“Colonizers Are Born, Not Made”: Creating a Colonialist Identity in Nazi Germany, 1933-1945 by Willeke Hannah Sandler Department of History Duke University Date:_______________________ Approved: ___________________________ Claudia Koonz, Supervisor ___________________________ Dirk Bonker ___________________________ Tina Campt ___________________________ William Donahue ___________________________ Anna Krylova Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of History in the Graduate School of Duke University 2012 i v ABSTRACT “Colonizers Are Born, Not Made”: Creating a Colonialist Identity in Nazi Germany, 1933-1945 by Willeke Hannah Sandler Department of History Duke University Date:_______________________ Approved: ___________________________ Claudia Koonz, Supervisor ___________________________ Dirk Bonker ___________________________ Tina Campt ___________________________ William Donahue ___________________________ Anna Krylova An abstract of a dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of History in the Graduate School of Duke University 2012 Copyright by Willeke Hannah Sandler 2012 Abstract After the First World War, Germany lost its overseas territories, becoming Europe’s first post-colonial nation. After 1919, and especially between 1933 and 1945, however, German colonialists advocated for the return of these colonies and for their central importance to Germany. This dissertation tells the paradoxical story of these colonialists’ construction of a German national character driven by overseas imperialism despite the absence of a colonial reality to support this identity. In contrast to views of colonialism as marginal in Germany after the First World War or the colonialist organizations as completely subsumed under the Nazi regime, this dissertation uncovers both the colonialist organizations’ continuing public presence and their assertive promotion of their overseas goals in the Third Reich. It also reveals the space available for debates over the contours of national identity in the public sphere of the Third Reich. Using organizational records of colonialist groups and Nazi propaganda offices, the colonialist press and other publications, photography, graphics, films, and public opinion reports, this dissertation examines the vibrant two-million-strong colonial revisionist movement that flourished in the Third Reich. German colonialists, straddling between anachronistic fantasy and the National Socialist world-view, reintegrated overseas imperialism into Nazi Germany and thereby reinterpreted the meaning of Germanness. They proclaimed a new vision of German national identity that drew on the imagined glories of the past but also held out the promise of a revitalized future for Germany through Africa. They did so however in conflict with the Nazi regime’s iv expansionist goals in Eastern Europe. Colonialists, however, elided disagreements in favor of projecting a public image that emphasized the deep interconnectedness of overseas colonialism and Nazi goals. Through their public agitation and cultural products, colonialists affirmed the continuing relevance of overseas colonialism to Germans in the Third Reich. v Contents Abstract .............................................................................................................................. iv List of Figures ................................................................................................................... vii List of Abbreviations ......................................................................................................... ix Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 1: Colonial Guilt and Colonial Redemption: The Stakes of Overseas Colonialism in post-1919 Germany....................................................................................................... 45 Chapter 2: “To be national means to be colonial.” Gleichschaltung and the Beginnings of a Mass Movement, 1933-1935 .......................................................................................... 88 Chapter 3: Caring for Africans Here and There: Race, Place, and the Myth of the Good German Colonizer ........................................................................................................... 152 Chapter 4: “If you believe in the absoluteness of the Führer, there can be only one leadership!” The Second Gleichschaltung in 1936 ......................................................... 219 Chapter 5: The Paradox of Success, 1936-1939 ............................................................. 258 Chapter 6: “The Path from the Eyes to the Heart is Shorter than that from the Ears”: Colonialist Visual Culture, 1936-1943 ........................................................................... 325 Chapter 7: Africa or the East? Colonialists during the Second World War, 1939-1945 405 Epilogue: Echoes of Colonialism .................................................................................... 457 Works Cited .................................................................................................................... 468 Biography ........................................................................................................................ 492 vi List of Figures Figure 1: “Halifax: What England does, it does for the freedom and civilization of the nations.” .......................................................................................................................... 181 Figure 2: “Did you know that…”.................................................................................... 187 Figure 3: “America needs colonies, because....” ............................................................. 189 Figure 4: “Herr Doktor” .................................................................................................. 193 Figure 5: “Hottentot Children” ....................................................................................... 194 Figure 6: “Foreign in Clothing and Manner” .................................................................. 195 Figure 7: Eva MacLean, “Vom Neger zum ‘Nigger’” ..................................................... 198 Figure 8: The “Peters Flag” is the first flag in the foreground. ...................................... 263 Figure 9: The “Peters flag” after the second Gleichschaltung ........................................ 264 Figure 10: RKB Colonial Congress Exhibition, Bremen, May 1938. ............................ 279 Figure 11: RKB Colonial Congress, Vienna, May 1939. ............................................... 284 Figure 12: RKB Colonial Congress, Bremen, May 1938. .............................................. 285 Figure 13: Unidentified Exhibition ................................................................................. 295 Figure 14: Colonial Beer Coasters .................................................................................. 315 Figure 15: Colonial Kitsch .............................................................................................. 317 Figure 16: “Fight with the Reich Colonial League!” ...................................................... 332 Figure 17: Urban Colonizing Gaze ................................................................................. 333 Figure 18: Rural Colonizing Gaze .................................................................................. 334 Figure 19: An Alpine Scene in Africa ............................................................................ 336 Figure 20: German Garden in Swakopmund .................................................................. 340 Figure 21: Kaiserstraβe in Windhoek ............................................................................. 342 vii Figure 22: East African montage .................................................................................... 350 Figure 23: “The woman in Africa is self-sufficient.” ..................................................... 353 Figure 24: “Ladies’ fashions in Africa” .......................................................................... 354 Figure 25: Werner Peiner, Massaimädchen (1936) ........................................................ 359 Figure 26: Werner Peiner, Das schwarze Paradies (1937/1938) ................................... 360 Figure 27: Dresden train station, ca. 1938/1939 ............................................................. 365 Figure 28: “Fight in the Reich Colonial League!” ca. 1938 ........................................... 367 Figure 29: Reich Colonial League draft poster, 1941. .................................................... 370 Figure 30: “Raw Materials from Our Own Colonies!” ................................................... 371 Figure 31: The British in Africa ...................................................................................... 372 Figure 32: Bremen Colonial Exhibition, 1938 ................................................................ 374 Figure 33: Bremen Colonial Exhibition, 1938 ................................................................ 375 Figure 34: Sidol-Bilderdienst, Deutschlands Kolonien. ................................................. 378 Figure 35: Carl Peters Montage .....................................................................................