Cologne in the German colonial empire

The first business school in Cologne before World War I

During the era/period of New Imperialism, Cologne was one of the most important trading cities of the German Empire, and as such, was the Rheinland's centre for expeditions and scientific colonialism.

"Scientific Colonialism" and Cologne's key figures

right|152x152px|Logo der Deutschen Kolonialgesellschaft

Konrad Adenauer, Mayer of Cologne (1917–1933, 1945)

From 1905, the city of Cologne was a member of the Kolonial-Wirtschaftlichen Komitees, or KWK (Colonialist and Scientific Committee), paying a yearly fee of 100 marks. The KWK's management included, among others, Richard Hindorf, director of the Rheinischen Handeï-Plantagen-Gesellschaft (the Rheinland Handeï Plantation Society), and Max Esser, founder of the Westafrikanischen Pflanzungsgesellschaft Victoria (the West-African Planting Society).

In 1914 the Kolonial-Wirtschaftliche Komitee consisted of 1231 corporate members. The following Cologne businesses were also registered:

• Bertuch & Co., a machine leveling element factory
• Franz Clouth Ltd, The Rhenish Rubber Goods Factory (Nippes)
• The Deutz gas engine factory
• The Cologne Elastic Factory, formerly Ferd. Kohlstadt & Co. (Deutz)
• W. Leyendecker & Co. (Ehrenfeld)
• The Humboldt Mechanical Engineering Firm (Kalk)
• J. Pohlig, Act. Ges. (Zollstock)
• The Stollwerck Brothers, a chocolate manufacturer

August Reichensperger, Viktor C. Eduard Schnitzler, Gustav Michels, Eugen and Hans Langen and the Leverkus family were particularly significant for colonialism in Cologne.

Konrad Adenauer, Mayor of Cologne at the time in addition to being acting Vice President of the German Colonial society from 1931 to 1933, and later Chancellor of Germany once said:

The German Empire must strive for the acquisition of colonies. There is too little room in the Empire itself for the large population. The very elements, which are somewhat daring and which strive ever forwards, which could not occupy themselves in their country itself but which nevertheless find a place for their activities in the colonies, have long gone to waste. Our people require more room, and therefore colonies.

Institutions and local establishments

The second business school

In the year 1884, at the beginning of Germany's active colonial policy, Cologne's local branch of the West German Society for Colonisation and Export, which began with around 100 members. The turn of the century brought with it the establishment of many new business schools and colleges of technology, such as the moden day Hansagymnasium school, the Handelshochschule business school and the chamber of commerce in Cologne, all of which were member of the German Colonial Society. In order to satisfy the general interest of the population in colonial topics, these were introduced into the colleges' curriculums as additional compulsory courses. The link between science and colonialism in Cologne was further ensured through contracts. A large proportion of the teaching staff at the chamber of commerce, the Handelshochschule business school, and other institutions were also members of the German Colonial Society, such as Christian Eckert, Kurt Wiedenfeld, Paul Moldenhauer, Oskar Jäger, Heinrich Geffcken, Otto Wilhelm Thomé and Richard Hindorf.

On the evening of the 19th October 1888, a large number of citizens arrived to the "top social hall" of the "Roman Gang", in order to carry out the establishment of the Cologne subdivision of the German Colonial Society.

The Kölnischen Zeitung newspaper's pro-colonial propaganda

The first logo of the region-wide newspaper Kölnischen Zeitung from 4 May 1870

The Kölnische Zeitung newspaper had already existed for nearly a hundred years at the beginning of German colonialism and was firmly established as a source of information among the middle class and nationalist-conservatives. Like the general tone in Western society at the turn of the century, the Kölnischen Zeitung's articles were racist, nationalist and euphemistic from a modern perspective. The editor of the newspaper, Prosper Müllendorf accompanied Cologne's Handelshochschule school on the 1908 East-Africa expedition and reported on "The French colonial empire in West-Africa", Cameroon, German Southwest-Africa, the "Victims in German Southwest-Africa", "Germany's next duties in the Southwest", "German Southwest-Africa at the time of the Herero revolt", "The means of transport of the state of Congo", "Overview of the development of the African colonies", "The newest development in German East-Africa", "Technology and goods in German East-Africa" and "The development of British-East-Africa". Hugo Zöller gave lectures for those in favour of colonialism in the Gürzenich convention centre, on the „Land and people of Samoa“. Von Mach, another editor of the newspaper, gave a presentation on "a German project in Transvaal".

The Kölnische Zeitung was one of the few German newspapers which could afford to send a correspondent, its editor Hugo Zöller, to the colonies. The "colonial journalism" of the time damalige „koloniale Journalismus" typically consisted of pure copies of articles from leading newspapers, or were acquired second-hand from travellers, traders or missionaries. In light of this, the enthusiastic, pro-colonial Zöller a stroke of luck for the Kölnische Zeitung. Its editor was sent on a colonial-science educational trip in 1879, and to West Africa from 1884-1885, in order to be able to participate actively in the acquisition of new territories alongside the German Empire's consul-general Gustav Nachtigall.

Zöller himself openly described his style as "colonial political agitation" which can be understood as an intensive form of political propaganda. The type of Zöller-esque propaganda varied according to each political situation. He naturally had to make use of different propagandistic strategies before the active expansion of the German Empire, as opposed to during the period of German colonialism, during the First World War, and in the period of colonial revisionism which followed.

Cologne as a source of missionaries

The journal Gott will es! (God wills it), Issued in June 1910

Since ancient times, the city of Cologne was a Catholic centre for regions north of the Alps. It therefore stood to reason that missionaries from this city also set out for colonial Africa. In the year 1888, the Afrika-Verein deutscher Katholiken, or AVdK, (African Society of German Catholics) was thus founded. For many years, this society was chaired by Franz Karl Hespers, the cathedral dean from Cologne, who was also a member of the German Colonial Society. The AVdK was under the protection of the Archbishop of Cologne, and was encouraged through what the French cardinal Lavigerie called the "anti-slavery movement" in his lifetime. The aim of the AVdK was "the civilisation of the Negroes through conversion to Christianity". Initally limited to German East Africa, they later spread their movement to the other colonies.

Paul zu Lukuledi from the missionary station in St. Peter remarked:

At the northern border of our prefecture, I found the main obstacle to the East African missions everywhere - namely, an extremely sparse population. Many times, only by the evening, after a six or eight hour long march through undeveloped and uninhabited Pori [bushland], could we find a small village with a few dozen Negroes, mostly half-starved, ghostlike figures, whose poverty stared at me through their sunken-eyed faces, the like of which can hardly be imagined in Europe.

Daniele Comboni, canonised by the Catholic Church in 2003, recruited for the Africa mission in Cologne, and received direct support from the AVdK.

On 18 May 1920 the AVdK was dissolved. The no-colonialist plans to re-establish the society nearly forty years later were nevertheless never realised. Alongside the AVdK there also existed an Evangelical Africa Society and the Rhenish Missionary Society.

The 1908 East Africa expedition of the Handelshochschule school

The expedition route

In 1908, the three professors Paul Moldenhauer (insurance science), Heinrich Geffcken (public law) and Kurt Wiedenfeld (political science) travelled to Africa outside of term time (2 August - 15 October 1908), with 25 students, a doctor and their expedition leader, the deputy head of the Handelshochschule school, Christian Eckert and his wife, as the first academic institution in Germany to set out to "conquer" scientifically. As correspondent for the "colonial journey", planned with the Imperial Colonial Office, Prosper Müllendorff from the Kölnische Zeitung, the most important pro-colonial newspaper in Germany, took part in the expedition.

Christian Eckert justified the journey as follows:

It must appear as an important task, especially for a young business college, to attempt to find out whether they are able to promote a modest level of understanding for the current tasks and future problems posed to us in overseas territories. With the recognition that the colonial question must above all be made clear to aspiring young businessmen. […] Such a colonial journey offers the advantage of being able to turn our attention with hindsight towards instances where German industriousness has already achieved success abroad, and at the same time to look towards opportunities to test the the drive of our businessmen and industrialists more strongly in future. [...]

Der erste Abschnitt der Expedition war Britisch-Ostafrika einschl. Uganda, zu ihm wurde von Neapel aus losgezogen; es ging mit dem Dampfer Markgraf der Deutschen Ost-Afrika-Linie nach Mombasa und von dort mit der Ugandabahn nach Kisumu zu einer 10-tägigen Rundreise um den Viktoriasee. Von dort ging es dann über Nairobi zurück nach Mombasa, um dann mit dem Regierungsdampfer Kaiser Wilhelm II nach Tanga, wo der Abschnitt Deutsch-Ostafrika begann, abzulegen. Zusätzlich standen noch Usambara, Sansibar und Morogoro auf dem Programm, bevor von Dar es Salaam aus die Rückreise angetreten wurde.

Es wurde also ein Vergleich der Kolonien angestrebt.

Besichtigt wurden Pflanzungen, Plantagen und Wirtschaftsbetriebe.

Africans from the colonies in Cologne

The "Dahomey Amazons"

Contemporary postcard of the "Dahomey Amazons"

In 1890, the "Dahomey Amazons", a corps of men and women from German Togoland were put on exhibition in Cologne, where they would walk out in exotic costumes. Between then and 1908, the corps appeared in Cologne four times in total, with various line-ups. The Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger newspaper wrote about the "soldiers in petticoats": "The female warriors are wily/clever, mostly with well-formed figures and maroon-coloured skin, only one or two are lighter in colour, as well as some who are also darker. They wear a type of bodice, which covers their chest and is decorated with small white cowrie shells, amulets, which are worn around their necks and on their chests, among the jewellery of the dark brown ladies."

In 1989, a sixteen-year-old "Amazon" died of pneumonia in the Cologne public hospital on Cäcilien St. She was interred in the Melaten Cemetery, with significant coverage from the local press: "Yesterday, after All Souls' Day, a rare burial took place in the Melaten Cemetery. An Amazon from the troupe which present themselves in Castans Panopticum, fell ill suddenly from pneumonia some weeks ago. The doctor treating aordered her committal to the local public hospital. Her illness worsened, and on Saturday death carried away the otherwise strong/powerful girl. [...] The burial took place on Monday."

Samoans in Cologne Zoo

In the Cologne Zoological Garden in July 1901, an ethnological exhibition of 26 Samoans, including the prisoner Tamasese Le Alofi II. and members of his family, as well as other noble families from the island. The supervisory board and the board of directors announced:

In the zoological garden from Thursday 5 until and including Thursday 26 July, a community of Samoans will be shown to visitors. They come from the South Sea island of Samoa, whose 10-year affiliation to the German Empire will be celebrated festively this year.

Mehrfach am Tag mussten die menschlichen Exponate Tänze und Waffenspiele vorführen, zweimal wöchentlich ein ganzes Schwein in einer mit Blättern und heißen Steinen gefüllten Bratgrube zubereiten und das Publikum mit Kostproben erfreuen. Obendrein war als zusätzliche Attraktion eine Rutsche installiert worden, auf der die leicht mit Bastrock und Blumenkette bekleideten Samoaner in ein Wasserbecken glitten und herum schwammen oder in Kanus ruderten. Das Ausstellungskonzept stammte von Carl Marquardt und seinem Bruder Fritz, der als ehemaliger Polizeipräsident von Apia auf Samoa beste Beziehungen zur deutschen Kolonie besaß. Ausstellungen exotischer Menschen waren seit ihrer Einführung auf den Weltausstellungen schon länger bekannt und popularisierten im Zeitalter des europäischen Kolonialismus das Bild des „gezähmten Wilden“ oder auch der neuen „Landsleute“. Zu Beginn der Ausstellung hob der Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger (6. Juli 1910) die Vorzüge von Ausstellung und Ausstellern hervor:

Im Zoologischen Garten wird sich von Dienstag, den 5. bis einschließlich Dienstag den 26. Juli eine Gesellschaft Samoaner den Besuchern zeigen. Sie stammen von der Südseeinsel Samoa, deren 10-jährige Zugehörigkeit zum Deutschen Reiche in diesem Jahre dort festlich begangen wurde.

Darüber hinaus lobte der anonyme Verfasser des Artikels den ethnologischen Wert der Veranstaltung:

Neben dem großen künstlerischen Genuß, den die Vorführungen der Samoaner bieten, steht ja auch der erzieherische Wert, der darin enthalten ist, daß dem breiten Publikum hier ein Einblick vergönnt ist in Art und Sitten einer Menschenrasse, die nach ihren Begriffen von Sittlichkeit und Moral in vielen Punkten der europäischen gleich zu stellen ist.

Aufnahme des reichsdeutschen Kolonialismus im Kölner Karneval

Titelblatt des Festprogramms des Kölner Karnevals von 1885

Die prokoloniale Kölnische Zeitung hatte kurz vor der Karnevalssession 1884/1885 die Reiseberichte des Geografen und Ethnologen Wilhelm Joest herausgebracht, diese erfreuten sich großer Aufmerksamkeit unter der Kölner Bürgerschaft. Joest hatte über den Zeitraum eines Jahres das südöstliche Afrika bereist; zusätzlich fallen in das Jahr viele bedeutende Ereignisse der deutschen Kolonialpolitik (Deutsch-Südwest-Afrika wird gegründet, Carl Peters begründet die Gesellschaft für deutsche Kolonisation, die Kongo-Konferenz findet statt). Das Zugmotto der Session lautete: „Held Carneval als Colonisator“; sämtliche Rosenmontagsteilnehmer waren mit schwarzer Schuhcreme als „Neger“ verkleidet. Auf dem Titelblatt der Session wird die „Colonia Agrippina“ mit der neu gewonnenen „Colonia Anna Bequema“ in Bezug gesetzt, hinter „Anna Bequema“ verbirgt sich „Angra Pequeña“, der alte portugiesische Name der Küstenregion in Südwest-Afrika, der späteren „Lüderitzbucht“.

Zu dem mit Pickelhauben bekleideten „Amazonen-Musikkorps“ schrieb die Kölnische Zeitung:

Sie gewähren einen drastisch-komischen Anblick, diese halbwilden gezähmten weiblichen Musikanten, und erst der musikalische Genuss, er ist himmlisch!.

Orte, die an den Kolonialismus Deutschlands in Köln erinnern

Im Nippeser Norden liegt das sogenannte „Afrika-Viertel“ (auch Klein Afrika, Heia Safari-Viertel oder Neger-Viertel), in der in Köln stark vertretenen neokolonialen Bewegung der 1930er Jahre wurde es so (mitsamt den Straßennamen) getauft. Die Gustav-Nachtigal-Straße, die Namibiastraße (ehemals Carl-Peters-Straße), die Usambarastraße (ehemals Lüderitzstraße), die Togostraße, die Kamerunstraße und die Tangastraße sind entsprechende Reminiszenzen.

In (Neu)ehrenfeld erinnern die Gravenreuthstraße, die Lansstraße, die Iltisstraße, die Takustraße, der Takuplatz, das Takufeld und die Wißmannstraße an die imperialistischen Zeiten des Deutschen Reiches.

Andere Orte in Köln mit vergleichbaren Namen sind die Heinrich-von-Stephan-Straße (Bilderstöckchen), das Konrad-Adenauer-Ufer (Altstadt/Nord), die Mohrenstraße (Altstadt/Nord), die Moltkestraße (Neustadt/Süd und Rodenkirchen), die Robert-Koch-Straße (Lindenthal und Pesch), die Wilhelmstraße (Nippes) und die Geschwister-Scholl-Realschule (ehemals nach Karl Freiherr von Gravenreuth benannt).

(Weiterführende) Literatur

• Lothar Pützstück: „Exotenzauber vor Stadtmauer und Haustür“. Völkerschauen im Kölner Zoo 1878–1932 (in German) Zeitschrift des Kölner Zoo 40,4: 151–157, 1997
• Marianne Bechhaus-Gerst: Köln und die Kolonien, (in German) in: Ulrich van der Heyden und Joachim Zeller (eds.): Kolonialismus hierzulande – Eine Spurensuche in Deutschland. Sutton Verlag, Erfurt 2007, ISBN 978-3-86680-269-8, pp. 11–18.
• Marianne Bechhaus-Gerst, Anne-Kathrin Horstmann (eds.): Köln und der Deutsche Kolonialismus. Eine Spurensuche, (in German) Böhlau Verlag, Köln, Weimar, Wien 2013. 286 pages
• Anne-Kathrin Horstmann. "Wissenschaftlicher Kolonialismus zwischen Theorie und Praxis: Die Ostafrika-Expedition der Kölner Handelshochschule 1908: Beiträge zur Kölner Afrikawissenschaftlichen Nachwuchstagung (KANT II)" (PDF) (in German). Marilena Thanassoula, Kathrin Kolossa, Claudia Baasner, Peter André Rodekuhr, Marc Seifert, Nico Nassenstein, Anne-Kathrin Horstmann, Christoph Vogel, Larissa-Diana Fuhrmann. Retrieved 29 January 2014.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)

Mitgliederverzeichnisse

• "Verzeichniss der Mitglieder am 1. Januar 1901" (PDF) (in German). Deutsche Kolonialgesellschaft, Abteilung Köln. 1901-01-01. Retrieved 2014-01-25.
• "Verzeichnis der Mitglieder Dezember 1903" (PDF) (in German). Deutsche Kolonialgesellschaft, Abteilung Köln. December 1903. Retrieved 2014-01-25.
• "Verzeichnis der Mitglieder Oktober 1906" (PDF) (in German). Deutsche Kolonialgesellschaft, Abteilung Köln. October 1906. Retrieved 2014-01-25.
• "IX. Jahresbericht, März 1918 bis März 1919" (PDF) (in German). Frauenbund der Deutschen Kolonialgesellschaft, Abteilung Köln. March 1919. Retrieved 2014-01-29.

Fußnoten

[[Category:20th century in Cologne]] [[Category:19th century in Cologne]] [[Category:German colonial empire]] [[Category:Pages with unreviewed translations]]