A Deterritorialized History: Investigating German Colonialism ...

medicine, social organization and moral beliefs. 32 By introducing German social values
to African communities, missionaries functioned as a colonial avant-garde, diffusing
German ideas into African societies and paving the way for future assimilation. In this
respect, missionaries’ efforts were especially effective in targeting the tribal elites for
integration into the structure of German colonial rule.
The connections between missionary organizations and the German government
are well-documented. Under the auspices of the missions, German schools were
established in all four of the African colonies. The missions and their schools performed
a vital service to the German state by reinforcing German values. 33 Colonial labour
policy and businesses in general received vital assistance from Germany’s pastors who
inculcated the Protestant work ethic in Africa’s people. The Catholic Germania attacked
this open collusion between the government and the missionaries through which
Protestantism was overtly favoured in the colonies. 34 It was obvious that it was
government acceptance that permitted missionaries to proselytize in Africa and that the
missionary organizations had to court government favour in order to survive.
Government efforts were obviously successful, for tribal leaders like Hendrik Witbooi of
the Nama tribe threw out missionaries who refused to preach the “Kaiser’s gospel.” For
this reason, Horst Drechsler, Jeremy Silvester and Jan-Bart Gewald explicitly connect the
missionary with German colonial expansion by naming him the “advance agent of
German control.” 35
Yet the German missionary organizations did not always act in the state’s best
interests. Nils Ole Oermann questions Drechsler, Silvester and Gewald by providing a
more-nuanced investigation and concluding that missions played an important part in
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