A Deterritorialized History: Investigating German Colonialism ...

Similarly, minute details of colonial expenditures were constantly provided by the
government to the Reichstag and the German people in order to prove the economic
benefit of the colonies. However, the German public never truly endorsed the colonial
policy of expansion. As with the DKG and the Pan-Germans, popular support for the
government’s colonial policy was mostly within a small, yet vocal, section of the
populace. Many histories focus on the instrumentality of institutions, but
deterritorialization reflects an uncoordinated and structural element to the bureaucracy
that can explain German society’s ambiguous acceptance of the government’s colonial
policy. Since colonial policy did not express the desires of the German population, only
of the colonial enthusiasts, any conception of the bureaucracy that envisioned a close link
between the population and the government’s policy would be problematic.
However, even the colonial propagandists did not always support the
government’s policy. The 1890 exchange of East African territory for the tiny island of
Heligoland provoked outrage amongst the colonialists and nationalists and was a
contributing factor to the ouster of Chancellor Caprivi in 1894. 53 After the colonial wars
of the twentieth century, even the colonial groups called for reforms to colonial policy. 54
The DKG particularly wanted indirect rule, which was expected to allow the colonies to
become more profitable. 55 The colonial organizations’ support of colonial policy was
always lost when the government was forced to intervene on behalf of indigenous
peoples against German traders, missionaries, administrators and soldiers. For example,
the Sultan of Zanzibar demanded the K-A restrain the excesses of Carl Peters and the
DOAG in the Zanzibari hinterland. 56 The government, already in a delicate position with
regard to the Sultan, was forced to control the eager colonialists. Other actions by
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