German-East Africa

The ,,Tansania-Park"in Hamburg is located on the site of the former Lettow-Vorbeck barracks where units of the German armed forces had been stationed until 1999. The barracks were named after a commander of the German colonial troops who had participated in the war of extermination against the Herero and Nama in the former colony of German-South West Africa. He had been discharged from the military after his participation in the 1920 coup directed against the democratic German Republic ( ,,Kapp-Putsch"). The Lettow-Vorbeck barracks were established by the Nazi dictatorship as a central location for the cultivation of revisionist colonial traditions; there traditional military associations continued to honor German colonial troops until the barracks were decommissioned.

Racist cliches

,,Eine Welt Netzwerk Hamburg"(One World Network Hamburg) writes in a note of protest: ,,When (the Tanzanian prime minister) Sumaye enters the site on 5 September, he will hardly find more than two memorial-ensembles, which had already been dedicated by the Nazis in 1939: there is the 'monument to the colonial troops', decorated with the German imperial eagle, as well as the two 'Askari-reliefs'."In these publicly displayed reliefs, the Askari, native mercenaries of the German colonial troops, are portrayed, in a racist manner, as crude but reliable and obedient servants, conforming with the old propaganda myths of the steadfastly loyal African ,,subjects under the protection"(Schutzbefohlene) of their German colonial masters.

,,Higher culture, moral concepts"

Hamburg, the harbor metropolis of Northern Germany, is considered the central turntable of the colonial economy of the German Empire; powerful Hamburg mercantile houses, among them the still extant African-Trade company Woermann, were influential in the imperial government to advance the conquest of colonies. The German colonial masters were ruthless in enforcing their claim to power. According to the latest estimates, 120,000 victims were killed during the brutal suppression of a revolt in the southern part of the colony of German-East Africa ( ,,Maji-Maji-Revolt") between 1905-1907. The undersecretary of state of the colonial administration of the German Empire, Bernhard Dernburg, explained in 1907, that ,,Colonization means the exploitation of the land, its resources, the flora, fauna and, above all, the inhabitants for the benefit of the economy of the colonizing nation. That nation, in turn, is responsible to provide its higher culture and its moral concepts."

Sources:
Offener Brief betr. ,,Tansania-Park"; Sonderforschungsbereich 520 ,,Umbrueche in afrikanischen Gesellschaften und ihre Bewaeltigung"der Universitaet Hamburg 04.08.2002
Schutztruppe geschuetzt; Jungle World 21.08.2002
Kein Gedenken an die Opfer des Kolonialismus. Eine Welt Netzwerk Hamburg distanziert sich von ,,Tansania-Park"; Pressemitteilung 13.08.2003