A Deterritorialized History: Investigating German Colonialism ...
A Deterritorialized History: Investigating German Colonialism ...
A Deterritorialized History: Investigating German Colonialism ...
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international trade. However, in 1873 <strong>German</strong>y was struck by a debilitating recession<br />
that was to last until the last years of the nineteenth century. 39 <strong>German</strong>y was hit<br />
particularly hard because of problems caused by over-production and declining prices.<br />
Bismarck tried to solve these through the imposition of tariffs in 1879 and in 1884 during<br />
the fiscal restraints of the “door-closing panic” where <strong>German</strong> business perceived the<br />
doors of free trade commerce closing to their products and causing an economic<br />
downturn. 40 The perceived disappointments of free-market liberalism provoked a re-<br />
evaluation of liberal economics and politics. Popular desires for political reform and<br />
internal divisions with regard to class, status, religion and region also continued to plague<br />
the government. 41 One policy designed to preserve domestic peace was the 1879<br />
“politics of rallying-together” which united the Prussian agricultural Junker elites with<br />
the Ruhr industrialists to create the Alliance of Iron and Rye. 42 The collective-policy was<br />
also revisited from 1897 to 1904 to unite the traditional elites of <strong>German</strong>y against<br />
growing social fractures.<br />
These circumstances were to provide fertile ground for the development of<br />
colonial policy. Bismarck indicated as early as 1881 his total rejection of a colonial<br />
policy. But in 1884, his paradigm shift in foreign policy towards colonialism was to<br />
initiate storms of debate, both at the time and in subsequent historiography. The<br />
transition from a middle European nation obsessed with the balance of power in<br />
European diplomacy to a country involving itself in territories thousands of miles away in<br />
Africa was a surprise then and continues to challenge scholars to explain Bismarck's volte<br />
face in international affairs. Bismarck’s perennial willingness to change tactics in order<br />
to achieve his goals means that his change of course needs explication, but also indicates<br />
12