Research Paper on "German Imperial Colonialism"

Research Paper 30 pages (8862 words) Sources: 19

[EXCERPT] . . . .

The state passed travel bans in the late 1890s and early 1900s to limit the how of people and information between colony and metropole precisely because such border crossing was undermining an emerging racialist argument in favor of colonial domination. Citizenship applications from colonial subjects show that naturalizations were becoming more fraught with racist anxiety. Mixed marriages became the almost unanimous subject of scorn within the middle classes. In public discussions, colonial subjects were frequently described as radically ulterior as existing in a separate dimension and, increasingly as time went on, outside of the boundaries of humanity. Among colonial scholars, colonial racism became so taken-for-granted that in 1909 a professor of National Economy at Hamburg's Colonial Institute could elevate race to a psychological explanation for colonization itself: 'Is the presence of a racially foreign underclass not also one of the psychological bases for colonization? What attracts the colonizer and satis-fies him? Certainly the freedom to be a master [Herr] and to belong to the upper caste. Who of us, who has lived with peoples of a foreign race, does not know this feeling? Or the feeling of discomfort when one sees a white man working together with colored peoples to produce an ordinary handicraft?' This assumption promoted the creation overseas of an aristocratic form of radicalized governance, where whites would form an eternal ruling strata over 'colored peoples.' As the racialized views, of the colonial project were routine during this time."[footnoteRef:16] [16: Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York: Bergbabn Books, 1951), 22-24]

This is showing how racism was the central theme used by the Germans to segregate different groups of society. The basic thought process, revolved around German ingenuity and superiority based upon the various historical achievements. These views became commonly held beliefs among them, about who was to run these societies and those individuals that were there to serve the Germans. This created conflicts between the liberal groups of German society who thought of themselves as very cosmopolitan. Yet, it also enabled the traditional Germans (led by Wilhelm I) to engage in whatever tactics they thought were necessary in reaching their objectives. As a result, they would use any means necessary to reach these goals.[footnoteRef:17] [17: Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York: Bergbabn Books, 1951), 22 -- 29]

In the beginning racism was used to legitimize the Atlantic slave trade. As there were historical and biblical references which were justifying what occurred. The Germans implemented these changes slowly based upon individual actions, historical events and necessity. This set off a chain reaction of violence and cruelty that was targeted at specific groups. [footnoteRef:18] [18: Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York: Bergbabn Books, 1951), 25 -- 29]

Arendt concluded that this was part of a process which gradually happened over many years. At first these changes, were very small and not noticeable to anyone inside mainstream German society. However, as the colonial ambitions became larger, is when these practices were more extreme and brutal with her saying, "The dramatic shift in the official and intellectual conception of colonial subjects in the metropole can be linked to the trauma of colonial realities. Between the early 1890s and 1906 Germany was beset by constant colonial scandals, thoroughly exploited by the ant colonial Progressive and Social Democratic Parties and avidly presented to the public by the press. Such scandals raised the glaring contradiction between the values and norms of metropolitan German society and the day-to-day brutalities of colonial rule, which were in direct opposition to the traditions of liberal though. It may seem natural, then, that Germans would turn to race theory to smooth out the rough edges of empire. Historical studies of racism have shown the usefulness of racist ideology to democratic or liberal systems, which are engaged in violent exploitation, since racism posits unbridgeable and inalterable differences between human groups and purports to ground these differences within natural hierarchies." [footnoteRef:19] This is showing how racism became a basic policy that was utilized by German colonial authorities. [19: Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York: Bergbabn Books, 1951), 25-29]

Furthermore, Arendt determined that these attitudes were originally linked to the trans Atlantic slave trade with her saying, "Thus racism served to legitimate the Atlantic slave trade, New World slavery, the massive land expropriation, and the near total annihilation of indigenous polities within settler colonies like the United States and the British Dominions-all based on the premise that certain groups had certain natural fates based on their racial essence. The German story of the history of racism shows a much less cynical and predictable development of race language in political thought and praxis. This statist interpretation of the origin of public race consciousness is apt in the German case only after a certain point in time. The German state turned to the language and logic of race-thinking after a decade and a half of colonial experience. Initially the state only generated the legal categories, and thus the political realities, that were to offer formal race-thinking an entree into respectable political culture. Once race-thinking was given entree, once, that is, the political system offered it a potential role; race-thinking took on a powerful negative force of its own. The direction of this negative force was unpredictable, and its unleashing unintentional."[footnoteRef:20] This is showing how once racist policies started new levels of brutality and cruelty were experienced on an unprecedented scale. [20: Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York: Bergbabn Books, 1951), 25-29]

As a result, a new system evolved based off these events and the German desire to make their own mark in the world. According to Arendt, this shaped their attitudes and beliefs with her saying, "What the German state experience with overseas imperialism shows us is that the production of racialist systems is too complex to be reduced to conscious actions on the part of state officials and as a consequence, racialist systems are profoundly insidious and can be established incrementally through the uncoordinated synergy of individual actions and historical events. In Germany, the history of official and pragmatic race-thinking began with a category. When the German state set out to establish a legal apparatus for colonial domination, its key concern was to give the Kaiser a free hand reign. Officials had to find a way, then, to include colonial subjects within the boundaries of German state power (sovereignty) while excluding them from any institutions that would limit that power. Furthermore, wary of state involvement in overseas rule, Bismarck was also set upon the private funding of colonization and hence had to ensure the ability of private companies to pursue their economic objectives. Officials and parliament both assumed that African and other colonized polities were too culturally different to warrant inclusion in the federation of states that made up the German empire. Given these realities, the state chose to leave for some later date the positive definition of the legal status of colonial subjects vis-a-vis the power of the state. Since their main aim was simple exclusion from limiting institutions, they defined this status negatively. Instead, colonial subjects did not fall under the jurisdiction of regular civil or criminal law. The law that was to apply to them was left up to the praxis of the men sent to rule over them. This was little more than caprice, and became a category for the limitless expansion of state power. The consequence of this negative definition was rampant atrocity. Bismarck himself complained of a juror regimillalis that appeared to beset Prussian bureaucrats sent to the tropics. Many of who were treated in ways antithetical to established traditions of Prussian state-subject. By the 1890s, newspapers were laced with lurid stories of official misconduct, including rapes, massacres, summary executions, trophy beheading and the rampant use of flogging. Floggings were so widespread in fact that the colony of Kamerull in West Central Africa was popularly known as 'the twenty-five country:' referring to the number of lashes regularly given. This is within the reach of the sovereign state and its monopoly of violence. While simultaneously excluding them from any protective institutions or traditions. The German state had effectively, created a potentially genocidal category of person. This is someone who existed wholly outside the community of moral obligation, without moral boundaries, whose very murder technically would not be illegal."[footnoteRef:21] [21: Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York: Bergbabn Books, 1951), 22 -- 29]

These insights are showing how the German state legally allowed for discrimination to occur outside of the country. As colonists were seen above the law and could engage in actions that were not in accordance with civil society. In this case, many people believed that these polices allowed for discrimination to legally take place. This is based upon someone's social / economic class and political affiliations. [footnoteRef:22] [22: Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism… READ MORE

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