Carl Peters (1856-1918) founded the Society for German Colonialization [Gesellschaft für deutsche Kolonialisation] in March 1884. In November, after organizing an expedition to Zanzibar, he persuaded some tribal chiefs to enter into contracts written in German by signing them with the mark of a cross. After that, he demanded official protection for “his” territory, which became known as German East Africa.
n January 1904, a revolt by native Africans began against German colonial rule in Southwest Africa (Namibia). The revolt was led by a Herero tribe, which overran several settlements, killing over 100 German colonialists. The Germans ruthlessly put down the revolt – within a few years, only a quarter of the original Herero population of 80,000 still survived. Here, Kaiser Wilhelm II praises German forces for conquering the indigenous population.
Voluntary associations were an important means of spreading colonial enthusiasm. Manifestos like this one, drafted by the African adventurer Carl Peters for the newly founded Society for German Colonization, argued that Germany had thus far lost out on the acquisition of colonies.
The first German colonists in Namibia, like Adolf Lüderitz, acquired land through contracts with local chiefs. But these contracts were often riddled with deception.
Founded in 1871, the German Reich was regarded as a laggard in the competition for the acquisition of overseas colonial territories. It is true that various German territorial rulers had begun since the early modern period to gain access to their own trading colonies
Generally known as “Mittelafrika”, this visionary project was included among German official war aims in 1917, and it resonated sometimes even in Hitler’s expansionist programme of the early 1940s,
Carl Peters was a German explorer, journalist and philosopher, instrumental in the founding of German East Africa and helped create the European "Scramble for Africa". Despite
Despite German Chancellor Otto Von Bismarck’s opposition to overseas colonies, pressure from the German people to establish colonies for international prestige led to a significant empire during the Scramble for Africa.
In the three decades prior to the First World War, Germany had taken possession of four colonies in Africa (the Cameroons, Togoland, Southwest Africa and German East Africa),
The unification of Germany in 1871 constituted a watershed in Germany's imperial agenda of acquiring colonies in Africa. A number of lobbying groups formed after the unification, including the West German Society for Colonization and Export (1881) and the Central Association for Commercial Geography and the Promotion of German Interests Abroad (1878).
Before the colonial period, Cameroon was made up of a variety of different kingdoms and villages [ii]. In 1884 the area became a German colony and after the First World War it was divided between France and Britain [iii].
It was not until the 19th century, when European powers sought to carve up the African continent between them in the so-called Scramble for Africa, that Europeans—predominately Germany and Great Britain— became interested in Namibia.
The Herero and Namaqua Genocide was the massacre of approximately 50,000 – 65,000 Herero and 10,000 Nama between 1904 and 1907 by German military forces in German South West Africa (GSWA) – modern-day Namibia .
In East Africa and the Great Lakes region, German colonial conquest spurred courageous resistance from many local East African groups against well-armed and violent colonial forces.
