Could the German Empire "keep" africa if they win WWI?

[MichaelWest]

Of the three major European imperial powers Germany possessed the smallest and "poorest" cut of the pie yet was the largest and wealthiest of the nations. And I think that has a lot more potential than is given much thought. Frankly both London and Paris have a lot of ground to cover, Germany has a lot less, Germany is much like Britain in that they were already dependent upon imports and growth was coming from exports, perhaps more so than Britain actually. German industry needs many resources that can come from its colonies, many more cannot, so Germany was locked in the global market place, and to pay for that it needs to sell goods into those economies or in others for gold/currency they accept. Post war Germany is swiftly getting back on the globalization train. Only we know that there is a lot of pressure to snub Germany and close markets, something that made colonies yet more valuable post war as the notion of closed empires took its flight. This makes German incentives to develop the resources of the territory it holds, i.e. more plantations, more mines, but also to create consumers, and that will be more infrastructure, things that need German manufacturers.

Fanning the embers of prewar reaction to the genocide in SWA I see how colonial policy shifted from the purely exploitive and cleaning model to something more development oriented, yet the war broke that and of course the Germans did not come back. Here they do, and must rebuild first the administrative hold and authority over these places, next restore infrastructure, security and implement governance. I see enough seeds to think that Germany will invest in railroads, ports, roads, schools, and policing, there was already a health and social security model in Germany to translate that to the colonial subjects. So I do not see Germany leaving these places festering backwaters the way both London and Paris quite often did in their realms. The incentives are to exploit surely but without the same horizons as the French or British empires Germany is forces to consider building on what they have.

Of all the powers Germany might have been oddly suited to actually pursuing meaningful development decades before that drive came to the "rest" of the world post-WW2. Circumstances could drive it to raise education, improve health, improve agriculture, urbanize, industrialize and invest in its possessions in ways no other power ever cared or bothered. Rising incomes in its holdings lure investment and exports, provide imports, give Germany wealthier and more useful economies it influences if not controls. And it is not depending on the promises of politicians or the whims of businessmen but more steadfast motivators. That could spur more development in the other empires in competition or emulation, or not. I am not defending colonialism to argue that it could have done better with just another generation or two, that Europeans should be left in control to do better than the locals, but I can see how a German empire could evolve itself on altered foundations and what that could mean. For the average native it could mean cleaner water, more doctors, schools, less strife or war, more food, more jobs, more prospects to build rather than survive.

I still think without WW2 the colonial system is under great stress to reform and ultimately to break, for example the ideals of British culture fundamentally drive its subjects to want good government under local control, French culture is all about ideals of liberty and even Germany culture was liberal and democratic in its ideals. Those aspirations only burn hotter as things get better, education and leisure time, security and satisfaction are the logs to fuel decolonization hotter than even oppression, famine or fear. And oddly here German possessions might be the wealthiest, healthiest and most satisfied of them.

Given the historic drive for an economic rather than political empire, a customs union in Europe, the German empire might also have more incentive to become the Commonwealth that Britain talked of yet was afraid to be a lesser player in. Germany would still dominate its empire even if it frees the reigns politically. So again, Germany is oddly better situated to transition towards a collaborative and cooperative alliance than either Britain or France were. The possibility is that Germany could have built and set it free, those stable, productive nations at the table, their landing softer and not requiring brutal revolutions, long wars or horrendous native masters to only destroy what little was left. On a razors edge of possibilities there is every driver to see a German Empire walk through all the flames and be unburnt, at least not horrifically so. And that I think is one of the better ways to struggle with the history. To find the better path.

 

[Riain]

Post war Germany is swiftly getting back on the globalization train. Only we know that there is a lot of pressure to snub Germany and close markets,

Not having punitive trade barriers erected against it by the trading powers was a constant and non-negotiable German war aim. German industrialists knew that MittelEuropa was not substitute for access to world trade, which is why they were happy enough for a status quo ante bellum in the West; leaving the status of Belgium and the annexation of the Briey coalfield on the table in order to get MittelEuropa recognised without impacting on access to global markets.

This makes German incentives to develop the resources of the territory it holds, i.e. more plantations, more mines, but also to create consumers, and that will be more infrastructure, things that need German manufacturers.

I agree, this would be a handy Plan B if France and Britain close off their Empires to German trade.

 

[CHKeeley]

On a razors edge of possibilities there is every driver to see a German Empire walk through all the flames and be unburnt, at least not horrifically so. And that I think is one of the better ways to struggle with the history. To find the better path.

As nice as this all sounds, I think it has little to no relation to the realities of German colonialism. As is the case with many historical trajectories cut short and thrown into the dustbin, there is a tendency to romanticize and project hopes for something better. With a comprehensive look at conditions in the German colonial empire, at the intentions and actions of the colonial administrators on up the chain, and if we don’t fall for the ‘scientific colonialism’ model propagated in some German circles, I think we get a clear picture that doesn’t paint the German imperial project in any stark positive light to what the French and the British were doing. I understand you’re talking about “the seeds for something better” but you don’t elaborate on what these seeds are or where they come from. It’s rather vague and light on supporting examples. The real German conduct in their colonies does not seem to indicate anything of the sort even “in the years after the genocide in SWA” and none of the reading I have done on the subject has mentioned this either.

Namibia/Southwest Africa:
This colony, the first and only intended settler colony for the German Empire, was not exactly set up for a future with bright prospects for non-whites. Starting in 1894 with the governorship of Leutwin, the colonial bureaucracy strongly promoted German settlement in the region and made every effort to displace the native and make them subservient to the settler or, failing that, outright elimination. The Herero and the Namaqua among others learned that lesson at the hands of Von Trotha’s boys. While Governor Leutwin thought up this scheme of divide and conquer and empowering local elites, it was essentially nonsensical and contradictory. The so-called “Leutwin System” both alienated settlers for ‘offering too many concessions’ to Africans, while also undermining the traditional social structures and economy of the region and thereby destroying the very same local elites that Leutwin hoped to win over. The inevitable result of this process was the triumph of the settler lobby, the worsening of conditions for the native, and cycles of genocidal destruction after the native predictably revolted against conditions.

I will quote some from Sebastian Conrad’s excellent primer, “German Colonialism, A Short History”:
“The policies were essentially contradictory, as the influx of settlers led to the expulsion of African land and livestock and thus threatened the living conditions of the local population. The colonial govern- ment confiscated 70 per cent of the country’s land and gave it to German farmers […] Only few restraints existed to prevent an almost complete expropriation of the Nama and Herero peoples. Regulations were issued to control Africans, and to enable the seizure of their land and cattle. These new rules, backed by the dual legal system, destroyed African eco- nomic independence and forced local peasants into dependency on European employers. Their economic situation was further worsened by the outbreak, in 1897, of an epidemic of rinderpest, a disease of cattle that robbed large numbers of Herero of their means of existence and made them dependent on German settlers. The rebellion of the Herero, and the brutal war fought by the Germans against the Herero and the Nama between 1904 and 1907, was triggered by economic hardship brought about by the policies settlement.

In the years after the war, as opposition and resistance had become even more difficult, African cultivators were forced into small and unprofitable plots. Political arrangements with local groups, as in the decade before 1904, were no longer deemed necessary. The majority of adult men were subjected to forced labour, rigid working regula- tions and identity controls in an attempt to create a racially segregated exploitative state that in some of its measures bordered on the totalitarian. Fantasies of social disciplining and total control were frustrated, however, in daily practice as Africans found ways to evade, sabotage, and undermine the rigid rules.

Commercially, the colony was of almost no importance to the German economy. As the land was infertile and unsuitable for tillage, the only profitable activity for the settlers was cattle-raising. The only lucrative enterprises were copper mining (from 1907 onward) and diamond production. The discovery of diamond deposits in 1908 meant that from then onwards, German South-West Africa produced the highest private-sector profits of any of the German colonies; but for the German government, the high levels of expenditure incurred for railway construction and military activities meant it was the biggest loss-maker.”

Cameroon:
Cameroon also hardly had the stage set for any sort of real investment into the well-being of the people. It was a massive plantation economy run on abuse of the native, forced labor, and destruction and dislocation of pre-existing peoples and polities. As an overwhelmingly extractive-oriented colony, I have a very difficult time imagining German long term investment in this colony being anything other than the maintenance of the plantation system. Adapting something I once heard in a speech: “Sure, roads and railroads and electricity will be brought to the colony. But where do these roads and railroads lead? Straight from the cocoa plantation to the port for export.” Infrastructure that will supposedly uplift the dignity of African labor will, as in French and British colonies, serve only the extraction of profits. Human happiness and well-being will be incidental. This is an enterprise we are talking about, and who cares about public opinion when you can send in the askaris? I will quote again from the aforementioned book: “In Germany, Cameroon was notorious for an endless series of scandals that involved abuses of power and outright brutality, much of it tolerated during the long reign of Governor Jesco von Puttkamer (1895–1907).

In part, these infringements were related to the system of economic exploitation put in place in the 1890s. Cameroon developed, under German rule, into the largest plantation colony in western Africa. The cultivation of cocoa proved especially profitable; experiments with coffee and tobacco were less successful. The creation of plantations relied frequently on forced labour and on an uncompromising land policy under Governor von Puttkamer, who confiscated land that was supposedly ‘ownerless’ and sold it to large corporations. This process of violent dispossession resulted in massive resistance by the Duala that culminated in a letter to the Reichstag in 1905. In the letter, published by the Social Democratic press, King Akwa and twenty- seven other potentates denounced German misrule and called for the removal of Puttkamer and his staff. Puttkamer was finally replaced in 1907, pressured out of office not least by a coalition of missionaries and large trading companies who both opposed his policies of granting land concessions to the plantations. This was not the end of the struggles over land, however. One month before the end of German rule, the Germans publicly executed the ex-Paramount Chief Rudolph Duala Manga Bell on trumped-up charges of treason, as the last episode in a lengthy dispute over racial segregation and land expropriation in the city of Douala.”

I could go through every colony in a more exhaustive manner, but I don’t want to have this post be too long.

Finishing up a little, I have objections with some of your other statements, particularly about the “fundamental ideals” of various European cultures and how they would serve as kindling for improving colonial conditions. Frankly, the alleged high ideals of liberty, democracy, and good government didn’t mean a damn thing anywhere else in the world that Europeans plundered. I will pick some lines from Sartre’s beautiful introduction to Fanon‘s “Wretched of the Earth” because I think they illustrate what I’m getting at in far better prose than I could hope for.

“Not so very long ago, the earth numbered two thousand million inhabitants: five hundred million men, and one thousand five hundred million natives. The former had the Word; the others had the use of it. Between the two there were hired kinglets, overlords, and a bourgeoisie, sham from beginning to end, which served as go-betweens. In the colonies the truth stood naked, but the citizens of the mother country preferred it with clothes on: the native had to love them, something in the way mothers are loved. The European elite undertook to manufacture a native elite. They picked out promising adolescents; they branded them, as with a red-hot iron, with the principles of Western culture; they stuffed their mouths full with high-sounding phrases, grand glutinous words that stuck to the teeth. After a short stay in the mother country they were sent home, whitewashed. These walking lies had nothing left to say to their brothers; they only echoed. From Paris, from London, from Amsterdam we would utter the words "Parthenon! Brotherhood!" and some where in Africa or Asia lips would open ". . . thenon! . . . therhood!" It was the golden age. It came to an end; the mouths opened by themselves; the yellow and black voices still spoke of our humanism.

[…] Listen: "Let us waste no time in sterile litanies and nauseating mimicry. Leave this Europe where they are never done talking of Man, yet murder men everywhere they find them, at the corner of every one of their own streets, in all the corners of the globe. For centuries they have stifled almost the whole of humanity in the name of a so-called spiritual experience." The tone is new. Who dares to speak thus? It is an African, a man from the Third World, an ex-"native." He adds: "Europe now lives at such a mad, reckless pace that she is running headlong into the abyss; we would do well to keep away from it." In other words, she's done for. A truth which is not pleas ant to state but of which we are all convinced, are we not, fellow-Europeans, in the marrow of our bones?”

I think reading Fanon would be instructive in general. Colonialism isn’t the steady improvement of the lives of the colonized due to some benign civilizing influence or, as you argue, even because of human capital investment. Colonialist relations are inherently superexploitative and mediated by constant threat of violence, they are racialized and in every modern case they trended towards wretched poverty or outright extermination of the native. German colonies were fundamentally no different than British or French ones and I don’t really understand the comparisons. The German Empire wasn’t going to treasure and nurture its colonies because it didn’t have enough of them, it was going to seek to violently acquire more of them to compensate.

I don’t see any reason why that would change if one group of imperialists prevailed over another. They are still driven by the desire to exploit and suck the resources out of their colonies and to hell with everything else. Not even to mention the prominent social and racial ideas about Africans that flowed downstream from that. All the evidence up to 1914 indicates that the Germans were not going to be benevolent colonizers (a contradiction in terms!)

 

[NoMommsen]

As always when the topic of esp. german colonies is discussed here I'm ... 'amazed' of the presented knowledge about.

... reshape the colony's economy for the benefit of the metropole. Such as deliberate de-industrialization. ...

May I ask which industry potentially threatening the german metropoles one existed in early 20th century in 'Black Africa' ? ... actually what industry existed there at all to speak of compared to any more or less 'great power' metropole ?
AFAIK within the time frame we're talking of there was only one contrys industry suppressed in favor of the metropoles one :

the textile industry of India in favor of the mancunian textile industry in England. (prepared to learn of other examples)​

The only bit of the German Empire in Africa that was even close to breaking even was Togoland, and that was more of an artifact of the balance sheet than anything else. ...

May I ask where or what source from you got esp. the highlightend ... wisdom from ?
Then all 'balance sheets' and date collected since 1885 in the statistical yearbook of the German Realm must be ...'artefacted' the way you propose. As the provided page of the 1915 issue of said yearbook shows a breakeven of stately 'cost' and 'revenues' from 1907/08 onweards (well, with some give and take the one or other year).

Perhaps you might also want to rethink your alleged exclusiveness in that regard of 'breakeven' of Togo as 'Ostafrika' was also wiggling around breakeven in 1909/1910/1911. During the same timeframe even Kamerun wasn't too far from this point regarding the stately balance of finance of the colony. In general, almost all german colonies showed a steady minimizing of said deficit (aside Kiautschou as there some 'special effects' came into play like serving as a 'showcase' and being in the build-up as a mayor naval base).

... I saw some time the balance sheet of German Kameroon, it cost the German tax payer millions each year whitout a decent return most years a very negative balance. ...

You mean the balance sheet here provided' ... or what other primary (almost, as I don't have the original accountant books at hand) source are you referring to?

However, what these balances of the - as stressed - stately accounts miss are the profits made by trade. ... not by stately agencies but private enterprises.

The seconde page I want to provide from above mentioned 1915 issue shows hoe the trade balances developed. Similarily 'well' IMHO as the cost/revenue relations above. From a deficit of ~1:2.23 in 1907 it sunk to 1:1.2 in 1912. ... short of breakeven given the shortness of only 5 years.The pacific possessions even showed in 1912 a modest surplus of 1,2:1.

But these numbers suffer from the same 'flaw' as the trade balances of the former colonies today - what we call "Third World".
The exports name only the amount payed for the goods in the country/colony. ... 'dumping' prices as today. What these statistic don't show - or showed back prior to the Great War - are the enormous profit made within the metropole - or todays 'developed' contries as the consumers - by selling these goods esp. after being refined/processed/turned into manufactured goods.

Therefore I would render it well possible that the economy of the German Realm in toto (in the sense of national economy than simple buisness administration as obviously most around here look at the numbers shown) had begun to swing some decent 'profit' esp. given the shortness of time they had to develop their colonies.

 

[Michael B]

Not having punitive trade barriers erected against it by the trading powers was a constant and non-negotiable German war aim. German industrialists knew that MittelEuropa was not substitute for access to world trade, which is why they were happy enough for a status quo ante bellum in the West; leaving the status of Belgium and the annexation of the Briey coalfield on the table in order to get MittelEuropa recognised without impacting on access to global markets.

I agree, this would be a handy Plan B if France and Britain close off their Empires to German trade.

World trade includes the USA, Latin America, China and Japn. All larger markets than Africa or Pacific Islands. What the latter have in favour of retention is as locations for naval bases. Deploy cruisers and submarines at them and the British and French have to take into consideration attack on merchant ships travelling throughout their Emoire come the next war.

I don’t see any reason why that would change if one group of imperialists prevailed over another. They are still driven by the desire to exploit and suck the resources out of their colonies and to hell with everything else. Not even to mention the prominent social and racial ideas about Africans that flowed downstream from that. All the evidence up to 1914 indicates that the Germans were not going to be benevolent colonizers (a contradiction in terms!)

Exactly. Whilst I have read accounts of benevolent British rule in the Cameroons it was rule not investment.

 

[Riain]

World trade includes the USA, Latin America, China and Japn. All larger markets than Africa or Pacific Islands. What the latter have in favour of retention is as locations for naval bases. Deploy cruisers and submarines at them and the British and French have to take into consideration attack on merchant ships travelling throughout their Emoire come the next war.

Yes, but if the British, French and Americans shut Germany out of these markets then Mitteleuropa and Mittelafrika are better than nothing. However I think the Germans would be successful in retaining access to world markets, they would have the leverage in victory.

 

[Basileus_Komnenos]

There probably wouldn't be WW2 so Germany is slightly better position keeping colonies than Britain and France were in OTL after WW2.

Britain was bombed to ruins with the metrople devastated and bankrupt. Germany here hasn’t suffered much damage at home. Parts of Northern France are arguably still recovering to this day from the destruction of both World Wars.

Germany would be in a vastly better position post-war especially as it has food and resources from its client states. With Ukraine it has grain secured, and in Romania and Austrian Galicia they have a steady stream of oil shipments coming in a decade or two.

If it plays it’s cards right, Germany can create its own version of the EEC decades earlier without Eastern Europe stagnating thanks to Communism.

Bulgaria with its economic potential realized thanks to a free market and investment from Germany/Austria would also contribute towards this.

 

[thenextgui]

Something to be said is that without US intervention in WWI there is no assimilation of German americans, so the German-US lobby is going to be strong

There was assimilation of Irish, French, Polish etc Americans without a war between America and those countries. I think there is inevitably going to be assimilation as people are incentivized strongly to learn the language of the society around them to get jobs and fill out paperwork etc. It just happens a few generations slower without the intentional push.