A Deterritorialized History: Investigating German Colonialism ...

Germany. But, true to Deleuze and Guattari’s formulation, true stability was never
achieved, since the colonial scandals had already left their mark.
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The controversy over the colonial abuses altered German politics. As the war
consumed more and more money, soldiers, time and effort, traditional political categories
were polarized into supporters of interventionist colonial expansion and those calling for
moderation in colonial policy. For instance, the SPD was split into a left-wing and a pro-
colonialism right-wing. 139 Germany also developed a cadre of “liberal imperialists” like
Friedrich Naumann, Max Weber, and Ernst Francke who hoped a successful Weltpolitik
would ameliorate the situation of the German working class. 140 The expansion even
provided the SPD with an argument to encourage an anti-colonial coalition with the
liberals by citing growing taxes and international entanglements. Even the nationalist
and bourgeois parties were transformed by growing gaps between advocates of overseas
expansion and those who stressed European affairs. 141 German politics were therefore
deterritorialized by the novel circumstances of the African wars. Deterritorialization
reveals how the diversity of factors within colonial politics influenced these polarizations.
This analysis of colonial policy and the politics inflecting this policy offers a
unique perspective on the articulation of political interests. As indicated above, Deleuze
and Guattari provide a theoretical perspective for the examination of political ideas that
recognizes the presence of difference, fluidity and irrationality within discourses of the
nation-state and one that moves away from the excessively managerial vision of politics
used by many historians. 142 Deterritorialization incorporates political influences in
discussions of society, economics and culture while simultaneously restoring
marginalized voices.