A Deterritorialized History: Investigating German Colonialism ...

international trade. However, in 1873 Germany was struck by a debilitating recession
that was to last until the last years of the nineteenth century. 39 Germany was hit
particularly hard because of problems caused by over-production and declining prices.
Bismarck tried to solve these through the imposition of tariffs in 1879 and in 1884 during
the fiscal restraints of the “door-closing panic” where German business perceived the
doors of free trade commerce closing to their products and causing an economic
downturn. 40 The perceived disappointments of free-market liberalism provoked a re-
evaluation of liberal economics and politics. Popular desires for political reform and
internal divisions with regard to class, status, religion and region also continued to plague
the government. 41 One policy designed to preserve domestic peace was the 1879
“politics of rallying-together” which united the Prussian agricultural Junker elites with
the Ruhr industrialists to create the Alliance of Iron and Rye. 42 The collective-policy was
also revisited from 1897 to 1904 to unite the traditional elites of Germany against
growing social fractures.
These circumstances were to provide fertile ground for the development of
colonial policy. Bismarck indicated as early as 1881 his total rejection of a colonial
policy. But in 1884, his paradigm shift in foreign policy towards colonialism was to
initiate storms of debate, both at the time and in subsequent historiography. The
transition from a middle European nation obsessed with the balance of power in
European diplomacy to a country involving itself in territories thousands of miles away in
Africa was a surprise then and continues to challenge scholars to explain Bismarck's volte
face in international affairs. Bismarck’s perennial willingness to change tactics in order
to achieve his goals means that his change of course needs explication, but also indicates
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