A Deterritorialized History: Investigating German Colonialism ...

claim to further African territory, ending the slave trade, encouraging settlement,
converting new souls and developing colonial trade. 93 Commercial companies and the
DKG frequently played a critical role in determining where expeditions would venture by
emphasizing the exploration of areas with economic potential.
These expeditions garnered considerable attention for the colonial advocates
through the exciting tales of African exoticism related by Germany’s celebrity explorers.
Dr. Eduard Schnitzler, otherwise known as Emin Pascha, galvanized public opinion
through his East African voyages, his capture by the Sudanese Mahdi and his subsequent
rescue by the British adventurer Henry Stanley in 1892. 94 Such adventures concretized
colonial dichotomies of Europeans and Africans as Germans were forced to ally with
European competitors in order to conquer the African wild. 95 The African opposition to
explorers like Emin Pascha stirred Germans to establish racist visions of Africa, where
absolute binary identities and absolute solutions to African problems were constructed. 96
There was a subsequent valorization in German society of the returning heroes who had
fought against great odds to bring German commerce, culture and Christianity to Africa.
Though Schnitzler was universally hailed as a hero, the trajectory of Carl Peters
was markedly different. A central founder of the DKG and tireless advocate of colonial
expansion, Peters continuously traveled across Africa for German interests. 97 It was not
long, however, before word got back to Germany that Peters’ actions in Africa were less
than “civilized.” This was quite true, for Peters was the most pugnacious of Germany’s
explorers in Africa; he unashamedly confessed the “intoxication” of killing Africans. 98
Because of his ferocious approach to colonialism, Peters lost public favour and was
dismissed from government service when he was eventually convicted of murder,
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