A Deterritorialized History: Investigating German Colonialism ...
A Deterritorialized History: Investigating German Colonialism ...
A Deterritorialized History: Investigating German Colonialism ...
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dominated by memories of war and hysterical fears over the potential for further<br />
violence. 65 In addition, the wars provoked awareness both in <strong>German</strong>y and in the<br />
colonies that Africans were neither understood by <strong>German</strong>s, grateful for <strong>German</strong> rule, nor<br />
ready to accept <strong>German</strong> occupation. “The negro does not love us, but only fears our<br />
power,” succinctly captured in the post-war orders of the Schutztruppe a sentiment that<br />
echoed within the settler population. 66 These colonists represented the deterritorialization<br />
of mainstream <strong>German</strong> desire in the colony and the reactions of the African population<br />
and the <strong>German</strong> metropolis can be seen as responses to this extremist vision of colonial<br />
policy.<br />
The expansion of <strong>German</strong> settlement into the hinterland prompted increased fears<br />
in <strong>German</strong>y of miscegenation and racial dilution; these fears were duly reflected in<br />
colonial policy. 67 In 1912, the Reichstag hotly debated the maintenance of the racial and<br />
national purity of its colonial inhabitants, in hopes of securing the status quo. State<br />
Secretary Wilhelm Solf declared that “borderlines between both races” needed to be<br />
maintained in the legal sense. 68 Consequently, government policy began to differentiate<br />
between the categories of native, non-native-non-white, and interbred populations. This<br />
legal demarcation of race followed the stress upon legality in the policy of the K-A and<br />
RKA as well as desires for the Herrschaftsutopie which guided <strong>German</strong> colonial policy.<br />
But even the <strong>German</strong> desire for a racially-segregated colonial state was ultimately<br />
moderated by the realities of colonial relations. The actual implementation of the<br />
Herrschaftsutopie could only be carried out with the weakening of indigenous tribes after<br />
the 1904-1907 wars; yet even this implementation was mitigated by the diversity of<br />
interests at play. The social and cultural elements of Deutschtum were deterritorialized in<br />
89