German Colonial Empire

colonial empire

The German colonial empire constituted the overseas colonies, dependencies and territories of Imperial Germany. Unified in the early 1870s, the chancellor of this time period was Otto von Bismarck. Germany built the third-largest colonial empire at the time, after the British and French. The German Colonial Empire encompassed parts of several African countries, including parts of present-day Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Namibia, Cameroon, Gabon, Congo, Central African Republic, Chad, Nigeria, Togo, Ghana, New Guinea, and numerous other West Pacific / Micronesian islands. It was forced to give up its colonies to the Allied powers after World War I.

Flag of German Colonial Empire
Heil Dir Im Siegerkranz ((National Anthem Of The German Empire))
German colonies and protectorates in 1914

Quotes

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  • Looking beyond Germany and Europe to the wider world, the Reich Chancellors who came into office after Bismarck saw their country as a second-class nation when compared with Britain and France, both of which had major overseas empires that spanned the globe. A latecomer on the scene, Germany had only been able to pick up the scraps and crumbs left by European colonial powers that had enjoyed a head start on them. Tanganyika, Namibia, Togoland, Cameroon, New Guinea, assorted Pacific islands and the Chinese treaty port of Jiaozhou were virtually all the territories that made up Germany's overseas empire on the eve of the First World War. Bismarck had thought of them of little importance and lent his assent to their acquisition with great reluctance. But his successors came to take a different view. Germany's prestige and standing in the world demanded, as Bernhard von Bülow, Foreign Secretary in the late 1890s, then Reich Chancellor until 1909, put it, a 'place in the sun'. A start was made on the construction of a massive battle fleet, whose long-term aim was to win colonial concessions from the British, lords of the world's largest overseas empire, by threatening, or even carrying out, the crippling or destruction of the main force of the British Navy in a titanic confrontation in the North Sea.

German East Africa

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German Southwest Africa

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  • The changed strategy emerged entirely independently of any conscious decision for or against a strategy of concerted racial genocide. Trotha, did not intend to bring about a situation in which the Herero would be subject to a slow death through adverse natural conditions.

Togoland

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Togo land 1885

Kiautschou Bay Leased Territory

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Schantung Kiautschou

German concession in Tianjin

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See also

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