Monuments for Slave Traders

HAMBURG/MUNICH/FREIBURG (Own report) - In several German cities citizens' action committees have been protesting against the continuous public maintenance of German colonial tradition. In Hamburg it is being demanded that the recently inaugurated bust of the slave-trader Heinrich Carl von Schimmelmann be demolished. In Munich the renaming of the street dedicated to the colonial general Lothar von Trotha, which had already been passed by the city council, is being threatened with failure by resistance from local residents and politicians. In Freiburg a controversy has been smoldering for years over the street names of the so-called "Heroes Quarter", where 1934 the Nazis in power honored Admiral Spee, the commander of the German colonial East Asia fleet, among others. A similar situation can be found in Berlin and Cologne, where, since the Nazi period, entire settlements are dedicated to the memory of the German colonial past. Numerous citizens in Braunschweig are actively calling for a conversion of the local "colonial war memorial". Voices critical of official handling of the German colonial history are to be heard in a growing number of other cities, among them Hanover, Bielefeld and Duesseldorf. They disprove the often repeated allegation, made in German foreign policy, that, unlike its European competitors, Germany has not inherited the burdens of the colonial age and earns the special confidence of African states.

Prominent Slave Trader

For years there has been sharp criticism in Hamburg of the way the colonial period is remembered in the Federal Republic of Germany. In 2003, various initiatives protested against the opening of the so-called "Tanzania Park" which included several colonial monuments from the Nazi period.[1] Currently protests are directed particularly at the installation of a bust of the slave trader Heinrich Carl von Schimmelmann (1724-1782) in the Wandsbek district, at the beginning of September. As Olaf Duge, chairman of the Wandsbek Green Alternative List (GAL) told german-foreign-policy.com, particularly Africans living in Hamburg must see this constant reminder as "extraordinarily offensive", because "not least of all the colonial past is responsible for their current situation in life". Duge expressed sympathy for an attack with paint recently carried out against the bust.[2] The Hamburg barrister, Ama-Pokua von Perreia raised charges for liable and slander against the Senator of Culture, Karin von Welck and the director of the Wandsbek Cultural Office. In the argumentation of the suit one reads, Schimmelmann is honored as a promoter of Wandsbek, while the fact that he was "one of the prominent slave traders of his day" remains unmentioned.[3]

Crimes Of Genocide

In the Bavarian state capital, Munich, the city council's decision to rename the street, dedicated to the German colonial general Lothar von Trotha, is threatened with failure due to resistance from local residents and politicians. As commander of the German troops in the "German Southwest Africa" colony, today's Namibia, von Trotha drove the rebelling Hereros into the arid, Omaheke desert in 1904, causing the wretched death of around 40.000 people. Siegfried Benker, chairman of the Greens parliamentary group in the Munich town council, reports that, in the meantime, right-wing extremist groups have also gotten involved in the dispute. Benker has been struggling for several years to have the Trudering district's von Trotha Street renamed. There are altogether 29 streets that bear names emanating from German colonialism in that part of town. These names were bestowed in 1933 by the ruling Nazis in association with the German Reich's colonial federations. Therefore Benker says, "a number of streets", would actually have to be renamed. Special attention has been given the immortalizing of General Lothar von Trotha, because he committed crimes of genocide.[4]

Conserving

As in Munich, several initiatives have been fighting for years in Freiburg to have the streets of the so-called "Heroes Quarter" renamed. They had received their names in 1934 from the Nazi municipal administration. Honors were bestowed also upon Vice-Admiral Maximilian Reichsgraf von Spee. Up to World War I, he was the commander of the colonial East Asian Squadron and was responsible for maintaining military dominion over Kiautschou (China), as well as over various South Sea islands that lay within the German sphere of influence. At the end of 2002 the city administration, under the leadership of Dieter Salomon (The Greens) ruled against the renaming. It was argued that the street names are "monuments of historical transformation" and therefore must be conserved as such.[5] Heiko Wegmann of the Freiburger "Information Center Third World" (iz3w) confirmed to german-foreign-policy.com that massive criticism will be continued. Networking with initiatives in other German cities, that are confronted with similar arguments, is being intensively pursued.

"Hanging Peters"

Not just in the Nazi period, but already during the empire, the designation of roadways was a popular means of colonial propaganda. Still today about 23 streets in northern Berlin's "African Quarter" bear the names of former German colonies and colonialists. Most of these were named during the German empire. In 1939 the Peters Avenue was inaugurated. Carl Peters, celebrated as a colonial hero by the Nazis, had extorted contracts in East Africa by force and fraud and thereby laid the corner-stone for the German East Africa colony. The sadism, with which he treated Africans, won him the nickname "Hanging Peters." He used to have the opponents of his policy hanged. Also in 1939, a garden-plot settlement in the center of this Berlin neighborhood was renamed. It has carried the name of the "Permanent Colony of Togo" ever since.

Fraud and Force

A so-called "Africa Quarter" is also to be found in the Nippes district of Cologne, where in 1935, the Nazi municipal administration named streets after former German colonies and colonialists. Alongside Carl Peters, also immortalized were the Bremen businessman, Adolf Luederitz, who financed the first fraudulent land purchase in what was to become the German Southwest Africa colony and Gustav Hermann Nachtigal, who was special envoy of the German Empire, and forced through the so-called protectorate contracts for Togo and Cameroon in part by fraud, partially by threatening to use military force. In 1991 following a wave of protests, the Carl Peters Street and the Luederitz Street were renamed into Namibia and Usambara Streets respectively. The Gustav Nachtigal Street has maintained its name. An "intensive public relations campaign" was initiated in 2006, german-foreign-policy.com was informed by Cologne-based Africa specialist, Professor Marianne Bechhaus-Gerst, chairman of the association "KopfWelten - gegen Rassismus und Intoleranz" (Head Worlds - Against Racism and Intolerance)". The objective was to induce the inhabitants of Cologne "to confront this colonialist past." "To dig into one's own family history" could be worthwhile, encourages the Africa specialist.

"Unacceptable"

Similar initiatives against the perpetuated public maintenance of German colonial tradition exist already in Bielefeld, Hanover, Duesseldorf and Braunschweig. In these last two cities, the criticism is particularly directed at "colonial war memorials," where the German "colonial forces" and their genocidal exploits in today's Namibia are honored. Last summer a group of pupils obscured the Braunschweig monument with cloth. As one of the participants explained, "this kind of colonialist memorial is unacceptable."[6]

Please read also: Deutsche Kultur: Wiederkehr des Vergangenen, Besonders bedrückend, Deutsche Tierwelt, In den Weiten des Raums, Verschiebung and Köstlich amüsiert.

[1] see also Deutsch-Ostafrika
[2] Farbanschlag auf Schimmelmann; Hamburger Morgenpost 27.11.2006
[3] Der größte Menschenhändler seiner Zeit; Die Tageszeitung 08.12.2006
[4] "Diese Straße ist nach einem Völkermörder benannt". Interview mit Siegfried Benker; Junge Welt 09.12.2006
[5] Peer Heinelt: Nazidenkmäler - aufpoliert; Konkret 9/2004
[6] Verhüllung macht sichtbar; Braunschweiger Zeitung 19.07.2006


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