A Deterritorialized History: Investigating German Colonialism ...

In 1883 the economic motives for colonialism achieved newfound prominence.
The Foreign Office or Auswärtiges Amt (hereafter AA) bureaucrat Heinrich von
Kusserow, the trading company Woermann’s, and the banker and Bismarck-confidante
Gerson von Bleichröder, all identified the beginning of a European rush for African
colonies and wanted a place for Germany in this race. 48 The trading cities of Hamburg
and Bremen begged for naval protection of their African trade and perpetual guarantees
for the rights of German traders in the colonies. Bismarck, goaded by the purported ease
and economy of the British charter-company administration model and Kusserow’s
urging, began to accept Germany’s need to participate in colonialism. Soon after the
acquisition of Angra Pequeña by the trader F.A.E. Lüderitz, German business interests
and the government, particularly the AA, began their close association. 49 Though
Kusserow embodies Marxist assertions of conspiracies between the finance oligarchy and
the government, Kusserow’s later decline illustrates that the Marxist paradigm is not
necessarily apt. 50 Although Bismarck called the early colonies “supply posts,” he
believed that the companies should be responsible for the administration of the
territories. 51 With Lüderitz’s claim accepted, Bismarck bestowed imperial charters
“Freibriefe,” thereby sanctioning the claims of Woermann’s and other companies in
Cameroon and Togo. Yet, after the initial extension of German control, it was not long
before the charter companies like Woermann’s politely declined to administer the new
German colonies under imperial charters. There was a dawning awareness that the
colonies were not the new El Dorado. Germans began to realize that their colonies were
not like Britain’s India, but were in Africa, where consistent profits could not be assured.
15