Jared Poley. Decolonization in Germany: Weimar Narratives of Colonial Loss and Foreign Occupation. Bern: Peter Lang, 2005. 281 pp. $54.95, paper, ISBN 978-3-03910-283-9. Reviewed by Robbie Aitken Published on H-German (September, 2006) In this original and thought-provoking work metropolitan society. In examining the historical (a published version of his doctoral thesis), Jared legacies of imperialism in the Weimar Republic, Poley investigates the impact of German colonial Poley sets about to trace the German postcolonial loss upon German culture, in particular upon imagination. It is revealed to have been dominat‐ metropolitan society. Poley's work owes a degree ed by conceptual categories established by imperi‐ of debt to the theoretical framework provided by alism and full of complex, inverted and threaten‐ Kristin Ross's Fast Cars, Clean Bodies: Decoloniza‐ ing images such as the African imperialist and the tion and the Reordering of French Culture (1996), colonized German or the whipped German and which considers the reshaping of French culture men who had become women. in the period immediately before and after Algeri‐ The book is split into two distinct sections, the an independence. Much like Ross, Poley works first of which examines the work of the relatively from the assumption that the severing of the rela‐ forgotten writer Hanns Heinz Ewers (1871-1943). tionship between colony and metropole had an Five of the book's eight main chapters are devoted important impact upon the latter. Following the to discussing Ewers's work from the German colo‐ Versailles settlement, Germany became the frst nial period through Germany's decolonization. A European power to experience decolonization--in literary analysis of the (post)colonial fantasies in a world still dominated by colonialism. This trans‐ Ewers's texts is an intriguing choice, given that formation took place against a backdrop of mili‐ Ewers was not a writer of colonial literature. To‐ tary defeat, political collapse and foreign occupa‐ day, he is perhaps best remembered for his fan‐ tion. In particular, Poley (again, like Ross) argues tastic/horror works or his biography of the Nazi that the abrupt ending of this relationship affect‐ martyr Horst Wessel. Although he never visited ed the way that citizens of the former colonial nor set his texts in the German colonies, Ewers (as power viewed the world. New circumstances Poley demonstrates) was nonetheless interested forced a reconsideration of numerous issues such in imperialism without actually being directly in‐ as race, gender and power structures on behalf of H-Net Reviews volved. Elements of his work contain what can be link between Haitians and ants. The physical read as colonial fantasies. In his diachronic analy‐ threat of the ant attack becomes symbolic of sis of Ewers's literature Poley picks out a number feared racial swamping and a perceived danger‐ of recurring themes to establish the content of ous gendered black sexuality. This time when the Ewers's colonial loss. He argues that by extension, main character is swarmed by black bodies--the Ewers's response to colonial loss was reflective of bodies of the ants--the effect is one of terror. that of the large numbers of people who read his Ewers's postcolonial fantasies produced sexu‐ books. Through analyzing shifts in Ewers's ally threatening images of the colonial environ‐ philosophies and depictions of, among other ment and betrayed an underlying fear that the things, voodoo queens, whipping, hybrid human colony was infiltrating the metropole in the form forms and colonial disease and travel, Poley con‐ of disease and hybrid forms. At a time when trav‐ vincingly illuminates Ewers's wholly negative ex‐ el was safer than ever before, in Vampir (1920), perience of colonial loss. Ewers now imagined a new terrifying tropical dis‐ Prior to decolonization, Ewers depicted the ease spreading from the colonies. Travel was ren‐ colonial environment as a sexually liberating are‐ dered dangerous, breeding anxiety and posing a na in which Europeans could exercise mastery physical threat to the metropole as well as sym‐ and experience self-empowerment, free from the bolizing a loss of mastery over the colony. Poley's oppressive and stifling nature of European soci‐ detailed discussion of hybridity in chapter 5 ety. Foreign travel, of which Ewers was a propo‐ demonstrates that it is also in Vampir that Ewers nent, was seen as a cure for the nervousness and began to imagine dangerous colonial hybrids ca‐ anxiety afflicting Europe. Although tropical dis‐ pable of passing through the metropole unrecog‐ eases existed they could be controlled by metro‐ nized. Hybrid forms, including the German-Jew‐ politan medicine. Colonial meetings, although ish hybrid personified by the character Lotte sometimes described in horrific terms, remained Lewi, previously viewed in a positive manner, pleasurable and satisfying for Europeans. In the were now envisaged as threatening and destabi‐ postwar aftermath of colonial loss, however, Ew‐ lizing. This problematic mixture also included the ers's mental world underwent a dramatic revi‐ occupation-area Rhineland, seen as both French sion, and positive and pleasurable fantasies were and German at the same time. For Ewers, the now replaced by complex inversions. One particu‐ forceful reestablishment of boundaries was cen‐ larly effective example of the shift in Ewers's fan‐ tral to the elimination of any confusion over once tasies that Poley develops relates to representa‐ stable categories. As a response to hybrid states, tions of Haiti as a colonial arena. Particularly in incest was imagined as an extreme means Die Mamaloi (1907), Haiti is established as a sexu‐ through which hybridity could be made safe and al fantasyland for Europeans in which the main purity restored. This catastrophic reaction to colo‐ character F.X. can escape the norms of European nial loss in Ewers's work is not simply highlighted sexuality and engage in pedophilia. He partici‐ by the strange and horrific fantasies he imagined pates in a sexual orgy in which he is "pleasurably in the postcolonial period, but as Poley shows, it is engulfed by the black mass" (p. 34). This image of evidenced by changes in the author's literary sexual ecstasy undergoes a radical inversion in style. For instance, in the postwar period, Ewers Ewers's postcolonial fantasies. Thus, in Ameisen increasingly resorted to exercising authorial con‐ (1925)--a scientific account of ant life--Ewers uti‐ trol by placing himself within his texts as a re‐ lizes language previously used to describe the sponse to threatening and destabilizing moments. Haitians in order to describe ants and an ant at‐ tack. This language establishes a representational 2 H-Net Reviews Although this monograph is neither a bio‐ von Wrochem, Poley demonstrates the inverted graphical work nor an exploration of fantastic/ images presented in their works. horror literature in Germany, it is nonetheless no‐ Initially, occupation was viewed in terms of ticeable that Poley's bibliography omits a number sexual violence and the "Schwarze Schmach" cam‐ of recent works that have signaled a quiet redis‐ paign, which depicted German women being covery of Ewers in German literature studies.[1] raped by syphilitic, dominant black soldiers. Poley The reader is also left without a sense of the liter‐ argues that this image provided a "photographic ary context in which Ewers was productive. Al‐ negative" of the European colonists who enjoyed though Poley rightly points out that Ewers em‐ the sexual fantasyland of the colonial sphere (p. ployed a number of literary styles in his work, he 160). Such a depiction, excluding any form of free remains primarily associated with the genre of will or sexual desire on the behalf of German the fantastic/horror. It would have been of inter‐ women in regards to the African soldiers, did not est to know whether colonial loss had a similar ef‐ exist unchallenged. Poley points to theatrical per‐ fect on the work of contemporaries such as Karl formances like Harem Nights (1920) in Berlin to Hans Strobl and Alfred Kubin. The works of both demonstrate that eroticized images of pleasurable spanned a similar time scale as that of Ewers and black-white sexuality were also being produced. in the pre-1914 period at least their fction often Gärtner, in particular, sought to control these im‐ treated similar themes. Instead, the reader is left ages. Rape became a powerful metaphor em‐ wondering to what extent Ewers's response to ployed not only to describe sexual relationships colonial loss was representative within German between African soldiers and German women, cultural representations. but also to stand in for the political fate of Ger‐ In the shorter second section of the book, many. From 1922 onwards, occupation was in‐ comprised of three chapters, Poley turns his at‐ creasingly viewed as a form of colonization. The tention to the occupation of the Rhineland. As he former colonial power Germany had been re‐ notes, although Ewers was a Rhinelander, he did duced to the ranks of the colonized. Worse still, it not critically comment upon the occupation until suffered the humiliation of being occupied by it was over. Poley provides a synchronic investi‐ African colonial soldiers, a situation that destabi‐ gation of the effects of decolonization and occupa‐ lized and inverted colonial racial hierarchies and tion on nationalist groups involved in promoting called into question concepts of racial difference. nationalist culture. In particular, he focuses on The African troops, however, were frequently de‐ the government-sponsored Rheinische Volk‐ nied the status of active subjects and were con‐ spflege, which was responsible for producing and ceived of as mere instruments of French power. analyzing propaganda material relating to the oc‐ This state of affairs led to a critique of French cupation.