Herr Möllenkamp! What is it that your virtual engineers have installed next to this platform? ...

¹⁰ The ‚Cassassa-Story‘ offers an overwhelming panorama of an African construction site, teeming with clever and silly, yearning and burdened people, loaded with events and occurrences that, finally, trigger an inspection by the TELESTAR’s European head office. A reviser is sent to Cassassa whose task it is to verify whether a construction site is existing at all. That strange is the news, which arrives at TELESTAR …

A minute ago, there was still a Tanzanian station building in China-look out there — but this one looks rather … German? And in its staircase, even under the roof, there are lights switched on!

„Well, ‚German‘ is a realistic assumption in a country that operates, besides this TAZARA-line, the network of the TANZANIA RAILWAY COOPERATION which, in part, was built when this country was still a German colony. It was set in metre-gauge, however, that was not of interest to the Chinese some sixty years later, resulting, unfortunately, in the fact that the TAZARA-system is not compatible with the ancient German one.
The main line of the Tanzania Railway Cooperation leads from Dar-es-Salaam via Morogoro and Dodoma to Tabora. There, another line leads to Kigoma at Lake Tanganyika and to Mwanza at Lake Victoria. Apart from that, there is a northern line to Tanga and to Kilimanjaro ...“

How a German railway came to East Africa …

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CARL PETERS
Germany 1940/1941
Director: Herbert Selpin
Script: Ernst von Salomon; Walter Zerlett-Olfenius; Herbert Selpin
Camera: Franz Koch
Music: Franz Doelle
Cast e.g.: Hans Albers as Dr. Carl Peters
Production: Bavaria Filmkunst GmbH

German anti-British propaganda film. It depicts Carl Peters, one of the founders of German East Africa. When addressing a parliamentary commission of inquiry, he openly calls for a Hitlerian policy of territorial conquest, which requires hard headed men, such as him. He defends executions without trial as a way to prevent an uprising, which, he insists, the parliamentarians could not have prevented. Parliament does not accept this, demonstrating what happens when the Führerprinzip is not recognized. (The parliamentarians are, in addition, Jews).

… And what really happened — with Peters and East Africa! ...

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Instead of pursuing a university career, Peters, born in 1856 at Neuhaus an der Elbe in the Kingdom of Hanover as son of a Lutheran clergyman, worked with a family enterprise in London after his studies. There he became acquainted with British principles of colonization and imperialism. When he returned to Berlin, he founded the Society for German Colonization, a pressure group for the acquisition of colonies. In the autumn of 1884, he proceeded with two companions to East Africa, and concluded in the name of his society treaties with the chiefs of Useguha, Nguru, Ijsagara and Ukami. Returning to Europe early in 1885, he formed the German East Africa Company.
The German government under Chancellor Otto von Bismarck fearing the impact on the relations with the British was originally opposed to these plans and had refused any backing when Peters set out. Bismarck refused a second time when Peters returned to Germany in the closing days of the Berlin Congo Conference demanding an imperial charter. Peters, however, blackmailed the Chancellor successfully by threatening to sell his acquisitions to King Léopold II of Belgium who was eager to expand his Congo Empire. As Bismarck’s National Liberal allies in the Reichstag parliament were pro-colonial minded anyway, he finally gave in to the „stupid guy“ and the charter was made out. This constituted the necessary backing for further expansion on the East African mainland in the following years. In 1888, Peters achieved an agreement with Sultan Khalifah bin Said of Zanzibar who leased his coastal dominions in what was to be Tanganyika to the German East Africa Company.
In the same year, Peters undertook an expedition from the east coast of Africa, avowedly for the relief of Emin Pasha, actually to extend the sphere of German influence in Uganda and Equatoria. This expedition was not sanctioned by the German government and was regarded by the British authorities as a filibustering (in the 19th century sense of the word) exploit. Reaching Uganda in early 1890, Peters concluded a treaty with Kabaka Mwanga II of Buganda in favour of Germany.
He had to leave Uganda hastily on the approach of an expedition led by Frederick Lugard, the representative of the Imperial British East Africa Company. On reaching Zanzibar he learned that his efforts were useless, as on 1st July 1890 the Helgoland–Zanzibar Treaty between Germany and the British Empire had been signed, whereby Uganda was left in the British sphere and Peters’ agreement with Mwanga became null and void. Meanwhile the power of his company had collapsed when the coastal population rose in the Abushiri Revolt against the implementation of the lease agreement between the Sultan and the Germans. The German government had to intervene by sending troops under Hermann Wissmann, suppressed the insurrection and took over the company’s possessions as a colony.
Nevertheless, on his return to Germany Peters was received with great honours, and in 1891 published an account of his expedition entitled „Die deutsche Emin Pasha Expedition“, which was translated into English. He also endorsed the foundation of the „Alldeutscher Verband“ in protest against the Helgoland-Zanzibar Treaty.
In 1891 he went out again to East Africa as Imperial High Commissioner for the Kilimanjaro Region in Moshi, however subordinate to Wissmann, and in 1892 was one of the commissioners for delimiting the Anglo-German boundary with the British East Africa Company in that region. In the same time, Peters by his brutal behaviour against the local population provoked an uprising, which was to cost him his office. He used local girls as concubines and, when he discovered that his lover Jagodja had an affair with his manservant Mabruk, he had both of them sentenced for theft and treason and hanged by a drumhead court-martial and their home villages destroyed. The incident, at first not reported by Peters, provoked resistance by the local Chaga people and again necessitated costly military action.

How in a little German town of our time the history of „worldwide settler-territories of the Germans“ has been presented!

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AFRICA AND THE FAR EAST
History and Ethnology of former German Protectorates
Exhibition in the Ostdeutsche Heimatmuseum Nienburg / Weser
18th March - 30th September 2002

Excerpts from the MUSEUM‘s PRESENTATION:

The Germans and their Germanic ancestors have always been fond of travelling. Whether Cimbri, Teutonic, Vandals, Goths, Angles or Saxons with their marches across Europe, the Vikings with their travels to far away shores in early times or in mediaeval times exploration and settlement of land east of Elbe- and Saale-River and further across the Oder-River, and the emigration to the ‚New World‘ — one was settling on one’s own account or one was called by foreign rulers.
It did not always happen in a peaceful way, destruction took place, natives were oppressed forcefully, many a time something new was created, eminent cultural landscapes came into being.
By the end of World War II, a lot had changed in central Europe especially for the Germans. After loss of their homelands in the former eastern provinces of the Reich and with the flood of uprooted fugitives from there — some of them settling now in Nienburg — the need was seen to remember the ‚old homeland‘ and German settlements in other parts of the world as well and to present their history and culture for following generations. For that purpose, the ‚Ostdeutsche Heimatmuseum‘ (Museum of Homeland in Eastern Germany) was founded in 1994 and based in the historical ‚Traufenhaus‘ of 1648 in the old part of Nienburg.
Today, we are welcoming you to a special exhibition dedicated to the former German colonies, which officially were called ‚Deutsche Schutz- und Pachtgebiete‘ (Leased Territories under German Protection). To abide by historical correctness, this is also part of the sub-title of our exhibition …

PREFATORY WORD by Sebastian Haffner:

Colonization is always aggression. Overpowering of weaker peoples and civilizing by stronger ones. However, it is always progress because a weaker and more primitive one gives way to a stronger, higher one. It is always a mixture of good and malicious and a judgement will always be dependent on whether the good makes up for the malicious.

DIE HARKE, 19.03.2002 (Nienburg’s daily newspaper)

… The Museum of Homeland in Eastern Germany would be on a good path; it would reach a hand in a people connecting way not only towards East, remembering roots, but doing it in a quite critical manner.
„Continue in that way“, encouraged Regierungspräsidentin Gertraude Kruse on Monday evening the Director of the Museum, Dieter Lonchant, and the almost one hundred guests who had come to the Traufenhaus to witness the opening of the exhibition ‚Afrika und der ferne Osten — Geschichte und Völkerkunde der ehemaligen deutschen Schutzgebiete‘ (Africa and the Far East — History and Ethnology of former Leased Territories under German Protection). To get the guests in the right mood, they were surprised not only with snacks from Zebra- and Ostrich-meat but also with original beer from Namibia‘s capital Windhoek …

DIE HARKE, 16.03.2002, Excerpt of a readers’ debate

With regard to the letter ‚Murderous Executioners‘ by Herr Lippel dated 13th March:
I am completely agreeing with you that the crushing of the Herero rebellion in the former Germ. Colony Southwest Africa has been one of the darkest and most cruel chapters in Germ. Colonial history. But I am saddened by the fact that you reduce the Germ. Colonial history to this single cruel event and that the Germans are called by you murderous executioners. What then are the other colonial powers e.g. Spain with General Cortez? If this would be the case, Herr Lippel, why do the states of the former Germ. Colonies maintain very good relations with Germany? Why do they restore the old colonial buildings of the Germans and establish museums about the colonial time? Why are still existing German street names in Windhoek? Would Africans not have destroyed long ago everything that reminded them of the German murderous executioners? The opposite is the case; we Germans are still well received guests in the former Germ. Colonies, even friends; some are even proud of the German achievements in their country during colonial time.
Marcus René Duensing, Historian, Erichshagen

FEEDBACK:

To: Radio Bridge Overseas / 23.03.2003
From: Hermann Mietz, Geschaeftsfuehrer des Traditionsverbandes ehemaliger Schutz- und Ueberseetruppen Freunde der frueheren deutschen Schutzgebiete e.V.
(Manager of the Tradition Association of Former Overseas-Troopers and Friends of Former German Protectorates)

… We have changed from a pure Tradition Association of former Overseas-Troopers — of which, of course, none is alive anymore — into an Association that still holds up memories of that short period of German colonial history but which supports the states of former protectorates wherever possible. Financial support and aid in kind for schools, child-care centres and homes for the elderly is given as ‚assistance for self-help‘ even if it can be only a drop on burning rocks.
I am irritated by the decisive statement about ‚Voelkermord‘ (genocide) on the Herero people. Unfortunately, this is, since Drechsler, a repeated assertion that, according to recent historical work, cannot be maintained. Although these events must not be minimized, we are against a dogma that has to be followed forever.
We are presenting in our magazine for debate different publications which deal with questions like ‚Firing Order‘, ‚Genocide‘ etc.
We want facts to speak for themselves …

„Facts to speak for themselves?
With snacks from Zebra- and Ostrich-meat, and with original-beer from Namibia’s capital Windhoek?
With Haffner-tooting about the ‚good‘ and the ‚malicious‘ in times of ‚colonialism‘?
What? Did no one read my books?“