A Deterritorialized History: Investigating German Colonialism ...

period of thorough ambivalence to guarded acceptance and finally considerable
enthusiasm in the new colonies. In the broader German population, the colonies
remained peripheral issues until the shock of the colonial uprisings in the early twentieth
century. After the revolts and the massive expenditures on their repression, the African
colonies definitively entered German society. The subsequent reforms to the colonial
system instigated by the Deutsche Zentrumspartei (hereafter Zentrum) and
Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (hereafter SPD) established a new direction in
colonial policy. In the aftermath of the disclosure of a range of scandals over the
administration of the colonies and the “Hottentot” election of 1907, the governing parties
maintained their hold on power, but with significant changes to the colonial system. The
reforms were led by State Secretary Bernhard Dernburg, who immediately restructured
the colonial economies and improved the treatment of indigenous peoples. The reforms
to the colonial system persisted until the beginning of the world war.
Along with diversity and change, the theme of continual expansion stands out.
While the initial colonies were acquired between 1884 and 1890, there was a recurrent
momentum of expansion into the African interior and further along the coast. Though the
boundaries of the respective European spheres of influence had been established at the
1884 Berlin Conference, the expansion of German control into further areas of the
African hinterland was to continue for the following three decades. Both the Colonial
Department or Kolonial-Abteilung (hereafter K-A) and its 1907 successor, the Imperial
Colonial Office or Reichskolonialamt (hereafter RKA), worked to increase the size of its
colonies by annexing contiguous territory. 61 Germany also expressed significant interest
in acquiring more land in the Niger district from either France or Britain from 1889 to
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