looked to move beyond their nation-building task. Indeed, the Progressive / National Liberal divide is perhaps best seen within this context, as having resulted from the desire of the progressives to continue creating the nation by establishing its legitimacy through further liberalisation of political forms, whilst the nationalists attempted to utilise the state as it existed in order to realise other, less constitutionally oriented liberal goals.

However, the slowing of moves towards a parliamentary Germany was not the only reason for renewed liberal enthusiasm for colonialism. Also critical is the fact that at the time that colonialism was embraced as official Reich policy, the question of the complexion of German national identity was still relatively open. Affecting the The Colonial ‘Umschwung’ 211 overall political complexion of the nation state, and therefore its future direction, the issue of national identity was one in which the National Liberals maintained a keen interest.

As Benedict Anderson has argued, the construction of nationality is often hastened and more successful if undertaken via its embodiment in emotionally potent symbols (such as colonies) that enable an imagined sense of national community.50

Within Germany, this process of national embodiment, as enunciated through the programmatic assertions of the Nationalliberalen, as well as through the representations created by the newly emerging instruments of print capitalism,51 was designed to shape public opinion so as to enable an evolving cultural hegemony, gradually to be translated into a basis for political rule. For Germany’s liberals, imperialism operated as the mythopoeic engine for this process of identification. Importantly, this differs fundamentally from Wehler’s conceptualisation of imperialism as a diversion (Ablenkung), in that far from being borne out of anxiety, it stemmed from a combative liberal self-assertion. It bespoke not crisis but confidence in the superiority of their narration of the German nation- state.

This struggle for national identity was, of course, an overtly political one, where the future tone of German politics was at stake. More than merely a decision of which party to support in any given election, the renewed attempt to shape German

50 B Anderson Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism. Verso, London, 1983. 51 On the role of print capitalism in the formation of German imperialist identity, see Chapter Seven, dealing with Die Gartenlaube. The Colonial ‘Umschwung’ 212 national identity in 1884 through expansionist politics was an attempt at shaping the sense of national identity held by Germans, which could potentially inform their political predisposition for a generation. Put simply, this was a struggle to overcome rival Weltanschauungen, and to ensure that German national identity would be constituted in terms of the liberal concept of Bürgerlichkeit. Within liberalism itself, the question arose as to what aspect of Bürgerlichkeit would take precedence – a constitutional liberalism or a sense of national mission derived from a common

Weltaufgabe.

It is precisely through this lens of nation building, national identity and the life or death contests between metanarratives of Deutschtum that the Social Democrats viewed the renewed focus on colonialism – as a gambit by the middle classes to impose their own narration of national identity over the nation-state through their recourse to expansionist praxis. The liberal assertion of a German Weltaufgabe, socialists understood, emerged only at the expense of the rival, socialist conceptualisation of the German state. Thus in the party organ of the day, Der

Sozialdemokrat, came statements to the effect that: “Die Bourgeoisie will Kolonien zu ihrem Vorteil – aus denselben Gründen, aus denen sie für Kolonien schwärmt, muss also das seiner Klasseninteressen bewusste Proletariat gegen solche mit aller

Entscheidenheit auftreten.”52 Colonies, designed to materially and politically benefit the middle classes, were not to be supported by the working classes, precisely because of the mutually exclusive character of the struggle between the two, as the agents of diametrically opposed totalising systems within the German nation-state.

52 Quoted in M Hyrkkänen Sozialistische Kolonialpolitik: Eduard Bernsteins Stellung zur Kolonialpolitik und zum Imperialismus 1882-1914. (trans. C Krötzl).SHS, Helsinki, 1986.p.32. The Colonial ‘Umschwung’ 213

Similarly, the claims of capital that the nation was suffering from an overproduction crisis were treated by the same newspaper as having their origins in middle class tactical rhetoric employed to serve their imperialist ideological position which in turn was an attempt to disguise the naked financial self interest at stake –

“Kolonisation heisst Akkumulation des Kapitals; Akkumulation des Kapitals heisst

Akkumulation des Elends,”53 or in more detail, “Das laute Geschrei der

Bourgeoisie nach Kolonien kommt gerade daher, dass im Mutterland zuviel Geld vorhanden ist, dass die Herren Kapitalisten zu Hause keine rentable Verwendung mehr für ihre Gelder finden.”54 Interestingly, Kautsky warned of domestic consequences for the colonising activity of the middle classes: “je rechtloser der

Eingeborene in der deutschen Kolonie, desto barbarischer die Bourgeoisie in

Deutschland.”55

For Social Democrats, the issue was not that of a ‘social imperialist’ united front between a feudalised bourgeoisie and conservatives. Rather, as Markku Hyrkkänen has argued, Social Democrats viewed “die ganze Kolonialfrage” as actually being

“eine Bourgeoisfrage.”56 That is, the fundamental pressures in favour of imperialism stemmed from the liberal middle classes, as they attempted to position their particular class interests as the interests of an idealised national community,

53 ibid.p.32. 54ibid.p.34. 55 ibid.p.57. 56ibid.p.61 The Colonial ‘Umschwung’ 214 and their desired course of action as having the nature of a national mission. The proletariat, the Social Democrats warned, should have nothing to do with it. 57

With Bismarck’s acquiescence to the National Liberals’ discourse of active colonialism, partly brought about by the logic of his own movement towards protectionism, we see the emergence of German state-sanctioned imperialism as the inscription of liberalism as the hegemonic form of national identity that was adhered to by a significant proportion of Germany’s bürgerliche Gesellschaft. The

National Liberals had at this point become at least partially successful in their attempts to define the project of the nation-state in explicitly imperialist terms, in opposition to competing formulations of identity embodied in rival conceptualisations of the ideal German polity. Unsurprisingly, this identity reflected the material interests and political priorities of the nationalist liberal middle classes, who had agitated for this movement for decades and whose cultural hegemony seemed to have been confirmed in this victory in the political arena. 58

To summarise, what is being asserted here is the symbiosis between nationalism and imperialism as mutually reinforcing concepts deployed by liberals to further consolidate a form of national identity that coincided with their broader programme of rule. Through this symbiosis, the German nation-state, at the behest of the

57 On the initial hostility of the SPD towards colonial imperialism, see H Stoecker & P Sebald. “Enemies of the Colonial Idea” (trans.LH Gann) in AJ Knoll & LH Gann (eds.) Germans in the Tropics: Essays in German Colonial History. Greenwood Press, New York, 1987.pp.59-72. 58 See the effect of this again in the 1907 ‘Hottentot’ election, this time aimed at isolating socialist opposition to the government’s decision to financially underwrite the genocidal Herero / Nama wars. U van der Heyden. “Die ‘Hottentottenwahlen’ von 1907” in J Zimmerer & J Zeller (hg). Völkermord in Deutsch-Südwestafrika.pp.97ff. The Colonial ‘Umschwung’ 215 ascendant liberal middle classes,59 pursued expansionist objectives, partially to reinforce the notion that German national identity could only be constituted through imperialist activity. Central to the liberal deployment of imperialism was the desire that, just as parts of Africa and the Pacific would become identified as ‘German,’ to be ‘German’ would increasingly become inextricably linked to a distant, economically dependent colonial periphery, with alterity. In a sense, the nation constructed an empire in 1884 in order to further construct and reflect itself precisely as an imperialist power, not dissimilar to Britain. Underpinning all of this was of course the sense amongst liberals that the colonies would bring real material advantage, however, with socialists, Catholics and conservatives fashioning their own national tasks, 1884 became for German liberals a means of inscribing imperialism at the heart of the German nation.

Not a remarkably new turn in the foreign policy of the National Liberals, the events of 1884 had their origins in Vormärz attempts to posit Germany as a modernising, internationalising centre, in order to create a modernising, internationalising

Germany at a time when this was far from being a fait accompli. Prominent

Germans such as Friedrich List and the liberals of the Frankfurt

Nationalversammlung, many going on to have links to the Nationalverein and the

Nationalliberalen, later furthered List’s efforts. The Listian political, economic and social logic brought to bear on an already protectionist Bismarck had built up over the course of almost fifty years. The recognition by Bismarck of the importance of the National Liberals, as a necessary part of his government, which became manifestly obvious after 1881, was in 1884 translated into the enacting of an

59 A Hillgruber. Germany and the Two World Wars. (trans.WC Kirby). Harvard University Press, Cambridge Mass. 1981.p.2. The Colonial ‘Umschwung’ 216 expansionist foreign policy in keeping with both decades of liberal agitation and the more recent protectionist pressures within Germany that had been exemplified in the reorientation of foreign policy signalled by Bismarck’s support for the unsuccessful Samoa Bill of 1880. Part Three: Embourgeoisement and the Texts of Imperialism

– The Consolidation of Cultural Hegemony and Liberal

Expansionism 1849 – 1884. Scientific Discourse 218

Chapter Six.

Scientific Discourse as Imperialist Discourse. The Political and Geographic

Sciences and Liberal Imperialism.

As imperialist commercial praxis and political agitation continued unabated during the post -1848/9 era, imperialist agitation through a variety of textual forms also flourished. Whether via overtly propagandistic pamphleteering and reporting, through the infiltration of imperialist themes into the liberal popular press, the positive treatment of imperialist themes in scholarly journals or through the burgeoning imperialist novel genre, liberal readers came to imbibe more and more material that encouraged them to consider themselves, as German nationals, as imperialists. Although these variegated textual forms, by reason of their context, audience and purpose, necessarily differed in their presentation of alterity and of

Germans’ relationship with it, what remained static was the presentation of

Germany as rightfully fulfilling a Weltaufgabe, the proportions of which should be commensurate with their status as a Weltmacht of the first rank.

When translated into a concrete elucidation of a programme for imperialist praxis, this Weltaufgabe, often presented as primarily a cultural task, ordinarily bore the hallmarks of Vormärz and revolutionary era discussions of the necessity of imperialism. That is, Germany’s cultural task was to harness the peoples, resources and economies of extra-European lands in order that they might benefit Germany’s transformation into a globalised trading power with a strong industrial domestic economy with a secured network of colonies providing both raw materials and Scientific Discourse 219 markets for German goods. The fulfillment of such a cultural programme may or may not have required settler colonies, dependent on the position, population and resources of the particular colony, however what was required was an extensive commercial and, in particular, naval fleet that was able to oversee and protect

Germany’s overseas interests.

i) The Literature of Agitation

Offering a number of parallels to the Vormärz and revolution-era works of Sturz,

Blumenau and von Gagern are those of Julius Fröbel, the one time member of the

Frankfurt National Assembly, who had in the years after 1848 fled to and eventually settled in the United States.1 Published almost a decade after the

Paulskirche Assembly, in the form of a collection of letters that had been published in the Allgemeine Auswanderungs-Zeitung,2 Fröbel’s contribution to the furthering of the discourse of liberal German imperialism should, like the discussions of the

Frankfurt Nationalversammlung, be seen in concert with his commitment to the protection of German emigrants, the theme with which most of his correspondence dealt. It should also be seen against the backdrop of the disappointment of liberal imperialists’ immediate hopes resulting from the liberals’ partial political retreat from the national level in the 1850’s.

In particular, Fröbel’s thirteenth letter in the collection spelt out in a concise and direct manner his view of how the German colonial task should be carried out.

1 H Best & W Weege.Biographisches Handbuch.pp.146-47. 2 J Fröbel. Die deutsche Auswanderung: ihre culturhistorische Bedeutung. Franz Wagner, Leipzig, 1858. Scientific Discourse 220

Foreshadowing Max Weber’s famous characterisation of Germany’s role, Fröbel declared that a small, insignificant colonial undertaking was not worth the effort, and that in keeping with his often-asserted view “daß die deutsche Nation entweder

Großes oder Nichts ausführen wird,” Germany should set about the establishment of a “Neudeutschland” on a scale sufficient to ensure that this New Germany would come to have the same significance for the German spirit as the United States had come to have for the English.3 Politically independent from Germany (an unsurprising proviso from a liberal political refugee from 1848/9), this New

Germany was, according to Fröbel, to become a realm in which the untrammelled personal freedoms guaranteed in the United States were to be mimicked, in order that Germany’s emigrants might find encouragement to settle there.

In terms of a location, Fröbel joined those voices in favour of Brazil, and in his reasoning referred to the earlier imperialist works of List and Roscher,4 citing but discounting List’s economic reasoning for the popularity of emigration to the West rather than the East and all but ruling out Roscher’s enthusiasm for the European regions of the Ottoman Empire. Rather gently, Fröbel claimed to share their enthusiasm for the colonisation of the Donau, the Balkans, the Black Sea and the

Bosphorus, but whether such theorising could be vindicated by history or was mere utopian dreaming, he was unsure. Such colonies, he believed, could only be gained by martial conquest and these lands were not conducive to the types of freedoms offered by life in the American colonies. For Fröbel, the political symbolism of geography was an instructive framework for imperialist praxis, with a movement

3 ibid.pp.86-87. This treatise was first published in the Allgemeine Auswanderungs-Zeitung. No.26, 25th June, 1858. 4 ibid.pp.87-89. Scientific Discourse 221 westward a move towards political freedom, whilst a move eastward was to move towards the political oppression that he and other emigrants had sought to escape.

An interesting aspect of Fröbel’s theoretics is the degree of intertextuality and interpenetration of earlier liberal imperialist theorists they exhibit, notably List and

Roscher. At a time when such liberal imperialists are supposed to have lost their intellectual clout, or, as Müller has argued, that imperialist theorising is supposed to have counted for nought,5 Fröbel’s work shows the degree to which later imperialist works maintained a dialogue with those that had originally established the tropes of the discourse, with whom Fröbel, as a politician of the 1848/49 period, would have been thoroughly acquainted. Although the degree of theoretical indebtedness varied from work to work, the extent to which later imperialist discourse was a means of reappraising that which had been discussed in liberal circles during the Vormärz and revolutionary eras was significant.

Naturally, Fröbel’s relatively modest (but nonetheless important) contribution does not in itself constitute a lively imperialist discourse. Fröbel was merely one, albeit high-profile, theorist of many to have emerged at this time. Similarly committed to

German expansionism was Samuel Gottfried Kerst, again a one-time representative at the Frankfurt Nationalversammlung, who served on the naval committee and who later went on to become a sitting member in the Prussian Landtag as a member of the Fortschrittspartei.6

5 FL Müller. “Imperialist Ambitions.”p.366. 6 H Best & W Weege. Biographische Handbuch.pp.202-3. Scientific Discourse 222

During his time as adviser to the Admiral of the Naval Division of the Prussian War

Ministry, Kerst delivered a series of lectures to Berlin based colonial societies, such as the Berliner Vereins zur Centralisation deutscher Auswanderung und

Colonisation, lectures which were subsequently published. In the first of these, 7

Kerst painted a bleak picture of emigration as an enormous drain on the labour and capital resources of Germany, and a dangerous pursuit for Germany’s emigrants.8

‘Yankeeified’ in North America and virtually enslaved in South America, the only reasonable hope of a destination suitable for concentrated colonisation by German emigrants after the failure of the Frankfurt Nationalversammlung rested, in Kerst’s eyes, with Uruguay. Geographically and climatically suitable, and populated only by a few “armen, harmlosen Stämme der Ureinwohner,”9 Uruguay, it appeared to

Kerst, had been reserved precisely for German colonial exploitation:

Dem germanischen Stamme scheint es vorbehalten zu sein, in den beiden gemässigten Zonen dieses Welttheils staatliche Ordnungen dauernd zu gründen und auf neuem Boden ein reiches Geschichtsleben in neuer Gestalt zu entwickeln.10

It was not only for the good of Germany’s emigrants that Uruguay was a suitable point for German colonisation, as Kerst, invoking Alexander von Humboldt, made clear. Rather, the benefits to German trade in having a South American colony were too great to be ignored, bringing about a complete realignment, as he envisaged, in

Germany’s global trade and military, particularly naval, standing.

…erwägen Sie ferner… dass dagegen die Mündung des Rio Negro und der Uruguay an der eben bezeichneten Stelle Sicherheit und Raum für die Handelsflotte von ganz Europa bieten und Sie werden mir beistimmen, dass dieser Fleck Erde für deutsche Colonisation

7 SG Kerst. Die Länder am Uruguay. Vortrag gehalten in der Sitzung des Berliner Vereins zur Centralisation deutscher Auswanderung und Colonisation. Julius Sittenfeld, Berlin, 1851. 8 ibid.pp.1-4. 9 ibid.p.12. 10 ibid.p.12. Scientific Discourse 223

und Handel von ungewöhnlichem Interesse ist…

Eine zahlreiche deutsche Bevölkerung am Uruguay, in inniger Verbindung mit dem Mutterlande, ein deutscher Stapelplatz an der Mündung des Rio Negro, und wir werden unsere handelspolitische Selbstständigkeit auch in Zukunft zu behaupten vermögen… und keine europäische Seemacht hat und findet im atlantischen Ocean einen Stützpunkt, von dem aus ihre Flotten für die Dauer die Mündung des La Plata zu beherrschen vermöchten.11

Quietly rueful of Germany’s dolorous naval position, Kerst wondered aloud how much better it would be if Germany could immediately send a German frigate to

Uruaguay to stake the German claim, and thereby ensure that they were not beaten to it by the English.12

Kerst’s vision of a strategically placed German colony in South America once again shows many of the hallmarks of liberal imperialist plans, in its attempt to simultaneously solve several problems that had arisen as Germany lifted itself into the foremost ranks of European industrialised, trading powers. The net loss of labour and capital to competitor powers represented in emigration, the desire to protect German emigrants abroad from exploitation that could demean German honour abroad, and the need for Germany to establish a global reach for its trading and military fleets so that German could compete internationally with the other

European trading nations were all issues that Kerst sought to link under the umbrella of imperialism. In terms of national identity, Kerst offered a consistent vision of his Uruguay plan as an intrinsically national undertaking, presupposing as it did a pan-German colonial character, as well as pan-German trading and naval

11 ibid.pp.13-14. 12 ibid.p.16. Scientific Discourse 224 fleets. For Kerst, the underlying principles of his plan were summarised in his final words: “Patriotismus… Macht… Capital.”13

In 1852, Kerst presented another version of his argument for the necessity of a

German colonial empire, to a Berlin based pro-colonial association. Rehearsing much of the same material discussed in the previous year,14 Kerst argued that emigration, in particular undirected emigration, was a drain on the labour power and capital of Germany, which rendered the nation weaker:

Es giebt keine grössere, fast möchte ich sagen, unsinnigere Kraftverschwendung, nichts documentirt augenfälliger unsere Impotenz, als die gegenwärtige Zersplitterung und in ihren Zwecken und Zielen richtungslose Deutsche Auswanderung.15

Germany’s only real chance to reverse this trend, according to Kerst, was through state direction16 of this emigration to a region that would provide a site for the maintenance and expansion of German values and language, the improved life- chances of the struggling German poor and the downwardly mobile sections of the

Mittelstand.

Importantly, considering the bürgerlich nature of the colonial association he was addressing (and imperialist discourse in general), the expansion of German trade and industry and the furthering of liberal political and religious institutions and concepts were also foregrounded:

13 ibid.p.16. 14 SG Kerst. Die Länder in Stromgebiete des La Plata mit Rücksicht auf den deutschen Handel und die deutsche Auswanderung. Selbstverlag des Central-Vereins für Deutsche Auswanderungs- und Kolonisations- Angelegenheiten in Berlin, Berlin, 1852. 15 ibid.p.5. 16 ibid.p.9. “Die Concentration der Auswanderung unter dem Schutze und der Mitwirkung der deutschen Regierungen ist eine Nothwendigkeit geworden.” Scientific Discourse 225

Kann man die gefährlichen Wirkungen der Deutschen Auswanderung nicht leugnen, so ist es eine unabweisliche Pflicht, sie dahin zu lenken, wo sie uns nützlich, wenigstens nicht schädlich wird und Versorgen zu treffen, dass ein wohlhabender Mittelstand bestehen bleibe, kurz, dass man die Auswanderung organisire.17

As a result of these prescriptive stipulations, the description of Kerst’s proposed colony was determinedly specific:

Nur solche Länder, welche durch die Aufwendung deutscher Kapitalien und Arbeitskräfte dem deutschen Volke neue Erwerbswege eröffnen, den deutschen Industrieerzeugnissen und dem deutschen Handel einen Markt darbieten, welcher sich in einem der Zahl und Thätigkeit der deutschen Ansiedler und dem dem Mutterlande entzogenen Kapitel entsprechenden Verhältnisse zu erweitern fähig ist, nur Länder, in denen der deutsche Auswanderer religiöse und bürgerliche Freiheit geniesst, seine Sprache und seinen Sitten nicht gewalt angethan wird…18

At first glance, such an impossibly specific colonial, liberal utopia appears to amount to little more than a liberal vision of the desired future Germany displaced to a foreign setting,19 however the prescriptive nature of Kerst’s colonial vision was in fact a negation of two of the more predominant, contemporaneous forms of

German colonisation. On the one hand, the “Entnationalisirung der Deutschen in

Nordamerika” was seen as ruling out the United States and Canada,20 whilst the illiberal ‘white slavery’ that was taking place in Brazil was seen as even more undesirable. For Kerst, the “ungesühnte Blutschuld, der schamlose Rechtsbruch, die scheusslichen Misshandlungen” being perpetrated by the landholders of Brazil and the shipping firms transporting Germans to this indentured servitude represented little more than a continuation of Brazil’s decades long dependence on slave labour,

17 ibid.p.6. 18 ibid.p.11. 19 In fact, Kerst once again highlighted the good prospects that he saw for German colonisation in Uruguay. See pp.13, 27-28. 20 ibid.p.14. Scientific Discourse 226 only this time the slaves were Germans. Kerst’s judgement on Brazil saw him embroiled in a polemical debate with George Gade, a Brazilian landowner who took exception to Kerst’s rather bleak description of the conditions awaiting German settlers in Brazil. Comparable to the Brazilian debate that would rage between

Johann Sturz and Hermann Blumenau a decade later, a series of newspaper articles and treatises were exchanged on the subject that became more personal as the debate progressed.21

Without doubt, Kerst viewed colonialism not as unachievable utopianism, but as a programme of national renewal to be carried out under the auspices of the culturally dominant, but in the post-revolutionary era politically handicapped German

Bürgertum. This movement was to act as the impetus for a renewal of the prospects of Germany’s liberal traders, who could thereby reclaim their social role as the driving force behind Germany’s economic and political life. For Kerst, it was

Germany’s ability to expand successfully overseas that would ensure its national strength and freedom, attributes that would then return to the German nation itself, as a direct result of the establishment of a liberal German Deutschtum in German colonies. In this manner, the dominance of German liberalism as the discursive

21 See G Gade. Bericht über die deutschen Colonien der drei drossen Grundbesitzer am Rio preto (Provinz Rio de Janeiro) in Brasilien, nebst einer kritischen Beleuchtung und Würdigung der Schriften des Herrn Director Kerst. Carl Schröder & Comp, Kiel, 1852. Kerst’s reply to Gade is to be found in SG Kerst. Ueber Brasilianische Zustände der Gegenwart, mit Bezug auf die deutsche Auswanderung nach Brasilien und das System der brasilianischen Pflanzer, den Mangel an afrikanischen Sklaven durch deutsche Proletarier zu ersetzen, zugleich zur Abfertigung der Schrift des Kaiserl. Brasil. Prof. Dr Gade: Bericht ueber die deutschen Kolonien am Rio preto. Verlag von Veit u. Comp, Berlin, 1853. While the slanderous mechanics of the polemics themselves are not of immediate importance, of note is Kerst’s despair at the lack of a German navy, which could be sent to Brazil so as to regain Germany’s honour by punishing Brazil militarily for its misuse of German settlers. See Kerst. Ueber Brasilianische Zustände der Gegenwart.p.77. Scientific Discourse 227 underpinning of the nation’s sense of identity would re-emerge through Germany’s encounter with the colonial periphery. Aside from any positive externalities that colonies might bring, Kerst argued, one of their central benefits was in assisting

Germany’s Bürgertum in reasserting itself, as he made clear in his preface to the work of another pro-imperial German, LG Bahre:

Die Auswanderungsfrage ist eine ‘brennende’ geworden. In ihrer jetzigen Zersplitterung und Ziellosigkeit ist sie ein Zeichen deutscher Impotenz, bedroht sie das deutsche Volk mit dem geschichtlichen Tod… Ehre, Interesse und Politik fordern, daß sich die Vaterlandsfreunde endlich ermannen, die Auswanderung möglichst organisiren und ihr die vortheilhafteste Richtung und ein erstrebenswerthes Ziel geben. Handeln alle Vaterlandsfreunde in diesem Punkt in möglichster Uebereinstimmung, dann werden die ruhmreichenen Zeiten der alten Hansa in neuer Gestalt wiederkehren, das Bürgerthum wieder zum Bewußtsein seiner Kraft gelangen und durch die freie Gestaltung des deutschen Geistes und Lebens auf dem neuen Boden die alte Heimath wieder gekräftigt, überhaupt eine erfreuliche Zukunft eingeleitet werden.22

On the question of an imperial German navy, a series of works were released in the

1860’s that pointed to a continuance of the earlier liberal demands for a national navy capable of prosecuting a forward foreign policy. Noteworthy amongst these is the 1861 treatise Die Preußische Marine und die deutsche Flotte, written by the liberal Ruhr industrialist Friedrich Harkort, who was renowned amongst his contemporaries for his progressive theories on education and in particular the

Sozialfrage23 and who would later go on to sit as a member of the Fortschrittspartei in the Reichstag in 1874. The work stands as a fiercely partisan contribution to the debate over the relationship between liberalism, naval capacity and national identity, all of which are brought together in the Foreword. Harkort, in no uncertain

22 SG Kerst, foreword to LG Bahre. Gegenwart und Zukunft der Plata-Länder für Deutschen Handel und Colonisation. Hoffmann & Campe, Hamburg, 1852.pp.xi-xii. Bahre’s work urged Germany to settle and dominate South America before French intriguing could see them shut out of South America as they were shut out of North America. See p.viii. 23 F Harkort. Die Preußische Marine und die deutsche Flotte. Georg Reimar Verlag, Berlin, 1861. Scientific Discourse 228 terms, accused “Junkerthum” of betraying the interests of the nation through their decision not to support a national fleet. Quoting Humboldt, Harkort further contended that ideas such as national unity, and indeed its symbol a national navy, must eventually prevail over the particularist misconceptions of the “undeutschen

Rheinbündler” that were unable to see Prussia’s true role as the seat of German naval power and the prime unifying force in Germany. 24

Harkort’s quotation from Humboldt recalls Rochau’s commitment to the notion that in the long-term the Zeitgeist would prevail over the myriad obstructions placed in its path by those who had failed to grasp its inevitability: “…daß wenn ein

Jahrhundert begonnen hat irgend einer großen Hoffnung Raum zu geben es nicht eher ruht bis sie erfüllt ist!”25 Naval power and the construction of a unified nation precisely as a strong maritime presence were the twin hopes that Harkort viewed as the German tasks of the nineteenth century and, as Rochau had, he viewed the cultural dominance of German liberalism as a factor counting strongly towards their eventual fulfilment.

Harkort further positioned his work as a contribution towards the work of the

Nationalverein, who, as the liberal champions of Prussia’s role in Germany and firm supporters of the naval power ideal, were clearly the type of organic intellectuals that Harkort believed were required by the new industrial Germany. As such, Harkort, in a short chapter devoted to the relationship between the

Nationalverein and the national fleet, called upon all Germans, particularly those in the Hanseatic towns and cities, to support them in their endeavours to unify the

24 ibid. pp.3-4. 25 ibid.p.4. Scientific Discourse 229 nation and establish a national fleet as a symbol and a foreign policy tool of this unified national entity.26

The role of the German fleet was envisaged by Harkort as being “Angriff,

Vertheidigung und Schutz des Seehandels… der Schutz unserer Kauffahrer in allen

Meeren” – at least in the nineteenth century. The concept of engaging the “colossal” fleets of Britain and France was ruled out by Harkort for the time being, due to the pressing concerns of defending German interests abroad and the fact that the

German fleet was to be built from almost nothing.27

In keeping with Friedrich List’s concern for the fate of German colonists, amongst the German interests that Harkort argued required protection were the emigrants that Germany had sent out to the colonies of other powers. Interestingly, Harkort not only imagined directly intervening with naval force in the affairs of these colonies, should German interests require it but also hinted at a future role as a dominant colonial power:

Die Gegner der deutschen Flotte können einwenden, wir besitzen keine Kolonien, womit soll sich die Kriegsmarine im Frieden beschäftigen? Dagegen fragen wir: sendet nicht Deutschland jährlich bis 100,000 seiner Kinder als Kolonisten aus über alle Meere und fast alle Gebiete der Erde; gehört nicht die Zukunft in Australien und Amerika der germanischen Race? Bleibst nicht eine Beziehung zum Vaterlande, namentlich in Betreff der Handelsverbindungen? Haben wir nicht die dritte Handelsmarine der Erde zu schützen?28

26 ibid.pp.60-61. “Die Wirksamkeit des Nationalvereins in der Flottenangelegenheit können wir nur lobend anerkennen, es liegt darin ein Geständniß, daß die ganze Nation verpflichtet sei, Preußen in seinen Bestrebungen zu unterstützen.” 27 ibid.p.pp.6-7. 28 ibid.p.14. Scientific Discourse 230

To this end, Harkort suggested an initial minimum naval presence around the world at any one time: one warship in the Mediterranean Sea, one off the West coast of

Africa, two in the Indian Ocean, one in the West Indies and one in the Pacific

Ocean.29 The result of this, he argued, would be that German interests around the world could be sure of the backing of their nation’s navy. In terms of naval tactics,

Harkort argued that “Die Defensive gebührt nur dem Schwachen; Deutschland muß zur Offensive übergeben…”30

Sharing Harkort’s views that a German fleet was the concern of the entire German nation under the leadership of Prussia, in 1863 and 1864 the lieutenant, and soon to be corvette captain (and later German admiral) Reinhold Werner also published a series of early contributions to the debate on the role and size of a German navy.31

In the first of the works, Die preussische Expedition nach China, Japan und Siam, an expansion upon the contributions he made to the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung whilst abroad,32 Werner opened his discussion of the expedition by pointing out that such voyages were rightfully aimed at the supporting of Germany’s international trade and industry, which had “noiselessly” but “successfully” established Asian trade routes without the support of sympathetic governments:

Von der Küsten Indiens bis in den Norden Chinas hinauf haben, ohne Schutz und Zuthun der deutschen Regierungen und gegenüber der mächtigen englischen und amerikanischen Concurrenz, deutscher Handel und inbesondere deutsche Schiffahrt in ungeahnter Weise

29 ibid.p.14. 30 ibid.p.21. 31 R Werner. Die preussische Expedition nach China, Japan und Siam in den Jahren 1860, 1861 und 1862: Reisebriefe. FA Brockhaus, Leipzig, 1863. R Werner. Die Preußische Marine: Ihre Betheiligung am deutsch-dänischen Kriege, Ihre Bedeutung und Zukunft. FC Mittler Verlag, Berlin, 1864. 32 R Werner. Die preussische Expedition.p.vii. Werner dedicated this work to the architect of the German fleet, Prince Adalbert of Prussia. Scientific Discourse 231

festen Fuß gefaßt.33

Part of his task, Werner wrote, was to ensure that Germany knew of the extent of the “große wirthschaftliche Interessen” awaiting German development in the Far

East.34

For this success to continue, Werner argued, German international trade required a national approach – an approach that could be characterised as “planmäßig und im gemeinsamen vaterländischen Interesse.”35 The sending of a Prussian envoy to

Peking and the signing of trade contracts were important first steps, however

Germany needed to take further action in order to capitalise on this beginning:

Der zweite Schritt, der gethan werden muß, ist die Ausstellung eines preußischen oder deutschen Kriegsgeschwaders in den östlichen Gewässern, das dem vaterländischen Verkehr nachdrücklichen Schutz und dem deutschen Namen Respekt zu verleihen vermag.36

This insistence on the demonstration of German naval power might arguably have at least as much to do with the aforementioned English and American competition as with the countries of Asia within which Werner saw a role for German penetration, and it is this link between the strength and reach of German economic power and the strength and reach of German military power that lay at the heart of his desire to see the naval fleet of a unified Germany patrolling those regions in which Germany’s traders were establishing trading settlement beachheads.

33 ibid.p.ix. 34 ibid.p.xii. 35 ibid.p.ix. 36 ibid.pp.ix-x. Scientific Discourse 232

Werner’s work Die Preußische Marine similarly delineated a vision of Germany as a newly arriving maritime force. Beginning with the familiar hymn to the will of the

German people who had striven to create a national fleet,37 the work then stressed the necessity of national unity if the fleet was to be a credible international force.

The requisite national unity was only achievable, Werner argued, through the recognition of Prussian primacy.38

Although the occasion of this particular work was the conflict with Denmark,

Werner’s concerns were largely with the future of the German fleet as a truly first rank power, capable of parity with Britain, particularly, as Werner saw it, with

Britain reluctant to acknowledge the rights of other nations on the sea:

So lange sich England dagegen sträubt, so lange muß Preußen sich die Mittel reserviren, den unverschämten Anmaßungen des auf seine große Flotte stolzen Albion wirksam entgegen zu treten, indem es im Kriegsfalle den englischen Handel auf das gründlichste zu ruiniren droht.39

Exemplifying the elision of the social, economic and cultural interests of

Germany’s middle-classes with the broader ‘national interest’ and sense of national identity was Werner’s positing of a fundamental change “in dem Character unseres

Volkes,” a change that had seen Germans realise that “der Zahl und Intelligenz seiner Bewohner und seiner inneren Kraft nach im Weltverkehr gebührt.”40

Germany was rightfully a competitor with England and the United States in trade

37 R Werner. Die Preußische Marine p.1. 38 ibid.p.3. “Nichts erfordert gebieterischer eine absolute Einheit des Willens und der Führung, als eine Flotte, und ohne einen deutschen Kaiser oder eine souveraine Centralgewalt ist ein solches Institut, wenn es nicht ein bloßes Schaugepränge, sondern von Nutzen für das Land sein soll, nicht denkbar.” 39 ibid.p.76. See also pp.77-78. 40 ibid.p.78. Scientific Discourse 233 and its deserved future was as the world’s premiere trading and naval power, if necessary at the cost of England, with whom, it seemed to the future Admiral to

Kaiser Wilhelm II, a conflict was inevitable.41 In emphasising this societal

“Umschwung,” Werner implicitly argued for a reorganisation of the nation’s priorities, towards that of a modernising liberal trading nation with a global role to play, rather than an insular, rural economy. In re-casting the identity of Germans,

Werner, in the tradition of Vormärz theorists and the 1848 Nationalversammlung, attempted to have Germans see themselves as Werner had described them, as a united nation with a naval force capable of executing global hegemony.

All of this pro-expansionist theorising, which employed the tropes of the discourse formalised in the 1840s, culminated in the work of the imperialist theorist Friedrich

Fabri, whose Bedarf Deutschland der Colonien?42 marked both a theoretical continuation of previous liberal imperialist discourse and a major theoretical leap forward, with its systematic and publicly acclaimed rehearsal of pre-existing arguments for a German colonial project expanding the scope for imperialist discourse to be translated into a form of national, political praxis. In its polemical format, Fabri effectively summarised the prevailing liberal interest in colonialism, as initially formulated in the 1840’s, using the discursive tropes first consolidated by Friedrich List – sometimes to the extent that Fabri appears to paraphrase exact statements made by List, as well as demonstrating a degree of theoretical indebtedness to such other pro-imperial liberals as Wilhelm Roscher. As demonstrated by the degree of intertextuality exhibited by his text, both

41 ibid.pp.78-81. 42 F Fabri. Bedarf Deutschland der Colonien? (eds. ECMBreuning & ME Chamberlain) Edwin Mellon Press, Lewiston, 1998. Scientific Discourse 234 acknowledged and unacknowledged, Fabri consciously sought to place himself firmly within the theoretical tradition of the imperialist liberals that had preceded him.

Fabri has been previously discussed by historians of German imperialism, notably in Wehler’s influential work,43 and, stemming from this, the exhaustive study of

Fabri and the cultural milieu surrounding him undertaken by Klaus Bade.44 Both works may be bracketed together, sharing as they do important critical assumptions.

Indeed the title of Bade’s work, with its echo of Wehler’s ‘social imperialism’ thesis, effectively situates Bade’s conceptualisation of Fabri within the analytical paradigm constructed in Wehler’s Bismarck und der Imperialismus. Like Wehler,

Bade perceived a direct causal link between the threat of social revolution to a

‘conservative utopia,’ short-term economic crisis and the need for colonies:

…Die schon frühzeitig gewonnene Einsicht in die Abhängigkeit der Gesellschafts- von der Wirtschaftsverfassung vermittelte die Vorstellung, die sozial Krise könne zugleich mit der ökonomischen durch überseeische Expansion überwunden werden. Eine sozialkonservative Einstellung schließlich, die ihn die “Proletariatsfrage” zwar als “Lebensfrage” bewerten, eine “Lösung” aber nur in den Grenzen des Bestehenden suchen und akzeptieren ließ, konnte ihn mithin zur Überzeugung von der auch “sozialpolitischen Notwendigkeit’ überseeische Expansion führen… Die affirmative Verbindung des Glaubens an die bei Strafe des Untergangs notwendige Expansion mit der als Legitimationsideologie funktionierenden völkisch- nationalistischen Vorstellung von einer besonderen zivilisatorischen Sendung endlich verlieh der sozialimperialistischen Krisentheorie Fabris den weithin aggressiven Charakter.45

43 Wehler. Bismarck und der Imperialismus. 44 KJ Bade. Friedrich Fabri und der Imperialismus in der Bismarckzeit: Revolution – Depression – Expansion. Atlantis Verlag, Freiburg, 1975. 45 K Bade. Friedrich Fabri.p.75. Scientific Discourse 235

Fabri, Bade argued, saw colonial imperialism as a means by which the proletarian revolution could be staved off, through the integration of the newly-arrived urban, industrial working classes into a national prestige programme of colony building:

Es war eine Theorie, welche die von der hektischen Industrialisierung in Frage gestellte Gesellschaftsordnung durch die Stabilisierung der gestörten Wirtschaftsordnung sozialdefensiv zu zementieren suchte und sich in ihren Anleitungen zur Praxis als “sozialpolitisches” Programm mißverstand.46

In attaching itself to Wehler’s ‘social imperialism’ thesis, Bade’s work shares many of the problems of its prototype. As Geoff Eley, in an early diagnosis of the problem, argued, the notion of a grand coalition or cartel of the Right appealing to a harmonious model of national identity as a means of diverting socialist tendencies amongst the working classes is highly problematic, conflating as it does the variances and contradictions that existed between the conservative and liberal versions of the new nation-state, as posited by the social groups who are supposed by Wehler and subsequently Bade to constitute an “ideological consensus”.47 Put another way, an historical cleft existed between Germany’s liberals and the conservatives, with German liberals not at all convinced by the agrarian, Continent- based metanarrative of nationhood proffered by Germany’s conservative representatives of Elbian agribusiness, as evinced in such polemic instances as

Friedrich Harkort’s stormy rejection of Junkerthum48 and the fiercely independent trajectory of Nationalverein politics. It is also worth remembering that German conservatives had only begrudgingly come to support the liberal concept of the

German state as a nation-state. This long-term antagonism between two competing

46 ibid.p.75. 47 G Eley, “Defining Social Imperialism: Use and Abuse of an Idea”, Social History (3) Oct 1976. See especially p.284ff. 48 Harkort. Die Preußische Marine.p.3. Scientific Discourse 236 metanarratives of economic and political organisation continued throughout the post-unification period, notwithstanding the National Liberals’ tactical support of

Bismarck.

In attempting to support Wehler, Bade went to extraordinary lengths to trace a lineage of Fabri’s suspicion of the working class, back to his experience of the 1848 revolutions and his socialisation via theological tradition. Fabri, according to Bade had a long-held awareness that: “Hinter allen politischen Fragen der Gegenwart steht als Lebensfrage für die Zukunft die sogenannte soziale Frage,” which he saw as “die eigentliche Frage des 19.Jahrhunderts.”49 Viewing this ‘social question’ as impeding the path to the “endlich zum ersehnten Kaisertum…Was wir brauchen, ist vor allem, daß wir als ein mächtiges, geachtetes Volk nach außen dastehen,”50

Fabri came to view the activities of the organised working class as representing an unpatriotic, indeed unholy process, as Bade points out; “Da Fabri Kommunismus,

Sozialismus, und Sozialrevolution schlechthin mit Anarchie identifizierte, konnte ihm Widerstand gegen diese ‘dämonischen Kräfte’ nachgerade christliche Pflicht bedeuten.”51

49 Fabri, quoted by Bade Friedrich Fabri.p.35. However it would be false to posit this concern with the social question as characterising all of Fabri’s work, particularly his earlier publications which for the most part deal with the questions of the relevancy, independence and socio-political context of the Evangelical Church in a new culturally liberal Germany. See F Fabri. Briefe gegen den Materialismus. SG Leisching, Stuttgart, 1864. and F Fabri. Kirchenpolitische Fragen der Gegenwart: Die politische Lage und die Zukunft der evangelischen Kirche in Deutschland. Die Unions und Verfassungsfrage. Friedrich Andreas Perthes, Gotha, 1867. 50 Fabri, quoted in Bade. Friedrich Fabri.p.35. 51 Bade. Friedrich Fabri.p.36. Scientific Discourse 237

Bade is no doubt correct in seeing Fabri as continuing to hold suspicions about the organised political activities of the working class. Indeed, his strong familial and friendship links to the National Liberals would suggest that it would have been surprising for him not to be against the notion of a social revolution, and his earlier pamphleteering career displayed an abiding interest in what were the social issues of the day.52

However, it is an entirely different matter to posit this liberal distrust of the socialists as the sole reason underpinning his enthusiasm for colonialism. Similarly, it is perhaps overestimating Fabri’s theoretical contribution to an anti-socialist debate to see his thematically diverse collection of pamphlets as constituting a systematic treatment of the socialist threat. Such a view relegates Fabri’s colonialism to the status of a side-issue to his ‘real’ abiding interest in fighting social revolution, and thus presents his colonialism as an ideology of pure negation, aimed solely and merely at stemming a Red tide, when in fact Fabri juggled a variety of social, cultural and economic interests which were treated in a variety of specific works. What appears as more likely is that Fabri’s colonialism was an assertive, positive reiteration of his long-standing commitment to liberalism more generally, an expression of liberal imperialist discourse as a discourse of national breadth, a project borne by the full confidence of Germany’s culturally ascendant

Bürgertum, rather than a reaction to its fears. Fabri’s Bedarf Deutschland der

Colonien was indicative of the assertiveness of the liberal middle classes, rather

52 ECM Breuning & ME Chamberlain. Introduction to F Fabri, Bedarf Deutschland der Colonien. Edwin Mellen Press, New York, 1998.pp.4-5. Scientific Discourse 238 than a panic reaction to economic and social crisis, or an ostensible Communist spectre that, despite rhetoric to the contrary, was scarcely yet haunting Europe.53

Bade has consistently held to the social imperialism model, stating in more recent works, “The millionfold emigration from nineteenth-century Germany, which had the effect of exporting social problems, served to relieve widespread tensions in the home country,”54 and that emigration “trug… deutliche Züge eines partiellen

Export der Sozialen Frage.”55

This notion of German liberals, in cahoots with conservatives, attempting to cast the proletarian revolution away on the Bismarck Archipelago or in North America sits uneasily with the liberals’ prime concern – the demonstration that the liberal socio- economic and political paradigm of the German nation, could overcome all social problems – poverty included. Fabri, as a proponent of guided emigration, that is colonialism, was attempting to underwrite a pre-existing liberal metanarrative, by demonstrating how it would not only render other rival metanarratives such as socialism redundant through its solution to the problem of poverty, but how it could

53 Bade attempts to situate Bedarf Deutschland der Colonien within the context of the assassination attempts on the Kaiser, indeed he suggests that this colonial tract arose as a response to socialist agitation. It should be noted that these attempts are not mentioned by Fabri, nor is the attending sense of ‘crisis’ that Bade argues was the consequence of increasingly visible socialist ferment. KJ Bade. Friedrich Fabri.p. 74. 54 KJ Bade, M Weiner. Migration Past, Migration Future. Germany and the United States. Berghahn Books, Providence, 1997. p.6. 55 KJ Bade. “Die deutsche überseeische Massenauswanderung im 19. und frühen 20. Jahrhundert: Bestimmungsfaktoren und Entwicklungsbedingungen.” in KJ Bade (Hg). Auswanderer – Wanderarbeiter – Gastarbeiter.Bevölkerung, Arbeitsmarkt und Wanderung in Deutschland seit der Mitte des 19. Jahrhundert. Scripta Mercaturae Verlag, Ostfildern, 1984. pp.267-268. Reprinted in KJ Bade. Sozialhistorische Migrationsforschung. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen, 2004. Scientific Discourse 239 also lead to economic gain through the retention of German labour abroad and the provision of raw materials for industry. As such, Bade’s potentially useful notion of colonialism’s “nationale- und sozialideologischen Intergrationsfunktionen”56 needs to be extricated from its links to Wehlerite notions of a conservative / liberal grand coalition (a conservative ‘utopia’) and the primacy of “Revolutionsfurcht” and “Revolutionsprophylaxe.”57 Fabri did see colonialism as a means of integrating

Germany’s surplus population into the German economy, however this was viewed as a means of turning one of nascent capitalism’s negative externalities into an economically useful offshore sector.

To deal with that element of Fabri’s colonialist tract that might possibly be construed as relating to ‘social imperialism’ in the Wehlerite sense, in the second chapter Fabri, whilst explaining the twin problems of emigration and overpopulation, referred to “eine innere Unruhe und Gährung,” and amongst the masses, a “Geist der Kritik und der Unzufriedenheit in früher nicht gekannter Weise erzeugt hat.”58 In this perfect opportunity to lambast the socialist menace, Fabri quickly evaded an overtly political critique and settled for a quasi-religious condemnation of the way in which the “religions- [und] cultur-feindlichen

Grundsätze des Materialismus” had permeated mass culture.59 Far from being the central pillar of an argument regarding the need to divert the socialist masses in

56 ibid. p.296. 57 ibid.pp.294, 297. 58 F Fabri. Bedarf Deutschland.p.64. 59 ibid.pp.64-66. Scientific Discourse 240 patriotic colonial work, Fabri simply rehearsed themes first expounded in an earlier, largely religious work – Briefe gegen Materialismus.60

In the ensuing five chapters that comprise the remainder of the work, Fabri only mentioned the utility of colonialism as a social prophylactic in two other places, in a small, apologetically offered section on the possibility of creating penal colonies – a form of colonialism Fabri himself looked upon as undesirable, but a possibly useful externality arising alongside colonialism’s core benefits. After discussing the overcrowding of German prisons, Fabri mentioned “ein politischer Grund” for colonies. Yet this reason was not, as the social imperialism paradigm would have it, to instil a sense of proper nationalist purpose amongst the numbers of the socialist movement and thereby reintegrate them into the ‘conservative utopia’ of the Reich.

Rather, it was the rather jocular offer of banishing the revolutionary masses – numbering in the tens of thousands – to an island:

Man könnte dann in wohlwollender Liberalität eine geeignete Insel – etwa Utopia genannt – den Communards zur Selbstverwaltung überlassen, um ihr Weltbeglückungs-Programm doch iregendwo einmal zum Experimente zu bringen, zur Probe zu nöthigen. Aber um solchen Weg beschreiten zu können, müßte eben Deutschland irgendwelche coloniale Besitzungen in geeigneter Lage bereits erworben haben.61

Surrounded as it is with comparisons with the English banishment of Fenians, the

French banishment of agitators to New Caledonia and the Russian use of Siberia, it is hardly a suggestion for a movement of national reconciliation with the masses, but rather a provocative joke produced to demonstrate that penal settlements too relied upon an expansionist foreign policy. That Fabri himself remained

60 F Fabri. Briefe gegen den Materialismus. SG Liesching, Stuttgart, 1864. 61 F Fabri. Bedarf Deutschland der Colonien.pp.104-106. Scientific Discourse 241 unconvinced by this brand of social imperialism is evident in his characterisation of colonialism based on penal settlements as a “bedauerliche Thatsache” and

“einigermaaßen demüthigend.”62

Fabri’s final mention of colonialism’s effect on social democracy came with his positioning of colonialism as a means of allaying the anxieties of the masses that he saw as being at the core of the socialist menace. By creating colonies, Fabri argued, the masses would see an opportunity to better their lot without the need for revolutionary agitation. Two important points arise from this discussion.

Firstly, Fabri explicitly ruled out the notion that this might be an attempt to merely distract the lower orders, with a kind of anti-revolutionary safety-valve project;63

Ich meine aber nicht bloß die Auswanderung, als eine Art Sicherheits-Ventil…Wenn auch wohl nicht bei den Grimmigen, so doch bei der Mehrzahl der mehr Irregleiteten und wirklich sich gedrückt Fühlenden würde solche Auswanderung ein neues, nicht unerreichbares Hoffnungsbild erwecken, und schon damit wäre der um sich fressenden Unzufriedenheit eine Schranke gesetzt.64

As far as Fabri was concerned, colonial imperialism was not a deceptive, ideological tool for distracting the lower orders with a nationalist project. Rather, he saw in imperialism a possible solution to the social question, in a way that recalls the debate at the Frankfurt Nationalversammlung and the liberal discussion of the issue ever since. Far from a desperate plan of a bourgeoisie in the grips of a siege or

62 ibid.p.106. 63 Contra A Lubinski. “Overseas Emigration from Mecklenburg – Strelitz: The Geographic and Social Contexts.” in D Hoerder & J Nagler (eds). People in Transit.p.78. Lubinski explicitly based his formulation of the notion of “a safety valve for the social crisis” on Bade’s work. See also Bade “Die deutsche überseeische Massenauswanderung” p.291. 64 ibid.pp.148-152. Scientific Discourse 242 crisis mentality, it was a confident assertion of bourgeois liberal imperialism as a truly national, that is trans-social, discourse that would be instrumental in bringing about social integration by rendering the socialist metanarrative redundant through a generalised prosperity created through imperialist economics. This plan was not an embracing of a “Flucht nach vorne”65 as a means of alleviating the panic of the besieged middle classes in the face of the socialist masses. Rather it was, for Fabri, merely further evidence of the critical importance of economic and territorial expansion to the broader liberal project of modernisation.

Secondly, Fabri’s gesture in the direction of a social imperialism by no means constitutes the basis of his entire pro-colonial thesis. Briefly, indeed thinly argued, it is offered as a hasty addition, a by-product of colonialism, and then left. At best, social imperialist reasoning is offered as a positive externality to imperialism’s core business – the solving of the twin overproduction and overpopulation problems perceived as hindering German progress. Essentially, Fabri’s pamphlet was conceived in overwhelmingly Malthusian and Listian, that is to say, mercantile, economist terms and, irrespective of Bade’s assertion to the contrary,66 did not see its main role as firstly diverting the German proletariat from identifying their poverty and secondly attempting to stop then from organising politically to do something about it. Rather, in accordance with patrician impulses of noblesse oblige, mixed with hard-nosed economist reasoning, Fabri’s theorising sought the alleviation of poverty, whilst offering the nation an explanation of how colonialism could better assist Germany’s rush towards industrial modernity.

65 Contra Bade.Friedrich Fabri.p.74. 66 ibid. p.35. Scientific Discourse 243

At best ambivalent about the use of colonialism as a mechanism of social control,

Fabri concentrated instead on the, to him, more pressing or at least overarching matter of liberal nation-building. Firmly prioritised by Fabri were two basic forms of colonial activity that he designated as Ackerbau-Colonien and Handels-Colonien, agrarian and trading colonies.67 It is this simple dichotomy that informed Fabri’s theorising, as he explained how each in turn could alleviate the problems that he viewed as afflicting Germany during its modernising, restructuring phase.68

Fabri pointed to the twin crises of overpopulation / emigration and overproduction.

In simple terms, the surplus population and emigration to non-German lands was to be resolved via agrarian / settler colonialism, whilst the overproduction crisis was to be resolved through trade with both types of colonies. Interestingly, the manner of expressing the pressing nature of these problems adhered very closely to its description decades earlier by List, Blumenau and Sturz. Concerns over the assimilation of Germans into Anglo-Saxon colonies as a result of the dearth of

German colonies were highlighted – “sollen unsere Brüder und Landsleute, die

über See ziehen, mit raschem Verlust von Sprache und Nationalität sich immer wieder unter unsere angelsächsischen Vettern unterschieben…”69 Similarly, the racialist assumptions of List and Sturz, of the right of more ‘highly civilised’ races to appropriate the lands of ‘barbarous’ nations, was again asserted by Fabri:

67 F Fabri.Bedarf Deutschland.p.78. 68 This Ackerbau- and Handelscolonien dichotomy owes a theoretical debt to the delineation of colonial typologies by Roscher in his work Kolonien, Kolonialpolitik und Auswanderung and represents a further example of intertextuality to be found in Fabri’s work. 69 F Fabri. Bedarf Deutschland.p.78. Compare this with List’s concerns that Germans “müssen sich mit der vorherrschenden Bevölkerung verschmelzen”. Scientific Discourse 244

Durch eine providentielle Ordnung im Haushalt der geschichtlichen Entwicklung sind diese großen, weitgestreckten Territorien Jahrtausende hindurch der weißen Rasse für kommende Zeiten aufbehalten worden. Die Ureinwohner, meist der sogennanten rothen Rasse angehörig, sind ausnahmlos Jäger und Viehzüchter, also in der Volkszahl äußerst spärlich entwickelt und bestimmt, die Platzhalter zu sein bis auf die Zeit, wo der weiße Mann bei ihnen eindringen und ihre rasch sich mindernde Zahl in immer eingeschränktere Gebiete zurückdrängen sollte… So konnte auch erst der weiße Mann, statt zu der Jagd zum Pfluge sich wendend, mit Fleiß und Arbeit diese Länder allmähig der Cultur-Entwicklung erschließen.70

Such anecdotal illustrations of apparent similarities in imperialist theorising of the two, remarkable as they are, are incidental when compared against the structural unity that binds the two theories - namely their adherence to the tropes of imperialist discourse as established in the Vormärz era, and in their use of colonialism as a means of asserting the quintessentially industrial, mercantile nature of the German nation.

As has already been discussed, Fabri’s pamphlet was a confident expression of liberal Germany’s belief in imperialism as a means of nation building. For Fabri, as for most German liberal imperialists since the 1840’s, the new German nation was to take as its world mission the expansion of German trade and influence via either the indirect or direct control of overseas resources (that is through either trade colonies or agrarian colonies). As with List, Fabri measured Germany against the

English model of mercantile imperialism, and saw Germany as in dire need of colonies to ensure the future prosperity of the nation. Similarly, colonies and trade

70 F Fabri.Bedarf Deutschland. p.80. Again, this hierarchical mode of thinking, while not uncharacteristic of its historical context bears a direct relationship to List’s assertions regarding the rights of European powers to ‘civilise’ the rest of the world. Scientific Discourse 245 were equated with great power status – those who are great powers have colonies, those who have colonies are entitled to see themselves as great powers:

Als das Deutsche Reich vor Jahrhunderten an der Spitze der Staaten Europas stand, war es die erste Handels- und See-Macht. Will das neue Deutsche Reich seine wiedergewonnene Machtstellung auf längere Zeiten begründen und bewahren, so wird es dieselbe als eine Cultur-Mission zu erfassen und dann nicht länger zu zögern haben, auch seinen colonisatorischen Beruf aufs Neue zu bethätigen.71

So seriously did Fabri take colonialism as an indicator of national wealth and great power status that he effusively quoted Friedrich Kapp’s assertion that “Colonien sind nichts als der Ausdruck und Widerhall heimischen Unternehmungs-Geistes und

Fleißes; nur ein bürgerlich blühendes und gesundes, nur ein noch emporstrebendes

Volk kann lebensfähig Tochterstaaten gründen,”72 and then went on to assess the fitness or otherwise of the various nations to be colonial powers, citing, as Sturz had, the “Unfähigkeit der Völker romanischer Rasse zur Colonisirung” because of their too-rapid depletion of the resources of the colonies, but also because, “An

überschüssigen Kräften fehlt es auf der pyrenäischen Halbinsel seit langen

Zeiten…”.73 These digs at Spanish imperialism further suggest that Fabri thought it fitting that Germany take over the Spanish and Portuguese colonies in Africa and

South America.

Although viewing the mercantile activities implicit in imperialist activity as essentially belonging to the middle classes, Fabri consciously drew attention to the nature of the imperialist project as a national moral duty, a national mission:

Aber es ist auch eine patriotische Pflicht, allen Möglichkeiten, die eine breitere

71 ibid.p.180. 72 ibid.p.60. 73 ibid.p.60. Scientific Discourse 246

und gesichertere Entwicklung unserer nationalen Arbeit und damit unseres nationalen Wohlstandes verheißen, aufmerksam nachzudenken. Und unter diesen Aufgaben weisen wir der Frage: ,,Bedarf das Deutsche Reich des Colonial-Besitzes?” eine sehr hervorragende Bedeutung zu.74

Bis dahin wiederholen wir aber auch hier getrost die Behauptung, daß vor Allem wirthschaftliche und in ihrem Gefolge auch politische und völkerpsychologische Gründe die Aufnahme eine einsichtsvollen und energischen Colonial-Politik dem Deutschen Reiche gebieten.75

Deutschland, indem es nach Colonial-Besitz sich umschaut, ist nicht von einem Gelüste nach Macht-Erweiterung geleitet, sondern es will nur eine nationale, ja wir dürfen sagen, eine sittliche Pflicht erfüllen.76

Fabri’s vision of imperialism as a vehicle for the narration of national identity and as a means of cementing the discourse of liberal imperialism as the hegemonic political metanarrative went further, in its forceful placement of expansionism at the heart of German identity, both domestically and internationally:

Es ist im neuen Reiche Vieles bereits so verbittert, von unfruchtbarem Parteihader versäuert und vergiftet, daß die Eröffnung einer neuen, verheißungsvollen Bahn nationaler Entwicklung wohl auf Vieles wie befreiend, weil den Volksgeist nach neuen Seiten mächtig anregend, zu wirken vermöchte. Auch das wäre erfreulich und ein Gewinn . Gewichtiger freilich noch ist die Erwägung, daß ein Volk, das auf die Höhe politischer Macht-Entwicklung geführt ist, nur so lange seine geschichtliche Stellung mit Erfolg behaupten kann, als es sich als Träger einer Cultur-Mission erkennt und beweist. Dies ist zugleich der einzige Weg, der auch Bestand und Wachstums des nationalen Wohlstandes, die nothwendige Grundlage dauernder Macht-Entfaltung, verbürgt. Die Zeiten, in denen Deutschland fast nur durch intellektuelle und literarische Thätigkeit an den Aufgaben unseres Jahrhunderts mitgearbeitet hat, sind vorüber.77

74 ibid.p.48. 75 ibid.p.96. 76 ibid.p.114. 77 ibid.p.178. Scientific Discourse 247

Where Bade saw Fabri’s imperialism in terms of a narrow class-centred diversion from the social question, it is perhaps better to see it as a part of the liberal task of asserting a national German unit and the assertion of this nation as the continental hegemon. These questions entailed a discussion of what would constitute the international mission of this new nation. Unsurprisingly, liberals such as Fabri,

Bennigsen and Miquel, in their search for a foreign policy looked to their own imperialist / colonialist tradition.

Bade was somewhat correct in positing Fabri as attempting to negate the socialist metanarrative, however only in so far as he saw imperialism as a potentially national discourse capable of overcoming domestic divisions caused by socio- economic problems inherent in capitalist development. However, Bade has failed to assign to Fabri’s theorising its inherently assertive nature, of pressing for an international, indeed global role for Germany, just as (amongst others) Friedrich

List, Johann Sturz, Hermann Blumenau and the Frankfurt Nationalversammlung had done more than thirty years earlier: a role as an industrial trading nation sustained by her colonies. Fabri, as a member of the liberal middle classes, exhorted the German nation to follow the example of the other dominant European liberal power - Britain - in industrialising its economy, globalising its trade and liberalising its society.

There have been attempts to explain the nature of liberal theories of expansionism, indeed imperialist theory and praxis in Germany prior to the First World War, as exemplified by Fabri, as characterised by a dichotomous split between liberal, trading imperialists and conservative migrationist imperialism that looked to the Scientific Discourse 248

East and overseas settlements as an arena for further German expansion. Critically, in positing a liberal and a conservative imperialism, such theories tend to lend credence to the notion of a political cartel, a broad liberal-conservative front that saw imperialism as a path out of an economic and social impasse that was beginning to favour Germany’s socialists. Perhaps unintentionally, this historiographical tradition offers a model of imperialism that, if not stemming from

Wehler’s analysis, squares with Wehler’s social imperialism paradigm, and which in the process offers an overly schematic delineation of the cultural and social origins of nineteenth century German imperialism.

The central figure here is Woodruff Smith,78 who has organised Wilhelmine imperialism into two discrete units – liberal mercantile colonialism, which he designates Weltpolitik, and settlement imperialism, to which he assigns the appellation Lebensraum.79 Weltpolitik, he argues was “…a foreign policy worldwide in scope, aimed at the protection and expansion of the external connections of the German industrial economy. There is nothing… about agriculture, nothing about peasant settlement abroad… Weltpolitik was, first and foremost, external policy in support of German commerce and the industrial

78 W Smith. The Ideological Origins of Nazi Imperialism. On Fabri, see in particular p.35-37. Smith insists that Fabri was interested purely in migrationist colonialism, despite references in his work to German spheres of influence such as the decaying Ottoman empire (see below). 79 Smith concedes the anachronistic nature of the latter designation, using as it does an early twentieth century term for an essentially nineteenth century movement. The naming of these two imperialist strands is of not of as much importance as the substance of Smith’s claim that the two strands were spawned from different social classes, and that this class distinction was in fact imprinted upon the discussion and conduct of the differing modes of imperialism. Smith. Ideological Origins.p.83. Scientific Discourse 249 sector.”80 In essence, as Smith argues, the reverse holds for Lebensraum, which was fundamentally a movement designed to promote and implement policies aimed exclusively at migrationary colonialism.81

A fundamental flaw in this argument - that these two strands of imperialist discourse were diametrically opposed - is that, as exemplified by Friedrich List,

Johann Sturz and Friedrich Fabri, nineteenth century imperialists saw the two as linked, or at the very most a matter of preference that had very little to do with broad ideological divides between forward-looking industrialists and retrograde conservatives attempting to resurrect a dying peasantry. Indeed, Fabri’s quintessentially liberal argument for colonial imperialism rested on the assumption that mercantile and settlement colonialism were twin pillars supporting liberal imperialist discourse. When Fabri argued that, “Es gibt gegenwärtig zwei

Grundformen colonien Besitzes, die man als Ackerbau-Colonien und Handels-

Colonien unterscheidet,”82 Fabri saw these complementary modes of imperialism as not being in any sense ideologically differentiated. In fact, the only stipulation as to which colonies should be migrationary and which should be mercantile stemmed from climatic conditions – “Ackerbau-Colonien sind nur unter gemäßigten Zonen möglich.”83

Far from demonstrating hostility to the new industrial conditions, Fabri’s argumentation for agrarian colonies relied upon Germany’s identity as an industrial

80 ibid.p.53. 81 ibid.pp.83-84. 82 F Fabri. Bedarf Deutschland.p.78. 83 ibid.p.78. Scientific Discourse 250 nation, which necessitated colonies in order to create a trade loop between an agrarian colonial periphery and the industrial core nation.84 For Fabri, as for Sturz and List, migratory colonialism and mercantile imperialism were seen as twin means by which a newly industrialised nation such as Germany could solve the twin problems of over-production and over-population, in the process ensuring

Germany’s future supply of primary resources and thereby, its prosperity.

Similarly, for Fabri, the concepts of Weltpolitik and Lebensraum, which Smith sees as diametrically opposed ideologies, were in fact two sides of the same liberal imperialist coin, as Fabri demonstrated in his own eagerness for a future German expansionism that could conceivably encompass the lands to the South-East of

Germany, throughout the Balkans, stretching all the way to the Levant. In the

Middle East, Fabri wrote, the apparent disintegration of the Ottoman Empire meant that “auch im Orient liegt eine Cultur-Aufgabe für die Zukunft Deutschlands.”85

The reference to a cultural mission devoid of a settlement dimension was of course disingenuous, as Fabri hinted – “eine größere Massen-Einwanderung ist namentlich in Klein-Asien und Syrien für eine spätere Zeit nicht ausgeschlossen.”86

There was, of course, in the nineteenth century no clear division between

Weltpolitik and Lebensraum as mutually exclusive paradigms of German expansionism. Just as Hans Christoph Gagern had, in the Vormärz era, seen

Europe’s South-East as an area suitable for German colonies, so too Friedrich Fabri viewed German expansionism as possible in a number of settings. He offered

84 ibid.p.84. 85 ibid..pp.174-177. 86 ibid.p.176. Scientific Discourse 251 several suggestions as to how it was to be carried out, however in the end, these suggestions rested upon his analysis of probability and opportunity, not a dogmatic adherence to one or another school of imperialist thought. With Russia seemingly in the ascendance after the Russo-Turkish war which constituted the immediate context of Fabri’s writing,87 it is not surprising that he did not advocate an aggressive Eastern policy designed to upset the balance of power. Instead, he pragmatically emphasised Africa, Brazil, Samoa and the Ottoman Empire as possibilities for new German realms.

The Hamburg based colonial agitator Wihelm Hübbe –Schleiden, as a late pre-1884 pro-imperialism propagandist, built upon the renewal of colonial theory by

Friedrich Fabri to construct a position that was a blend of abstract theories of imperialism as a form of cultural and national development on the one hand, and concrete plans for existing and potential colonising actions on the other. Operating as both theorist and practitioner, Hübbe-Schleiden personified the state of pre-1884 colonial praxis, which on the one hand busied itself with private sector imperialist projects and on the other sought to motivate the new German nation into embracing imperialism as its national cultural and political task, a task that would define

German national identity within the existing tradition of an expansionist European liberalism.88

87 ibid.p.174. 88 This ambivalence regarding the utility of private sector colonising efforts was fully explored in W Hübbe Schleiden. Colonisations-Politik und Colonisations-Technik, eine Studie über Wirksamkeit und Rentabilität von Colonisations Gesellschaften. L Friederichsen & Co, Hamburg, 1883. See esp. pp. 99-100, 122, 130, 157ff. In essence, he viewed private sector colonies as important points of penetration or beachheads that would however in the long term prove virtually useless unless they were at some point supported and greatly expanded by a pro-imperialist German government. Scientific Discourse 252

In his 1881 work Deutsche Colonisation, eine Replik auf das Referat des Herrn Dr

Friedrich Kapp über Colonisation und Auswanderung, Hübbe-Schleiden took as his initial rationale for colonial imperialism a statement from the periodical Export, the organ of the Central-Verein für Handelsgeographie:

Unserer Ueberzeugung nach ist die Organisation der deutschen Massen-Auswanderung eine Phase in dem Ringen der deutschen Nation nach Selbständigkeit…’Los von Nord- Amerika!’ das sei die Parole für die deutsche Auswanderungspolitik! Diese Parole wird im Laufe der Generationen zu rein deutschen überseeischen Staatsbildungen führen und damit dem Deutschtum die ihm gebührende Weltstellung sichern – eine Weltstellung, welche vielleicht die gegenwärtige des anderen großen Zweiges der germanischen Völkerfamilie zu ergänzen oder sogar abzulösen berufen sein wird.89

For both the Central-Verein and Hübbe-Schleiden, colonialism and the expansionist foreign trade it facilitated represented a means of furthering the construction of the

German nation, both in terms of its inner development, and in terms of its external cultural and material position vis-à-vis the other European great powers, with whom it was in competition. Germany’s national prosperity and international position,

Hübbe-Schleiden argued, was a product of the nation’s capacity to maintain an actively expansionist foreign policy, including both a policy of global trade and one of the opening up of extra-European lands to development:

Der Wohlstand der Nationen geht mit ihrem Welthandel Hand in Hand und gedeiht nur im Verhältnisse zur Entwicklung dasselben; ebenso aber wächst auch ihre geistige Cultur und ihre nationale Bedeutung unter den Völkern der Erde in demselben Maasse, wie sie sich als Nationen activ im Kreise der Civilisation bethätigen. 90

89 W Hübbe-Schleiden. Deutsche Colonisation, eine Replik auf das Referat des Herrn Dr Friedrich Kapp über Colonisation und Auswanderung. L Friederichsen & CO, Hamburg, 1881.p.iii. The quote is taken from Export Nr 38, II, Berlin, 21st September 1880.p.366. Hübbe-Schleiden’s publisher, the fellow pro-colonial Hamburger, Friederichsen is also worth noting. Scientific Discourse 253

Externally, the utility of private-sector trading and colonising projects outside of the

United States lay in their role as Trojan horse settlements of Germans that would later expand into a German empire on par with that of England. Internally, the need for such expansion, Hübbe-Schleiden argued elsewhere in the same year, lay with both the nation’s material needs, as well as its ‘cultural’ need to develop in terms of

Einheit, Selbständigkeit, and Lebensfähigkeit. Such considerations constituted the

Nationalpolitik grounds for imperialist expansion.91 Primary amongst these internal considerations, was the desire for national unity, which Hübbe –Schleiden argued could not be delivered by any mechanism other than colonial possessions, which would tightly bind the nation together through the integration of their economic needs, which themselves necessitated a common colonial undertaking:

Ebenso wird auch Nichts so sehr das Bestehen unseres eigenen Reiches sichern können, als die Ausdehnung unserer Nationalität über fernere reiche Wirthschaftsgebiete, welche unserer Macht, unserm nationalen Prestige und unserm Wohlstande als Basis dienen können, auf der sie fort und fort wachsen und gedeihen werden… Wenn wir irgendwo in der Welt einen grossen Geldbeutel liegen haben, an welchem alle Glieder der deutscher Nation ein gleiches gemeinsames Interesse haben… so wird ein solches materielles Interesse ein stärkes Band unserer nationalen Einheit sein. 92

Only this, in his opinion, could “das Reich zusammenhalten, wenn Fürst Bismarcks

Wirksamkeit unter uns dereinst zu Ende gehen wird…”93 Clearly, the notion of unifying and bestowing an identity upon the new German nation through imperialist

90 W Hübbe-Schleiden. Überseeische Politik: eine Culturwissenschaftliche Studie. L Friederichsen & Co, Hamburg, 1881.p.14. 91 ibid.p.120. 92 ibid.p.125. 93 ibid.p.121. Scientific Discourse 254 action abroad was as important to Hübbe-Schleiden as the actual material benefits

German expansionism was supposed to bring.

Interestingly, Hübbe-Schleiden, in this argumentation regarding the construction and preservation of the German nation through imperialism, posited the notion of

‘Nationalität’ as a purely synthetic, cultural formation, which in his opinion did not correspond to “ein überwiegend naturwissenschaftlicher Begriff… wie ‘Volk’ und

‘Rasse.’94 The assertion that race was a naturally occurring scientific category aside, what was being posited by Hübbe-Schleiden was a requirement that nations consciously create themselves and their identity in such a way as to force themselves to be recognised from within and without as a competent national unit.

The process that he saw as necessary for the generating of a unifying national identity was the conscious construction of a totalising vision of the German nation, in which imperialism played a key role. As a national project, to be recognised and respected as a symbolic enactment of German unity both within Germany and by other competitor imperialist nations, imperialism, although enacted in the material world and requiring a particular set of political and social arrangements to support it, would find its ultimate expression in the realm of culture. Under Hübbe-

Schleiden’s defintion of culture, national culture was an essentialised rendering of what was seen as a distinctly German mode of being, defined not only in terms of a tradition of art, music and literature but also as relating to a common economic model, a set of political norms and a pivotal, common understanding of the nation- state in imperialist terms.

94 ibid.p.129. Scientific Discourse 255

This imperialist formulation of German national culture would be asserted simultaneously in concert with, and in competition with other liberal imperialist cultures, that is, other ‘civilised’ liberal European nations with which Germany had to compete:

Durch eine solche selbständige culturelle Leistung allein kann erst die deutsche Nation sich zu dauernder Lebensfähigkeit entwickeln… Das Bestehen einer Nationalität erfordert selbstständige culturelle Bethätigung und wird wesentlich bedingt durch eine solche. Das Werden und Vergehen der Völker im Laufe der Weltgeschichte beweist, dass nationale Existenz ohne solche active Entwicklung auf die Dauer nicht möglich ist. Wie die ganze Menschheit continuirlich dem Ideale der Cultur, eine organischen Entwicklung der Civilisation zustrebst, so muss auch jede Nation, welche ein lebensfähiges Glied dieses Menschengeschlechtes bleiben will, sich an diesem gemeinsamen Streben betheiligen.95

This theory of national cultural development, expressed as a totalising metanarrative of imperialist expansionism was aimed at simultaneously fulfilling what Horst Gründer has described as the Identitätssehnsucht96 central to liberal attempts to construct the German nation in their own image, as well as the supposed political and material preconditions for successful national unification and expansion. Properly nurtured, this imperialist sense of national identity would see

Germany become a truly first-class imperialist nation within a generation.97

95 ibid.p.129. 96 H Gründer. Geschichte der deutschen Kolonien.p.30. 97 W Hübbe-Schleiden. Überseeische Politik.p.142. “In der jetzt heranwachsenden Generation keimt still die Saat einer deutschen Weltmacht; wenn diese Generation zum Mannesalter herangereift sein wird, dann endlich wird sich Deutschland zu einer Weltstellung ersten Ranges erheben, dann endlich wird das deutsche Volk den ihm gebührenden Weltberuf erfüllen als tonangebende Nation im Kreise des Menschengeschlechts.” Scientific Discourse 256

At the same time as Hübbe-Schleiden was formulating his more theoretical explanations of the importance of cultural constructions of national identity to the material development of the nation, he was also contributing a number of profoundly practical Denkschriften to colonial societies and associations. These

Denkschriften were devoted to the minute planning of contemporary colonialist undertakings, in particular those taking place in South America. For example, in

1881, Hübbe-Schleiden produced a plan for the colonisation of Paraguay that suggested beginning with a vanguard of eight hundred colonists to oversee the necessary construction of railroads and other infrastructure necessary for the colony’s survival.98 Similarly, in 1882, the year in which he helped establish the

Colonialverein,99 he unveiled a plan for the settlement of Uruguay that called for five hundred families to emigrate there within five years, a number which was to expand to 1350 families in the first nine years of settlement.100 Both were envisaged as cash crop settlements, whose production was largely calibrated towards enhancing the material betterment of Germany, despite the claim that such plans were geared solely at benefiting “die Gesammt-Entwicklung des Deutschthums in

Süd-Amerika.”101

Immersed in imperialist debate at both the particular and the universal level,

Hübbe-Schleiden was instrumental in both reconstituting the pre-existing liberal

98 W Hübbe-Schleiden. “Entwurf einer Paraguay Gesellschaft” November 1881. in BA Berlin R8023/262. Deutsche Kolonialgesellschaft.pp.101ff. 99 His membership application can be found in BA Berlin R8023/256a Deutsche Kolonialgesellschaft.p.62. 100 W Hübbe-Schleiden. “Entwurf einer Alto-Uruguay Companie mit einem Action-Capital von 3 000 000M. Colonisation der Nord-Argentinischen Provinz Misiones, der Jesuiten-Missionen des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts.” In R8023/262.pp.139ff. 101 ibid.p.163. Scientific Discourse 257 imperialist theoretical base and in the attempted realisation of this theoretical corpus in the imperialist praxis during the years immediately prior to a politically sanctioned policy of national imperialism.

ii) Geography and Anthropology in the Service of Imperialism

In terms of geographic and scientific literature dealing with the extra-European world, Ernst Jacob, in his 1938 collection of documentary material relating to

German colonialism, listed the flurry of research devoted merely to Africa, asserting that between 1800 and 1884 around two hundred studies were published,102 many of which were published during the years between the twin peaks of the liberal’s national political ascendancy, 1848 and 1871. Such works were carrying on a long tradition of politically committed scientific research that had its roots in the Vormärz era.103 However, apart from the research that professed an overtly pro-imperialist agenda, the contribution of other, less obviously committed research, to the furthering of imperialist discourse and praxis cannot be underestimated, in its offering up of the non-European world as an object for

European scrutiny, exploration and ultimately subjugation. With specific respect to imperialist research, this nexus between knowledge and power, and the understanding and controlling of colonial lands, has been discussed by Homi

Bhabha, who has described such works in the following terms:

Its predominant function is the creation of a space for a ‘subject peoples’ through the

102 E G Jacob (hg). Deutsche Kolonialpolitik in Dokumenten: Gedanken und Gestalten aus den letzten fünzig Jahren. Dieterich’schen Verlagsbuchhandlung, Leipzig, 1938.pp.20-23. 103 The Vormärz pro-colonial writer Johann Eduard Wappäus was, for example, a professor at the University of Göttingen and a corresponding member of the Parisian Societé de Geographie. A Lübcke. Welch ein Unterschied.p.76. Scientific Discourse 258

production of knowledge in terms of which surveillance is exercised… It seeks authorisation for its strategies by the production of knowledges of coloniser and colonised which are stereotypical but antithetically evaluated. The objective of colonial discourse is to construe the colonised as a population of degenerate types on the basis of racial origin, in order to justify conquest and to establish systems of administration and instruction… [It is] a form of governmentality that in marking out a ‘subject nation,’ appropriates, directs and dominates its various spheres of activity… [It] produces the colonised as a social reality which is at once an ‘other’ and yet entirely knowable and visible.104

An important insight into the significance of both seemingly ‘neutral’ geographical works, as well as popular culture representations of non-European lands, this type of analysis usefully points to the subjection of colonised peoples and landscapes to the paradigmatic assumptions of a Eurocentric scientific taxonomy that a priori inferred their inferiority through the conflation of the norms of European culture with the hallmarks of ‘advanced’ culture, thereby constructing extra-European lands as a rightful domain for the industrialised energies of European powers.

Exemplifying this process of colonial ordering through scientific method was the classification and ordering of the populations of non-European lands as conducted in the disciplines of geography and, as researchers such as Andrew Zimmerman have been able to demonstrate, anthropology. 105 As a theoretical underpinning to the expansionist tone of the discourse of liberal expansionism in Germany, the discipline of geography, through the classification of landforms, fauna and flora of the extra-European world, attempted to add its own contribution to the categorising and characterising of indigenous peoples.

104 HK Bhabha. The Location of Culture. Routledge, London, 1994.pp.70-71. 105 A Zimmerman. Anthropology and Antihumanism in Imperial Germany. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2001. Scientific Discourse 259

However, further to this assemblage of a hierarchy of the rightfully ruled and ruling, was the material role that seemingly disinterested, ‘wissenschaftlich’ associations played in the furthering of German imperialism, in the ‘opening up’ and

‘development’ of non-European lands to German trade and industry and culture.106

As has been discussed, in the case of Hamburg, the Geographical Society, with its leading lights Wilhelm Hübbe-Schleiden, and Ludwig Friederichsen, was instrumental in the maintenance of imperialist discourse within the city’s educated, liberal circles.107 Far from a radical innovation, the critical role played by the

Geographical Society was exactly that played by similar societies all over Germany.

Demonstrating this were the professed aims of the 1870’s German umbrella geographical society, the Deutsche Afrikanische Gesellschaft, which counted amongst its key members the directors of the Geographical Societies of Rhineland /

Westphalia (based in Bonn), Silesia (based in Breslau), Frankfurt, Halle, Munich and Hamburg.108 In its charter, the society stated clearly that it had three goals, which it attempted to pursue simultaneously:

1) die wissenschaftliche Erforschung der unbekannten Gebiete Afrikas;

106 Exemplifying that this relationship was not entirely monodirectional was the Hamburg firm Godeffroy’s anthropological and ethnographical museum, whose collection of skulls and other artefacts offered up the Pacific up to closer scientific scrutiny. For its contents see, JDE Schmeltz & R Krause. Ethnographisch-Anthropologische Abtheilung des Museum Godeffroy in Hamburg. Ein Beitrag zur Kunde der Südsee Völker. L Friederichsen & Co. Hamburg, 1881. The publishing house Friederichsen is worth noting. 107 W Nordmeyer. Die Geographische Gesellschaft.pp.64ff. 108 Staatsbibliothek Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz. Gustav Nachtigals Nachlass. 14: Item 19. “Satzungen der Deutschen Afrikanischen Gesellschaft.” December 1876, Berlin. Also of interest is the membership of Hamburg luminaries C Woermann, Bürgermeister Dr Kirchenpauer and W O’Swald. Scientific Discourse 260

2) deren Erschliessung für Cultur, Handel und Verkehr 3) in weiterer Folge, die friedliche Beseitigung des Sclavenhandels109

It is the second point which is here of most interest, in its illustration of the movement away from the mere production of imperialist knowledge, which had been the hallmark of the Society’s predecessor the Deutsche Gesellschaft zur

Erforschung Aequatorial-Afrikas, towards more openly imperialist activity. This acknowledged “Erweiterung der Ziele”110 to include both “wissenschaftlich” and

“mehr praktische Unternehmungen”111 demonstrates the extent to which this coordinating body of Germany’s geographical societies subscribed to the notion that the expeditions it sent to Africa were not mere attempts at cataloguing indigenous cultures, fauna and flora, but that they had practical, material applications, not the least of which was “die Anlage von vorgeschobenen Punkten, um theils als Operationsbasen für die Reisenden, theils als Cultur- und Handels-

Mittelpunkte zu dienen.”112

Just what the Society’s idea of a “Cultur- und Handels-Mittelpunkt” entailed was summarised in an address delivered to the Geographische Gesellschaft zu

Greifswald in 1882, in which the ‘cultural’ mission of Germany was elucidated. In an era of private-sector imperialism, before wholesale annexation of territories was possible, the guiding principle was the harnessing of indigenous populations for

German trade and industry:

Erschliessen, für die Cultur gewinnen, lassen sich Naturländer und deren Bewohner

109 ibid. 14:19. 110 ibid. 14:1. 111 ibid. 14:13. 112 ibid. 14:19. Scientific Discourse 261

überhaupt nicht durch Ausraubung ihrer vorhandenen Schätze, sondern nur durch Cultur selbst, durch Hebung ihrer Productivität, also durch Cultivation im weitesten Sinne des Wortes… zu dieser eigenen, wirthschaftlichen und geistigen Arbeit aber müssen die Naturvölker, sogut wie unsere Kinder, erst erzogen werden.113

The explicit connection made between culture and increased productivity by this address is instructive, and demonstrates what the notion of a ‘cultural mission’ (as a symbolically resonant trope of imperialist discourse) actually denoted - the construction of a servile colonial workforce that worked for the material benefit of

German trade and industry. This definition of ‘cultural mission,’ as used by German exploration and geographical associations in the pre-colonial period, far from evolving, persisted throughout the entirety of the German colonial period, as Jürgen

Zimmerer’s work pointing to the importance of a servile indigenous workforce in the case of German South West Africa has demonstrated.114

In terms of establishing the existence of an interrelationship between, and in some instances the near-identical membership of imperialist and scientific associations, an over-representation of geographical and anthropological organisations in colonial organisations can be seen in the membership records of the Kolonialverein of 1882.

In its founding drive for members, the Kolonialverein was not only successful in attracting the leading colonial propagandists Friedrich Fabri and Wilhelm Hübbe-

Schleiden, and liberal notables Johannes Miquel and Rudolf von Bennigsen. It also attracted a number of representatives of geographical associations. The

Kolonialverein board of directors included both the chairperson and the secretary of

113 BA Berlin R8023/256a Deutsche Kolonialgesellschaft.p.1. “Die Erschliessung des Inneren Afrikas.” 114 J Zimmerer. Deutsche Herrschaft über Afrikaner. Scientific Discourse 262

Frankfurt’s Verein für Geographie und Statistik, Geh.Sanitätsr. Dr Vorrentrapp and

Dr med. E Cohn-Corr.115 Amongst rank and file ‘first wave’ enlisted members who included their professional capacity on their application form were Dr Theobald

Fischer, Professor of Geography in Kiel,116 JJ Kettler, editor of the Zeitschrift für

Wissenschaftliche Geographie in Karlsruhe, Dr AB Meyer, the director of the Royal

Zoological and Anthropological-Ethnological Museum in Dresden,117 L

Friederichsen, Secretary of the Geographical Society in Hamburg118 and Dr Rudolf

Credner, Professor of Geography and Chair of the Geographical Society in

Greifswald.119

These members brought with them not only their personal enthusiasm for German colonies, but also their official standing as representatives of prominent geographical organisations and institutions, contributing to the colonial movement a degree of scientific credibility and respectability underwritten by organisations across all of

Germany. Together with the more famous pro-colonial agitators of the

Kolonialverein, these members of the professorial Bildungsbürgertum presented the intellectual and cultural benefits of empire in a manner that appeared to be more detached and dispassionate and therefore more credible than that which could be offered by the organisation’s other wing, the Wirtschaftsbürgertum represented by the

115 BA Berlin R8023/256a.p.54. 116 ibid.p.45. 117 ibid.p.76. 118 ibid.p.80. 119 ibid.p.90. Scientific Discourse 263 merchant and business community, whose more immediate commercial interests in gaining privileged access to colonial lands were apparent.120

The link between researching the to-be colonised lands and the resulting material praxis was effectively described by the founder of the Kolonialverein, Freiherr

Hermann von Maltzan, who saw the establishment of colonies in previously researched lands as simply a rightful reward for the expenditure on research. Far from being a reward in itself, the accumulation of knowledge about the non-European world was merely a necessary step along the path to consolidating German power over it; first intellectual power, thence as enabled and warranted by this intellectual power, material power:

Wir Deutsche haben für die Erforschung vieler Länder Gut und Blut eingefetzt; wenn wir jetzt den Lohn für unsere Thaten fordern, verlangen wir nur was recht und billig ist.121

This line of reasoning is also evident in the premier geographical journal of the period, which often discussed overseas research in terms of its material benefits for

German commerce and settler colonialism.122 Ranging from feature articles through to book reviews, the discussions of the significance of German geographical

120 This is not to say that prominent members of Germany’s Wirtschaftsbürgertum did not take a part in the anthropological and geographical study of colonial societies. An important example of this was the Godeffroy Museum, established in 1860 and devoted to the study of the Pacific region. Research stemming from its collection was published in the in-house scientific periodical Journal des Museum Godeffroy. See FM Spoehr. White Falcon.pp.27ff. 121 H Maltzan Rede des Freiherrn Hermann von Maltzan auf der constituirenden Generalversammlung des Deutschen Kolonialvereins zu Frankfurt am Main am 6. Dezember 1882. J Sittenfeld, Berlin, 1882. In BA Berlin R8023/256a Deutsche Kolonialgesellschaft.p.241. 122 The journal in question is Petermann’s Mittheilungen aus Justus Perthes’ geographischer Anstalt über wichtige neue Erforschungen auf dem Gesammtgebiete der Geographie. Justus Perthes, Gotha. The issues under discussion are from 1855 to 1884. Scientific Discourse 264 exploration illustrate the extent to which the discipline was viewed as a practical rather than merely theoretical field.

Commencing publication at a time in which German expansionism, as represented in the debates of the Frankfurt Nationalversammlung, is supposed to have wound itself up entirely, the first issue of Petermann’s Mittheilungen in 1855 depicted the significance of Dr Heinrich Barth’s African expedition in terms of his opening up

African waterways to European shipping and activating European ‘interest’ in the area, becoming in the process “ein Stolz Deutschlands”:

Barth’s Hauptverdienst… besteht in seiner eisernen Beharrlichkeit, seiner Ausdauer, mit der er sein Ziel verfolgt hat; denn dadurch und durch die daraus hervorgegangenen Resultate ist ein neues reges Interesse für diesen Erdtheil erstanden, und die Beschiffung Afrikanischer Ströme durch Europäische Dampfboote hat erst wieder begonnen…123

For his part, Barth, the son of a Hamburg merchant and a one time Privatdozent in classical geography and colonialism,124 viewed his expedition and his research in precisely the same manner. Making the explicit link between geographical exploration and the commercial imperatives that underwrote it, Barth proclaimed in his preface that, “it will be my greatest satisfaction if this narrative should give a fresh impulse to the endeavours to open the fertile regions of Central Africa to

European commerce and civilization.”125 Far from misinterpreting Barth’s research in relating it to European expansionism, the Mittheilungen paid Barth the

123 Mittheilungen. (1), 1855. “Dr Heinrich Barth’s Reisen” p.231. 124 AHM Kirk-Greene. “Heinrich Barth: A Biographical Note” in H Barth. Travels and Discoveries in North and Central Africa, Being a Journal of an Expedition Undertaken Under the Auspices of HBM’s Government in the Years 1849-1855. (Vol. I). Frank Cass & Co, London, 1965.pp.x-xi. 125 H Barth. Travels and Discoveries.p.xxxii. Scientific Discourse 265 compliment of concurring in his view of his research’s utility for attempts to colonise and ‘open up’ Africa for European commerce.

Following this article on Barth in the inaugural issue of the Mittheilungen was a recommendation of German colonialism in Uruguay. Quoting an unnamed (and seemingly not impartial) report, the article offered no mitigating, negative editorial comment on the praise lavished upon Uruguay as a potential destination for German emigrants, in its statement that:

Dieses schöne, gesunde, fruchtbare und vielversprechende Land ist hauptsächlich geeignet für dem Deutschen gewohnte Ackerbau-Arbeit, also für die Anbauung von Korn, Mais, Kartoffeln, Flachs, Hanf, Klee und Rübsamen… und kann somit den Europäischen Bedarf an solchen befriedigen, soweit die Besetzung des Landes durch Europäische Hände dieses möglich macht…126

Firmly anchoring the discussion of Uruguay in the economic requirements of

Europe, the article praised the climate and accessibility of Uruguay for both

European trade and emigration.

South American colonies were also warmly recommended in the opening article of the first issue of 1856, whose title demonstrated the utilitarian assumptions of much geographical research in Germany – “Die Staaten im Strom-Gebiet des La Plata in ihrer Bedeutung für Europa.” Stressing the utility of appropriating overseas colonies, the article at first coyly expressed the opinion that “Der allgemeine

Charakter dieses ausgedehnten… Landstrichs ist für die Ansiedlung höchst

126 Mittheilungen (1), 1855. “Uruguay als Feld für deutsche Auswanderung nach der neuen Welt.” pp.231-232. Scientific Discourse 266 einladend.”127 However, by the end of the article, the recommendations of its author Dr v. Reden became far more strident in asserting the need for Germany to colonise the region:

Eine friedliche Ansiedelung sollte durch die Leitung der Deutschen Auswanderer nach dem La Plata-Gebiete bewirkt werden. Ihre unendliche Wichtigkeit ist seither nur von Wenigen hervorgehoben; fast Niemand hat daran erinnert, dass dadurch Sammelplätze für die scheidenden Zweige unseres Stammes gebildet werden können, wo jede Knospe zu einer Frucht für das Deutsche Vaterland reift, wo jeder Pulsschlag der alten Heimath seinen Wiederhall findet. Die friedliche Kolonisation verpflanzt Deutsche Sprache, Deutsche Sitte, überhaupt Deutsches Leben in die neue Heimath; das hierdurch bleibende geistige Band ist unzerreissbar, wie zahlreiche Beispiele beweisen.128

The author further discussed the longevity of his views, dating back to an 1843 proposal that he had penned. He also complained of a lack of governmental support, pouring scorn on governments who tried to make emigration difficult, “als ob man hindern könnte, was nothwendig ist.”129 By way of conclusion, v. Reden reiterated his assertion that Uruguay, Entre Rios and Paraguay, as well as sections of

Corrientes and Buenos Aires, were natural sites for German imperialism:

Dort finden Millionen fleissiger Arme den günstigen Naturstoff lohnender Beschäftigung; dort ist das Auswanderungsfeld, wo 10,000 Menschen eines Stammes genügen, um Unabhängigkeit, heimische Sitte und die Sprache ihrer Eltern sich und ihren Nachkommen zu bewahren.130

The 1856 edition of Wilhelm Roscher’s Kolonien, Kolonial-Politik und

Auswanderung was also reviewed by the journal. The review concurred with

Roscher’s view that colonialism represented a priority for the German people and

127 Mittheilungen.(2), 1856. “Die Staaten im Strom-Gebiet des La Plata in ihrer Bedeutung für Europa.” p.2. 128 ibid.p.15. 129 ibid.p.15. 130 ibid.p.16. Scientific Discourse 267 society. The journal also expressed the hope that the book’s significance and recognition-worthy nature would be acknowledged by the German reading public.131 Despite its brevity, this endorsement of one of Germany’s primary colonial agitators gives an interesting insight into the extent to which pro- imperialist literature was welcomed within the discipline of geography, despite its lack of a prominent political profile in the post-1848 era. It also serves as an example of how liberal imperialism was able to perpetuate itself as a discourse at the sub-political level, through discussions in professional journals and scientific publications. Far from a “stranded theorist” devoid of social or intellectual context,

Roscher had not only a readership, but also an important scientific readership which was in a position to undertake the intellectual and explorative preparations for any eventual government-sanctioned policy of German imperialism, enabling German trade to penetrate the extra-European world during the era of private sector imperialism.

The role of transmitting imperialist liberal culture is similarly discernible in reviews published in the Mittheilungen for the pro-colonial works of Hermann Blumenau,

Joh. Aug. Prestien and one-time Frankfurt Nationalversammlung representative

Julius Fröbel, all of which were discussed in review articles published in 1858.132

Blumenau’s careful summation of the situation in his South American colony was noted, and his request for more German emigrants highlighted, whilst Prestien and

Fröbel were criticised for presenting an immoderate and ultimately unscientific picture of colonial life. Despite the shortcomings of the individual works, the notion

131 Mittheilungen. (2), 1856. “Wilhelm Roscher: Kolonien, Kolonial-Politik und Auswanderung.” pp. 239-240. 132 Mittheilungen. (4), 1858. pp.577, 586. Scientific Discourse 268 that colonialism was a desirable end was not of itself criticised. Rather, the criticism stemmed from the perception that the authors of the works were not always as scrupulous as they should have been in remaining objective in their writings. So whilst Fröbel was criticised for misrepresenting colonial Canada as an impossibility for German emigrants, the reviewer by no means attempted to discount Fröbel’s enthusiasm for South America.133

Of course objectivity was not always the highest value set upon geographical works, as the 1862 review of Friedrich Gerstäcker’s three-volume Achtzehn Monate in Süd-Amerika und dessen Deutschen Kolonien shows. This work, as the reviewer states, was not a strictly scientific work, but it was nonetheless praised as a contribution to the understanding of Germany’s South American colonies:

… namentlich sind wir ihm für seine anschaulichen Schilderungen der Deutschen Kolonien in Peru, Chile und Süd-Brasilien dankbar… deren Verhältnisse näher kennen zu lernen der Hauptzweck seiner Reise war.134

1860 saw Perthes’ Mittheilungen publish an article on German emigration to Chile, by Dr R Philippi, professor of natural history at the University of Santiago, Chile.135

Philippi, along with his brother, had been a tireless campaigner for German colonialism in Chile. In a long and detailed article, Philippi stressed the suitability of Chile for German migrants, albeit for those who had a trade or were used to being manual workers. Generally speaking, Philippi’s argument came down to one central argument – that Chile was a suitable colonial environment for German settlement:

133 ibid.p.586. 134 Mittheilungen. (8), 1862.p.357. 135 Mittheilungen. (6), 1860.pp.125ff. Scientific Discourse 269

Je länger mein Aufenthalt in Chile dauert… um so mehr befestigt sich meine Überzeugung, dass wenige Länder in der Welt sich so gut zu einer Niederlassung für Deutsche eignen als Chile…136

So too, the sentiment that German colonial footholds in South and Central America were an important political and economic development was displayed in a series of articles by Dr Moritz Wagner in 1863, where he discussed the suitablitity of certain races and cultures for the colonisation of the various regions in the Americas.137

Apart from his concern about the climatic suitability of the region for Europeans and the question of settling freed American slaves in Central America, Wagner, particularly in the third article, also referred to the fertility of the land in Chiriqui and the success of German settlers in the region, comparing the region favourably to Texas, “da Texas sich mehr und mehr als eins der ungünstigsten Länder für

Deutsche Kolonisten erwies.”138 His conclusion finally revealed why he had been so concerned with presenting the geographic and demographic particulars of the region – pioneering German settlers were to prepare the way for subsequent

German migration waves:

Wichtig ist nur, dass die Deutsche Ansiedelung überhaupt dort festen Fuss gefasst hat; sie wird eben so wie in dem schönen Nachbarland Costa-Rica bei Fortdauer der geordneten und ruhigen Zustände des Landes eine grössere Einwanderung vorbereiten…139

136 ibid.p.126. 137 Mittheilungen. (9), 1863. “Die Provinz Chiriqui (West Veragua) in Mittel-Amerika.” pp.16ff, “Physisch-Geographische Skizze der Provinz Chiriqui in Mittel Amerika, mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der Fragen des inter-oceanischen Verkehrs und der Neger-Colonisation.”pp.288ff, “Neue Mittheilungen aus der Provinz Chiriqui in Mittel-Amerika.”pp. 370ff. 138 ibid.p.370. 139 ibid.p.372. Scientific Discourse 270

Shorter articles and notices in the Mittheilungen also played their role in maintaining the profile of colonialism. Often, reports of German colonies in South

America would be presented, that mixed empirical data and statistics with favourable editorial comment. The source of these shorter pieces was often the newspapers of the colonies themselves, and as such hardly critical sources.

Exemplifying this was an article in 1866 on Santa Catharina.140 After some relatively standard information about the size of the population, and the colony’s geographical features, it endorsed its potential as a site for German settlement with the concluding sentence, “Das hintere, am Fusse der Serra sich hinstreckende

Küstenland so wie das Hochland der Provinz besteht zum grössten Theil aus urwäldlichen Staatsländereien, die der Kolonisation noch ein weites Feld bieten.”141

Perhaps more significant were the short reports later in 1866, which first discussed in empirical terms the German colonies of Blumenau and Santa Catharina, with a following article making a positive qualitative assessment of German colonial efforts in Brazil.142 This assessment, discussing Johann Sturz’s attack on the

Brazilian colonies, argued that Sturz’s judgement should be set aside, due to the fact that it was based on personal bitterness rather than any quantifiable problem with

140 Mittheilungen. (12), 1866. “Die Brasilianische Provinz Santa Catharina.”pp.274-275. 141 ibid.p.275. 142 Mittheilungen. (12), 1866. “Die Deutsche Kolonie Blumenau in Brasilien,” “Die Deutsche Kolonie Santa Catharina in Brasilien” and “Brasilien als Ziel Deutscher Auswanderung.” pp.430- 432. The source of the third of these was the Kolonie-Zeitung for Dona Francisca and Blumenau – hardly an objective source. Its unqualified reproduction here suggests the pro-colonial tendencies of both the journal and its readership. Scientific Discourse 271 the colonies themselves. To combat Sturz, the opinion of geographer Woldemar

Schultz of Dresden was enlisted, who concluded that the area was “die natürliche

Basis zur allmählichen Kolonisirung des gesammten La Plata-Gebiets…”143 With his work praising the fertility of the land, the abundance of natural resources and the suitability of the climate, Schultz’s research was positioned as a pro-colonial, scientific counterweight to the negative publicity generated by Sturz’s aggressive personal attacks.

In 1867, reports from the colonies detailing the building of roads in the Brazilian mountains were written, as well as a review of each of the Brazilian colonies.144

The former, detailing the Fleiß of German workers and portraying their ability to overcome adversity, was a favourable depiction of Germany’s role in civilising the wild lands of South America, bringing progress to the region. Interestingly, the latter, ostensibly a statistical report on the colonies, was not only positive about the main German colonies of Blumenau and Dona Francisca, but was also at pains to explain the independence of these colonies from the Brazilian government, stating that “Die Kolonien, welche der Regierung unmittelbar untergeordnet sein können und sollen, sind die Militär- und Strafkolonien, andere nicht.”145 The affairs of the colonies, it was reported, were a matter for the directors of those colonies, leading to the impression being given to the readership of the Mittheilungen that German emigrants and private sector imperialist organisations were to be given a free hand

143 ibid.p.431. 144 Mittheilungen. (13), 1867. “Deutsche Strassenanlagen in den Gebirgen Brasiliens.” pp.79-80. “Die Brasilianischen Kolonien” pp.150-152. 145 ibid.p.152. Scientific Discourse 272 in their attempts to Germanise Brazil, encouraging them to believe that broader colonisation plans had a reasonable chance of success.

By the time of the post-unification era, Africa was playing a greater role in discussions of where Germany’s future would lie. An 1875 article on the Deutsche

Afrikanische Expedition discussed in detail the role that exploration in Africa would play in constructing national identity:

…so dürfen und müssen wir die Deutsche Afrikanische Expedition als eine Angelegenheit des Deutschen Reiches betrachten, die das neu gehobene nationale Selbstgefühl schon durch die Grossartigkeit des Planes befriedigt und bei einigem günstigen Erfolg hellstrahlenden Ruhm für Deutschland in der geographischen Entdeckungsgeschichte verheisst…146

Even at this early stage, a race for Africa had been proclaimed, albeit a race for the exploration and ‘discovery’ of Africa.147

The steady movement from exploration to exploitation was signalled in an article in

1877, in which the practicality of a trans-African railway was discussed, as an adjunct not only to exploration but also to trade and the permanent trading stations constructed by the European powers active in Africa.148 Overt references to nominally universal cultural values, employed as a means of justifying the processes of European expansionism, and the harnessing of indigenous African societies for the good of the European economy, further illustrate the normalisation of the use of scientific research for directly imperialist ends and the conflation of scientific discourse with liberal imperialist discourse. The civilising process, the

146 Mittheilungen. (21) 1875. “Die Deutsche Afrikanische Expedition” p.1. 147 ibid.p.6. 148 Mittheilungen. (23) 1877. “Eine Eisenbahn nach Central-Afrika.”pp.45ff. Scientific Discourse 273 article argued, had been hitherto hampered by the existence of the Sahara desert, a geographical fact that might now be overcome by the construction of a railway:

Darüber sind Alle einig, dass die Kultur und Civilisation barbarischer Stämme am leichtesten durch Verkehr und Handel mit höher stehenden Nationen bewirkt wird. Je inniger zwei Völker durch commerzielle Beziehungen mit einander verbunden sind, desto schneller werden gleichartige Verhältnisse geschaffen werden…

Das glauben wir allerdings behaupten zu dürfen, dass, falls die Sahara nicht bestände, Central-Afrika heute längst dem Europäischen Handel erschlossen wäre.149

In just two short years, the discussion in the Mittheilungen of Africa as a realm for discovery had been transformed into a discussion of Africa as a site for European trade and expansion. African lands were “neue Gebiete” ready for Europeans

“auszubeuten,” a realm of “unbegrenzten Reichthum an Naturprodukte aller Art” that Germany simply could not “entgehen lassen, für unseren Handel.”150

Despite this new interest in Africa, the journal did not entirely forget South

America, and it continued to report on opportunities for Germany there. As late as

1879, the journal was still presenting Henry Lange’s argumentation against Johann

Sturz’s by now antiquated negative view of German colonialism in Brazil,151 whilst in 1880, the journal advertised the publication of a lecture on the subject of “die deutsche Arbeit in fremden Erdtheilen:”

Bei dem hohen Interesse, welches die deutsche Auswanderung und Colonisation gerade jetzt wieder erregt, kommt ein Vortrag des in allen Welttheilen bewanderten Generalconsuls Dr C v. Scherzer… Nach übersichtlicher Skizzirung des Einflusses, den das deutsche Werk auf die Culturentwickelung in den verschiedensten Ländern der Erde geübt hat, empfiehlt er mit warmen Worten die deutsche Colonisation und macht vorzugsweise auf Central-Amerika,

149 ibid.p.45. 150 ibid.p.53. 151 Mittheilungen. (25) 1879.p.193. Scientific Discourse 274

Chile, das südliche Brasilien, die La Plata-Länder, die Samoa-Inseln, Salomons- Inseln, Neu-Guinea und Nordost-Borneo aufmerksam.152

The publication of KE Jung’s work Deutsche Kolonien was also praised by the journal as meeting a high demand, now that countless colonial plans and projects were signalling that “Deutsche Kolonisation ist immer noch auf der

Tagesordnung…”153

Of course, not all geographical surveys were monolithically in favour of Germany’s existing private sector colonies in South America, as a short review article in 1881 shows.154 However, even in this review, the reviewer’s judgement appears to have been reserved, with an authorial distance between the reviewer and the anti-colonial geographical work constructed, as demonstrated in the relatively mild criticism implicit in the statement: “Die genannten Bemühung, Süd-Brasilien in grossartigem

Maasse mit Deutschen zu bevölkern… finden nicht überall Anklang…”155 Even in the instance in which a work that was negative in its attitude towards colonialism was reviewed, this was balanced by an immediate discussion of a work that was

“Etwas weniger pessimistisch,” in so far as it did not negatively prejudge the success of Germany’s South American colonies.156

Coming at the end of this long-standing support for colonial projects and the expansion of German overseas influence and trade, the journal was unsurprisingly very supportive of the aims of the Deutscher Kolonialverein, and in the important

152 Mittheilungen. (26) 1880.p.364. 153 Mittheilungen. (29) 1883.p.470. 154 Mittheilungen. (27) 1881.p.397. 155 ibid.p.397. 156 Mittheilungen. (30) 1884.p.276. Scientific Discourse 275 year of 1884, the Kolonialverein was twice given a voice in the journal, enabling them to be in a position “Das Interesse und das Verständnis für die kolonialpolitischen Aufgaben Deutschlands in allen Kreisen wachzurufen…”157 In these articles, the journal’s readership was given a concise summary of not only the association’s aims, but the material benefits that underwrote them. Discussing the benefits to flow to German trade and industry as well as to the German emigrants themselves, the articles presented the colonial task in its most naked form yet, with little use of the by now almost mandatory, ritualised tropes of imperialist discourse that explained the process as part of a civilising mission. In Cameroon for example, the task was simply “die Neger kultur- und arbeitsfähig zu machen” (here culture and labour are apparently interchangeable terms) in order that they might be used as an inexpensive labour force in German plantations. As for the rest of Africa, it was

Germany’s task to open up the continent, so that it might profitably be exploited by such firms as Woermann’s of Hamburg.158

This was viewed as a competitive yet broadly collaborative project for Europe’s liberal nations, as articles discussing the place of France and England in the colonial picture made clear.159 In discussing the role of an African railway in opening up

Africa to European trade, Dr Rohlfs, for example, proposed the construction of a pan-European association that could take on the project on behalf of all of the imperialist powers operating in Africa.160 Similarly, French rule in and around

157 Mittheilungen. (30) 1884.p.40. See also p.393. 158 ibid.p.393. 159 See for example Mittheilungen. (29) 1883.p.430. “Britische Annexionen an der Sierra Leone- Küste.” See also Mittheilungen (27) 1881.pp.222ff. “Entdeckung eines neuen Handelsweges für Süd-Amerika durch Prof. Carl Wiener.” 160 Mittheilungen. (23) 1877.p.53. Scientific Discourse 276

Senegal was seen as opening up possibilities for Germany in the area.161 At this stage, Germany’s geographers, so dependent on the support of foreign powers to fund their overseas expeditions in the past, viewed the ‘opening up’ and exploitation of colonial lands as a joint enterprise shared between the colonising

Europeans. The harnessing of colonial resources and indigenous peoples, it was seen, was a burden to be shared amongst the world’s advanced liberal nations.162

As previously mentioned, Homi Bhabha’s critique that views scientific discourse as a means of enacting power over the colonial periphery and its peoples is borne out by the narratives of German geographers, and the articles of the Mittheilungen are no exception to this. Occasionally, the journal, in undertaking a theoretical ordering of peoples also offered instances of self-reflexive meta-analysis, in which the utilitarian assumptions that lay at the heart of anthropological research were overtly discussed, albeit through recourse to the racialised terminology of the era. One such instance was in an early discussion of indigenous South Africans.163 Giving the journal’s readership an historiographical overview, the author wrote:

Die Völkerkunde interessirte sich früher sehr für die Hottentotten. Das ist gegenwärtig anders geworden, und in der That war ein Volk, wegen seiner Stupidität, wenn auch mit Unrecht, verrufen, zum grossen Theile durch Kolonisirung zertreten und scheinbar ohne Zukunft der Entwickelung, nicht

161 Mittheilungen (28) 1882.p.304. “Das Vordringen der Franzosen vom Senegal zum Niger, 1880- 82” 162 Compare for example the discursive continuities between Mittheilungen (2) 1856 “Die Gebiets- Verhältnisse Central Amerika’s” p.270 on the role of European powers in saving South America from “alt-amerikanische Barbarei” with the statements asserting the need to make Africans “kultur- und arbeitsfähig” in Mittheilungen (30) 1884.p.393. These represent two separate instances, which demonstrated that competition between imperialist powers did not necessitate a negation of collaboration. 163 Mittheilungen. (4) 1858. “Die Hottentotten-Stämme und ihre geographische Verbreitung im Lichte der Gegenwart.” pp.49ff. Scientific Discourse 277

sehr geeignet, auf die Dauer die Aufmerksamkeit zu fesseln.164

Anthropologists and geographers, that is, had paid little attention to this ‘stupid’ race, as it was expected that they would not survive the crushing effects of the colonisation and ‘development’ process. Unable to be ‘civilised’ into becoming a suitable workforce they were deemed irredeemably impoverished as a race, without a future and therefore not worth the effort of researching. The tacit acceptance of the notion that the future of entire ‘races’ was dependent upon their colonial malleability is a revealing anthropological prelude to Germany’s own interaction with the Herero / Nama peoples.

However such insights into the potentially genocidal logic of imperialism-orientated science were rare and were more usually constrained within the subtext of the intricate racial theoretics that were elaborated in the Mittheilungen. Apart from the usual discussions of the climatic suitability of some regions for particular races,165 articles in the journal formulated several different racial hierarchies. Exemplifying this was the article by Göttingen’s Professor Rudolf Wagner, in which he proclaimed the need for a revision of the racial categories used in anthropological analysis.166 This could only be done, he argued, through an exhibition of skulls from all over the world, from which a racial taxonomy could be derived, that could

164 ibid.p.49. 165 See for example Mittheilungen (9) 1863. “Physisch-geographische Skizze der Provinz Chiriqui in Mittel-Amerika, mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der Fragen des inter-oceanischen Verkehrs und der Neger-Colonisation.”pp.288, 298-299. 166 Mittheilungen (9) 1863. “Über die Nothwendigkeit neuer Fundamente für die geographisch – historische Anthropologie” pp.161ff. Scientific Discourse 278 combat the false opinions of those who were not convinced by the science of racial analysis.

Es ist meine Ansicht, dass man zuerst über die Konstanz der Schädelformen und allenfallsige Abweichungen bei einer Reihe wirklich differenter und dabei möglichst wenig gemischter, geographisch abgegrenzter, unter heterogenen Klimaten lebender, theils nahe verbundener, theils weit von einander entfernt liegender Völkergruppen zu überzeugenden Resultaten komme, da es immer noch Männer, zum Theil gewiegte Anatomen, giebt, welche an der Existenz typischer Völkerschädel, selbst der grösseren Racentypen, zweifeln und noch heute der Meinung sind, welche genauere Kenner der ethnographischen Osteologie nicht theilen, dass bei allen Völkern alle möglichen Schädelformen vorkommen können… Ich wünschte daher je 100 oder nahezu so viele Schädel von Lappen und Eskimos… Chinesen und Hindus… Kaffern und Hottentotten mit Buschmännern… Neu-Holländern, Papuas und Pelagischen Negern… als als schwarzen schlichthaarigen, perückenhaarigen und kraushaarigen Völkern Australiens bei der ersten Austellung zu aufmerksamen Vergleichung und Messung dafür vereinigt zu sehen.167

As Andrew Zimmerman has argued, the perception of objectivity accompanying this analysis of racial types through the scrutiny of skulls was based upon the notion that these humans, as represented by their skeletal remains, were undergoing impartial study without reference to their culturally constructed subjectivity.168 In fact, the attributing of significance to supposedly determining physiological differences simply inscribed a culturally constructed and therefore inherently subjective racialist paradigm as a form of objective, eternally valid, scientific knowledge. As a means of presenting a hierarchic racial taxonomy as an objective truth obtained without reference to cultural variables, research such as that of Prof.

Wagner represented an attempt to explain Europe’s imperial ascendancy biologically, behind the guise of impartial science.

167 ibid.p.164. 168 A Zimmerman. Anthropology and Antihumanism.pp.86-87. Scientific Discourse 279

Clearly, the strain of maintaining the semblance of scientific impartiality was great, and from time to time it did slip, so as to allow comments such as the following, written in 1878 with reference to the ‘Bushmen’ of what would in six years become

German South-West Africa:

Wie diese elendesten der elenden Menschen ins Bereich der Mission und Civilisation kommen sollen, bleibt uns noch ein Räthsel. Sie leben so zerstreut und so unstät, sind so unzugänglich und thierisch stumpfsinnig, dass es fast nicht zu glauben ist.169

These complaints, it seems, were aimed not so much at their inaccessibility as objects of study, but rather at the hindrance that their forms of culture posed to the process of harnessing them as a servile workforce, fears which the author sought to mitigate with anecdotal evidence of the Bushmen being, if well handled,

“dienstfertig.”170

Whilst not an exhaustive study of the place of the extra-European world in Perthes’

Mittheilungen, the examples that have been presented offer an insight into the overwhelmingly positive presentation of expansionist endeavours in this pre- eminent geographical journal. Between 1855 and 1884, a period in which colonial imperialism as a discourse was supposed to be non-existent, the journal consistently presented Germans as not only competent global explorers and researchers, but as able and deserving settlers, traders and masters. With consistent reference to the role played by Germany and Germans in the ‘opening up’ of the hitherto unknown

169 Mittheilungen. (24) 1878. “Hereroland, Land und Leute.” p.309-310. 170 ibid.p.310. Scientific Discourse 280 and uncontrolled world by Europeans,171 Germany’s Bildungsbürgertum, through their wissenschaftlich cultural production, sought to bring the new German nation attention and respect abroad, whilst preparing the theoretical and scientific ground for imperialism domestically.172 With the sum total of much of the discussions within the journal being the portrait of the German people and the German nation as playing an important role in the discovery and conquering of designated colonial regions, ranging from South America to Africa, colonialism, it could be justifiably argued, figured in Perthes’ Mittheilungen as Germany’s national mission, its

Weltaufgabe.

171 See for example the discussion of the role of Heinrich Barth, Mittheilungen (11) 1865. “Dr Heinrich Barth” p.430. 172 ibid.p.431. Popular Culture 281

Chapter Seven:

Popular Culture and the Transmission of Imperialist Values – Die

Gartenlaube and Colonial Fiction.

Significantly, colonial imperialism was not merely the province of political pamphleteers or the practitioners of ‘high politics’ and the colonial project manifested itself in several arenas of popular culture, ranging from newspapers to novels. However, perhaps due to the very nature of these texts and their distance from high politics or official culture, this form of cultural production and transmission, signalling liberal German society’s willingness to participate in imperialist undertakings has been ignored or, at best, understated.

As with the scientific contents of Justus Perthes’ Mittheilungen, popular culture representations of the non-European world should be viewed as part of the overall system of imperial surveillance, ordering and domination of the colonised by the colonisers that has been theorised by Homi Bhabha.1 As informal, intimate texts, that both shaped and reflected the understanding of their consumers, magazines, novels and artworks offered up a portrait of the colonial periphery that simultaneously confirmed the impressionistic understanding of colonies by the

European reading public whilst informing and manipulating this understanding.

Popular culture offered a simplified and easily digestible form of colonial

1 H Bhabha. The Location of Culture. pp.70-71. Popular Culture 282

‘knowledge’ that could be called upon consciously or subconsciously as a portable tableau of distant lands and peoples, and how they should be best handled.

Foremost amongst these popular representations of alterity was that of the weekly periodical Die Gartenlaube, a magazine whose origins in the nationalist project of the German liberal middle classes of the 1840s continued to influence its editorial direction long after these conditions had receded and its readership had expanded.

As Kirsten Belgum has argued,2 Die Gartenlaube belonged to a liberal milieu that had been persecuted for its radicalism both prior to and after the 1848 uprising, and that despite this persecution maintained a commitment to the liberal principles of industrialisation, popular enlightenment and nation building. The periodical’s founder, Ernest Keil, had been imprisoned for nine months as a result of his publishing activities with such political and satirical periodicals as Laterne and

Leuchtthurm.3 From the environs of cell 74 in Hubertusburg Landesgefängnis, Keil had planned for the construction of Die Gartenlaube,4 as a new periodical that would distil the essence of liberal politics and culture and further the interests of

German liberals through the subtle but intensely personal medium of a seemingly apolitical family magazine.

Importantly, the magazine sought to further a liberal agenda from within the realms of the private sphere, illustrating a precocious understanding of the osmotic nature of the public and private sphere divide.

2 K Belgum. Popularizing the Nation: Audience, Representation, and the Production of Identity in Die Gartenlaube, 1853-1900. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, 1998. p.12ff. 3 M Zimmerman. Die Gartenlaube als Dokument ihrer Zeit. Heimeran Verlag, München, 1963.pp.9- 10. Ernst Keil was also a member of the liberal Nationalverein, attending their fourth General Assembly in his home city of Leipzig. See Chapter Four. 4 M Zimmerman. Die Gartenlaube als Dokument ihrer Zeit.p.10. Popular Culture 283

This penetration of the private sphere afforded Die Gartenlaube an enormous enunciative power, able, as it was, to speak directly to, and on behalf of, the

German liberal middle classes in a situation of pronounced intimacy. In aiming for the domestic sphere as its arena for national discussion and social debate, Die

Gartenlaube was able to situate the bourgeois family firstly as a legitimate space in which the processes of ideological conditioning and national consensus building could be carried out, and secondly as a familial and social model worthy of nation- wide emulation. As such, Die Gartenlaube was able to both reflect and construct the complexion and priorities of the ascendant German liberal middle classes, and thereby formulate a model of what the German nation should become.

This process of blending a normative liberal social, political and familial model in order to further liberalism as a discourse of national identity has also been discussed by Belgum, who points out that Die Gartenlaube addressed its readership as a set of private citizens at ease in their private homes, surrounded by family.5 Ironically, whilst constructed as an individuated private citizen, as opposed to as a part of a broader social class or identifiable social segment, such an individual was in itself an ideological construct, and a product of a bürgerliche Gesellschaft, mirroring the individualistic, liberal cultural values that the magazine espoused. As Thomas

Nipperdey has pointed out, such illustrated newspapers served a broad ideological

5 K Belgum. Popularizing the Nation. p.15. “The magazine’s ability to define a national identity in late-nineteenth-century Germany was directly related to its familial appeal...The Gartenlaube continued to identify the mass readership it gained during its first two decades as a nation living within the private space of home and family.” Popular Culture 284 function in Germany, as an embodiment of liberal values and as a form of liberal politico-cultural engagement in and with the German nation:

Diese neuen Zeitschriften waren unterhaltend, literarisch, informativ – über Natur, fremde Länder, Geschichte – gemütvoll und keineswegs unpolitisch, sondern vor allem liberal und national und integrativ, wenn auch harmonisierend und ein wenig idyllisch und sentimental…6

Interspersed amidst the homely advice, serialised stories and pictorial reproductions that comprised much of the magazine was a fair degree of content that reflected the more political and material interests of its liberal readership, ranging from the support for the industrialisation process, the foregrounding of Germany as a sea- going nation, the approval of the nation’s foreign policy and the promotion of national monuments as a means of instilling a national spirit. 7 Linked to this broadly political content in what was ostensibly an apolitical domestic periodical was the magazine’s coverage of imperialist activity, both foreign and German.

In bridging the space between the public and the domestic, Die Gartenlaube did not hold itself back from politically contentious issues, but rather framed them in such a manner as to conceal or remove the controversial or polemic nature of any commentary. Exemplifying this is the example given by Belgum, whereby the still controversial issue of modernisation was discussed very much to the advantage of

Germany’s actively modernising through the personification and humanising of the subject via a focus upon ‘heroic’ individuals, whose industrial successes or

6 T Nipperdey. Deutsche Geschichte 1800-1866: Bürgerwelt und starker Staat. (3.Aufl.) München, CH Beck, 1985.p.593. Quoted in D Bendocchi Alves. Das Brasilienbild der deutschen Auswanderungswerbung im 19. Jahrhundert.p.90. 7 K Belgum. Popularizing the Nation. especially Ch. 3 & 4. Popular Culture 285 innovations were synecdochically translated into narratives of national success.8

Thus, Alfred Krupp was transformed from “an aggressive industrialist who cared little for national boundaries” into a misunderstood and overlooked patriot who had suffered on behalf of the national ideal.9 A further means of this sympathetic framing of controversial issues was the use of exculpatory footnotes at the base of more politically charged articles, explaining that the issue was merely ‘topical’ rather than party political, and therefore deserving of their readers’ attention.10 An attempt at maintaining the magazine’s apolitical stance, these footnotes in fact tended to signal that something of a politically controversial nature had been published.

Although Belgum has correctly identified this process of humanising unpalatable political realities so as to further the normalisation of liberal discourse as a discourse of national unity, it appears that the same process in terms of colonial and imperialist matters has escaped her notice. Belgum has asserted that, “The fact that the magazine began reporting on German colonialism after it was already a reality stood in stark contrast to its reporting on other nationalist causes.”11 Yet this same process of humanisation and exemplification was clearly evident in the reporting of imperialist issues prior to 1884. That is, just as other liberal causes had been personalised in order to make them more politically palatable, so too imperialism was explained metonymically through the exploits of representative individuals and positive case studies of imperialism in action. Clearly, the magazine was unable to

8 ibid. Ch.3 9 ibid.pp.81-82. 10 See for example “Die letzten Tage der deutschen Flotten” DG. No.42, 1855.p.560. 11 K Belgum. Popularizing the Nation.p.151. Popular Culture 286 report on official, statist German colonies prior to their existence, however the magazine carried throughout the pre-colonial era a firm commitment to Deutschtum abroad, both in the private-sector colonies of Germany and in the colonies of other

European powers.

To illustrate this, a description of the forms that the discussion of imperialism in

Die Gartenlaube took is perhaps warranted. A detailed study of the entire corpus of the magazine lies well outside the scope of this study, however, even a brief survey of the years prior to Germany’s adoption of a policy of active overseas imperialism will suffice for the delineation of the modes of reportage employed for the favourable depiction of an expansionist Germany.

These modes of reporting, used by Die Gartenlaube to examine German foreign affairs and events abroad concerning Germany, can be usefully divided into five different categories, each of which reveals the magazine’s support for, and shaping of, public opinion in favour of an imperialist German nation, within the limitations of an ostensibly apolitical magazine. Through each of these modes, concepts of

German national identity were discussed, delineated and manipulated within the context of a presentation of the encounters and interaction of Germans and the

German nation with the external world.

The first, and by far the most prevalent, of these was the reporting on the lives and successes of German communities in the colonies of other powers, most notably in

North and South America. Often such reports held out the hope that a degree of autonomy would be afforded to these communities, or in the absence of such hope, Popular Culture 287 the emphasis would be on the self-reliance and self-help ethic of these communities, as well as the broad acknowledgement and fame they had won in their adopted homes. With their success, the magazine argued, the high esteem in which Germans as colonists were held was assured. Importantly, and often remarked upon, these settlements were portrayed as free from the particularism that seemed to plague the

Germans within Europe.

In reporting on the experiences of German settler communities abroad, Die

Gartenlaube sought to highlight the ways in which these communities represented a successful German colonialism in the absence of a centralised, governmental

German colonial policy. From its first issue in 1853, Die Gartenlaube narrated a form of national identity, as shaped through the encounters of German settlers with alterity. German colonists were constructed as models for cultural and political advancement in Germany itself, offering examples of how settlers were able to define themselves in terms of a German nationality free of domestic Kleinstaaterei, in the absence of any social or political impediments such as particularism or confessionalism. In terms of their ability to enact or perform as cohesive proto- national entities, German communities living together in foreign settlements were situated by Die Gartenlaube as exemplifying the possibility of enacting a national act of forgetting internal differences that, as Bhabha has argued, is central to the construction and narration of a totalising national identity within a nation-state incorporating historically distinct and divergent forms of socio-cultural identity and political practice.12

12 H Bhabha. “DissemiNation: Time, Narrative and the Margins of the Modern Nation” in H Bhabha (ed). Nation and Narration, Routledge, London, 1990.p.310. Popular Culture 288

Beginning with the first issue in 1853, Germans in North America in particular were posited as independent, intelligent, honest and competent, in comparison with other settler groups, 13 with their competence ensuring that “Deutschland ist durch diese sehr in der Achtung gestiegen.” Rhetorically positioned as Germans by nationality, politically these emigrants belonged to the “Free States” of America, an oblique criticism of the illiberality of Germany’s domestic political setting14 in the post-1848 era. However, even as free settlers, they were nonetheless German settlers and with them were invested the national hopes and imperialist dreams of

Germany’s liberal middle classes. As the work of Stefan von Senger und Etterlin has amply demonstrated, (and Johann Tellkampf of the Frankfurt

Nationalversammlung had hoped15), German liberals actively sought throughout the mid-nineteenth century to establish a ‘New Germany’ in North, and then later as the consequences of the Monroe Doctrine slowly permeated German political consciousness, South America.16

This depiction of German settlers abroad, on the one hand winning Germany international recognition, and on the other enjoying political freedoms unavailable in Germany itself, continued as a means of supporting a liberal German nationalism based on its reported successes overseas. Hence, by 1856 this had neatly solidified into a picture of German settlers, forgetting their “Kleinstaaterei,” creating strong

13 For a comprehensive list of Gartenlaube articles dealing with America between 1871 and 1913, see. U Janeck. Zwischen Gartenlaube und Karl May. Deutsche Amerikarezeption in den Jahren 1871-1913. Shaker Verlag, Aachen, 2003.pp.373ff. 14 “Der Deutsche in Amerika” DG.No.1, 1853.p.6. 15 See Chapter One. 16 S v.Senger und Etterlin. Neu-Deutschland in Nordamerika. passim. For a concise statement of his thesis, see pp.2-3. Popular Culture 289 communities and learning to exercise their new political freedoms. In case anyone had missed the metaphorical transplantation of liberal hopes for the German nation to the American continent, one article’s author added “In Amerika wird das

Germanenthum seine Mission am ersten erfüllen.”17 Similar were reports of the

“zweites, aber glückliches, freies Mecklenburg” established on land that twenty years early had been dotted with the “Wigwam des rothen Sohnes der Wälder,”18 a colony that allowed the “biedere deutsche Seele” to breathe in “die Luft der

Freiheit.”19

According with this notion of Germans in America enacting a liberal Germany abroad, the report on the opening of Baltimore’s Concordia House in 1866 was rendered as the dedication of a monument to German unity, energy and freedom, in which the writer addressed an audience in Germany via Baltimore, in terms that would have been approved of by the Nationalverein:

Und dieses Denkmal ist nicht allein gebaut für uns in Baltimore. Es ist erricht worden zu Ehren aller Deutschen in Amerika. Könnte ich doch auch meinem alten Vaterlande heute die Worte zurufen: ,Einigkeit macht stark’. Möchten meine Worte wiederhallen in den Gauen Deutschlands, daß der Einigkeit auch die Freiheit auf dem Fuße folgt.20

However, it was not merely North America that was offered as an ersatz liberal

Germany to the readership of Die Gartenlaube, particularly with the increase in emigration from Germany to South America in the 1860’s. The parameters of discussion were similar, with events abroad commented upon and then used to comment on German national identity, how this identity was perceived by Germans

17 “Die Deutschen in Amerika” DG.No.8, 1856.pp.109-111. 18 “Ein mecklenburgische Colonie in Nordamerika” DG. No.9, 1861.pp.140. 19 ibid.p.139. 20 “Ein Denkmal deutscher Eintracht in der Fremde” DG. No.5. 1866.pp.76-78. Popular Culture 290 in the colonies and what lessons this held for the emerging German state. Thus, at the end of a fairly mundane report of the mercantile importance of various South

American port towns, a fairly blunt message from ‘Germans living abroad’ was sent to the magazine’s domestic readership:

…sie kennen keinen Particularismus – sie wollen ein einiges, großes, deutsches Vaterland und begrußen mit Jubel jede Nachricht von daheim, die ihnen kündet, daß der norddeutsche – hoffentlich bald der deutsche – Bund wächst und sich kräftigt. Sie wissen am besten, daß nur dann unser Volk, unser Name auch im Ausland geachtet sein kann, wenn wir fest vereinigt stehen und dadurch den Rang unter den Nationen einnehmen, der uns gebührt.21

This appeal, ostensibly from the colonies, for national unity on the basis of

Germany’s international standing, explicitly supporting the Norddeutsche Bund, illustrates how Die Gartenlaube attempted to use the concept of ‘Deutschtum abroad’ as a means of furthering the domestic political agenda of German liberals.

Energetic Germans in the colonies and in trading ports, it was implied, could show the sluggish Vaterland the way out of the post-revolutionary, pre-unification national impasse.

Descriptions of German settlements abroad were also used to sustain liberal hopes of future imperial possessions, imaginatively transforming foreign lands into

German realms, either through the use of linguistic sleights of hand such as “New

York ist die drittgrößte deutsche Stadt der Welt, soweit die Größe nach der

Einwohnerschaft bemessen wird…”22 or through the explicit entertaining of imperialist fantasies, as revealed in Die Gartenlaube’s plans for the United States,

21 “Eine südamerikanische Hauptstadt” DG.No.40. 1868.p.636. 22 “Das Thor Amerika’s” DG. No.31, 1866.p.477. Popular Culture 291 which call to mind Tellkampf’s notion of an American ersatz colony, discussed in the Frankfurt Nationalversammlung:

In der Vereinigten Staaten von Nordamerika macht das deutsche Element nicht blos einen numerisch sehr bedeutenden Bruchteil der Bevölkerung aus, sondern hat sich auch staatlich allmählich zu einem solchen Einflusse aufgeschwungen, daß es wohl als keine illusorische Hoffnung erscheint, wenn man den Deutschen die Zukunft der großen transatlantischen Republik vindicirt.23

South America figured similarly in such plans, with a (London based) German plan for the “Eroberung eines ganzen Landes, daß größer als ganz Deutschland ist” with the aim of establishing a ‘New Germany’ - “In der That ist die Absicht (wie ich unter dem Siegel der Verschwiegenheit mittheile), Ecuador zu einem neuen

Deutschland zu machen.” The plan was introduced as the latest in a series of efforts that saw, in the eye of Die Gartenlaube the (yet to exist) German nation as “das eroberndste Volk.”24

Of course it should be pointed out that this reporting on Deutschtum abroad also encompassed articles dealing with the issue of ‘white slavery,’ in terms reminiscent of Johann Sturz’s and Samuel Kerst’s opposition to Brazil as a colonial destination.

In these articles, it was described how unwitting Germans had taken out contracts with transport firms, agreeing to be taken to the colonies for free, in exchange for bonded labour there - labour that did not enable them to ever pay off their debt,

23 “Eine deutsche Colonie in Neuschottland” DG. No.51, 1869.p.809. 24 “Neu-Deutschland unter dem Aequator.” DG. No.52, 1859.pp.763-764. The introduction continues, making a virtue out of necessity, “Keine Nation, keine Regierung der Welt kann sich so vieler festen und sichern, gedeihenden und vergrößerden Colonien rühmen, als Deutschland. Daß sie von Mutter-und Vaterländern zu Hause nicht ,beschützt’ werden ist just ihre Kraft und Bedeutung.” Popular Culture 292 leaving the emigrants in a state of ‘weiße Niggerei”25. However, far from dampening the magazine’s enthusiasm for Germans who had emigrated, it led to calls for an interventionist government policy ensuring adequate protection for these emigrants, as well as general warnings against having dealings with reputedly unscrupulous firms.26

Such concerns notwithstanding, this first mode of reportage, the celebration of the

German communities who had established themselves overseas, was a means by which Die Gartenlaube offered a view, not only of Germans flourishing overseas in a way that would make the notion of a centralised project of German colonialism seem more viable, but also of an idealised liberal German nation, as defined through its ventures and presence abroad, a nation imagined and narrated by Die

Gartenlaube from within Germany as if from an external, colonial Archimedean point, ostensibly free from the parochial concerns of the Vaterland.

As a form of popular anthropology, in its second mode of reportage, Die

Gartenlaube offered in often incidental descriptive passages, or more tellingly as part of an overview of the fauna and flora of a foreign land, descriptive renderings of exotic landscapes, fauna and flora that included pseudo-scientific classifications of the indigenous populations of the lands they reported on. As Bhabha has pointed out, such descriptions in European texts had the effect of producing forms of knowledge about subject peoples that could be instrumentalised in the project of

25 “Rettung vor Seelenhandel” DG, No.25, 1869, frontispiece. 26 “Vorsicht vor amerikanischen Landagenten!” DG. No.36.1873.p.589. “Die Einwanderungs- oder Transportgesellscahften” DG. No.4.1853.p.41. “Deutsche Colonisation in Brasilien” DG No.29.1862. pp.454ff, “Deutscher Kuli-Handel” DG. No22.1874.p.358. Popular Culture 293 rule, construing “the colonised as a population of degenerate types on the basis of racial origin, in order to justify conquest and to establish systems of administration and instruction.”27

Far from clinical, empirical observations, these descriptions were often cast in moral terms, according to the indigenous peoples’ degree of docility and predisposition towards the labour tasks assigned to them by Europeans. Often, racial hierarchies were expressly presented as an invitation for German involvement in the imperialist project, such as in the 1853 report of life in Nicaragua, in which a three tiered system was described, comprising of Spanish rulers, a German and

Spanish middle class and an indigenous lower class, where “Die erste Klass der

Bevölkerung hier regiert und thut nichts, die zweite hilft regieren und thut auch nichts, die dritte nur läßt sich regieren und besorgt das Bißchen Arbeit sehr heiter, fleißig und treu.” Understandably, from the German settler’s point of view, this social hierarchy bore all the hallmarks of a paradise, in which the aristocracy of race overcame the increasing social stratification experienced in the early stages of the industrialisation of the Vaterland.28

It is worth pointing out that such racialising tendencies were, although overwhelmingly in the majority, not monolithic. As such, the article “Civilisation und Wildniß” by the famous travel novelist Friedrich Gerstäcker problematised the binary opposition of the title’s two terms, offering something approaching a critique of racialised, Eurocentric thinking: “Darum dürfen wir nicht die Wildniß nicht

27 H Bhabha. The Location of Culture. Routledge, London, 1994.p.70. 28 “Das Paradies in Central-Amerika” DG.No.36, 1853.p.389. For racial hierarchy see also. No.26, 1854.p.307. Popular Culture 294 verachten, ihre Bewohner nicht Heiden und Cannibalen schimpfen und selber thun als ob wir etwas ganz Besonderes wären.” However, this critique appears to have been one of only two such critiques in Die Gartenlaube during the period 1853-

1884,29 and Gerstäcker’s article called not for an end to colonial imperialism, but to the dubious moralising that surrounded it. At the end of this apparent critique, a reluctant return to a theory of the inexorable logic of the genocidal implications of

European imperialist progress was made, with Gerstäcker positioning the

‘extinction’ of native populations as the inevitable consequence of a natural law:

Nichtsdestoweniger wird und muß, in nothwendiger Folgerung, die Civilisation mehr und mehr um sich greifen und nach und nach den ganzen Erdball bewältigen… der Indianer wird aussterben, wie jene Thierkolosse ausgestorben sind…Das alles wird geschehen, und zwar in einer unverkennbaren Nothwendigkeit, dem wachsenden Menschengeschlecht Raum, seinen Körper zu erhalten – Raum für seine strebsame Thatigkeit zu geben, und der eben, der den Raum zu vergeben hat – der Indianer – fällt zum Opfer...30

Racial hierarchies were common within the reports of the Die Gartenlaube, and were often little more than thumb-nail sketches of the population of a place, seen for example in sweeping statements such as “Die Fellatahs sind Muhamedaner und von einer viel nobleren, schönen (berberischen) Race, als die Neger in andern

Staaten,”31 “die schwarzen Kinder Afrika’s bringen Tausenden von Arbeitern in

Europa direkt Brot”32 or “die Neger Ost-Afrika’s sind das Abbild ihrer Heimath,

üppig und deshalb faul und wenig geneigt, mehr zu erwerben, als sie zur Füllung ihres Magens von Tag zu Tag bedürfen.”33 However, often the language of science

29 For the other, see below. 30 “Civilisation und Wildniß” DG.No.17.1855.pp.224-25. 31 “Der entdeckte Schlüssel zum Herzen Afrika’s” DG. No.41. 1856.p.557. 32 ibid.p.556. 33 “Die Jagd auf Flußpferde” DG. No.43, 1874.p.698. Popular Culture 295 and culture was used to support the Europeans’ imperialist claims, as with the following, in which the lack of culture of the indigenous population was juxtaposed quite neatly against a convenient quotation from Goethe, thereby shoring up the

European claims to cultural superiority:

Der natürliche, unkultivierte Mensch ist und bleibt Produkt des Bodens,… Produkt des Klimas, der Bodenformation und der Landschaftlichkeit. Selbst der gebildete Mensch bedarf einer bedeutenden moralischen Kraft, um dieser Abhängigkeit Herr zu werden. ,,Niemand wandelt ungestraft unter Palmen,” sagte Goethe.34

Similarly drawing on the ideas of European culture, this time scientific notions of evolution, was an article in the form of a published letter from Australia. Referring to a photograph accompanying the article, in which the man of culture sat with a controlling hand on the shoulder of the subdued native,35 the writer spoke of an

Australian Aborigine in the following terms:

Der Korbträger ist von mir und meiner Frau nur als der ,Uebergang’ bezeichnet, denn denkt man sich ihn zwischen einen ausgewachsenen Chimpanse und den eigentlichen homo sapiens…36

Other articles simply added caricatured illustrations to complement their racial theoretics, illustrations that focused on the grotesque and the animalistic.37

Counterpoised against this classification of indigenous peoples was the third mode of reportage, the tales of Germany’s heroic individuals abroad, its explorers, soldiers, surveyors, traders and even missionaries, who were actively engaged in the project of ‘opening up’ new lands for German advantage. It is here where Belgum’s

34 “Die deutschen Fremdenlegion und das Kap der guten Hoffnung.” DG. No.3, 1857.p.41. 35 See Figure 7.1 below. 36 “Ein deutscher Gruß von Australien her” DG. No.44. 1868. p.700. 37 This is evident in the article “Die Azteken, der Buschmann und die Corana.” DG. No.12, 1856, p.156-158. See figures 7.2 - 7.4 below. Popular Culture 296 useful notion that Die Gartenlaube used individuals synecdochically to represent a favoured social, cultural and/or material process can be seen as having operated, as the magazine’s editorial position cast those involved in imperialist exploration, and then later exploitation, in the most favourable of lights, as the heroic representatives of a unified, unproblematic German national character, enacting a national destiny in the wider world.

Figure 7.1 Die Gartenlaube No.44. 1868. p.700

Foremost amongst these national heroes was Dr Heinrich Barth, who was lauded throughout the decades for his pioneering work in ‘opening up’ Africa. “Durch ihn einen Helden,” proclaimed Die Gartenlaube, “…ist Afrika aufgeschlossen und ein großer, ebener Weg bis mitten in die Geheimnisse des Innern entdeckt worden.”38

38 “Der entdeckte Schlüssel zum Herzen Afrika’s” DG. No. 41, 1856.p.556. See also p.559. Popular Culture 297

Barth, who explicitly positioned his own work as a contribution to the processes of

European expansionism in Africa,39 served as a model for those Germans who sought to expand the trading capacity of the German nation via the establishment of trade routes and trading colonies around the world. These individuals were viewed as strengthening Germany’s position in global trade, and furthering the nation’s reputation as a liberal, mercantile power.40 The assumptions of such activity were explained in manifestly enlightenment terms – “Mit Handel und Wandel, Austausch und weißem Verkehr kommt die Kultur, die friedliche Beschäftigung und die

Humanität…” Accompanying such claims, however, was the assumption that what had to be found was a way that Europeans could better “use” the indigenous population.41

39 H Barth. Travels and Discoveries.p.xxxii. 40 Other individuals lauded by Die Gartenlaube included Theodor v. Heuglin (No.5, 1862, p.72), Paul Büßfeldt (No.38, 1874. p.613, Eduard & Theodor Vogel (No.40, 1875.p.679), C Wölber (No.4, 1878.p.64), Henry Stanley (No.7, 1878.p.113.), and of course the non-German but nonetheless ‘heroic’ Dr Livingstone, whose spirit was invoked in not a few of Die Gartenlaube’s articles on imperialist exploration. (eg. No.27, 1878.p.443). 41 ibid.p.558. Popular Culture 298

Figure 7.2. Die Gartenlaube No.12, 1856,p.156-158

Fig. 7.3. Die Gartenlaube No.12, 1856,p.156-158

Fig. 7.4. Die Gartenlaube. No.12, 1856,p.156-158

This rhetorical appeal to the tropes of scientific enlightenment and the production of utilitarian imperialist knowledge of colonised lands and peoples, as both a grounds Popular Culture 299 for German exploration and as a means of expressing Germany’s cultural superiority, was expressed repeatedly in the years between 1849 and 1884, lionising

German explorers as heroes of German science, supported by the entire nation:

Eine begeisternde Bewegung ging durch das deutsche Land… Das deutsche Volk wollte der Welt beweisen, daß es Wohl das Eine zu würdigen weiß, durch welches es herrscht unter den gesitteten und gebildeten Menschen der Erde: - die deutsche Wissenschaft!42

Die deutsche Expedition ist eine deutsche Sache; sie wird ein Sieg mehr fein auf dem Felde, wo wir noch nie geschlagen wurden; sie wird dazu beitragen, dem deutschen Namen im Auslande zu neuer Ehre und zu neuem Ruhme zu verhelfen.43

It should be understood that such projects were not merely reported on, but also supported by Die Gartenlaube, with for example one article on an expedition to

Africa accompanied by details and prices for membership in the Afrikanische

Gesellschaft. In the article itself, apart from the customary personification of

German imperial success in the figure of the expedition’s leadership team, the expedition was reported as being purely scientific in nature. However, it was also admitted that such geographical studies, presented as national triumphs, also served an economic end, funded predominantly by donations from the internationally active mercantile middle classes, who stood to gain from such ventures. 44 The values, priorities and interests of Germany’s liberal traders were universalised, or at least nationalised through their representation in Die Gartenlaube, which became

42 “Die deutsche Expedition nach Mittelafrika und ihre Gegner” DG. No.5, 1862.p.72. In this article, the position of an expedition leader, v. Heuglin, had come under attack by no lesser figure than the great Barth himself. This article sought to both support v. Heuglin while seeking not to undermine Barth. 43 ibid.p.74. 44 “Die Afrikanische Gesellschaft und die deutsche Expedition nach Loangoküste” DG. No.38. 1874.p.613. “Die von der Geographie eingeleiteten Entdeckungsreisen kommen oftmals weniger ihr selbst als den verwandten Wissenschaften, dem Handel und schließlich der Menschheit zu Gute.” For the expedition’s funding, see p.614. See also DG No.7, 1883.p.116. Popular Culture 300 part of a network of liberal cultural and political institutions that assisted in preparing the German nation for overseas expansion and dominance. Indeed, in more honest articles, the interests of the German liberal traders who stood behind the façade of the ‘heroic’ individuals, and their connections to and interests in imperialist activity, were more thoroughly spelt out.45

In a fourth mode of reportage, Die Gartenlaube enacted a vicarious imperialism through the empires of other European nations, scrutinising elements of their rule, as well as the material and cultural benefits they were said to bring. Sometimes critical, particularly when Germany’s interests abroad were seen as running contrary to those of other nations, these reports generally offered a positive appraisal of both how events in the colonies were handled and of the benefits of colonialism. In these articles, the cultural norms of imperialism were transmitted to

Germany, including its racialising tendencies - most tellingly in the reproduction of the notion that indigenous populations were destined to become a source of labour for Europe, or, as was often reported, were simply going to ‘die out’ or be

‘necessarily’ exterminated.

In an 1855 report on the Dutch and English in South Africa, the necessity of exterminating an entire indigenous community was explained. In this early report, the English were seen as partially to blame for this ‘necessity’:

45 “Die weißen Flecken unserer Landkarten” DG. No.28, 1875.p.478. See below. See also “Die Vorgänge in China” DG. No.27. 1853.pp.288-292, “Handelsstationen in Westafrika” DG. No.4, 1878.p.64. Popular Culture 301

Hätten die Engländer nur immer ehrlich gegen die Kaffern gehandelt… wäre die Eroberung des Kaffernlandes für die Kultur wohl schon vollendet. Aber sie haben diese Wilden verwildert, die Barbaren zu Raubthieren gemacht… Aus Rohmaterial läßt sich etwas machen, aus verdorbenem nicht.46

Faulty logic regarding the nature of indigenous resistance aside, what is striking here is the acceptance of the notion that as ‘spoilt’ peoples, Africans necessarily required destroying – an idea reported in the English press and reproduced in Die

Gartenlaube:

Die Kaffern müßten aus demselben Grunden ausgerotten werden, aus welchem man Heuschrecken, Wanzen, Flöhe und Wölfe im Interesse der allgemein Wohlfahrt vertilge. 47

If this article expressed a certain ambivalence about the genocidal consequences of imperialism, the harsh realities, the “Schändlichkeit,” of imperialism were, on occasion spelt out and criticised:

Wo die Weiße auftritt, da kommt sie als Herrscherin über Alles, was nicht ihres Gleichen ist, da macht sie die Eigenthümer des Bodens zu ihren Abhängigen und Sclaven, und was ihr feindlich gegenüber tritt, was ihren Geboten sich nicht fügen will, das zertritt und vernichtet sie. Denn es ist die Bestimmung der weißen Race, die Erde zu erobern und das Panier der Cultur durch alle Länder zu tragen; und ob ihre Siege auch durch den Untergang ganzer Völkerschaften bezeichnet würden, sie muß ihre Aufgabe erfüllen, und was vom Menschengeschlechte nicht gleich mit ihr culturfähig ist, hat auch kein Recht, als Gleiches neben ihr zu bestehen.48

Nevertheless, attitudes towards indigenous populations and native insurgency were generally harder, with theories of inevitable decline and disappearance more

46 “Die Transvaal-Republik im Kafferlande” DG. No.32, 1855.p.425. 47 ibid.p.425. See also “Die deutsche Fremdlegion und das Kap der guten Hoffnung”. DG. No.3, 1857.p.41. 48 “Die nordamerikanischen Indianer der Jetztzeit.” DG. No.9, 1862.p.132. Popular Culture 302 prevalent, as the bringing of culture, the teaching of “eine neue Weltordnung”49 as the European mission was seen, as a process complementing the patient (and sometimes impatient) wait for the inevitable Untergang of indigenous peoples. For the indigenous peoples of North America, it was declared in 1874: “Unaufhaltsam rücken die Indianer Amerikas dem Untergange näher”50 Similarly, in South

America, the concern was whether ethnographers would have the requisite time to study properly the “austerbenden Urbevölkerung,” the “erlöschende Race der rothhäutigen Ureinwohner.”51 In Australia, came the matter-of-fact report of frontier conflicts, “die erst mit dem Austerben der Eingeborenen endigen werden.”52

Regarding the seemingly chaotic conditions of the African coast that had interrupted a German expedition, it was declared that these conditions would persist

“so lange nicht jeder schlechten That der Eingeborenen die Strafe auf dem Fuße folgt, und das kann erst geschehen, wenn dieser wichtige Küstenstrich nicht mehr herrenlos ist.” That German explorers themselves intended to return in numbers to provide the necessary firm punishment was hinted at in an extensive footnote to the article.53

Signalling a further hardening of opinion on the question of colonial justice was an

1876 report on skirmishes with indigenous Americans, which ended with the stark

49 “Bilder aus dem Stillen Ocean” No.42. 1881.p.700. 50 “Von der ,rothen Teufeln’” DG. No.47. 1874.p.754. The article ends with a dismissal of ‘Romantic’ ideas about their preservation. See p.757. 51 “Die weißen Flecken unserer Landkarten” DG. No.28, 1875.p.478. 52 “Australien und die Weltaustellung in Sydney” DG. No.21, 1879.p.353. 53 “Die deutsche Loango-Expedition im Kriege” DG. No.21, 1876.p.348. Popular Culture 303 and unwittingly ironic proposition of the necessity of a war of genocide to ensure the lawful and peaceful nature of America:

Möchte es doch eine der ersten Arbeiten der Republik im zweiten Jahrhundert ihrer Existenz sein, das Land von der Indianerpest zu reinigen, die schon so viele Millionen verschlungen und so viele Tausende kostbarer Menschenleben zum Opfer gefordert hat! Denn erst wenn dies geschehen, wird es dem Pionier des Westens möglich sein, in Ruhe und Sicherheit unter dem Schutze der Gesetze der Republik zu Leben.54

Such sentiments, in the context of a family-oriented family magazine, represent an acceptance of the notion of imperialism as conquest underwritten by permissible lethal violence, rightfully unleashed if peaceful means of dispossession had been exhausted. Such ‘violence of the last resort,’ as discussed and at times tacitly, at times overtly, approved by Die Gartenlaube, reveals the latently genocidal potential of the forms of imperialism German liberals supported. With the furthering of the liberal commitment to imperialism came an investigation of, and ultimately, support for the violence necessitated by the processes of imperialism. As the pro-colonial propagandist Ernst v. Weber wrote in a Gartenlaube article about the Zulus, colonial powers should first attempt peaceful means of pacification and dispossession, however, should they prove unsuccessful, then violence was an acceptable means of ensuring the colonies were properly subdued, until such time as a reversion to the normal modes of domination was possible:

Die unkluge Verhätschelung der schwarzen Race, worunter die weißen Colonisten bisher so schwer zu leiden hatten, wird einer strengen Zucht, einer systematischen Erziehung weichen müssen, die allein im Stande sind, aus einem wilden Naturvolke allmählich ein civilisirtes zu machen…. Den wahren Interessen der Schwarzen selbst würde eine solche Aenderung der Regierungspolitik nur wohlthätig sein. Und sollte eine solche Frucht aus dem gegenwärtigen blutigen Kriegen entsprießen, so ware das viele Blut wenigstens nicht umsonst geflossen.55

54 “Neue Indianerkämpfe” No.33, 1876.p.552. 55 “Die Zulus und der drohende Racenkrieg in Süafrika” DG. No.12, 1879.p.208. Popular Culture 304

Political developments within German speaking lands in Europe, in relation to their commercial, naval and colonial policies were reported on in the fifth mode of reportage in Die Gartenlaube related to Deutschtum abroad. Whether in the shape of potted histories of government policy, or support for new government ventures that sought to expand Germany’s engagement with the wider world, these reports were overwhelmingly in favour of Germany becoming a maritime power with a colonial capacity.

Marking many of these reports was a nostalgia for the German naval fleet that had been the product of the 1848/9 Frankfurt Nationalversammlung. However, this fond commemoration was more than mere nostalgia, in that while the articles themselves focused on details from the past, their subtext was firmly directed towards future directions. Nostalgia, far from being an end in itself, was strategically used to exhort Germany’s liberal middle classes to support any future or current national naval programmes, such as that instigated by the Nationalverein.

Reportage in Die Gartenlaube on the past German fleet conformed to the same rhetorical conditions as those that had marked the discussion on the fleet in 1848/9.

A fleet was a symbol of national unity and the dedication of national energies in the prosecution of an active foreign policy. It was above all a symbol of national unity and progress. In 1857, Die Gartenlaube reminded its audience of the immense symbolic importance of a naval fleet as a signifier of liberal nationhood, stressing Popular Culture 305 the intense popular support for the fleet.56 Recounted were the replacing of the

Hamburg flag with the German flag, the renaming of the vessel donated by

Godeffroy the “Deutschland,” the oaths of allegiance sworn to a united Germany – all details so moving that the writer was still unable to think about it without the tears welling in his eyes.57 Cheers had been raised in those times, announcing “Es gibt nun ein Deutschland! Das deutsche Volk hat ein Vaterland! Es ist gerüstet und bewehrt zu Land und zu Meer!” Toasts “auf die erste deutsche Seeschlacht” had also been made.58

Such politically charged remembrances also appeared in 1859, with the central importance of a German merchant and naval fleet underscored. Sea trade, the article argued was the most important part of Germany’s past and future industrial progress, while German naval power was seen not only as the protector of German industry abroad, but also as the “Unterpfand einer deutschen Einigkeit.”59 The disappointment of the demobilisation of the German naval fleet was seen as being a temporary state of affairs, with the desire for German sea power continuing unabated:

Doch der einmal angeregte Gedanke an eine Geltung Deutschlands zur See ist im Volke wach geblieben und die lebhafte Theilnahme, mit der es die Entwicklung der österreichischen und der jungen preußischen Marine verfolgt, zeigt, daß es von ihr die Bewirklichung des nationalen Wunsches erwartet, eine Hoffnung, die allem Anscheine nach nicht zu Schanden werden wird.60

56 “Erinnerungen von der deutschen Flotte.” DG, No.1, 1857.p.9. See also “Die letzten Tage der deutschen Flotte” DG. No.42. 1855. esp.p.562. 57 “Erinnerung von der deutschen Flotte”.p.9. 58 ibid.p.10. 59 “Bilder aus dem Seeleben” DG. No.4, 1859.p.53-4. 60 ibid.p.54. Popular Culture 306

Such pro-naval sentiments only strengthened in the ensuing years, as the naval campaign of the Nationalverein got underway, with an 1861 article arguing that the

“schmähliche Ende” to Germany’s first attempts at establishing a naval fleet had only served to strengthen support for a German fleet, this time stemming from the

Prussian fleet.61 Far from the subtlety that more usually characterised political pronouncements in the magazine, the conclusion to this article clearly spelt out a liberal position on the interconnectedness between Germany’s global mercantile aspirations, the naval fleet and German unity, as well as Prussia’s role as the link between the two:

Daß die Gabe von Deutschland kommt, daß die preußischen Staatsangehörigen im Nationalverein selbst, als Deutsche, ihre Beisteuern mit denen ihrer andern deutschen Stammesbrüder einigen und sie mit als Gabe des großen Gesammtvaterlandes der eignen Regierung zufließen lassen, muß diese unausbleiblich an das letzte Ziel mahnen, dem es gilt, in welchem die deutsche Flotte, wie alles Heil für uns, eingeschlossen ist, -an die Einigung Deutschlands, deren Erkämpfung Preußen durch seinen geschichtlichen Beruf und seine Machtstellung sich selbst und dem deutschen Volk schuldet… …die preußische Ehre haftet fortan als Pfand für die Wiedereinlösung der Ehre und Macht des deutsche Vaterlandes. Wir hoffen zu Gott, daß wir dieses Mal nicht wieder betrogen werden! 62

Germany’s naval and imperial aspirations were also revealed through the poetry of

Die Gartenlaube, with three poems by Albert Traeger published in 1861,1863 and

1865 concentrating on German unity, as manifest in its military and navy. The first,

“Zur deutschen Flotte,” rather prosaically demanded that “German taxes” be used to establish a German fleet, which, once again operating as a symbol of German unification, could ensure Germany’s international position and internal unity:

Der Hauch der Einheit soll die Segel blähen: Die deutsche Flotte sei in stolzer Wehre Ein einig Deutschland auf dem weiten Meere!

61 “Die deutsche Flottenmacht” DG. No.41, 1861.p.654. 62 ibid.pp.655-656. The posited role of the Nationalverein here should also be noted. Popular Culture 307

… Und wo die Schande deutscher Ehre droht, Kein ferner Feind mag straflos mehr sich wähnen…63

Traeger’s 1865 poem “Deutschland auf dem Meere” continued this notion of the fleet as a metaphor for a robust liberal Germany, with the symbol of national unity, the German black, red and gold flag and the navy abroad bound together in the lines: “Voran der deutschen Flotte fliegen / Soll stets das deutsche

Schwarzrothgold!”64

The poem of Traeger’s devoted to the Schleswig-Holstein question, diplomatically entitled “Wann, wann marschiren wir gen Norden?”65 was clearly a martial hymn.

Its stridency amidst Die Gartenlaube’s other tales of romance and derring-do is quite striking, and can only lead to the supposition that this supposedly apolitical liberal organ was firmly committed to united German military action as a means of constituting a hitherto only imagined entity – the German nation.66 As with “Zur deutschen Flotte” and “Deutschland auf dem Meere” the central poetic fiction was that of a united Germany, poised to intervene abroad militarily. Unable to unite from within, Germany could be seen as a nation only through its external acts, “Es sei des deutschen Volkes Ehre / Vom deutschen Volke selbst gewahrt!”67

63 “Zur deutschen Flotten” DG. No.44, 1861.p.696. 64 “Deutschland auf dem Meere” DG. No.45, 1865, p.708. 65 “Wann, wann marschiren wir gen Norden?” DG. No.21, 1863.p.328. 66 It is also calls to mind Schulze-Delitzsch’s view that a conflict with Schleswig-Holstein could turn into a Europe wide conflict that could force Germany to unite. See Verhandlungen der zweiten Generalversammlung des deutschen Nationalvereins.p.35. 67 ibid.p.328. Popular Culture 308

In the post-1871 era, no large-scale change in the treatment of the naval question was discernible, with the commitment to the establishment of a German fleet, along with the later establishment of a naval college and Ministry, applauded.68

Approvingly quoted was Friedrich Wilhelm Barthold’s 1850 call for “starke

Territorialeinheit an unseren Meeren, durchdrungen von stolzem demokratischem

Geiste.”69 According to the periodical, these conditions had now been met.

Also applauded was the establishment of a naval hospital in Yokohama, Japan.

Viewed not only as a naval hospital for German sailors, but also as of possible use to the navy’s of other expansionist nations, the hospital was seen as bolstering

Germany’s claims as a world power:

So wird denn das deutsche Marinelazareth in Yokohama dazu beitragen, dem deutschen Namen auch dieser Richtung hin im Auslande Anerkennung zu verschaffen.70

In the 1880’s, a different angle of Germany’s overseas mission was covered, this time in the form of an article entitled “Deutschlands erster Kriegshafen,” a description of Wilhelmshaven.71 Beginning with a panegyric to sea-power and its role in supporting the German coast and German trading posts around the globe it moved on to a description of the harbour town that personified Germany’s “jungen

Seestreitmacht.” The article’s conclusion spelt out precisely what notions the reader was to have extracted, namely:

Das wäre in kurzen Grundrissen und in wenigen Zügen ein Bild unserer aufstrebenden Nordseestation… Jetzt stehen wir vor der Zukunft – sie zeigt uns ihr verschleiert Antlitz. Ist es zu kühn, wenn wir uns dieses Antlitz rosig und

68 “Die deutsche Seewarte in Hamburg” DG. No.12, 1875.p.195. 69 ibid.p.195. 70 “Das neue Marinelazareth in Yokohama” DG. No.2, 1879.p.39. 71 “Deutschlands erster Kriegshafen” DG No.8, 1883.p.132-136. Popular Culture 309

glückverheißend vorstellen, wenn wir annehmen, daß die Zukunft unter Kaiser Wilhelm und im geeigneten Vaterlande unserem Kriegshafen noch herrlicheres vorbehält? Wir glauben daran und darum: es lebe die neue Aera!72

With this conclusion, expansion of Germany’s naval reach was posited as the guarantor of future national success and as an integral component of the ‘new era’ of activity abroad.

However, German imperialism was not confined to naval longings in the pages of

Die Gartenlaube, with outright calls for colonialism in evidence, particularly after

1880. In terms of this fifth mode of reportage, the commenting on actual government policy, a practice which had been disavowed by Die Gartenlaube, the articles of, amongst others, the colonial propagandist Ernst v. Weber strengthened the liberal magazine’s commitment to colonialism well before Bismarck’s

‘conversion’ to the imperial cause.

Commenting on the precarious situation of the Boers in South Africa, whom von

Weber saw as being oppressed by the English, von Weber came up with the suggestion that they should be taken under the protection of the German government, with the German government declaring part of South Africa to be a

German protectorate and the Boers becoming quasi-German colonists, a move towards which he argued the Boers would be favourably disposed.73 Having introduced the notion of colonialism, von Weber continued on to articulate his vision of an aggressive German colonial policy as a contribution to a Malthusian solution to the Sozialfrage:

72 ibid.p.136. 73 “Die niederdeutschen Bauern (Boers) von Südafrika” DG. No.11, 1880, p.177 Popular Culture 310

Den Freiheitstrieb unserer afrikanischen Stammesgenossen müßten wir Deutschen zu fördern suchen…dann werden die Sympathien, welche die Boers für Deutschland hegen, für uns von größtem Werte sein…: zu einer hier zugleich den Vortheil unbeschränkter Ausdehnungsfähigkeit bietenden nationalen deutschen Colonie, die für die Zukunft zur regelmäßigen und dauernden Entlastung unseres Vaterlandes von seinen alljährlich bedenklicher und bedrohlicher anwachasenden Proletariermassen dienen und durch die verbleibende Zugehörigkeit derselben zum deutschen Wirthschaftsgebiete eine Erweiterung des deutschen Absatzmarktes und somit unseres Nationalreichtums herbeiführen würde, während die Millionen von bisher ausgewanderten Deutschen wegen des Mangels eigener Colonien wirthschaftlich und nationalökonomisch unserer Nation vollständig verloren gegangen sind.74

Also noting the necessity of maintaining the energies of Germany’s emigrants was an article of 1881, detailing the causes of migration in antiquity. Framing the article within a modern context, the article proclaimed:

Es ware eine dringendere Aufgabe der deutschen Politik, als gar manche, welche seit 1871 in Angriff genommen wurde, durch Colonisation im großen Stil dafür zu sorgen, daß in Zukunft wenigstens diese Tausende von deutschen Arbeitern uns erhalten, nicht wie bisher, verloren gegeben, in Concurrenten, ja oft Feinde der deutschen Heimath verwandelt werden.75

Either anticipating or contributing to the German government’s abrupt change of policy in favour of colonial imperialism, Die Gartenlaube began to more shrilly announce its support for a government policy of colonialism shortly before its adoption. The magazine lamented the historical lack of opportunities for German colonisers to create specifically German colonies that enjoyed government protection, blaming it on a lack of political unity: “Leider kommt Deutschland, seit

74 ibid.p.177. Of note here is the incorporation of many of the more well established, economic tropes of liberal imperialist discourse. 75 “Vorzeitliche und moderne sociale Probleme. Uebervökerung und Auswanderung” DG. No.12, 1881.p.195. Popular Culture 311

Jahrhunderten zersplittert und machtlos, nachdem es ihm endlich endlich gelungen durch wunderbare Fügungen die ihm gebührende Stellung wieder zu erlangen, zu spät, um ohne Weiteres eigene Colonien zu erwerben.” Similarly, the counterfactual question was posed: what would have happened if Prussia had undertaken a colonial policy years earlier?76

In the end, Die Gartenlaube overtly displayed its pro-colonial sympathies at the height of the Kolonialrausch of 1884 finally shedding its nominally apolitical stance and adding its weight to the body of the “öffentliche Meinung” pressuring the government to undertake an expansionist foreign policy. Some few weeks before Bismarck’s pro-colonial parliamentary speech of the 26th of June, an article entitled “Deutschlands Colonialbestrebungen” was published. It was a bold, overtly political piece that unabashedly supported the colonialist movement at a time when its success was not assured and when Bismarck had not yet publically proclaimed himself in favour of it:

…weckt in allen Herzen die Frage, ob nicht endlich die Zeit gekommen ist, wo ein kühner Staatsmann das Vermächtniß des großen Kurfürsten antreten muss. Wir sehen in Deutschland eine mächtige Agitation und hören den lauten Ruf nach endlicher Lösung der Colonialfrage! Hier öffnet sich ein großes Wirkungsfeld für Alle ohne Rücksicht auf Partei-Stellung, und das höhe Ziel dünkt uns erreichbar ohne kriegerische Verwickelungen und Opfer an Menschenleben…. Mit dieser Zuversicht scheiden wir heute von dem alten brandenburgischen Fort, um neue lebenskräftige Schöpfungen aufzusuchen.77

Clearly, in terms of the five modes of the reportage on matters imperialist in the liberal periodical Die Gartenlaube, it is in the fifth that direct appeals for a more

76 DG 1884. (17).pp.283-285. (18).pp.299-302, especially p.302. 77 DG 1884 (21). p.351. Worth noting is the attempt to broaden liberal colonialism into a truly national goal – as a discourse and form of praxis that transcended party allegiances. Popular Culture 312 activist form of imperialism on the government’s behalf are to be found, and within the context of the political events of the thirty years between Die Gartenlaube’s founding and the establishment of a German colonial empire, the changes within the magazine’s handling of imperialism are somewhat predictable when seen against the backdrop of political events in the same era. With the retreat from official colonialism in favour of private colonialism that came with the years of the post-

1848/9 era, there were no overt calls for government sanctioned and supported colonies, rather, the periodical concentrated on Trojan horse projects, such as private sector imperialist initiatives and calls for a navy to protect these initiatives and German emigrants. However, with the ascendancy of the National Liberal party in the post 1871 era, naval and colonial imperialism found a voice in the pages of

Die Gartenlaube, until in the 1880’s it was no longer seen as mere liberal utopianism to urge for government supported colonialism, given the cultural hegemony and political weight of Germany’s liberals.

Of the first four modes of reportage it should be said that they offered the German liberal reader a pseudo-scientific understanding of the multifaceted nature of the imperialism, and established an emotional connection between the German nation and Deutschtum abroad in the minds of the liberal reader. Furthermore, these four modes also created a social space for the celebration of German imperialist successes abroad, and left the unposed question hanging, how much more successful could Germany be abroad if it was supported by a sympathetic, that is to say liberal system of governance. Die Gartenlaube presented German action abroad, and its encounters with alterity, as a crucible in which the mettle of the Popular Culture 313

German nation would be tested and compared with that of its competitor European powers.

The Imperialist Novel

Apart from Die Gartenlaube, other forms of mass literature invoked Deutschtum abroad as a form of national identity prior to its formal adoption by the German parliament. In its most benign manifestation, the large number of novels concerning

German emigrants became part of the liberal assertion of a united German identity, as Juliane Mikoletzky has shown.78 Not only were the majority of these works written by liberal, middle class authors for liberal, middle class audiences,79 many of these authors included émigrés who had moved abroad as a result of the broad conservative reaction against the events of 1848.80 Taking their politics with them, these articulate members of Germany’s middle-classes soon became the dominant voices of Germany’s emigrant population, exercising “eine überproportionale

Publizität und großen Einfluß auf die Meinungsbildung der dort lebenden

Deutschen…”81 These authors produced a series of works in which the heroic

78 J Mikoletzky. Die deutsche Amerika-Auswanderung des 19.Jahrhunderts in der zeitgenössischen fiktionalen Literatur. Max Niemeyer Verlag, Tübingen, 1988. Due to the practical constraints imposed by the trajectory of the present study, and in deference to the thorough studies of many of these authors by scholars such as Mikoletzky and JL Sammons, the following is meant to be an illustrative sketch of the relationship between liberal imperialist ideology and these authors’ works, rather than a substantive, exhaustive study of their works. 79 ibid.pp. 60, 62, 69, 102-3, 317. 80 Mikoletzky includes amongst these émigrés authors such as Baudissin, Dilthey (who also wrote as Julian Werner), Eylert, Griesinger, Solger, Ruppius and Sealsfeld. Ibid.p.63. 81 ibid.p.321. See also p.63. Popular Culture 314 emigrant went abroad in search of a political and personal freedom unavailable in

Germany itself.82

These works, as was the case with Die Gartenlaube, can be seen as an attempt to further the liberal metanarrative of nationhood through the sublimation of endogenous political liberalism into narratives of German liberalism flourishing in

German settlements abroad. In these narratives, the domestic locus of liberalism was displaced and relocated to the settlements of Germans abroad at a time in which German liberalism was not as politically dominant as its cultural significance would seem to warrant. With German audiences in mind, émigré liberals constructed a literary template of heroic individuals struggling to achieve freedom while maintaining their German identity.83

One such author working within the oeuvre of the ‘travel novel’ was Otto Ruppius, whose works in many ways established a standard for novels about the experience of, and imperatives behind, German emigration. The novels of Ruppius, the most famous of which was his 1857, philosemitic84 work Der Pedlar, fall firmly into the category of émigré novels in which a politically persecuted German is forced to seek (a not uncomplicated) political freedom in the New World.85 In Der Pedlar, the central protagonist Helmstedt had been forced to flee Germany as a result of the

82 ibid.pp.138-39. 83 ibid.p.320. 84 JL Sammons. Ideology, Mimesis, Fantasy: Charles Sealsfield, Friedrich Gerstäcker, Karl May and Other German Novelists of America. University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 1998.p.257. 85 T Graewert. Otto Ruppius und der Amerikaroman im 19. Jahrhundert. Carl Beck Verlag, Eisfeld, 1935.p.48. See also J Mikoletzky. Die deutsche Amerika-Auswanderung.p.63. Popular Culture 315 post-1848 political reaction against German radicals and liberals. As Theodor

Graewert pointed out, this motif was constantly repeated throughout Ruppius’ works and directly reflected the circumstances surrounding Ruppius’ own emigration.86 Founder and editor of the Bürger- und Bauernzeitung during the

1848/49 uprisings, Ruppius had accused the Prussian minister responsible for dissolving the 1848 Prussian National Assembly of being guilty of high treason, and as deserving nothing less than prison.87 This remark saw him sentenced to nine months prison, which he escaped through flight to America, where he remained until the Prussian political amnesty saw him return to Germany in 1861 to work with his long-time acquaintance Ernst Keil on Die Gartenlaube.88

Although devoid of overtly propagandistic colonial sentiment, both Ruppius and his novels did illustrate to Germans the potential advantages of colonial life, freed from the constraints of illiberal German society. While not glossing over the difficulties inherent in the life of the emigrant, Ruppius depicted a colonial world whose maintenance had “zum guten Teil der deutschen Bevölkerung zu verdanken.”89 In other words, for Ruppius, the emigrant / colony relationship was a symbiotic one in which the colonies offered Germans their freedom, whilst the German colonists underwrote the colonies’ success.

The travel novel was consolidated as a genre in Germany in the works of Friedrich

Gerstäcker which continued to foreground the role of Deutschtum abroad. Unlike

86 ibid.pp.48-9. 87 ibid.pp.24-5. 88 ibid.pp.26-7. 89 ibid.p.51. Popular Culture 316

Ruppius, Gerstäcker’s narratives dealt with conditions and issues in not only North

America, but also South America, Africa and Australia – indeed wherever German colonists were to be found. In his depiction of the life of the emigrant, Gerstäcker did not shy away from the hard nature of colonial life, however he portrayed

Germans as particularly suited to colonisation. As Anton Zangerl has pointed out,

“Wo immer sich ihm dazu Gelegenheit bietet, rühmt er die Tugenden (z.B. Fleiss und Sauberkeit) sowie die Mentalität seiner Landsleute.”90 For Gerstäcker, German colonisers were far more adept at transforming the colonial world than the peoples of other colonising nations:

…keine andere Nation als die deutsche gewinnt solche Anhänglichkeit für den Boden, den bebaut, keine ist so fleißig und unermüdet in ihren Arbeit… …Ueberall, wo sie das Land in Angriff nahmen, wuchsen unter ihren Händen fruchtbare Aecker und freundliche Chagras (kleine Güter) empor; der Wald lichtete sich, Sümpfe wurden ausgetrocknet, Wege gebaut und ein Gewerbfleiß entstand, den die weit trägere spanische Race nie hervorgerufen hätte.91

As a committed liberal who “skirmished for a time in the revolution of 1848,”92

Gerstäcker shared the twin liberal convictions discussed broadly in the Frankfurt

Nationalversammlung, namely that organised, controlled and protected colonisation was a means of alleviating the widespread poverty of the German working classes,93 and that “emigration would create a united Germany in America.”94

Gerstäcker’s views coincided with the liberal National Assembly’s position on

90 A Zangerl. Friedrich Gerstäcker (1816-1872). Romane und Erzählungen. Struktur und Gehalt. Peter Lang, Wien, 1999.p.247. 91 F Gerstäcker. Unter den Penhuenchen, quoted in A Zangerl. Friedrich Gerstäcker.p.247. See also p.248. 92 JL Sammons. Ideology, Mimsesis, Fantasy.p.122. 93 ibid.p.117. Sammons relates the tale of Gerstäcker suggesting in 1848 that the government sponsor the wholesale emigration of an impoverished community of Saxon lacemakers as a means of bettering their economic position through colonialism. 94 ibid.p.117. Popular Culture 317 emigration to the extent that it granted him 500 talers to report on German colonial settlements abroad, prompting him to later remark “die Leute sagen, ich sei der

Einzige, der damals etwas vom deutschen Reich gehabt.”95 In his investigative endeavour, Gerstäcker outlasted his liberal Assembly employer, by studying and appraising German private-sector colonial efforts in Indonesia, Australia, South

America, North America and Africa for three years, a journey that resulted in his five-volume work Reisen and a series of novels set in the colonial settings he had seen.96

It is important to note that Gerstäcker was by no means monolithic in his support for each and every German colonial enterprise, indeed his descriptions did not shy away from negative descriptions of poorly carried out projects.97 Discerning in his support for German colonial projects, Gerstäcker made the types of acute distinctions between colonial projects that serious German observers of German colonialism at the time were making, as in the case of the various German colonies in Brazil. Whilst recognising the success of those in the south in his 1864 novel Die

Colonie, his 1869 work Ein Parcerie-Vertrag warned of the “indentured servitude” that paid-passage emigration entailed.98 Such warnings were of course commonplace in liberal publications such as Die Gartenlaube, and the perception of

Brazil as a scene of ‘white slavery’ lay at the heart of the dispute between Johann

95 ibid.p.123. In addition to this funding, Gerstäcker received 400 talers from Baron v.Cotta, the owner of the liberal Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung. 96 ibid.p.123. 97 See, for example, his first emigration novel Der deutschen Auswanderer Fahrten und Schicksale. Coming out in 1847, ostensibly the height of early liberal colonial enthusiasm, it painted a bleak picture of the plight of unsuccessful colonisers. See JL Sammons. Ideology, Mimesis, Fantasy.pp.119-120. 98 JL Sammons. Ideology, Mimesis, Fantasy .p.120. Popular Culture 318

Sturz and Hermann Blumenau. In the discipline of geography, journals too had distinguished between the successes of the south in contradistinction to those in the north.99 Remaining on friendly terms with German colonisers such as Hermann

Blumenau, in none of his works did criticism of a particular colony amount to an argument against colonialism in toto, but was rather an attempt to ensure its

‘correct’ conduct.100

In his later life, apart from his literary endeavours, including the odd contribution to

Ernst Keil’s Gartenlaube,101 Gerstäcker cultivated a commitment to German national unity under the aegis of Prussia that mirrored that of other German liberals, notably Bennigsen’s liberal Nationalverein, and to this end he worked enthusiastically as a war correspondent in the Franco-Prussian War, arguing for the correctness of the Prussian case for war. Faithful to his earlier desires for a German nation able to defend Deutschtum abroad, Gerstäcker emphasised the unificatory aspect of the war, declaring that “Das Wort Deutschland ist eine Wahrheit geworden, und wir dürfen jetzt getrost einer frohen und glücklichen Zeit entgegen sehen.”102

Gerstäcker’s career and popularity is perhaps the most obvious example, in the realm of nineteenth century German literature, of the perceived interconnectedness

99 See for example. JJ Tschudi “Die Brasilianische Provinz Minas Gerae” in Mittheilungen. 1865.pp.29-31. 100 For Gerstäcker’s correspondence with Hermann Blumenau, see NsSA. 192N. II, 1 (G-K)pp.222.ff. 101 JL Sammons.Ideology, Mimesis, Fantasy.p.115. See also U Janeck. Zwischen Gartenlaube und Karl May. Deutsche Amerikarezeption in den Jahren 1871-1913. Shaker Verlag, Aachen, 2003.pp.96-97. 102 F Gerstäcker, Kleine Erzählungen und Nachgelassene Schriften, cited in JL Sammons. Ideology, Mimesis, Fantasy.p.125. See also.pp.124-127. Popular Culture 319 between liberal politico-economic goals, the liberal sense of nation and the external world. For Gerstäcker, colonisation and emigration represented a chance to alleviate poverty amongst those displaced by Germany’s movement towards an industrialised trade-oriented economy, as well as an opportunity to broaden the prospects for

German traders. German colonies also offered a site within which the German national spirit was able, firstly, to manifest itself and, secondly, to demonstrate its inherent superiority and suitability for the colonising task in comparison with other

European colonising nations, even without the support and protection of a unified

German state. In both literary and political terms, Gerstäcker’s literary corpus can be seen as simultaneously drawing upon, and contributing to, the liberal German enthusiasm for German colonialism at a time in which German liberals, owing to their relative political vulnerability, were unable to translate these desires into material facts through the mechanism of the nation-state.

Without a doubt, the novels of Karl May represent the most obviously long-lived and broadly popular literary presentation of Deutschtum abroad, and in a number of important ways, May’s popular culture representations contributed to the persistence of colonialist enthusiasm in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, with their presentations of Germans in American and oriental settings.103 Yet as

Jeffrey Sammons, in his idiosyncratic and obviously hostile survey of May has

103 A thorough discussion of May’s work falls outside of the chronological parameters of this study and he is mentioned here only for the sake of completeness. Most of May’s work set in American and oriental settings were actually published during Germany’s colonial era. Popular Culture 320 concluded, “it is a question whether May’s fiction is in any intelligible sense about

America at all.”104

As is well known, May himself had not seen the American settings of his novels until 1908105 – some time after the majority of his works were written – and as

Sammons points out, May’s texts “drew substantially from the extant German literature on America.”106 As such, it is fair to say that May’s fiction represents a distillation of earlier representations by Germans of themselves abroad. In effect,

Karl May drew upon popular representations and perceptions rather than empirical knowledge.

Interestingly, May’s authorial reliance on literary rather than physical experience was mirrored in his novel’s heroes, such as Old Shatterhand, whose colonising skills surpass those of the most experienced non-German settlers, skills that were accrued, according to May, through the digestion of German colonial literature. 107

Perhaps evidence of a self-reflexive narcissism, this inflated claim for the utility of colonial fiction nonetheless demonstrates the quasi-didactic, propagandistic qualities of works concerned with the successes of Deutschtum abroad, as recognised and intended by the composers of such texts themselves.

104 JL Sammons. Ideology, Mimesis, Fantasy.p.245. Despite Sammons protestations that his work “is not postanything” (p.xi), his insightful observation that May’s work displays a “provincial introversion underlying its superficial exoticism” (p.245) corresponds directly with Fanon’s key insight, that discussions of colonial settings revolve around the inscription of meaning for the colonial periphery as determined by concerns within the imperial centre. 105 ibid.p.254. 106 ibid.p.253. 107 ibid.pp.231-2. Popular Culture 321

From exactly which German sources May extracted his notional America has been the subject of much discussion, with the most familiar names associated with him

(ordinarily as contrasts) being Friedrich Gerstäcker, Balduin Möllhausen, Otto

Ruppius, Frederic Armand Strubberg and Charles Sealsfield.108 However, other more popular avenues of literary knowledge are equally as probable, and May’s initial attempt to have his first piece of fiction published in Die Gartenlaube,109 is a revealing insight into where the youthful May had been exposed to fiction, and it is entirely possible that the types of narratives that had interested the young Karl May were the magazine’s frequent pieces on colonial life, as later exemplified by Otto

Ruppius.110

Similarly, novels regarding the experiences of Germans in naval settings were also in evidence, as exemplified in Sophie Wörishöffer’s post-unification youth novel

Robert der Schiffjunge.111 Mirroring (as many maritime novels did) Defoe’s

Robinson Crusoe narrative contrivance, the novel traced the trajectory of a boy forbidden by his parents to undertake a life at sea, but who did so anyway, variously as part of Germany’s merchant and naval fleets.

108 ibid.p.257. See also U Janeck. Zwischen Gartenlaube und Karl May.p.122. 109 V Griese. Karl May: Personen in seinem Leben. Ein alphabetisches annotiertes Namensverzeichnis. Edition Octopus, Münster, 2003.p.176. Griese records that May received a four- page letter from Gartenlaube editor Ernst Keil, who pointed out his errors before encouraging him to contribute again later. 110 U Janeck. Zwischen Gartenlaube und Karl May.p.79. Of course May’s contribution to Die Gartenlaube was when he was sixteen, a full two years before Ruppius himself first had stories published in Die Gartenlaube. 111 S Wörishöffer. Robert der Schiffjunge: Fahrten und Abenteur auf der deutschen Handels- und Kriegsflotte. Velhagen & Klasing, Bielefeld, 1877. Popular Culture 322

The narrative is best described as episodic, indeed it is a veritable shopping list of ports, adventures and descriptions of exotic peoples, however, of interest is the subtext of European rivalry not just in terms of naval strength. In one particular authorial intrusion, the novel’s narratorial voice makes the contest between

Germany and Britain clear, in terms of trade and the studying, mapping (and by extension controlling) of the world:

Die Engländer hatten nach einander mehrere Schiffe entsandt, hatten bedeutende Entdeckungen gemacht und mit ihren Schleppnetzen in der Tiefe von 1500 Fuß das Meer durchpflügt, - weshalb also sollten wir Deutsche weniger thun?112

Although clearly not in the league of Gerstäcker or indeed May in terms of popularity, Wörishöffer’s modestly successful novel113 illustrates the extent to which Germany’s global, maritime task, replete with scenes of the German flag waving in the morning wind,114 had become inscribed in the realm of popular fiction, as well as in the popular press.

As a range of textual modes devoted to the presentation of the extra-European world as knowable and controllable, imperialist propaganda, scientific research, the popular media and the colonial novel as an oeuvre all contributed to the furthering of liberal imperialism, within the context of pre- and post-unification Germany.

Whilst aimed at different sections of Germany’s bürgerliche Gesellschaft, together they assisted in the reformulation and transmission of the cultural values associated with German nationalist liberalism since the Vormärz era. Supporting Bhabha’s

112 ibid.p.653. 113 Robert der Schiffjunge was Wörishöffer’s (real name Sophie Andresen) first novel. Its success enabled her to continue with similarly travel-based writing set in exotic locations. 114 ibid.p.679. Popular Culture 323 reading of the role of colonial texts in constructing the colonial world as knowable and controllable, the popular and scientific texts of pre-colonial Germany both reflected and shaped private and, ineluctably, public attitudes towards the extra-

European world. Whether Petermann’s Mittheilungen, Die Gartenlaube or the works of imperialist pamphleteers, theoreticians and novelists, textual rendering of the extra-European world assisted in the consolidation of liberal imperialist discourse throughout the years of imperialism’s seeming ‘disappearance’ from the national stage. Far from disappearing at any time between 1848 and 1884, liberal imperialist discourse, as preserved in these texts, played a critical role in the re- emergence of imperialism as a realisable form of national, statist praxis in the early

1880’s. Part Four: Reviving Lost Dreams: Liberal Imperialism Between the Wars. Hans Grimm 325

Chapter Eight.

Hans Grimm and the Liberal Sense of National Exile.

With conservative German liberals reliant upon imperialism and pan-European liberal values (including a colonialism-induced cultural and racial chauvinism) as a core tenet of their identity, it is not surprising to note that after its role as a nationally unifying ideology during the ultimately failed imperialist venture that was World War I,1 German liberalism was in a state of serious disarray. After the war, both nominally liberal parties disappeared, and in their place emerged two new parties, the Deutsche Demokratische

Partei and the Deutsche Volkspartei, whose removal of any reference to liberalism from their names illustrated, at the very least, a desire to alter the imagery, if not the political direction, of the parties. Between them they made up a respectable number of deputies, particularly in the early years of the Weimar Republic, however, their constituencies began to fray, seeing an eventual polarisation towards the right as the conservative liberal middle classes, disorientated and disappointed by the unravelling of their imperialist projects, and embittered by their colonial and domestic territorial losses (as well as the

1 D Langewiesche. Liberalism in Germany. (trans. C Banerji), Macmillan Press, London, 2000.pp.245-6. This details the pressure placed upon the chancellor by the National Liberals in 1915 to declare in favour of a Greater Germany and not an “insipid peace”, at the behest of the Alldeutscher Verband. For this reading of World War I more generally, see F Fischer. Griff nach der Weltmacht. Hans Grimm 326 successful prosecution of the imperialism of their erstwhile enemies), moved Rightward in their politics.2

This is not intended as a monocausal or simplistic argument for the ascendance of the

Nazis that ignores the hardships of the Weimar years. It does, however, see the disgrace and humiliation of defeat and of the Versailles treaty as a powerful force instrumental in the reconstruction of a national identity that was at least as strong as that before the war, which had mobilised imperialist sentiment as a means of achieving national unity. Put simply, if, as Fritz Fischer persuasively argued, World War I was an attempt to assert

Germany’s continental hegemony and eventual global parity with the empire of Great

Britain,3 the frustration generated by the failure of this attempt, and the aggravation caused by Versailles lingered within the political consciousness of the liberal middle classes, as imperialism, which had hitherto constituted the most fruitful and demonstrative means of national identification for Germany’s liberals, continued to act as a powerful source of collective identity within Germany.4

2 ibid.pp.260ff. 3 F Fischer. Griff Nach der Weltmacht, translated as Germany’s Aims in the First World War, Chatto & Windus, London,1967. See for example p.29, “Germany’s obstinate insistence on a policy directed towards securing British neutrality and a free hand for herself on the Continent shows once more that her leaders were at this time regarding war with France and Russia as extremely likely, if not imminent, and sometimes even as inevitable.” 4 The extent of the disillusionment with liberalism is hinted at by Langewiesche, who, in his analysis of Weimar liberalism, argues that it saw itself as the “victim of liberal Western democracy, which betrayed itself in Versailles.” The apparent sense that pan-European liberalism had been discredited, blended with a sense of national self-justification and adherence to the aims of World War I evident here demonstrates how an earlier nineteenth century, in European terms ‘acceptable’ liberal imperialism was transformed into an embittered, völkisch nationalism that ultimately left behind its original liberal origins, leaving only a Hans Grimm 327

To the extent that this pre-existing liberal imperial discourse was critical in establishing revanchist, irrendentist tendencies within German society, it is worth examining postwar

German liberalism to find out what role it played in providing the Nazi regime with a fully constructed discourse of German imperialism. In essence, it is arguable that this

Weimar era imperialist discourse, with its origins stretching back to Friedrich List and his nineteenth century heirs, betrays how pre-1884 colonial strivings and Germany’s brief time as a colonial Weltmacht, coupled with the eventual frustration at the end of World

War I, played a part in ensuring that the Nazis had a sympathetic bürgerlich audience both conversant and in agreement with the tropes of imperialist rhetoric, when these tropes were deployed by a Nazi foreign policy which claimed to be righting the perceived territorial wrongs of Versailles.

In what appears to have been an attempt to promote radical, nationalist and expansionist noise, without actually committing to a global colonial campaign, the Nazis exploited pre-existing colonialist tropes and imagery, to underline the continuity that stretched between the imperialist objectives of the preceding generation of liberals and their own radicalised version of imperialist fascism. This is not to say simplistically that the

National Liberals were ‘to blame’ for the rise of the Nazis. Rather, it is an argument that recognises that the confident imperialist platform of nationalist liberals prior to World

War I can be partially recognised – albeit in a recontextualised and radicalised form, in the imperialist utterances and praxis of the Nazi party’s pastiche ideology. deep commitment to an expansionist German nation-state but not its democratic system. D Langewiesche. Liberalism in Germany. pp.286, 300-303. Hans Grimm 328

Usefully illustrating the progressively stronger Weimar tendency to equate liberal and fascist imperialisms, is Hans Grimm, the ex-merchant author and son of a liberal university lecturer, whose prolific and somewhat prosaic literary output (normally summarised in the title of his bestseller Volk Ohne Raum) was lionised during the Third

Reich, as exemplifying the best tradition of German nationalism.5 His fiery laments for a lost colonial empire illustrate exactly what is meant by the phrase ‘nationalist noise.’ His books did not correlate to official Nazi imperialist policy6 – indeed the upper echelons of the NSDAP never seriously entertained overseas colonies as a substitute for Eastern territory,7 yet the NSDAP continued to promote Hans Grimm, to further the perception of a continuity between their own policies and the pre-war imperialism that had been central to liberal politics. With imperialist action, as an avenue for the national and international self-assertion of Germany’s Bürgertum, denied Germany by the international community,

Grimm’s discursive resurrection of liberal colonialism’s earlier mythopoeic power, now recontextualised to accommodate post-Versailles revanchist fantasies, enabled the

National Socialists to align themselves with the pre-existing bürgerlich brand of radical national imperialism,8 at a time in which the ‘post-liberal’ Weimar Bürgertum had been made economically and politically vulnerable by the economic malaise of the 1920’s.

5 A concrete manifestation of this official Nazi support was his prominence on school reading lists. 6 For a discussion of the relationship between Hans Grimm and the Nazis, see W Smith, “The Colonial Novel as Political Propaganda: Hans Grimm’s Volk Ohne Raum” German Studies Review 6(2), 1983 pp.215-235, esp.220-222. For a questioning of Grimm’s loyalties by the Nazis, see NS15/69 BA, Berlin.p.52. 7 K Hildebrand. Vom Reich zum Weltreich: Hitler, NSDAP und koloniale Frage 1919-1945. Wilhelm Fink Verlag, München, 1969. 8 Hence the defection of Heinrich Schnee to the NSDAP. See Ch.9. Hans Grimm 329

Hans Grimm is a key figure who not only illustrates the nexus between liberal imperialist discourse and its more radical Nazi successor, but also as a demonstration of the liberal, rather than ‘Junker,’ nature of the post-World War I ‘New Right’.

As a bridge between irredentist liberals and the Nazi New Right, Grimm’s work testifies to the overlap between the nineteenth century discourse of German colonial imperialism and the imperialism driven social and discursive paradigms of the Third Reich. As such, it is possible to trace discursive continuities between liberal and Nazi imperialism on matters of, for example, race and racial hierarchy,9 which predated the social Darwinism of the latter part of the nineteenth century, normally viewed as the point of origin for racial theoretics. Thus, when List proclaimed that, “In den Zuständen der Nationen herrscht indessen zur Zeit eine unendliche Verschiedenheit; wir gewahren unter ihnen

Riesen und Zwerge, normale Körper und Krüppel, zivilisierte, halbzivilisierte und barbarische…Es ist die Aufgabe der Politik, die barbarischen Nationalitäten zu zivilisieren.”10 and that industrialisation was a precondition if Germany was to play a role in the process of ‘civilising’ the non-European world,11 he foreshadowed the assumptions

9 To take one obvious example. Others can be found – arguments from overproduction, overpopulation, and foreign enmity are but a few. The exact nature of the continuities between liberal and Nazi imperialism still require careful analysis, a process which has begun with Jürgen Zimmmerer and Joachim Zeller’s trenchant but important anthology Vökermord in Deutsch-Südwestafrika. 10 F List. Das Nationale System.p.210. 11 ibid.p.290. “Wollen auch [Deutschland] an dem gewinnreichen Geschäft teilnehmen, wilde Länder zu kultivieren und barbarische oder wieder in Barbarei versunkene Nationen alter Kultur zu zivilisieren, so müssen sie damit anfangen, ihre inneren Manufakturkräfte, ihre Schiffahrt und ihre Seemacht auszubilden.” Hans Grimm 330 that would underpin Friedrich Fabri’s own claims that racial hierarchies made German colonial imperialism not only permissible, but a form of predestined duty:

Durch eine providentielle Ordnung im Haushalt der geschichtlichen Entwicklung sind diese großen, weitgestreckten Territorien Jahrtausende hindurch der weißen Rasse für kommende Zeiten aufbehalten worden. Die Ureinwohner, meist der sogennanten rothen Rasse angehörig, sind ausnahmslos Jäger und Viehzüchter, also in der Volkszahl äußerst spärlich entwickelt und bestimmt, die Platzhalter zu sein bis auf die Zeit, wo der weiße Mann bei ihnen eindringen und ihre rasch sich mindernde Zahl in immer eingeschränktere Gebiete zurückdrängen sollte…So konnte auch erst der weiße Mann, statt zu der Jagd zum Pfluge sich wendend, mit Fleiß und Arbeit diese Länder allmählig der Cultur-Entwicklung erschließen..12

Arguably, liberal Germany’s rendering of imperialism’s racialising tendencies came to their ultimate expression in the novels of Hans Grimm, where, as Francies L Carsten has remarked, Grimm’s racial fiction “strongly influenced public opinion, especially among the middle and lower classes, and to a certain extent helped to mould it”13 within the context of an increasingly radicalised political environment. Thus positioned, irrespective of the author’s intent, the novels’ role (in reminding Germany’s Bürgertum of the absence of a national imperialist venture) was, firstly, to offer a literary Denkmal, reminding Germans of the post-war disgrace inflicted upon them through the Versailles settlement, and secondly, to serve as an instrument for the furthering of all discourses of

German expansionism, including that of the NSDAP.14

12 F Fabri.Bedarf Deutschland der Colonien.p.80. 13 F L Carsten. “Volk Ohne Raum: A Note on Hans Grimm”. Journal of Contemporary History, 2(2), 1967.pp.221- 227. 14 This argument should not of course be misconstrued as suggesting that important changes in the nature of liberalism itself had not taken place between the time of List and Grimm, nor is it to be suggested that imperialism was either a necessary or sufficient condition for liberal identity – as the above linkage between liberal and Nazi expansionist discourse demonstrates. Rather, what is being suggested is that, despite a number of changes in social and political conditions and alterations Hans Grimm 331

Quite correctly, Martin Travers has recently argued that, despite its instrumentality in supplying the discursive terrain for ultra nationalist propaganda to a rapidly polarising

Weimar Germany, the particular form of imperialism proffered by Grimm to the Weimar public belonged largely to the nineteenth century.15 It had its origins in the ascendancy of a confident and self-conscious bürgerliche Gesellschaft, looking to equate the interests of the German nation-state with the interests of themselves as a social segment, through the articulation and implementation of heterogeneous but linked discourses of expansionist colonial imperialism.

Grimm, particularly in the post-Nazi era, was quick to emphasise this liberal pedigree, as one particular passage of his autobiographical work Suchen und Hoffen illustrates.

In it, Grimm related the story of his meeting with none other than Adolf Hitler. In this tale, Grimm, (perhaps using the somewhat Thucydidean technique of explaining what should have been said rather than what actually was), has both himself and Hitler agreeing that Grimm was not a Nazi, either in terms of party membership or ideological disposition. According to his own account, Grimm declared, “Herr Hitler, ich möchte sofort erklären dürfen, daß ich keinen Wunsch an Sie habe und daß ich nicht zu Ihnen gehöre und auch nie zu Ihnen gehören werde; aber der Sache der Sie dienen, diene auch

in the meaning of the term ‘liberalism,’ liberals maintained their traditional adherence to expansionist politics, despite the seemingly total disappointment of their imperialist hopes with the loss of World War One. This view positions liberalism as therefore both receptive to and a partial constituent element of the Nazis’ pastiche politics. See L Gall. ‘Liberalismus und auswärtige Politik.’ pp.42-45. See also the discussion of Heinrich Schnee in Chapter 9. 15 M Travers. Critics of Modernity: The Literature of the Conservative Revolution in Germany, 1890-1933. Peter Lang, New York, 2001. pp.138-139. Hans Grimm 332 ich und werde immer dienen,” To this, Grimm has Hitler reply gravely “Sie haben mir bei meinem Kampf für Deutschland bisher besser genützt, dadurch daß Sie nicht zu mir und zu uns gehörten. Ich konnte auf Ihr Hauptbuch hindeuten und konnte dazu erklären, der ist kein Nationalsozialist, aber für die deutsche Not sind seine Augen offen wie unsere.”16

No doubt there existed perfectly understandable reasons for Grimm to generate such an exonerative passage in the post-World War II period, yet despite such pragmatic concerns, it remains unclear just how committed to, or detached from, Nazi idealism

Grimm in fact was. Thus, whilst Grimm’s post-war 1945 autobiographical work Warum-

Woher- Aber Wohin? appears fiercely stubborn in its refusal to condemn Nazism in toto,

Grimm himself was seen as a somewhat dubious figure to the Nazi regime – reported to the Gestapo in May 1936 for stating that he couldn’t answer to his conscience if he spoke out publicly as being for Adolf Hitler. 17 Many commentators on Weimar culture have assumed a direct connection and have contented themselves with quoting the title of his most successful novel – Volk Ohne Raum – as sufficient evidence of Grimm’s complicity in the NSDAP’s Drang nach Osten policies,18 however, a far more fruitful approach draws on an understanding of the historical and discursive context within which Grimm’s texts were composed and received. Assuming that it is better to prove a link between the

NSDAP and Grimm than to impute one, assessing the extent to which Grimm was a

16 H Grimm. Suchen und Hoffen. Klosterhaus Verlag, Lippoldsberg 1960. p.12. 17 H.Grimm. Warum-Woher- Aber Wohin? Klosterhaus-Verlag, Lippoldsberg, 1954. On Grimm’s loyalty, see BA Berlin. NS15/69. Der Beauftrage des Führers für die Überwachung der gesamten geistigen und weltanschaulichen Schulung und Erziehung der NSDAP.p.52. 18 A recent example of this is I.R.Stoehr’s German Literature of the Twentieth Century: From Aestheticism to Postmodernism. Camden House, Rochester, 2001. pp.97, 189-90. Hans Grimm 333 harbinger of a “fascist mindset,”19 or an outgrowth of a pre-existing politico-cultural milieu, requires careful attention to both the textual and sub-textual detail of Grimm’s remarkably successful works, as examples of works demonstrating the embittered liberal sense of having been exiled, both physically and culturally, from the European imperialist mission that they felt themselves destined to not only take part in but potentially lead.

As a heuristic device, the concept of exile is useful in the understanding of Grimm and the broader Weimar imperialist sentiment. In his discussion of exile, Edward Said asserted that the value of the state of exile lay in its de-institutionalised marginality; that is, exile was an enabling experience that offered its subject the ability to transcend the more programmatic notions of selfhood offered in an environment of secure belonging.20

However, this same empowerment, Said argued, stemmed from a nostalgic melancholia whose effects undermined any sense of empowerment gained through a decentred existence.

Exile, Said continued, is intrinsically linked to notions of identity and identification – identification with a temporal, spatial and socio-political context that through acculturation becomes internalised as an important part of the self. In this respect, it can be seen as linked to the nationalist sensibility.21 In so far as nationalist movements and the types of nations they create22 are a product of a sense of estrangement or exile from

19 I.R.Stoehr. German Literature.p. 97. 20 E Said. Culture and Imperialism. Vintage, London, 1984. p.403 21 E Said. Reflections on Exile and Other Essays. Harvard University Press, Cambridge Ma, 2000.p.176 22 E Gellner Nations and Nationalism.p.55. Hans Grimm 334 an imagined social unit, the exilic sensibility can be seen as a creative sensibility, as in the example of Germany, where competing discourses of nationalism (großdeutsch and kleindeutsch) simultaneously interacted with, and acted upon, the material conditions they evolved from, to construct a nation whose eventual form, indeed existence, was not necessitated by geographical, linguistic, cultural or economic necessity. Applying Said’s insight to the German experience, attempts at the creation of the German nation-state can be seen as the struggle of a bürgerlich discourse community to overcome their sense of exile from “their rightful way of life,”23 as political agents, as citizens.24

During the nineteenth century, this exilic sentiment, this state of alienation, can be discerned in Rochau’s sense of the discrepancy between the bald realities of post-1848 political life when compared with the liberal Zeitgeist that he had identified. As a product of a sense of injustice brought about by the denial of liberal political hegemony, in an era in which bourgeois cultural and economic hegemony were becoming established social facts, a sense of alienation from the dominant political paradigm created liberalism’s internal exiles in the post-1848 era. The attempt to overcome a sense of exile from the existing politico-economic status quo was a problem to which German liberalism had addressed itself, via the assertion of nationalist cohesion constructed through the invocation of imperialism as the nominated vehicle for German national identity.

23 E Said. Reflections.p.176 24 Winkler suggests as much in his description of the period of 1848 to 1871 as “primarily an expression of the desire for bürgerlich emancipation.” HA Winkler. “Nationalism and Nation State” p.182. Hans Grimm 335

It is something of a truism to state that the success of a particular postulation of the nation-state is retrospectively justified by its success in materialising its proffered form of social organisation.25 A corollary of this is that unsuccessful postulations of the national project are often viewed retrospectively as having been necessarily unsuccessful – that is fundamentally flawed, unworkable or plainly undesirable. Yet it is conceivable, if not likely that the sense of ‘exile’ from a desired social model is equally acute for adherents to failed or obstructed national projects as for disciples of successful nationalisms, and, unlike their successful counterparts, adherents to failed national projects are forever denied the satisfaction of a denouement that accords with their primary objectives, whereby their sense of social dislocation and resultant exilic sensibility are overcome through the physical manifestation of their theoretical nationalist constructs. For those aligned to unsuccessful nationalist projects, their sense of exile from their ‘rightful way of life’ is permanent, resulting in a perpetual frustration, the intensity of which is in direct proportion to the sense of impotence engendered by the degree of marginalisation of both the proffered discourse of national identity and its adherents.

Unsurprisingly, the thwarting of heartfelt national projects is not a development conducive to a dispassionate transcendence of the more parochial aspects of identity, or the creation of a decentred ‘observer from the margins.’ Indeed, it is arguable that this perpetual exile will lead to the inflammation of the denied sense of identity, resulting in a hypertrophic chauvinism. Where successful national projects encourage retrospective self-congratulation, denied national projects tend towards a tone of grievance. This is

25 E Said. Reflections. p.176. Hans Grimm 336 tone that most informs the Weimar era works of Hans Grimm, whose novels, largely representative of a German liberal social milieu and its Weltanschauung, articulated the sense of loss that came with the stripping of colonies from Germany, and the resulting sense of alienation from the Weimar system, as a system that enshrined the denial of the

Weltaufgabe of Germany’s Bürgertum.

As an individual, Hans Grimm can be seen as an exile both in spatial and ideological terms. Geographically, the outcome of World War I dictated that he should lose his adopted home, the African colonies. Perhaps more importantly, the loss of Germany’s colonies after World War I saw Grimm, and, to his eyes, the entire German nation exiled from their true destiny as a Weltmacht commensurate with England and France.

With expansionism having historically operated as liberalism’s vehicle for national cohesion in the absence of any other organic reason for it, the loss of the colonies and other territories in the Versailles settlement saw German liberalism discredited as a discursive force. Similarly, the notion of a fraternal, healthy imperialist rivalry with the other imperial, bourgeois nations that Heinrich Barth had dreamt of gave way under the strength of the resentment created as a result of Versailles. Imperialism, as the showpiece of German liberalism, mutated into imperialism as a revanchist fantasy – a “politics in waiting,” as it has been characterised.26

26 T Campt, P Grosse, YC Lemke-Muniz de Faria “Blacks, Germans and the Politics of Imperial Imagination, 1920-60.” in S Friedrichsmeyer, S Lennox & S Zantop The Imperialist Imagination: German Colonialism and its Legacy.p.216. Hans Grimm 337

Hans Grimm’s family and cultural origins were impeccably bourgeois liberal and as such his eventual drift to the Right is a revealing example of a much broader trend within

Germany’s bürgerliche Gesellschaft.27 In a revealing dedication to his father at the beginning of his volume of short stories entitled Lüderitzland, Grimm recounted with some feeling the stages of his life, and his father’s influence upon them. His first memory, he related, of his father “as a German man” was of him at the table some time after 1880, discussing the ‘altbürgerlich’ issues of Bismarck, Bennigsen and the National

Liberals, along with a bemoaning of the rise of Social Democracy.28

Firmly wedded to the memories of discussions of these issues that lay at the heart of

German national liberalism were memories of strong opinions in favour of colonial expansion. Grimm dated these discussions to 1882 – when he was just seven. As Grimm recalled it, this rapidly growing topic of discussion served as a counterweight to the fears of a changing society harboured by German liberals. Colonialism, according to Grimm, represented a cause that the National Liberals could work towards with a newfound zeal, a progressive project through which their vision of Germany’s future could be articulated.29

27 D Langewiesche. Liberalism in Germany.pp.264, 286. 28 H Grimm. Lüderitzland. Albert Langen / Georg Müller, München, 1934. p.9. “Meine früheste Erinnerung an Dich als deutschen Mann… beginnt nach 1880…immer mehr die Rede von Bismarck und von Bennigsen und seiner Partei und immer unruhiger die Rede von Waren und Menschenexport und von Sozialdemokratie und vom Aufkommen neuen Reichtums und neuer Titelsucht.” 29 ibid.p.10. “Im Jahre 1882, als Siebenjähriger hörte ich… zum ersten Male das Wort Kolonie und begriff bald, daß etwas in Gange sei, das Dich mit Hoffnung gegenüber Deiner wachsenden Befürchtungen und mit einem neuen Eifer erfülle.” Hans Grimm 338

Grimm’s dating of these conversations is important, in that it further demonstrates the primacy of the National Liberal’s own pro-colonial position in Bismarck’s later acquiescence to an imperialist policy, as opposed to the sometimes made claim that the

National Liberals merely ‘rode the colonial horse’ provided by a magnanimous Bismarck.

However equally important is his explicit linkage of imperialist discourse to the liberal circles in which Grimm’s own family moved.

Critically, Grimm saw in the imperialist ideology of his father and his fellow National

Liberals, the beginning of a truly national German history. If Grimm’s panegyric to his father reveals anything, it is that he viewed liberal imperialism as having ‘opened the door’ for “an entire young Germany” to meet their imperial destiny,30 and as a national policy that stirred the new nation’s Romantic optimism in the same way that World War

One would do thirty years later.31

For Grimm, as for such earlier liberals as Friedrich Fabri and Friedrich List, the annexing of overseas colonies represented a necessary step in the growth of a world power.

Imperialism was necessary in order to ensure the German Volk could expand, without any loss of its youth to other colonising nations.32 It was proof of a nation’s worth and a process of national renewal and rejuvenation.33 Moreover, it was a physical necessity for a Volk otherwise condemned to remain cramped by its lack of physical space.34

30 ibid.p.18. “Mein Vater, Du sprachst vor fünzig Jahren von dem Tore, das Lüderitz aufgestoßen habe für ein ganzes junges Deutschland. Wo ein Tor aufgestoßen wird, beginnt Menschenschicksal.” 31 ibid.p.15. 32 ibid.p.16. 33 ibid.p.18 “zu erneuern und zu verjüngen.” Hans Grimm 339

Accordingly, the liberal imperialism set in track during 1884-85 was seen by Grimm, as by most German liberals, as an unambiguously progressive step, both before, and importantly, after World War I. Not surprisingly, the colonial losses sustained by

Germany as a result of the war were viewed by Grimm, not merely as a retrograde development, but also as evidence of the larger anti-German political framework of Great

Power rivalries. For Grimm, the Great Power system consisted of a coterie of imperialist powers conspiring to exclude Germany from the ranks of the world powers, so as to further their own imperialist plans. A necessary part of this exclusion of Germany, according to Grimm, was the calculated deployment of the intrinsically unfair and overly punitive Versailles settlement. Indeed, as late as 1947, Grimm was arguing that the causes of both World Wars and Nazism lay with the refusal of the other powers to accept the legitimacy of liberal Germany’s attempts to follow an expansionist naval and foreign policy agenda, or as he termed it “British suspicions against German plans and designs.”35

In his autobiographical post-World War II work Suchen und Hoffen, Grimm argued time and again, that the plight of Germany during the Weimar Republic was largely the result of a broader European mindset that refused to countenance a Germany bestowed with international power properly commensurate with its demographic, economic and spiritual

34 ibid.p.16. 35 H Grimm. “Our Threatened Values” in Mehr Nationale Würde und mehr Wahrheit: Erkenntnisse und Bekenntnisse 1945-1959. Klosterhaus Verlag, Lippoldsberg, 1975.p.32. Hans Grimm 340 potential.36 It was no wonder, Grimm argued, that the traditional liberal bourgeoisie sought solace in radical nationalism during the twenties, with the stripping of Germany’s eastern and overseas territories and the economic colonisation of Germany by the victorious powers.37 Germany’s nationalist liberals may not have been National Socialists by inclination, but the constraints imposed upon Germany by Versailles and the Young

Plan led to a sense of fellow feeling with the NSDAP,38 limited only by a distaste for their vulgar street theatrics, their lowly social origins and the lack of respect for the individual shown by this mass social movement.

As a bestselling novelist, who simultaneously reflected and shaped the popular perception of the colonial issue throughout the Weimar Republic, Grimm enjoyed an enormous discursive power, crystallising and reinvigorating Germany’s amorphous corpus of liberal imperialist theories into a series of narratives that foregrounded a number of colonial experiences and ideas, such as colonial irredentism. Like his nineteenth century predecessors, he argued tirelessly for the centrality of imperialism to the discourse of

German national identity. Incrementally, these reactions to the frustrations of the

Versailles settlement and the Weimar system, posited by Grimm as the new central tropes of a reconstructed imperialist discourse, displaced the earlier, nineteenth century demographic and economist discursive parameters. Yet with imperialism still posited as a

36 See for example H Grimm Suchen und Hoffen. Klosterhaus –Verlag., Lippoldsberg, 1960.p.49. “…wenn der Wahnsinn von Versailles dauere, Deutschland und in der Folge Europa verkommen müsse.” See also pp.188ff. 37 ibid.pp.33- 37, 50. 38 This fellow feeling should not be simplistically equated with a proto-fascist sensibility or an uncritical acceptance of the Nazi state, as suggested by Joachim Warmbold’s polemical Germania in Africa: Germany’s Colonial Literature. Peter Lang, New York, 1989.pp.105ff, pp.121ff. Hans Grimm 341 mechanism of national unification, the related discourse of nationalism also came to foreground radical territorial revisionism and a revanchist foreign policy.

It is a commonplace to say that the novel is a bourgeois mode of textuality, however in so far as the novel form traces the experiences of the heroic individual, and his/her interaction with the wider world, in the case of Grimm, the medium was indeed the message. Whether presenting the hardship inflicted upon the German hero by Germany’s colonial rivals in Der Ölsucher von Duala,39 the racial killing that marks the colonial rite of passage into adulthood in Wie Grete Aufhört ein Kind zu Sein,40 or the tortuous process by which Cornelius Friebott came to realise the necessity of his nation’s imperial destiny in Volk Ohne Raum,41 Grimm implicitly argued for the centrality of the heroic individual in the nation’s rise to imperial greatness. As individuals struggled to better their own lives in the colonies, Grimm suggested, they simultaneously contributed to the glory of the nation – a notion that Grimm elsewhere defines as Altbürgerlichkeit. An implicit refutation of socialist notions of the primacy of solidarity and Nazi yearnings for a dissolution of the individual within the mass of the Volk, national identity was, for

Grimm, as for Keil’s Gartenlaube of the preceding century, the sum of the achievements of heroic German individuals, whose struggles resulted in the accumulation of both individual and, by extrapolation, national glory.

39 H Grimm. Der Ölsucher von Duala. Albert Langen / Georg Müller Verlag, München, 1933. 40 In H Grimm. Lüderitzland. Albert Langen / Georg Müller Verlag, München, 1934. 41 H Grimm. Volk Ohne Raum. Albert Langen / Georg Müller Verlag, München, 1935. Hans Grimm 342

As Grimm’s audience read his works, an implicit understanding arose between the author and his audience, that the colonised lands, despite being in the hands of Germany’s enemies, were rightly a realm for German narratives, German experiences, and German activity. As such, the status of the indigenous population was that of minor characters, a subordinate adjunct to the dominant Germans fulfilling their Weltaufgabe. In this sense, textual order mimicked and discursively perpetuated the previously existing social and racial order of the colonial era, as the indigenous population’s subordination to the social discipline of the colonisers was inscribed at a textual level. Indigenous people were thus marginalised in Weimar German narratives of their lands, textually excluded, an ironic inversion of the fact that the indigenous peoples remained, whilst the Germans had been forcibly excluded.

This textual exclusion served as a reassertion for German audiences of the previous facts of colonial imperialism – that if Germans were to again have room to enact their imperialist fantasies in the colonies, those Africans who had lived there previously had to be forcibly marginalised – even eradicated. The colonial novel offered the forcibly decolonised Germans a simulation of the brute power politics of the liberal imperialism that had seen the belated nation’s identity inscribed upon the colonies. Physically exiled from their colonial ‘homeland,’ the bourgeois reader could, through fiction, experience vicariously an earlier sense of self as a liberal imperialist, enacting Germany’s rightful way of life. Literature offered an ersatz imperialism, thereby keeping alive imperial ambitions, and in the uncertain Weimar world, a representation of a time when imperialist Germans exercised control over their own destiny and colonial domain. Hans Grimm 343

In propagating a sense of nostalgia for a lost colonial periphery in the previous colonising centre, Grimm consciously sought to further the nineteenth century discourse of liberal imperialism, as a discourse of national identity through which the middle classes would consolidate their domestic social ascendancy through their trade with, and administration of, Germany’s global empire. Using the metaphor of ‘space’ as an expression of the frustration of bourgeois energies, Grimm’s novels essentially externalised the sense that post-war Germany had become too eng, too claustrophobic for its energetic population.42

To argue that Grimm was solely responsible for the post-war revival of German imperialism is, of course, a nonsense. As has been stated, the process was a symbiotic one, whereby Grimm articulated the pre-existing imperialist sentiment of his readership, thereby reinforcing and furthering it - hence his enduring popularity that predated Nazi support for his works.43 In essence, Grimm encapsulated an existing imperialist mood that had little to do with his rhetorical power, and much to do with the weight of the preceding eighty years of German imperialist discourse and praxis. That colonial fiction was still hugely popular after World War I suggests that the defeat had not succeeded in persuading Germany’s bürgerliche Gesellschaft that imperial conquest was an impossible basis for national unity.

42 On the concept of space in the works of Hans Grimm, see T Nolden, “On Colonial Spaces and Bodies: Hans Grimm’s Geschichten aus Südwestafrika,” in S Friedrichsmeyer et.al. The Imperialist Imagination.p.125ff. 43 W Smith. “The Colonial Novel”.pp.220-221. Hans Grimm 344

With Grimm’s works representing a determined continuance of the German liberal nation-building project, it is arguable that, despite his protests to the contrary,44 Grimm offered a social vision that was essentially retrograde and nostalgic without being either marginal, or intrinsically conservative, in that it was firmly grounded in the expectations and beliefs of the German liberal middle classes, in their modernising social agenda, and in their notion of the role of the modern liberal citizen. All of this was articulated by

Grimm through his concept of Altbürgerlichkeit. Grimm, operating as an intellectual in the vanguard of bürgerlich opinion, gave expression to the apparent rightward shift of the

Bürgertum during the inter-war period.

This notion of Altbürgerlichkeit became for Grimm if not a fully-fledged justification of rule, then at least a cultural expression of a legitimate national identity that accorded with the dictates of the liberal imperialist Weltanschauung. At more than one point, Grimm remarked that without this inherently middle-class sensibility, Germany would cease to be Germany.45 Like his liberal predecessors, Grimm defined this formulation of German national identity as explicitly based on the liberal cultural mores of the English, to which all Germans should aspire to subscribe. 46

Central to this proffered discourse of identity was a sense of civic duty and personal sacrifice, balanced by a refusal by the individual to become dissolved into the mass, as

44 ibid.p.8. 45 ibid.p.50. “…ich begriff, daß ein Deutschland, welches die Mittel verlöre oder aufgebe, in immer neuen Schichten altbürgerlich unabhängig zu denken und altbürgerlich ‘honorig’ zu leben, seine besondere Wertigkeit verliere und eben dann kein Deutschland mehr sei.” See also pp.54, 202ff. 46 ibid.p.51, 54 Hans Grimm 345 demanded by the rival metanarratives as socialism and National Socialism.47 For Grimm, the cornerstone to this paradox of individualised selflessness was the pursuit of private property and personal reward, which ensured that the loyal citizenry were never fully subsumed by the national Geist they served.48

It is tempting to see in this ideological formulation a modification of Fichtean or

Hegelian theoretics, however, the notion of Altbürgerlichkeit had its more immediate origins in the nineteenth century search for a national identity and the solution to this problem proffered by the National Liberals, with whom Grimm’s family were so closely aligned. Grimm explicitly argued that this gentlemanly citizenship, as he defined

Altbürgerlichkeit, was a necessary condition of any true German identity.49 Rather than an extreme Right or Left immersion of the individual within the mass, Grimm argued for

British-style liberalism, as exemplified in the conduct of English imperialism by civic minded individuals who, Grimm explained, sought both national progress and personal betterment through colonialism.50

It is this sense of middle-class citizenship that Grimm saw as the origin of all honest political conduct in German society, and it is precisely this that differentiated him from easily coming to an accommodation with Nazi ideology in toto. According to Grimm,

Germany’s earlier colonial endeavours, the sense of loyal service during World War I,

47 ibid.pp.51-54,196, 202ff. 48 ibid.p.51, 49 ibid.p.54. “Wenn es Altbürgerlichkeit bei uns nicht mehr geben kann …erst dann ist unser gequältes Deutschland nicht mehr Deutschland.” 50 H Grimm Suchen und Hoffen. p.51. Hans Grimm 346 the agitation for a revision of the Versailles treaty (particularly in terms of its provisions on Germany’s colonial territories), and the resistance to the Young Plan all stemmed from a sense of altbürgerlich propriety, that foregrounded nationalist pride as the central determining factor in resisting the post-war settlement, as a settlement designed to deny

Germany the right to continue its traditional expansionism.

In other words, colonial revisionism, resistance to the Young Plan and to Versailles, and a pride in past martial enthusiasm were core elements of an authentic German identity during the Weimar Republic, as Grimm defined it. Far from seen as radical elements of the far-Right, they were integral elements of a liberal Weltanschauung, whose roots reached back as far as Friedrich List. Grimm’s liberalism was perhaps the final incarnation of this nineteenth German liberalism that saw territorial expansion, aggressive international trade and vociferous nationalism as compatible with broader liberal aims of parliamentary control, and the domestic hegemony of the bourgeoisie in the social and economic spheres.51

With Versailles radically altering the political landscape, the rhetoric of German liberalism was repositioned as a discourse of resistance, as calls for imperialism and an assertive national identity clashed violently with the broader European understanding of what an appropriate German national identity should now look like. The decades old

51 Both HU Wehler and J Sheehan rightly draw attention to Friedrich Meinecke’s 1912 judgement that “the idea of imperialism was the most effective bond holding National Liberals together”. See JJ Sheehan German Liberalism in the Nineteenth Century. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1978.p.276 (quoting HU Wehler. Das deutsche Kaiserreich.p.195.) Hans Grimm 347 aspirations of German liberals appeared, in the new context of a defeated Germany, to resemble the radical and combative nationalism of the hard Right who deliberately blurred any remaining distinctions for reasons of pragmatic politics. Whereas the upper echelons of the new liberal political parties partially modified their political agendas to match the realities of a changed domestic and international political landscape, their constituents did no such thing, largely adhering to their earlier sense of what constituted

Germany’s rightful national identity and Germany’s rightful Weltaufgabe. In this sense,

German liberals such as Hans Grimm felt themselves to be exiled – forcibly separated from their national destiny and from those parties that were the traditional expressions of their aspirations and interests.

It is Grimm’s dogged adherence to a nineteenth-century liberalism beyond its contextual appropriateness that has been misread by some critics as symptomatic of his centrality to the ‘Conservative Revolution.’52 In the case of figures such as Grimm, this appellation is misleading in a number of ways. Firstly and most importantly, this view posits the

‘revolutionary’ movement as having been made by the German liberal middle classes and their ideological position, whereas the movement should in fact be located in the radical shift in the post-World War One political context within which an enduring liberal imperialist discourse continued to be enunciated.

Secondly, the term ‘revolution’ lends the impression that a German discourse of imperial ambition and national self-assertion had not existed prior to Weimar, rather that it was

52 See for example M Travers Critics of Modernity: The Literature of the Conservative Revolution in Germany, 1890-1933. Peter Lang, New York, 2001, especially pp.10, 130-145. Hans Grimm 348 something radically new. In fact, this discourse predated the revolutions of 1848 – and had continuously resurfaced throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As

Hartmut Pogge von Strandmann has pointed out, “the German arguments for acquiring colonies in the first place and for demanding their return later on were sufficiently similar to create a certain link between pre-war imperialism and postwar colonial revisionism.”53

Friedrich List, Friedrich Fabri, Max Weber, and Hans Grimm are all links in a continuous discursive chain of German liberal imperialism that stretched across almost one hundred years.54 The discourse itself remained relatively constant, – what had altered was how this discourse was politically and culturally situated and deployed. Far from being a radical departure, much of what has been viewed as a new Weimar ‘conservatism’ was consistent with pre-war liberalism, in so far as it saw nationalism and imperialism as being central to a discourse of national identity that could effectively combat rival discourses of German identity – socialism, Elbian agrarian conservatism and Catholicism.

As Sheehan has remarked, “those who voted for the Nazis after 1930 were continuing to vote against their traditional enemies, political Catholicism and the parties of industrial labour.”55 Viewed from within as a continuous and internally consistent discourse, the change in context saw German liberalism, as viewed from without, redefine itself de facto as a form of irredentism.

53 H Pogge von Strandmann “Imperialism and Revisionism in Interwar Germany. p.91. 54 See for example F List. Le Système Naturel d’Économie Politique,. p.228, Das Politische System. pp.210, 238, 289-90, 425-426, F Fabri, Bedarf Deutschland der Colonien? Edwin Mellen Press, New York, 1998. 55 Sheehan. German Liberalism.p.282. Hans Grimm 349

It is this immunity to contextual change that Dieter Langewiesche has inadvertently pointed to in his view that, “At the end of the day… democratic nationalism was unable to distinguish itself clearly enough from the integral nationalism of the right.”56 Indeed,

Langewiesche states explicitly that it was the persistence of the twin liberal ambitions of regaining past colonial possessions and national expansion – in defiant contradiction of the Versailles settlement – that led to liberalism resembling hard Right ultra nationalism.57 Langewiesche, along with Thomas Childers, are correct in their characterisation of the situation as being one in which Germany’s ex-liberal middle classes did indeed come to vote for increasingly Rightist parties, however, this was not so much a mindless lurch to the Right by a panicked Mittelstand,58 but rather a conscious decision to support parties that seemed to best articulate the long-standing tenets of liberal ideology.

As adherents to liberalism, the middle classes searched for a party that appeared to articulate their perception of themselves and their social role - what the DVP’s Otto Most called liberalism’s self-perception as “the national idea of power,” a vehicle for the

“salvation of the nation… by means of the salvation of the individual.”59 Such liberal theorising overlapped considerably with Grimm’s notion of Altbürgerlichkeit – whereby civic-minded individuals furthered the extent of the nation’s power. As an historically

56 D Langewiesche. Liberalism in Germany. (trans. C Banerji) Princeton University Press, Princeton , 200.p. 286. 57 ibid.p.286. 58 ibid.p.264. See also T Childers. “The Middle Classes and National Socialism” in D Blackbourn & RJ Evans. The German Bourgeoisie.pp.318ff. 59 Otto Most, quoted in Langewiesche, Liberalism in Germany.p.281. Hans Grimm 350 expansionist discourse, liberalism’s imperialist heritage was seamlessly co-opted by

Weimar’s Right-wing parties, thereby making them an appealing option for liberals, ideologically exiled from the official face of a political liberalism, that, under intense international pressure, sought to temper liberalism’s earlier expansionist dreams.

The literature of Hans Grimm was an expression of the intransigence of Germany’s liberals in the face of the historical change brought about by World War One and the persistence of imperialism as a central tenet of the liberal concept of German national identity. Since the time of Friedrich List, German liberalism had expressed its vision of modernity and progress in imperialist, colonial terms. Despite the defeat of this imperialist vision in World War One, German liberals considered themselves as imperial masters in exile, and it was not until the Untergang of 1945 that, in the face of more pressing national concerns and the imperatives of post-war reconstruction, the German middle classes, like those of Britain and France, were forced to reassess their material capacity to directly rule those extra-European lands that they viewed as critical adjuncts to their domestic economies. The Broader Post 1918 Imperialist Movement 351

Chapter Nine.

The Broader Post 1918 Imperialist Movement – Heinrich Schnee and the

Kolonialgesellschaft.

Despite the broad and popular appeal of the works of Hans Grimm in Weimar

Germany, and the illustrative nature of his novels, a single author cannot be posited as being sufficiently indicative of a broader, flourishing liberal imperialist milieu, irrespective of how representative they might be. To expand the picture, the post-

World War I colonial movement itself requires scrutiny, as does its relationship to the anti-Versailles sentiment that was a widespread phenomenon in liberal circles.

To begin with the latter first, with their agreement to the settlement of Versailles,

Germany’s post-war political parties may have formalised their acceptance of the ceasefire conditions demanded by the international community that were necessary to spare Germany an invasion, but in so doing they had also embraced a foreign policy framework that had the potential to unravel the new republican political order that had authorised the peace. As Langewiesche, Zeller and others have pointed out, social segments spanning from elements of the Social Democrats across to the parties of the Far Right mobilised, at the very least rhetorically, against the Versailles diktat.1 What differed amongst these parties and indeed the

1 D Langewiesche. Liberalism in Germany.p.286. J Zeller. Kolonialdenkmäler und Geschichtsbewußtsein. Eine Untersuchung der kolonialdeutschen Erinnerungskultur. IKO – Verlag für Interkulturelle Kommunikation, Frankfurt, 2000.p.129. The Broader Post 1918 Imperialist Movement 352 individuals within them was the degree of ferocity with which it was attacked. The two liberal successor parties were quick to contain their protests within the diplomatic sphere, with the DDP, for example, settling into a comfortable, diplomatic and long-term challenging of the peace treaty as early as the 1920s.2

Similarly, the one-time colonial enthusiast Gustav Stresemann found himself taken to task by the colonial movement leader and fellow DVP member Dr Heinrich

Schnee in 1925, who accused him of ignoring the colonial question – a claim

Stresemann, with little justification, strenuously denied.3

Given the widespread political opposition to Versailles, it is difficult to over- emphasise the extent to which anti-Versailles sentiment operated as a convenient political shorthand for both the sense of indignation and dishonour that accompanied the material deprivations enforced by the treaty, and the complex and myriad material difficulties that beset the German nation in the post-war era.

Through Versailles, the prevailing economic conditions of unemployment, inflation, political instability and violence, poverty and Depression were compressed into a neat conceptual package, used by the Weimar parties (who appeared oblivious to the extent to which anti-Versailles sentiment undermined their own political position) as a form of cultural cement, a perceived political truism that all parties to the right of the Social Democrats could call upon as a means of spanning other more obvious but politically difficult divisions within Germany.4 Versailles, as a polemically essentialised historical understanding of the outcome of the First World

2 D Langewiesche. Liberalism in Germany.p.286. 3 On Stresemann’s earlier colonial enthusiasm, see E Sutton (ed.) Gustav Stresemann. Vol. I.p. 13. For Stresemann’s correspondence with Schnee, see E Sutton (ed.) Gustav Stresemann. Vol. II. pp.277-278. 4 D Langewiesche. Liberalism in Germany.p.251. The Broader Post 1918 Imperialist Movement 353

War, and, by extension, of the historical origins of the Weimar political system itself, became emblematic of the sense of loss that arose from the perception that foreign nations were robbing Germany of its natural resources, its political integrity and its territory. The symbolic weight of Versailles as a synecdochic focus point for postwar socio-political protest was further bolstered by the perception that

Germany had been unfairly singled out amongst the European nations through the war guilt clause, or, as it was termed within the political discourse of the Weimar parties, the Schuldlüge.

The question of guilt and territorial deprivation was central to the maintenance of pro-colonial sentiment in Weimar Germany, with many liberals hopeful of an eventual return of the former colonies.5 Far from a disparate, vague hope for future gradual improvements, this sentiment crystallised into a number of vigorous pro- colonial groups, active from 1919, until at least the middle of 1941.6 Typical of the anti-Versailles sentiment amongst these groups was that expressed by the chairperson of the Verein für das Deutschtum in Ausland, when in October 1919 he bemoaned the fact that “Der Friedensvertrag, den wir anerkannt haben, belastet uns mit der Verpflichtung, auf unseren Kolonialbesitz zu verzichten.” Similarly, the

Braunschweig branch of the Deutsche Kolonialgesellschaft in May 1920 denounced

5 ibid.p.286. 6 On these Weimar pro-colonial organisations, see WW Schmokel. Dream of Empire: German Colonialism, 1919-1945. Yale University Press, New Haven, 1964. See also H Pogge von Strandmann. “Deutscher Imperialismus nach 1918” in D Stegmann, BJ Wendt, PC Witt (Hg.) Deutscher Konservatismus im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert, Festschrift für Fritz Fischer. Verlag Neue Gesellschaft, Bonn, 1983.pp.281-293, J Nöhre. Das Selbstverständnis der Weimarer Kolonialbewegung im Spiegel ihrer Zeitschriftenliteratur. Lit Verlag, Münster, 1998, and J Zeller Kolonialdenkmäler.pp.127ff. The Broader Post 1918 Imperialist Movement 354

Versailles as the “Schmachfrieden von Versailles.”7 Operating under various guises and the auspices of various German governments, the aims of these organisations remained the same – the return of Germany’s overseas possessions, as well as the overturning of both the notion of German war guilt and the accusation of moral unworthiness to possess colonies – to be achieved through the renegotiation of the terms of the treaty or its repudiation.

During the Weimar period, most pro-colonial organisations were co-ordinated through the umbrella body Die Koloniale Reichsarbeitsgemeinschaft (Korag).8

Established by a meeting of the peak colonial associations in Germany on the 15th of April 1921, Korag started out as representing twenty-one different colonial organisations from around the nation, under the centralised direction of the

Deutsche Kolonialgesellschaft (DKG).9 Firmly in line with the intransigency of post-war German Bürgertum at the grass roots level was the DKG’s press organ, the

Deutsche Kolonialzeitung, which quickly demonstrated its irredentist credentials and its own refusal to accept the status quo as established by the Versailles settlement. As early as February 1919, it warned against agreement with a

“Scheinfrieden” or a “Diktaturfrieden”10 that would deprive Germany of its colonies. Similarly, emblematic of the paper’s consistent intransigence, was its front page of the 20th of April of the same year. In large, bold typeset, the paper addressed itself to the National-Versammlung:

7 BA Berlin R8023/336 Deutsche Kolonialgesellschaft.p.392, R8023/336.p.379. 8 The process of constructing Korag in 1920-21 is detailed in BA Berlin R8023/336. Deutsche Kolonialgesellschaft. In essence, this process was welcomed by the various pro-colonial groups as a means of concentrating their efforts and avoiding unnecessary duplication. 9 ibid.pp.327-346. See also R8023/359.pp.294-5. 10 DKZ. 36(2). 20th Feb. 1919.p.14. The Broader Post 1918 Imperialist Movement 355

An die National-Versammlung! Einmal hat Deutschland die Schmach übereilten Vertrages erduldet, Als wir die Waffen gestreckt – hoffentlich lerntet ihr draus. Wenn uns der Feind einen Frieden diktiert, der uns dauernd entrechtet, Der uns versklavt und beraubt – gebt eure Zustimmung nicht! Rechtsfrieden wollen wir haben und ehrlich darüber verhandeln: Lehnt aber – einig und schroff – jeden Gewaltfrieden ab!11

This refusal to accept the Versailles settlement, particularly in terms of its apportioning of blame and its confiscation of the German colonies, had by 1920 become a commonplace within the Deutsche Kolonialzeitung and the DKG / Korag more broadly. Thus, at the General Assembly of the DKG, in the President of the

Association’s address, the twin themes of overcoming Versailles and of national unity had already merged to provide an important part of post-war liberalism’s conceptualisation of national identity – the unification of the German nation in resistance to the treaty of Versailles, in order to regain the German colonies:

Wir müssen in erster Linie darauf dringen, daß der Friedenvertrag von Versailles einer Revision unterzogen wird. (Bravo!)… Bei der Begründung des deutschen Kolonialbesitzes führte Bismarck aus “Eine Kolonialpolitik sei nur möglich, wenn sie von einer Mehrheit des nationalen Willens mit Entschlossenheit und Ueberzeugung getragen werde!” Diese Mehrheit ist in deutschen Volke vorhanden.12

This line of argument had been prefigured in an article from the month before, which had announced the centrality of the DKG to Germany’s future:

Die Deutsche Kolonialgesellschaft erhebt deshalb die Forderung, daß bei der von allen einsichtigen geforderten Revision des Friedenvertrags von Versailles vor allem Maßnahmen ergriffen werden, um Deutschland den ihm gebührenden Anteil an der Erschließung überseeischen Neulands zu gewähren.13

11 DKZ. 36(4). 20th April 1919.p.37. 12 DKZ 37(6). 20th June, 1920.pp.63-64. “Hauptversammlung der Deutschen Kolonialgesellschaft.” On Korag and the DKG’s liberal complexion, see below. The Broader Post 1918 Imperialist Movement 356

Similarly, in January 1922, when Korag had decided to petition the Entente powers, requesting their acknowledgement of Germany’s right to have its colonies returned, their statement was signed by thirty-seven different pro-colonial organisations, in a vocal demonstration by Germany’s pro-colonial segments of civil society.14

Versailles stood, according to the DKZ, and to its Korag sponsor, as not only an impediment to their specific concerns as an organisation, but as an impediment to

Germany’s rightful role as a major participant in the imperialist activity conducted by other European nations in the extra-European world. It was a denial of liberalism’s historic nationalist metanarrative, and as such a serious stumbling block for the continuing profitability and expansionist capability of German trade and industry. So much was argued in 1919, when the paper gave, as its five reasons for the return of German colonies, a recitation of the tropes of liberal imperialism – the requirement for colonial space as a site for demographic expansion, the need for raw materials for German industry, the need for German trade to expand globally, the requirement of German culture to expand globally, and the requirement for

Germany to fulfil its future Weltaufgabe.15

Yet Korag and the DKZ did not constitute the entirety of Germany’s colonial movement. For example, the periodical Der Kolonialdeutsche in January of 1921 listed more than sixty-five regional colonial organisations that were not affiliated

13 DKZ 37(5). 20th May, 1920.p.49. 14 BA Berlin. R8023 / 336.pp.36-38. The position arrived at by the signatories of the petition was in essence a ‘lowest common denominator’ course of action agreed to by the umbrella organisation. Some members of Korag’s committee, notably Else Frobenius, demanded that the Versailles Schuldfrage be attacked directly, so that Versailles would eventually be annulled. See Korag minutes, R8023 / 336.p.46. 15 DKZ 36(3). 20th March. 1919.p.26. The Broader Post 1918 Imperialist Movement 357 with Korag, the majority of which were associations of colonial veterans. These organisations alone had a membership totalling in excess of 4 600.16 Also in direct competition with Korag and in particular to the leadership role of the Deutsche

Kolonialgesellschaft was the Bund der Kolonialfreunde, who displayed a far more attacking line against the Versailles settlement and the confiscation of German colonies. Established on the 18th of March 1922, their professed purpose was “Den kolonialen Gedanken der Notwendigkeit und Wiederlangung deutscher Kolonien in alle Volkskreise durch schärfste Propaganda in Wort und Schrift hineintragen.”17

In essence, this meant a sustained attack upon Versailles, in public meetings with titles such as “Der Raub der deutschen Kolonien und seine Wiedergutmachung,”

(delivered by colonial luminary Dr Paul Rohrbach18) and “Die deutschen Kolonien nach dem Versailler Frieden,” held by the former State Secretary of the German

Colonial Office Bernhard Dernburg.19 This pattern of hosting aggressively pro- colonial lectures by ex-colonial officials and academics continued, and was to some degree successful, in that by 1924, the Bund der Kolonialfreunde could boast a membership of 3000,20 which, while not in itself a mass movement, when taken as the membership of a colonial organisation outside of the mainstream Korag grouping, demonstrates a certain breadth of appeal. Despite this, the Bund was never as successful as Korag, leading it to complain that the German populace was

16 ibid.pp.129-131. The same periodical also boasted an article by DVP / DKG colonial propagandist and ex-colonial governor Heinrich Schnee, as well as a poem by Edith Mehrtens that asserted that “Deutschlands Zukunft sind die Kolonien!” This future, the poem continued, was in the clutches of Germany’s enemies. (“Und das halt nun der Feind in seinen Krallen.”). ibid.p.128. 17 BA Berlin R8023/342 Deutsche Kolonialgesellschaft.p.296. 18 ibid.p.300. (Article in Neue Presse Zeitung, 11th April 1922). 19 ibid.p.295. (4th May 1922). The status of the speakers is perhaps as important as the topics on which they spoke. Far from marginal radicals, such figures had been at the centre of Germany’s pre- war colonial life. 20 ibid.p.241. The Broader Post 1918 Imperialist Movement 358 ignoring the lost colonies and the Bund’s efforts to retrieve them. Even this accusation of an apathetic Germany was made in the context of an attack on the

Versailles settlement, reminding the German public that they had a responsibility to support their pro-colonial work:

So schwer und unerträglich auch der Gewaltfrieden von Versailles von allen unseren Volksgenossen empfunden wurde, so leicht setzte sich doch die Masse des Volkes über den Raub unserer überseeischen Rohstoffgebiete, unseres aufblühenden Kolonialbesitzes hinweg.21

In the end, the Bund der Kolonialfreunde merged with another pro-colonial association, the Gesellschaft für koloniale Erneuerung, on the 7th of May 1929, to create another organisation outside of the Korag framework, the Bund für koloniale

Erneuerung, under the leadership of prominent Dresden liberal and DDP

Reichsminister Dr Wilhelm Külz.22

Also outside of the Korag umbrella organisation was the Hamburg-based

Gesellschaft für kolonialen Aufbau, established in 1925/6. The extent of fraternal goodwill and common purpose between the two organisations was such that in

March of 1926, Korag’s co-ordinating organisation, the Deutsche

Kolonialgesellschaft requested that the police profile the new group.23 Dutifully, the police reported back that the organisation had virtually the same aims as Korag, namely the broadening of ‘kolonialen Gedanken,’ the supporting of the rights of

Auslandsdeutschtum, the “Kampf gegen die koloniale Schuldlüge,” the “Kampf

21 ibid.pp.284-5. 22 ibid.p.4. On the merger and the debate over their position outside of Korag, see also R8023/364 and R8023/366. On Külz chairing the organisation, see R8023/364.p.15. 23 BA Berlin R8023/362. Deutsche Kolonialgesellschaft.p.5. The Broader Post 1918 Imperialist Movement 359 gegen den Vertrag von Versailles” and the “Wiederherstellung der deutschen

Weltwirtschaft.”24

Although such smaller, independent organisations are not to be discounted, by far the main colonial organisation during the Weimar era was Korag, and its director body the Deutsche Kolonialgesellschaft (DKG).25 Boasting 30 000 members and

250 branches by 1926,26 the DKG co-ordinated the vast majority of pro-colonial agitation and propaganda during the Weimar era, ensuring both that Germany’s loss of colonies through the Versailles treaty was continuously politically and culturally commemorated, and that the pre-war discourse of liberal imperialism was sustained.27

24 ibid.p.3. 25 Although not an exhaustive list, the main constituent associations, themselves with regional branches were, as listed by the Deutscher Industrie- und Handelstag in March 1930: Deutsche Kolonialgesellschaft, Frauenbund der Deutschen Kolonialgesellschaft, Kolonialkriegerdank, Kolonialkriegerbund, Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Auslands- und Kolonialtechnik (Akotech), Bund der Auslandsdeutschen, Bund Deutscher Marinevereine, Deutsche evangelische Missionhilfe, Frauenverein vom Roten Kreuz für Deutsche über See, Reichsverband für die katholischen Auslandsdeutschen, Verband der Schutzgebietsbeamten und Schutztruppenangehörigen, Vereinigung für Deutsche Siedlung und Wanderung, Deutscher Kolonialverein (Gesellschaft für nationale Siedlungs- und Auslandspolitik. See BA Berlin R8023/358. Deutsche Kolonialgesellschaft.pp.294-5. 26 WW Schmokel. Dream of Empire.p.2. 27 Wolfe Schmokel, in his account, paints an overly bleak picture of the breadth of Korag’s political and cultural resonance. See Dream of Empire.p.10. A useful corrective to this can be found in Mary Townsend’s two articles on the subject from 1928 and 1938, in which she discussed the numerous forms of colonial agitation in Weimar Germany. According to her account, “the Peace Settlement of 1919 has not… terminated the internal colonial movement. Indeed it has had quite the contrary effect.” Of the German colonialists, she affirmed “Evidence of their activities for the recovery of the lost territories can be found everywhere in Germany today.” M Townsend. “The Contemporary Colonial Movement in Germany” Political Science Quarterly 43(1), March 1928.pp.64-75. For quotation see.p.65. See also M Townsend. “The German Colonies and the Third Reich” Political Science Quarterly 53(2), June 1938.pp.186-206. The Broader Post 1918 Imperialist Movement 360

However, as with the case of Hans Grimm, the perpetuation of this imperialist discourse by the DKG and Korag, within the context of a radically altered political, economic and cultural climate, led to colonial imperialism being transformed from a discourse of modernisation and a confident expression of liberal notions of national unity, progress and common (imperialist) purpose within the family of liberal European nations, to a discourse of embittered and thwarted national power.

Importantly, both before and after the war, colonial imperialism was a discourse aimed at unifying the nation in accordance with a single totalising metanarrative of

German expansionism, however whereas before the war it was seen as a project to be carried out in gentlemanly competition with England and France, after the war it was seen as necessarily a project in active defiance of the wishes of both powers.

The Entente powers, it was claimed, had confiscated Germany’s colonies not because of German colonial incompetence, nor even as a mere compensatory measure, but rather as a means of deliberately forestalling Germany’s ‘rightful’ and

‘natural’ international growth.

This discursive change lead to a radicalisation of imperialist discourse that saw the demands of liberal imperialists become virtually indistinguishable from those of newer far Right nationalist parties.28 This confusion, or perhaps merging of purpose, between liberal and Far Right foreign policies was not only evident amongst the general voting public, with the formerly liberal leader of the DKG,

Heinrich Schnee, coming to see the “dawn of a new era from which we expect the final attainment of our colonial goal” in the Nazi Machtergreifung.29

28 D Langewiesche. Liberalism in Germany.pp.286-87. 29 WW Schmokel. Dream of Empire.p.20. This statement of course contains it tactical element, explicitly stating what the DKG expected of the Nazis, as a means of pressuring them into action. The Broader Post 1918 Imperialist Movement 361

As central institutions within this imperialist milieu, Korag and the DKG, as Wolfe

Schmokel has argued, were characterised by the continued predominance of pre-

World War I colonial practitioners and officials, and, of particular note, liberal politicians and commercial interests. “Economic,” Schmokel has argued, “ – especially financial – interests… dominated the colonial movement during the

Weimar period.”30 Not surprisingly, the members of the National Liberal Party’s successor, the nationalist-liberal Deutsche Volkspartei, were influential, indeed leading voices within Korag, and Schmokel is correct in his analysis that the DVP,

“representing mainly the interests of industry and the upper middle class, was most strongly committed to colonial revision.” Given the National Liberals’ leading role in thrusting imperialism forth in the nineteenth century, it was simply to be expected that “many… old colonial officials and businessmen with colonial interests were members of the DVP.”31

A pivotal figure in Korag who personified the linkage between liberalism and colonialism in the Weimar era was the academic and ex-colonial governor Dr

Heinrich Schnee.32 His leadership of the DKG and the Akademischer Kolonialbund

Schnee had too in October 1932 left the DVP, having come to the view, like many German liberals, that only the Nazi party had the conviction and popular support “die gegenwärtige Krise zu überwinden…” GstA PK VI. HA. Familienarchive und Nachlässe, N1. Heinrich Schnee Mappe 24.p.69. 30 WW Schmokel. Dream of Empire.pp.7-8. As evidence, Schmokel cites the names and occupations of the delegates to a 1930 Korag conference. 31 ibid.p.11. See also M Townsend. “The Contemporary Colonial Movement” p.72. 32 Like Grimm, Schnee bore the imprint of his father’s nineteenth century nationalist liberalism, that had held Britain to be its model. “Mein Vater… war liberal… Seine Ideal waren der englische Parlamentarismus und die englische Selbstverwaltung.” See GstA PK VI. HA, N1. Heinrich Schnee Mappe 24.p.31. The Broader Post 1918 Imperialist Movement 362 was instrumental in the liberal critique and subsequent rejection of the post-World

War One international order, as well as the active agitation for a renewed German colonial imperialism. A determined and influential academic and propagandist,

Schnee’s agitation and political work represented the major politico-academic contribution to Weimar liberal imperialism, and as such offer the perfect complement to the fiction of Hans Grimm.

A representative of the DVP in the Reichstag,33 Schnee was the major DKG figure responsible for the development and dissemination of a liberal theory of colonial revisionism that had its foundations in a rejection of the Versailles settlement and the re-deployment of the tropes of nineteenth century liberal imperialist discourse.

As well as transmitting imperialist cultural values in countless speaking engagements, Schnee articulated the liberal imperialist post-war critique in numerous works that amounted to a theoretical foundation for the DKG and

Korag.34

33 ibid.p.11. 34 The major works considered here are H Schnee. Braucht Deutschland Kolonien? Verlag von Quelle & Meyer, Leipzig, 1921, H Schnee.Die Koloniale Schuldlüge. (2. Auflage) Buchverlag der Süddeutschen Monatshefte, München, 1927. (First published in 1924 and subsequently published in English as German Colonization Past and Present in 1926. Interestingly, the project to create an English translation was underwritten by the German Foreign Ministry, which enabled the DKG to financially support the book, which served as a propaganda coup not only for the DKG but for the German government. See GstA PK VI. HA N1. Heinrich Schnee Mappe 36.p.180. “Auf Veranlassung des Auswärtiges Amtes, Abteilung für kolonialen Angelegenheiten haben wir… RM6000 überwiesen lassen, welche für die Bezahlung der englische Aufgabe über die ‘koloniale Schuldlüge’ bestimmt ist”), H Schnee. Nationalismus und Imperialismus. Verlag von Reimar Hobbing, Berlin, 1928, H Schnee & H Draeger (Hg). Zehn Jahre Versailles. (3. Bände) Brückenverlag, Berlin, 1929. The Broader Post 1918 Imperialist Movement 363

Best representing a summary of his concerns was the early work, Braucht

Deutschland Kolonien? which was a published version of an address that he had delivered to a general meeting of Leipzig’s colonial societies in January of 1921.35

Setting the tone immediately, this work opened with a provocative definition of the work of the colonial societies: “es ist die schlagende Widerlegung der feindlichen

Verleumdungen, auf Grund deren uns im Versailler Frieden unsere Kolonien abgesprochen sind.”36 This central theme, that the Versailles settlement was at the heart of Germany’s colonial problem, was consistently reiterated not only in this work, but in others as well and it became critical to the notion of the koloniale

Schuldlüge. The effect of dispossession, it was claimed, was a reversal of the progressive gains of the preceding century, that had allowed Germany to become a global power:

Der Versailler Frieden hat uns unsere Kolonien genommen. Dieser unmögliche und unausführbare Friedensvertrag hat uns eingeschnürt, geknebelt, abgeschlossen von der Außenwelt. Er hat uns das genommen, was Bismarck als das Wichtigste und Bedeutendste für das deutsche Volk bezeichnete, nämlich unsere “Selbstständigkeit, unsere Organisation in der Weise, daß wir als große Nation in der Welt frei atmen können.” Der Atem ist uns abgeschnitten, wir sind auf zu engem Raum zusammengepfercht und können uns nicht rühren.37

This notion, that the Versailles Treaty had condemned Germany to being a nation without the necessary territorial requirements for the continuance of their international power, underwrote the continual agitation by liberal imperialist societies for an expansion of German territory, and the repudiation of Versailles.

Although resting on the basis of a different discursive tradition, namely nineteenth

35 H Schnee. Braucht Deutschland Kolonien?p.v. The conclusion that the allusion to Fabri’s Bedarf Deutschland der Colonien is deliberate is difficult to resist. 36 ibid.p.2. 37 ibid.p.9. See also p.42. The Broader Post 1918 Imperialist Movement 364 century liberal imperialism, these views, articulated by a liberal politician, were held in common with the German extreme Right, illustrating once again the shared discursive space inhabited by all political parties to the Right of the Social

Democrats.38 It further illustrates that the expectation that irrendentism would provide a unifying national political platform was not entirely unrealistic. Once again German liberals were forwarding a nationalist / imperialist discourse in the interests of national unity. This discourse, which had at its core the need for

Germany to expand, was articulated within the context of a radically different international political order, a context that necessarily transformed the cultural meaning and political implications of proposing a continuation of foreign expansion.

The discursive tropes of Schnee’s renewal of liberal imperialist discourse were a pure revival of those that had become standard since the 1848 Frankfurt

Nationalversammlung. Germany, it was argued, required the primary resources that were only to be found in the colonies – “Wir leiden bitteren Mangel an vielen

Produkten, welche uns unsere Kolonien reichlich gewähren könnten.”39 Colonies were necessary for an expansion in German trade and industry.40 Without colonies there would be no destination for German emigrants, representing another blow to

38 In fact, key elements of the Social Democrats could be included in this imperialist ‘popular front,’ as has been pointed out by W Schmokel. Dream of Empire.pp.4, 11, 13,and one of Schmokel’s own sources, Mary Townsend, (“The Contemporary Colonial Movement in Germany” p.72.), as well as Arthur Dix, Weltkrise und Kolonialpolitik.pp.98-99, 301-5. 39 H Schnee. Braucht Deutschland Kolonien? p.10. See also p.17. 40 ibid.pp.16-18. see also p.31, where it was argued that a colonial empire would alleviate Germany’s “Überschuß an wirtschaftlichen Kräften.” The Broader Post 1918 Imperialist Movement 365

Germany’s global expansion, as well as a loss in labour power to the German economy:

Wenn wir diese Landsleute in eigene Kolonien lenken könnten, so wäre das nicht nur wirtschaftlich ein Gewinn, sondern es wäre von ganz ungeheurer Bedeutung für unser Deutschtum in der Welt.41

Es würde aber für Deutschland von größter Bedeutung sein, wenn auch nur ein Teil der Auswanderer auf deutschem Grund und Boden Übersee ansässig gemacht werden könnte und weder politisch noch wirtschaftlich für uns verloren ginge.42

Along with such economic and demographic imperatives, Schnee cited cultural benefits, for both Germany and of the colonial world, as grounds for a renewed

German colonialism. Germany, he argued in the manner of Hübbe-Schleiden, as a culturally advanced nation, had a right to take part in the process of ‘cultural development’ that was taking place in the colonial world:

Wir sind ein großes Kulturvolk, das sich im Laufe einer langen gemeinsamen Geschichte in seiner Eigenart und zu seiner Kulturhöhe entwickelt hat. Wir haben Anspruch darauf, daß wir unsere kulturellen Errungschaften draußen in der Welt auch weiterhin an minderentwickelte Völker mitteilen, wie wir dies bisher in reichstem Maße in uinseren Kolonien getan haben.43

None of these arguments were new, and it appears that Schnee had attempted to do no more than place the Weimar liberal imperialist movement firmly within the discursive tradition of the nineteenth century liberal imperialist movement. In asserting this discursive continuity, Schnee implicitly refuted the possibility that the deployment of a nineteenth century imperialist discourse in a post- World War I setting was in any way problematic. In essence a refusal to come to terms with the

41 ibid.p.22. 42 ibid.p.26. 43 ibid.p.31. See also p.34. The Broader Post 1918 Imperialist Movement 366 radically altered social logic of imperialist utterance, this reassertion of Germany’s right to empire was, in this new context, the reassertion of Germany’s right to power-political parity in Europe, in defiance of the outcome of World War I.

Schnee discussed this ‘return’ of Germany in the language of national reconstruction. Colonies, Schnee asserted, were the means by which Germany could overcome the internal social fissures that World War I had brought to the surface.

Colonialism, he argued, was and had always been both the mythopoeic engine driving national unification and the material means of reasserting Germany amongst the circle of European Great Powers:44

Die ersten Pioniere des kolonialen Gedankens im deutschen Reich waren sich bereits darüber klar, wie der koloniale Gedanke wirken könnte und müßte… Sie waren sich dessen bewußt und haben es zum Ausdruck gebracht, daß die Kolonialpolitik für das deutsche Volk eine gemeinsame Aufgabe schaffen müßte, eine gemeinsame nationale Aufgabe, in die kein konfessioneller, kein parteipolitischer Hader hineinreichen würde. Und das ist richtig. Die Kolonialpolitik ist genau so notwendig für den Arbeiter wie für den Industriellen, wie für den Kaufmann, wie überhaupt für jeden Deutschen. Die Erkenntnis davon sollte bei den Parteien der äußersten Linken ebenso vorhanden sein wie bei denen der äußersten Rechten.45

This rhetoric of national harmonisation through the embracing of a totalising liberal imperialist metanarrative viewed the colonies as the site for the construction of a renewed German national identity. Imperialism was meant to sublate all social tensions and create a unified German nation, focused upon foreign expansion.

44 Schnee, on the one hand, explicitly discounted the possibility of thinking of an international Machtpolitik (ibid.p.35), however, he then went on to offer a theoretical basis for such a policy, before finally asserting its possibility. 45 ibid.p.35. The Broader Post 1918 Imperialist Movement 367

To demonstrate this, Schnee, recycling a commonplace of the preceding century, asserted that for Deutschtum abroad there existed none of the internal divisions experienced within Germany itself. He also illustrated that, for him, the colonies’ locus of meaning was largely domestic, external sites for the renewal of the German nation-state. Revealingly, he gave a racialist explanation as to why this was so, an explanation that uncovers a shared set of intellectual assumptions between Weimar liberals and the more overtly racist Right-wing parties such as the NSDAP:

Da schwinden die partikularischen Gegensätze, die bisweilen in der Heimat sich noch allzusehr fühlbar machen. Da empfinden sich alle als deutsch im Gegensatz zu den andern Völkern. Sie stehen, ich möchte sagen, dort draußen den Quellen des Nationalgefühls näher als in der Heimat. Denn was ist das Nationalgefühls schließlich als das Gefühl der Zusammengehörigkeit zu einem Volk? Und diese Zusammengehörigkeit der deutschen Art empfindet der Deutsche draußen in den Kolonien. Er sieht die großen Unterschiede, die uns von den fremden Völkern und Rassen trennen.46

No mere anthropological observation of cultural difference, Schnee was alluding to the common sense of identity garnered from the experience of being a ruling caste in the colonies, ruling over helotised subject indigenous peoples. It was in the

“Beherrschung fremder Völker und Rassen”47 that a sense of national purpose and identity could be relocated, and it was largely for this reason that Schnee saw imperialism as being a necessity for Weimar Germany. With colonies, internal social divisions would be rendered obsolete in the face of the overweening difference between the races:

Dort draußen arbeitet der Deutsche neben dem Deutschen und mit dem Deutschen. Er hat das Gefühl der Gemeinsamkeit gegenüber den fremden Völkern, gegenüber den farbigen Rassen, die ihn umgeben.48

46 ibid.p.36. 47 ibid.p.39. 48 ibid.p.36. The Broader Post 1918 Imperialist Movement 368

Aber auch etwas anderes empfindet der Deutsche draußen in den kolonien. Er erkennt den Wert ein Deutscher zu sein. Es kommt ihm gerade im Vergleich zu unentwickelteren Völkern zum Bewußtsein, nicht nur welche Leistungsfähigkeit wir Deutschen erlangt haben, welche intellektuellen und Energiekräfte in uns entwickelt sind, sondern auch auf welcher Höhe der Kultur sich unser Volk befindet. Danenben erscheinen Parteigegensätze gering…49

To a greater or lesser extent, it was these essentially nineteenth century tropes first broached by Schnee in this work that he, on the behalf of the constituent bodies of

Korag, continued to elaborate upon in the ensuing years. Germany, he continuously argued, needed to demand redress for the historical wrongs of Versailles and in so doing secure the return of the lost German empire so as to rebuild the German nation. And it is worth noting that amongst liberal circles, not only in Germany but in Britain as well, Schnee’s voice was heard with sympathy. Not only was Die

Koloniale Schuldlüge translated into English in 1926, it was given a warm introduction by the Oxford specialist William Dawson.50 Also reviewed in the

Manchester Guardian of the 18th of June 1926, in an article which lent generous support to Schnee and the German liberal imperialists, the obviously sympathetic reviewer argued that “There ought be a restoration of colonies… to Germany as an act of sanity and wisdom.” Going beyond the mere restoration of Germany’s former colonial empire, the article ran, there was a need for its enlargement, via “an agreement with Brazil for the formation of an independent German State as a part of that vast and sparsely peopled country.”51 Similarly London’s Daily News,

49 ibid.p.37. 50 Dawson was reputedly in the pay of the German Foreign Office. 51 BA Berlin. R8023/356. Deutsche Kolonialgesellschaft.p.100. Manchester Guardian Weekly, June 18, 1926. The Broader Post 1918 Imperialist Movement 369

Observer, and Saturday Review published sympathetic reviews.52 Such reviews also came from the League of Nations Union journal Headway, Foreign Affairs, and a number of American, South African and Australian publications.53

However, Schnee’s primary audience was domestic, and his revival of nineteenth century imperialist discourse was emulated by others who similarly saw in imperialism a national mission capable of unifying all Germans. The politically more conservative, but in terms of membership still overwhelmingly bürgerlich,

Kolonialverein54 urged the application of colonial discourse to questions of national unification and expansion. Here too, the blurring of the dividing lines between the discourse of Weimar imperialists and their later Nazi counterparts is evident:

Kolonialpolitik ist Politik der Macht und Kraft. Aus diesem Grund muß jede Möglichkeit ausgenutzt werden, die die deutsche Macht und Kraft zu stärken in der Lage ist und uns damit dem Zeitpunkt näher bringt, die Herausgabe unseres geraubten Kolonialbesitzes zu erreichen. Das ideale Ziel der Deutschtumbewegung muß es natürlich sein, das Deutschtum in der gesamten Welt nicht nur kulturell und wirtschaftlich, sondern letzten Endes staatsrechtlich zusammenzuschließen… Wo sie in der Mehrheit vorhanden sind, wie in Oesterreich und den geraubten Gebieten, muß der Anschluß an das Reich gefordert werden. Dieses Streben muß mit allem Nachdruck und mit allen Machtmitteln unterstützt werden.”55

The Kolonialverein, in their blended espousal of overseas and Eastern imperialism and their embracing of racist theoretics, can reasonably be seen as a further example of the Weimar era nexus between liberalism and far Right politics; an intermediate

52 Deutsche Kolonialgesellschaft. Die englische Presse zu Deutschlands kolonialen Forderungen. Verlag Kolonialkriegerdank, Berlin, 1926. pp.5-9. 53 ibid. passim. 54 For the social composition of the Kolonialverein, see BA Berlin R8023/359 Deutsche Kolonialgesellschaft.pp.151-2. 55 BA Berlin. R8023/359. Advertisement for the Kolonialverein.p.131. The Broader Post 1918 Imperialist Movement 370 position in the discernible shift of the bürgerliche Gesellschaft towards the NSDAP, that occurred courtesy of the vociferous support for the foreign policy preferences of this bürgerliche Gesellschaft enunciated by the NSDAP. As Langewiesche has argued, there is much to be said for the gradual radicalisation scenario, that posits

German liberals as slowly making their way to the Nazi party via a series of such

“intermediate hosts.” 56 Whilst drawing on the discursive traditions of liberal imperialism, the Kolonialverein’s mouthpiece publication, Die Brücke zur Heimat, when commenting upon domestic politics, suggested that its readership endorse one of the new breed of non liberal parties, without abandoning the liberals entirely. So in the 1924 Reichstag election, it was argued that “Die Bildung einer

Reichsregierung, in der das Bürgertum und die nationalen Parteien einen maßgegebenden Einfluß haben” would free the way for a renewal of Germany’s colonising energies.57 Yet at the same time, it was suggested that parties such as the conservative DNVP demonstrated a more appropriate “völkisch” position – and that

“neue entstandene Parteien, wie die Nationalsozialisten, die Deutschvölkische

Freiheitspartei u.a. haben besonders völkische Forderungen auf ihr Banner geschrieben.”58 The liberal parties, having provided the discursive terrain for the re- emergence of a nationalist-imperialist metanarrative, were, over time, left behind as the gradualist, Fabian diplomatic tactics that characterised their pursuit of the reversal of the Versailles settlement alienated their bürgerlich constituency.

Organisations such the Kolonialverein, mixing overseas colonialism with Eastern

56 D Langewiesche. Liberalism in Germany. pp.264-65. 57 Die Brücke zur Heimat, Zeitschrift des Deutschen Kolonialvereins, Gesellschaft für nationale Siedlungs- und Auslandspolitik. 24 (11) 20th Nov. 1924. p.93. 58 Die Brücke zur Heimat. 24(3). 20th März.1924.p.12. The Broader Post 1918 Imperialist Movement 371 expansion and racist theoretics,59 in a sense constructed the foreign policy pastiche that was instrumentalised by the NSDAP in order to broaden the appeal of their own totalising, völkisch metanarrative and their own version of national identity.

Schnee himself, as well as his party, the DVP, recognised the sense of liberal malaise and vulnerability that saw them lose the political initiative to the Far Right.

In a meeting of Schnee’s fellow DVP committee members from the Potsdam electorate that had been called to dissect the party’s massacre in the 14th of

September 1930 election, it was recognised that:

Die entscheidenden Ursachen der Niederlage der Mittelparteien seien darin zu erblicken, dass die Wählerschaft unter einer Psychose stand und mit ihren Stimmen auf das deutlichste gegen die jetzige politische System protestieren wollten. Es waren Protestwahlen gegen die deutsche Not, Protest gegen die seit Jahren betriebene Innenpolitik, Protest gegen die Bedrückung des deutschen Volkes durch den Versailler Vertrag. Das Volk lechzt nach einer grosser hinreissenden Idee und nach einem starken Führer. Die Nationalsozialisten haben diese starken psychologischen Momente früh erkannt und im Wahlkampf auszunutzen verstanden.60

Revealingly, the DVP committee’s recommendations amounted to a further lurch to the right, in an attempt to match the increasingly radical mood of the party’s natural constituency. Thus, when it came to suggesting a foreign policy platform for the

DVP, the suggestions were to call for a revision of the Young Plan, compulsory military service, the revision of Germany’s Eastern borders (“Weg mit dem

Korridor”) and of course the demand for the return of Germany’s colonies.61 None of this ran counter to the imperialist tradition of German liberalism, however, the

59 See for example Die Brücke zur Heimat. 25(10). “Ausblicke und Forderung im Rassenleben,”pp.151-156. 60 GstA PK VI. HA, N1. Heinrich Schnee Mappe 78b. Unnumbered, entitled “Protokoll über die Sitzung des Gesamtvorstandes des Wahlkreises 4 der DVP am Sonnabend, den 4. Okt 1930.” 61 ibid. Same unnumbered document. The Broader Post 1918 Imperialist Movement 372

DVP had felt itself previously unable to uncritically align itself with these ideals, and had therefore lost voters to the NSDAP who clearly felt they could.

In the end, the refusal of the DVP as a whole to embrace an ever more radical approach to the alleviation of the concerns, particularly the foreign policy concerns, of the German middle classes saw Heinrich Schnee join the bürgerlich migration to the Nazi party. Despairing at the impact that the Versailles Treaty and the Young

Plan were having on the German nation, Schnee tended his resignation to the party in October of 1932. In his letter of resignation, he stated that he had always held it necessary for, “die Zusammenfassung aller nationalen Kräfte zum Wiederaufbau unseres Vaterlandes und zu seiner Befreiung vom Druck des Versailler Diktats.” As he saw it, it was now the case that only the Nazi party were truly attempting to come to grips with this reality, and as such, he saw the only possibility for future improvement as lying with an authoritarian political direction:

Dabei liegt die Tatsache vor, dass die nationalsozialistische Bewegung im Kampf gegen Versailles stärkste Impulse gegeben und breiteste Kreise des deutschen Volkes… zu diesem Kampfe vereinigt hat… Die Möglichkeit, die gegenwärtige Krise zu überwinden, vermag ich lediglich in einer starker Staatsfuhrung auf autoritärer Grundlage zu erblicken…62

Schnee’s decision notwithstanding, in the post-1933 era, most of those working within the liberal framework of Korag’s charter were able to create a niche for themselves within the edifice of the Nazi state. The foreign policy commonalities between the far Right and liberals engendered a situation in which it was hardly necessary to Nazify the DKG, as in many ways, the DKG saw in the NSDAP a

62 GstA PK VI. HA, N1. Heinrich Schnee Mappe 24.p.69. “Austritt Schnee’s aus der Deutschen Volkspartei, Oktober 1932.” The Broader Post 1918 Imperialist Movement 373 natural, if somewhat overly forthright ally in the colonial / imperialist struggle. In fact, there is evidence that the reverse took place – that is, that the DKG effectively

‘colonised’ the Nazi party. In September of 1933, in the absence of any clear Nazi colonial policy, the DKG requested that Hitler make explicit his support for overseas colonialism:

Die nationalsozialistischen Gliederungen im Reiche berufen sich vielfach auf die koloniale Erklärung des Führers in seinem Buche ‘Mein Kampf’ bei ihrer Ablehnung der kolonialen Propaganda. Es bedarf daher einer Erklärung, dass der Führer die kolonialpolitische Forderung bejaht und die kolonialen Verbände damit betreut hat, den kolonialen Gedanken wachzuhalten.63

The Nazi party promptly acted upon this request, with a lengthy speech on the topic

“Deutschlands Kolonien unter fremder Mandatsherrschaft,” delivered shortly thereafter by Wilhelm Winter of the Kolonialpolitisches Amt of the NSDAP, which provided the quotation from Hitler, henceforth oft-cited in colonial circles, that seemed to lend support to the work of the DKG. In an interview with a reporter from the English Sunday Express, the speech relates, Hitler appeared to support colonialism, as demonstrated in his declaration “Wir brauchen Kolonien genau so notwendig wie irgend eine andere Macht!”64 This official support was further elucidated in a 1934 Denkschrift by Rudolf Dittrich of the Kolonialpolitisches Amt presented at the Nazi Parteitag in Nuremburg that year. In this, Dittrich proclaimed:

63 Letter from DKG to Dr Jung (Kolonialreferat der NSDAP). BA Berlin, R8023/152. Deutsche Kolonialgesellschaft.p.282. See also p.249. 64 BA Berlin, R8023/152. Deutsche Kolonialgesellschaft.p.185. See also the reiteration of this position. ibid.p.161. It is also a classic demonstration of what Ian Kershaw has called “working towards the Führer,” with a single remark from Hitler in an interview becoming the basis, or at least the rationale for the continuation of pro-colonial work in the Nazi era. I Kershaw. Hitler.1889-1936: Hubris. Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1999.pp.527ff. The Broader Post 1918 Imperialist Movement 374

Kein Mensch, kein Einzelner und vor allem kein Deutscher hat das Recht, im Namen des Volkes auf die Kolonien zu verzichten. Dies ware Hochverrat am Volk, am Leben der Nation.65

The NSDAP, it appears, was actively pushed by the DKG in the early years of the

Nazi regime to come out in active support of the colonial position, suggesting a degree of interdependence between the party and the Verein, as well as suggesting that a slender but appreciable gap between the foreign policy positions of the two existed, a gap that was seen by both parties as something that needed to be overcome.66 It further demonstrates that the Nazi vocalisation of pro-colonial sentiment was to a large degree tactical and stemmed from non party, largely liberal origins, in effect representing the utilisation of pre-existing liberal-nationalist- imperialist tropes as a part of their pastiche nationalist-imperialism Through this deployment of a self-consciously historical discourse of imperialism, that manipulated pre-existing liberal imperialist tropes at the behest of those selfsame liberal imperialists, Nazi officials attempted to subsume rival formulations of the complexion and purpose of the German nation-state, such as that proffered by liberalism, within their own discursive edifice, whilst simultaneously purporting to hold no truck with these supposedly compromised and degenerate political forms.

For their part, however, far from helpless victims of this assimilation, liberal

65 BA Berlin, R8023/152. Deutsche Kolonialgesellschaft.p.119.Denkschrift über die geschichtliche Sendung des deutschen Volkes, seine geschichtlichen Gegenwartsaufgaben und die geschichtlichen Pflichten seiner Führung. The strength of the language suggests at least a tacit approval of the pro- colonial sentiment by the upper echelons of the Nazi party. 66 For a further, much later example, see the resistance of the DKG’s successor organistion, the Reichskolonialbund (RKB), to Goebbels’s 6th January 1941 ban on all propaganda speculating on a future German colonial empire and the ordering of the RKB to focus their propaganda energies on the East. As late as 1943, pro-colonialists were, in official complaints, describing this new orientation as “ein Verrat an unserer Idee und Aufgabe.” (NS18/152.p.1, 12.) See BA Berlin NS18/162.pp.31-6, NS18/624.p.6, and particularly NS 18/152.pp.1,12 and NS18/533.pp.3-4. The Broader Post 1918 Imperialist Movement 375 imperialists attempted, ultimately unsuccessfully, to corral the NSDAP into enacting their own historical imperialist agenda for them.

The evidence for the tactical and secondary nature of Nazism’s usage of colonial imperialism is to be found, as Schmokel has convincingly argued, in the Hoßbach

Minutes to the Nazi conference on the 5th of November 1937. At a time when colonial concessions were being considered by Britain, Hitler made clear that these concessions would not be accepted at the cost of staying his hand in Europe’s East and South East. An effective imperialist policy, Hitler remarked, “könne… nicht aber ausgehend von liberalistisch-kapitalistischen Auffassungen in der Ausbeutung von Kolonien.” Instead, areas for the expansion of Germany’s access to raw materials “seien zweckmäßiger im unmittelbaren Anschluß an das Reich in Europa und nicht in Übersee zu suchen, wobei die Lösung sich für ein bis zwei

Generationen zuwirken müsse…”67 Despite the deployment of liberal imperialist discourse in the public sphere, Nazism’s explicit rejection of liberal imperialism’s colonial vision of the foreign policy trajectory of the German nation was firmly understood within the upper echelons of the party and the military.68 Indeed

Britain’s ambassador, Neville Henderson rather acutely viewed the NSDAP’s professed colonial ambition as “merely being exploited for propaganda purposes, partly to keep the claim alive for use later, when Germany’s aspirations in Europe –

67 Hoßbach, quoting Hitler in: International Military Tribunal. Trial of the Major War Criminals before the International Military Tribunal. Vol. 25, Nuremburg, 1947.p.406. (Document 386-PS). See also Schmokel. Dream of Empire.p.105. 68 Hoßbach lists the conference participants as including Göring, Admiral Raeder, Generals Blomberg and Fritsch, Foreign Minister Neurath and himself – that is, those who responsible for the formulation of military and foreign policy in conformity with the priorities of Hitler. IMT. Trial of the Major War Criminals.p.403. See also W Schmokel. Dream of Empire.p.104. The Broader Post 1918 Imperialist Movement 376 a prior consideration – had been achieved and digested…”69 The timetable for this contingent overseas imperialism, Henderson believed, was “four, six, eight or ten years.”70

The emergence of a symbiotic relationship between liberal imperialists and Nazi imperialists was only possible because liberal imperialists during the Weimar period had, as in the nineteenth century, vigorously attempted, to unify the German nation around their own national project, a major component of which was colonial imperialism. The reappearance of this discourse in the Weimar era represented a liberal post-war intransigence that, due to its failure to take into serious account the markedly different international political context in which it was situated, constituted a lurch to the far Right for Germany’s bürgerliche Gesellschaft, a social segment that appeared at once strident and somnambulistic in its insistence upon the forms of direct overseas rule that had been explicitly denied it by Versailles. The demands of the German Bürgertum for a reversal of the outcome of World War

One, as represented in the Versailles settlement, helped in the establishment of a politico-cultural environment of nationalist intransigence on the one hand and continued expansionist ambition on the other. It was in this context that the shrill nationalism and maximalist expansionism of the NSDAP appeared to be ever more congruent with the century long liberal metanarrative of imperialist nationalism that had not ceased in its ability to mobilise hitherto staunchly liberal Germans such as

Hans Grimm and Heinrich Schnee.

69 N Henderson, quoted in W Schmokel. Dream of Empire.p.120. 70 ibid.p.121. Conclusion 377

Conclusion

In discussing the nexus between nineteenth century German liberalism, nationalism and imperialism, two fundamental questions emerge. Firstly, what evidence exists that will not only demonstrate the existence of such a linkage, but will also demonstrate its longevity and its necessity? Secondly, if this nexus existed, what forces drove and sustained it? That is, what historical forces and pressures necessitated it?

To the first question, the narration of the numerous and continuous attempts by German liberals to conflate the three concepts should suffice as an answer. From the Vormärz theorising of Friedrich List, Hermann Blumenau, Hans Christoph von Gagern and Johann

Sturz, through to the pro-naval and pro-colonial discussions and proclamations of the

Frankfurt Nationalversammlung, the earliest liberal attempts at enunciating the role, contours and policy direction of a liberal German nation referred directly to its role as an expansionist naval power able to support the colonies that would supply both raw materials and a home for those displaced by the shift towards a modern, capitalist mode of production. Irrespective of the further variegations in their political complexions, liberals of the revolutionary period, whether protectionists or free traders, kleindeutsch or großdeutsch nationalists, accepted imperialism as an integral part of their modernising agenda. As witnessed in the Frankfurt Nationalversammlung by the near unanimity of opinion in favour of an expansionist naval policy as a tangible manifestation of German Conclusion 378 political unity, and the frequent pronouncements in favour of German colonies, imperialism, inextricably linked to the liberal struggle for a German act of national unification enacted in accordance with liberal politico-economic priorities, was situated by German liberals as both the foreign policy trajectory and the mythopoeic engine of a liberal German nation.

Similarly, the post 1848/49 attempts by representatives of Germany’s

Wirtschaftsbürgertum to construct German spheres of influence in various extra-

European regions, whether through the establishment of private sector colonies such as

Joinville and Blumenau in South America, or the South Pacific and African fiefdoms of the Godeffroy and Woermann trading houses of Hamburg, amounted to Trojan horse enterprises, whereby secure commercial and settler footholds were established in areas where a future liberal German nation could (and in some cases did) construct a Neu-

Deutschland in more propitious political times. These expansionist undertakings often took place in a political climate so adverse as to threaten their viability – as the threat to

Blumenau’s colony posed by the Prussian Law forbidding the expediting of emigration to

Brazil illustrates. Yet, despite governmental sanctions, the Wirtschaftsbürgertum continued to broaden their global influence, either through direct settlement, or alternatively, as in the case of Godeffroy in Samoa, through the thorough reorientation of indigenous societies and economies towards the economic priorities of German commerce. Conclusion 379

Underwriting these concrete manifestations of a liberal determination to create a German empire was the agitation of pro-imperialist theorisers such as Julius Fröbel, Samuel Kerst,

Friedrich Harkort and Reinhold Werner, whose post-revolutionary tracts and treatises ensured that the principles of imperialist expansion maintained their public profile. At an organisational level, colonial and imperialist ventures were supported by bodies such as the Colonisations-Verein von 1849 in Hamburg, Bennigsen and Miquel’s nationalist

Nationalverein as well as Ernst Hasse’s Südamerikanische Colonisations-Gesellschaft zu

Leipzig, the Berlin Centralvereins für Handelsgeographie und Förderung deutscher

Interessen im Auslande, Friedrich and Timotheus Fabri’s Westdeutscher Verein für

Colonisation und Export and the movement in which they all came to coalesce, the

Deutscher Kolonialverein of Hermann Maltzan.

Germany’s Bildungsbürgertum, in particular scientists in the fields of geography and anthropology, also played a critical role in supporting liberal imperialist aims, as the overwhelming over-representation of such academics in colonial organisations attests.

The overtly expansionist exploration aims of organisations such as the national Deutsche

Afrikanische Gesellschaft, as well as of such individuals as Heinrich Barth similarly pointed to liberal foreign trade imperatives, whilst the scientific findings of geographers in one of Germany’s premiere journals, Petermann’s Mittheilungen demonstrated a firm commitment to the principle of German expansionism from within the context of ostensibly impartial scientific research. Operating as an imperialist vanguard within academia, these researchers added the weight and prestige of their university chairs and their august publications to the liberals’ project of nationalist imperialism. Conclusion 380

In the realm of popular culture, the liberal periodical Die Gartenlaube explained to liberal families the imperatives behind European and in particular German imperialism. Through its simultaneous construction and reflection of bürgerlich attitudes to alterity, Die

Gartenlaube proffered a pseudo-scientific anthropological paradigm, which articulated the supposed inferiority of non-Europeans, and critically, the inevitability of the

‘extinction’ of indigenous peoples in the face of colonisation by ‘advanced’ European societies. In so doing, they prepared a liberal audience for the reception of more overtly imperialist agitation that required a prior assimilation of the anthropological norms associated with European claims to global rule.

Similarly, the novels of authors such as Otto Ruppius, Friedrich Gerstäcker (both of whom were also important contributors to Die Gartenlaube) and later Karl May all contributed to the broader picture of extra-European lands as a site for German energies and populations. Utilising the same anthropological paradigm as Die Gartenlaube, colonial fiction presented both colonies as a suitable site for the forging of the German nation, and German nationals as uniquely suited to the colonising project.

The liberal Germans who, through all of these avenues, had sought to link nationalism to imperialism had done so both believing in what they saw as the British example of a successfully modernising nation and out of a concern to solve the question of undirected emigration. On the one hand, the temptation to view Britain’s material and military strength and its political freedoms as inextricably linked with its global trade and its Conclusion 381 colonial empire (underwritten of course by its naval supremacy) was too great for

Germany’s Wirtschafts- and Bildungsbürgertum to ignore, both in 1848 and 1918, as well as during the intervening period. Successful nationalism, the British model seemed to suggest, was linked to the successful prosecution of an imperialist politics that opened the world to German commerce and settlement. Hence, the continuous expansionist pronouncements made with reference to the power of Britain in the Paulskirche in

1848/49, those of the Nationalverein in the 1860s and those by colonial irredentists in the

Weimar era.

On the other, the universality of liberalism as a metanarrative capable of solving the internal contradictions presented by modernisation had been brought into question by the perception that Germany’s national strength was being lost through undirected emigration and that modernisation was causing sections of the old Mittelstand to become an increasingly impoverished, downwardly mobile social segment. Effectively delivering labour and capital to the colonies of rival powers, notably Britain, undirected emigration was seen by German liberals as a problem to be solved through the establishment of

German colonies, whereby the labour, capital and purchasing power represented by

German migrants could be retained within the German economy. Furthermore, these colonies could take those who had been hardest hit by modernisation and offer them new livelihoods in the colonies, as theorists and practitioners as temporally distant as

Friedrich List, Hermann Blumenau, Friedrich Fabri and Heinrich Schnee argued. For liberals, imperialism was a means of slicing through the Gordian knot of modernity’s

Malthusian dilemma. Conclusion 382

Eventually fulfilling Ludwig August von Rochau’s prediction,1 the combined weight of these material, cultural and political forces saw the ultimate success of liberalism’s half century of attempts to have an expansionist foreign policy become national foreign policy. An integral part of German foreign policy for some thirty years, imperialism remained a critical part of the liberal nationalist Weltanschauung beyond the stripping of

Germany’s colonies in the Versailles treaty. With all political parties to the right of the

Social Democrats demanding the return of the German colonies, liberal imperialism became a factor in the broader disillusionment with the peace and the Weimar system that appeared to tacitly accept its inevitability. As a result, the colonial movement, which had seen itself as a cutting-edge part of liberalism’s lunge into the modern era, became a revanchist, irredentist movement that sought restitution for the perceived theft of colonies perpetrated by their World War I enemies. The drive to colonial revisionism during the

Weimar years became a part of a more general movement towards ever more reactionary politics by Germany’s Bürgertum – a movement that saw the liberal vote bleed to the Far

Right, towards the NSDAP, whose eclectic pastiche of populist foreign policies were virtually indistinguishable in substance from those proclaimed by the post-war liberal successor parties, and whose vociferous demands for unilateral action to bring about their realisation contrasted favourably in the minds of the German Bürgertum with the gradualist diplomacy of the DDP and the DVP.

1 LA von Rochau. Grundsätze der Realpolitik. See especially pp.32ff. Conclusion 383

Imperialism, firmly enmeshed with the concept of the German nationhood, despite varying social and political contexts, maintained its centrality to the German liberal metanarrative. From the optimism of the Vormärz through to the difficulties of the post

1848/49 era, in the years prior to and after unification, during the era of Left Liberalism’s strategic refusal of a protectionist, ‘Bismarckian colonialism,’ and the years before, during and after the First World War, ‘liberalism and imperialism,’ ‘imperialism and nationalism,’ and ‘nationalism and liberalism’ were posited by various German liberals as the substance of a conceptual triptych that formed the discursive parameters of a totalising narration of not only the liberal German nation, but a global, liberal German empire.

This analysis, in stark contrast to the prevailing historiographical paradigm, reinstates imperialism as a fundamental constituent of German liberalism. It is an attempt to demonstrate that Langewiesche’s declaration that, “A nationalism that had transformed itself into imperialism had no place within a liberal politics of integration” must be revised and ultimately rejected.2 It is also an attempt to overturn Mommsen’s dictum that imperialism was a late nineteenth-century deviation from liberalism’s ‘true’ course,3 (in itself a post-World War II attempt to quarantine liberalism from imperialism), which ignores the fact that the social groups historically most vocal in their agitation for a

German policy of expansionism before its adoption and after the colonies’ confiscation were Germany’s liberal Wirtschafts- and Bildungsbürgertum.4

2 D Langewiesche. “German Liberalism in the Second Empire.” p.229. 3 WJ Mommsen. “Wandlungen der liberalen Idee.”p.110. 4 Contra WJ Mommsen. Geschichte Deutschlands. 7(1).p.508. Conclusion 384

Alongside Langewiesche and Mommsen’s historiographical rendering of mid-nineteenth century German liberalism as immune to imperialist tendencies, is Hildebrand’s similarly erroneous, neo-Rankean view that colonialism was a not terribly popular Bismarckian innovation, the introduction of which signalled nothing more than a continuation of

Bismarck’s Continental strategising.5 On the other hand Wehler’s ‘Bielefeld’ or ‘Kehrite’ theory of a ‘social imperialism’ has been far more interested in the role that imperialism played in nineteenth century German history,6 yet his periodisation of its ascendancy, like that of both Hildebrand and Mommsen, begins far too late – essentially with the publication of Fabri’s Bedarf Deutschland der Colonien - to allow for the importance of liberal attempts to establish imperialist projects before, during and immediately after the years 1848 and 1849. Inextricably linked to the notions of a Wirtschaftskrise and of the primacy of the socialist threat in liberal decision making, Wehler’ theory of imperialism, like that of Klaus Bade,7 is essentially negative; that is, that imperialism was the reaction of a panicked bürgerliche Gesellschaft to a sense of crisis or insecurity. Like Mommsen,

Hildebrand and countless other historians that have followed their otherwise varying historiographical models, Wehler does not take into consideration the idea that imperialism was in essence a positive, that is to say assertive, manifestation of the growing cultural, economic and, increasingly, political hegemony of Germany’s middle classes, that was proud of its own historical expansionist roots and who through colonial

5 K Hildebrand. Das Vergangene Reich.p.87. Deutsche Aussenpolitik.pp.15-16. 6 HU Wehler. Bismarck und der Imperialismus. 7 K Bade. Friedrich Fabri. Conclusion 385 imperialism, attempted to solve the perceived Malthusian crisis that was accompanying

Germany’s nascent modernisation.

Against such erroneous readings of German liberal imperialism, a new historiographical paradigm is slowly coming into existence, courtesy of such writers as Hartmut Pogge von

Strandmann,8 Hans Fenske9 and Frank Lorenz Müller.10 These historians have correctly pointed to both the precociousness and the strength of imperialist discourse and praxis in the mid-nineteenth century, as well as to its role in constructing a liberal sense of nationhood and national identity. In recognising the persistence of liberal imperialism, both as a discursive formation and as a set of practices, these works have demonstrated that imperialism was constructed by liberal nationalists as a positive and assertive symbol of a nation unified under the auspices of its bürgerliche Gesellschaft.

The question of why the linkage between liberalism and imperialism occurred is perhaps more complex, however a number of reasons can be posited, including endogenous and exogenous factors. Domestically speaking, as Breuilly has argued,11 the German nation state was at once historically overdetermined and intrinsically contingent in terms of its final contours, delineating between no discrete linguistic communities, geographical region or political or religious tradition. As an explicitly asserted entity,12 designed to

8 H Pogge von Strandmann. “Domestic Origins,” “Imperialism and Revisionism,” “Consequences of the Foundation of the German Empire.” 9 H Fenske. “Ungeduldige Zuschauer,” Preußentum und Liberalismus, “Bürgertum und Staatsbewusstsein.” 10 FL Müller. “Imperialists Ambition,” “Der Traum von Weltmacht.” 11 J Breuilly. The Formation of the First German Nation-State.p.2. 12 H Schulze. Der Weg zum Nationalstaat. Conclusion 386 supersede the monarchies, republics and oligarchies of the individual German states, in the interests of enhancing the international competitiveness of Germany’s

Wirtschaftsbürgertum through the harnessing of economies of scale and the removal of legal inconsistencies and duplications, the German nation lacked a single unifying concept that could synecdochically represent the aspirations of an increasingly dominant bürgerliche Gesellschaft. Operating as a nascent nationalist liberalism’s mythopoeic engine, imperialism, the much vaunted Weltaufgabe of the nation-state offered a unifying concept and a means of defining the German nation and the German people from within, as if from an Archimedean point without.

Defined in terms of its encounters with, and rule over, the non-European world, the

German nation, according to the liberal imperialist metanarrative, was a political entity that had realised a form of statehood that superseded that proffered by agrarian conservatism, rendered socialist utopianism obsolete and overrode the reluctance to leave out Austria that characterised Catholic particularism, in that it alone offered a complete solution to the problems of social dislocation engendered by the necessary processes of modernisation being experienced by the German states. In attempting to overcome the in- built contingency of the German nation-state by identifying and narrating the nation through its interactions with alterity, imperialism sought to solve the conundrum that lay at the nation’s heart – its indeterminate identity, or as German liberals saw it, its unfinished nature. Conclusion 387

With regard to internal economic, social and political developments within the German states, as economic necessity forced Germans to co-operate and organise amongst one another in order to remain internationally competitive, the liberal bourgeoisie saw the realisation of this unity as imperative for their own, class specific, long-term prospects.

As a result of the actualisation of national unity, German liberals became determined to see their material needs secured through the assertion of liberalism as the hegemonic political metanarrative within the German nation, thereby ensuring the future ordering of

German society in line with bürgerlich priorities.

In terms of the complexion of the social and politico-economic re-ordering that liberals viewed as being necessitated by the movement into modernity, reliance upon industry and international trade as opposed to agriculture was deemed as essential. Such a movement not only jeopardised the interests of Germany’s traditional social and political elites, whose material position relied upon the continuance of large-scale agribusiness concerns, notably in the East. It also demanded wholesale changes in the distribution of populations within the German-speaking lands. Both industry and trade increasingly required an urbanised population, while an agrarian economy required just the reverse.

International trade required a strong, co-ordinated economy; that is a national economy, rather than several comparatively weak and uninfluential ones, a fact acknowledged by many German states, as Abigail Green’s analysis of the role of the Zollverein at the

World Exhibitions in the mid-nineteenth century has illustrated.13 Once again, this placed

13 A Green. “Representing Germany?” Conclusion 388 the interests of Germany’s traditional social elites, who had traditionally exercised their influence over many individual German states, at odds with the nationalist liberals.

More importantly, the change demanded both by modernisation and the agrarian crisis of the early nineteenth century entailed a social re-ordering, as rural Germans were pushed out of the social arrangements that had sustained the agrarian social model for centuries.

Concomitant with urbanisation was the gradual marginalisation of the rural populace and in some instances complete social dislocation, resulting in, on the one hand impoverished rural populations, and on the other, the incremental emergence of an economically disenfranchised urban lumpenproletariat, a surplus population with no recognisable role or future within the confines of the new capitalist national economy.

Imperialism was liberalism’s answer to the social problems intrinsic to modernisation. It provided a fruitful role and even the chance for social mobility for displaced populations, who would be outsourced to colonial settlements, thereby ensuring Germany’s natural resource supply and a reliable market for the surplus production of German industry. In colonisation, German liberals saw an answer to the Sozialfrage – which was essentially viewed as a Malthusian problem of demography rather than socialism – that was posed by the reorientation of German society in line with the demands of the new industry and trade-driven mode of production.

Importantly, this does not equate with a ‘safety-valve’ liberal response to an immediate socialist menace, which in the mid-nineteenth century was a lesser threat than the Conclusion 389 resistance posed by agrarian conservatives and anti-nationalist Catholics. Imperialism was not a product of liberal anxiety, but rather an assertion of their confidence – confidence in their ability to solve all domestic problems through the explanatory and material power of their socio-political metanarrative, and confidence in their ability to compete successfully abroad with England and, the earlier hegemon of Continental

Europe, France.

Foremost amongst the exogenous grounds for the embracing of imperialist discourse was the model of Britain, viewed by German liberals as the liberal nation par excellence. As far back as the 1840s,14 the British model, incorporating elements of parliamentary and judicial accountability, aggressive international trade and controlled population resettlement in colonial outposts, was, to German liberals, an example of a nation-state that had assimilated the material needs and political priorities of the liberal middle classes as the paradigmatic assumptions of national, political and economic life. British liberalism, imperialism and nationalism were positioned by German liberals as disparate as Friedrich List, Heinrich Barth and Hans Grimm as necessary, normative aspects of a liberal nation-state. The perceived lack of all three within Germany was pointed to by

German liberals as the grounds for Germany’s relative backwardness.

As recent studies into the embourgeoisment of cultural life, the preponderance of liberals in local and state governments, and the scope for increased liberal political agency at the national level have shown, this perception of an illiberal Germany was, and has continued to be over-exaggerated. Both during the nineteenth century, and in twentieth century

14 FL Müller “Der Traum von der Weltmacht.”p.105. Conclusion 390 historiography, arguments foregrounding the persistence of pre-modern elites have largely served the purpose of obscuring the fact that seemingly ‘illiberal’ policies (such as an expansionist Weltpolitik) actually had their origins in the ascendancy of Germany’s middle classes and the emergence of a political liberalism inspired by the British example. As Lothar Gall has argued, a simple corrective to this Whiggish historiography is the scrutiny not of rarefied liberal ideology,15 but of the material expressions of liberal agency and power.16

Far from a re-inscription of Britain as a normative model of development, in a pre-

Blackbourn and Eley Sonderweg sense,17 what is critical here is not Britain’s role as an exemplary model of modernisation, but rather the perception that Britain was such a model, worthy of emulation by German liberals. Perhaps partially explaining the

Sonderweg argument’s origins, the privileging of the British path to modernity (with its dedication to informal and formal means of expansion) by Germany’s liberals, as a template for a modernising Germany, led to the persistence of the assumption that Britain represented a normative model for development. Put simply, nineteenth century German wanted a parliament, because it had been a useful mechanism for the pressing of liberal claims in Britain, they wanted a navy because that had underwritten British trade since the eighteenth century, and they wanted colonies, because they had demonstrably provided Britain with raw materials and markets for its industrialising economy and a useful repository for Britain’s surplus population within the parameters of the globalised

15 Contra WJ Mommsen. “Wandlungen der liberalen Idee.” 16 L Gall. “’Sündenfall’ des liberalen Denkens.” 17 D Blackbourn & G Eley. The Peculiarities of German History. Conclusion 391

British economy. Through an Anglophile mimesis, Germany strove, as Friedrich List had dreamt, to attain global parity with Britain, and in the utopian final instance, global dominance, exercised through a network of informal and formal imperialist arrangements.

Due to both internal and external pressures, German liberals saw imperialism as a means of safeguarding the economic security of not only the various arms of the Bürgertum from which they were largely drawn, but of the German nation that they were attempting to forge as a necessary vessel for their material interests. Nationalism, liberalism and imperialism were the three central pillars of Germany’s bürgerliche Gesellschaft and it was under the auspices of these that Germany’s middle classes pressed their claim to domestic hegemony. In the process, they came to perceive their right to rule over the helotised indigenous societies of the colonies that were to serve them economically within a broader, pan-European, liberal Weltaufgabe, delineated in terms of bringing the

Enlightenment values of Kultur, Fleiß and Vernunft to the world, by the imposition of work discipline through trade and treaties where possible, by force if necessary. Through imperialist discourse and praxis, liberals also sought to assert their pre-eminence over

Germany’s traditional, largely aristocratic social elites, whose dominance relied upon the continuation of an economic system with an agribusiness base and a Continental scope, and the acceptance of the principle of ‘legitimacy’ as the sole criteria for its particularist, decentralised mode of governance. Conclusion 392

This struggle for a definitive liberal ascendancy, mirrored in the clamouring for a liberal

German empire, stretched from Hans Christoph von Gagern and Friedrich List in the

1840’s and did not end until the colonial plans of Hans Grimm and Heinrich Schnee were eventually defeated by the competing imperialist priorities of the NSDAP in the early

1940s. Liberal imperialism, Germany’s first co-ordinated, national imperialism, retained its (albeit anachronistic) social resonance and rhetorical currency in bürgerlich circles throughout most of the Nazi era, until the age of decolonisation saw the widespread rejection of overt, direct forms European rule. As in Britain, France and other European colonising powers facing the strains of postwar reconstruction, Germans were forced to concede that their claims to directly rule and reconfigure indigenous populations and economies in line with their own national priorities could not be sustained, particularly if the racial theoretics that were its underpinnings were to be questioned and discarded.

More specifically, the post-war imperatives associated with the rebuilding of the nations of the European ‘core,’ saw Europe’s liberal imperialists have to retreat from their earlier projects of direct imperial rule on a global scale. With the overthrow of the Nazi racial state, national liberalism was forced to profess a radical theoretical uncoupling from an imperialism based on theories of racial hierarchy and direct rule. German imperialism, like that of Europe’s other globally dominant powers, was forcibly returned to the indirect, private-sector economic imperialism practised and theorised by the liberal imperialists of the mid-nineteenth century. Bibliography 393

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