A University of Sussex Phd Thesis Available Online Via Sussex
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
A University of Sussex PhD thesis Available online via Sussex Research Online: http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/ This thesis is protected by copyright which belongs to the author. This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the Author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the Author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Please visit Sussex Research Online for more information and further details The German colonial settler press in Africa, 1898-1916: a web of identities, spaces and infrastructure. Corinna Schäfer Submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Sussex September 2017 I hereby declare that this thesis has not been and will not be, submitted in whole or in part to another University for the award of any other degree. Signature: Summary As the first comprehensive work on the German colonial settler newspapers in Africa between 1898 and 1916, this research project explores the development of the settler press, its networks and infrastructure, its contribution to the construction of identities, as well as to the imagination and creation of colonial space. Special attention is given to the newspapers’ relation to Africans, to other imperial powers, and to the German homeland. The research contributes to the understanding of the history of the colonisers and their societies of origin, as well as to the history of the places and people colonised. This work furthermore makes a contribution to the field of media history regarding a time and place in which significant transitions were taking place. By employing a Foucauldian dispositif analysis, which encompasses Critical Discourse Analysis as well as the reconstruction of knowledge inherent in objects, a contribution is made to the development of methodology in the field. This project demonstrates that the German colonial settler press functioned as a precarious, yet forceful web that was shaped by discourse, infrastructures and laws, as well as contributed to shaping these elements. The newspapers supported the settlers in pursuing their objective of Kulturarbeit as the transformation of land and people of the colonies according to racist principles in order to gain profit and to build a new German Heimat. The settler press played an important role in maintaining German national identities as well as developing specific settler identities. The discursive construction of settlers as victims of the colonised served as legitimisation of the violence inherent to colonial relations. Africans developed multiple techniques of intervention into colonial projects and created their own spaces. I argue that the German colonial settler press significantly contributed to shaping the colonial space as well as to creating notions of Germanness. Contents Preface .......................................................................................................................................... 1 Acknowledgements ....................................................................................................................... 3 1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 4 1.1 Literature review ................................................................................................................. 7 1.2 Research questions and chapter overview ....................................................................... 13 2 About exploring a precarious, yet forceful web ..................................................................... 18 3 German colonial imaginations and African realities .............................................................. 28 3.1 Cultures of colonialism in Germany .................................................................................. 28 3.2 Notions of space ............................................................................................................... 33 3.2.1 Heimat ........................................................................................................................ 33 3.2.2 Lebensraum ................................................................................................................ 35 3.2.3 Einkreisung ................................................................................................................. 36 3.3 African societies in the German colonies .......................................................................... 38 3.3.1 German Southwest Africa .......................................................................................... 38 3.3.2 German East Africa .................................................................................................... 44 3.3.3 Cameroon ................................................................................................................... 47 3.3.4 Togoland .................................................................................................................... 50 4 The old Heimat in the new: press networks in the German colonies ................................... 54 4.1 Politics, press laws and the spectre of Social Democracy ................................................. 54 4.2 A tale of ‘daring pioneers:’ first editors in the colonies .................................................... 58 4.2.1 Georg Wasserfall and the Windhoeker Anzeiger/ Deutsch-Südwestafrikanische Zeitung ................................................................................................................................ 59 4.2.2 Willy von Roy and the Deutsch-Ostafrikanische Zeitung ........................................... 64 4.2.3 Contributors and non-contributors ........................................................................... 68 4.3 Bringing the message home: news exchange with Germany ........................................... 71 4.3.1 Newspaper imports and exports................................................................................ 71 4.3.2 Copy and Paste during formal German colonialism .................................................. 75 4.4 Circulating news among colonies...................................................................................... 79 4.4.1 Newspaper exchange between the German colonies ............................................... 80 4.4.2 Newspaper exchange with British colonies ............................................................... 85 5 Settler newspapers and infrastructure: imagination, creation and appropriation of colonial space ........................................................................................................................................... 90 5.1 Infrastructures in the German colonies ............................................................................ 91 5.1.1 Technologies as precondition for colonial appropriation and communication ......... 92 5.1.2 Railways as the ‘great white hope’ ............................................................................ 99 5.1.3 Failure, segregation, and (re)appropriation............................................................. 104 5.2 Settler press as a matter of expansion ........................................................................... 111 5.2.1 Settler newspapers as ‘experts’ on colonial railways .............................................. 112 5.2.2 Newspaper wars ...................................................................................................... 115 6 Variations of colonial Germanness and the settler newspapers’ contribution .................. 120 6.1 Performing Germanness ................................................................................................. 120 6.1.1 Celebrating the Kaisergeburtstag ............................................................................ 121 6.1.2 The festive season and other time-related problems.............................................. 128 6.1.3 German names and language in the colonies .......................................................... 130 6.2 Farming with newspapers ............................................................................................... 135 6.2.1 Agricultural networks ............................................................................................... 135 6.2.2 Doing Kulturarbeit .................................................................................................... 140 6.2.3 High expectations and profound disappointments ................................................. 146 7 Anxieties, genocide and resistance: colonial relations in the settler press ........................ 153 7.1 Extermination campaigns and the contribution of the settler press .............................. 154 7.1.1 Representations of war ............................................................................................ 155 7.1.2 Genocide, concentration camps, and the silence of the settler press .................... 162 7.1.3 Settler victimhood as strategy: the genocidal discourse continues ........................ 170 7.2 Fearing the African intellect ............................................................................................ 173 7.2.1 The anti-education discourse of the settler newspapers ........................................ 174 7.2.2