Abuses of German Colonial History: The Character of Carl Peters as Weapon for völkisch and National Socialist Discourses: Anglophobia, Anti-Semitism and Aryanism

Carl Peters (1856-1918) can be seen as the German equivalent of Cecil Rhodes. In 1884, this young doctor of philosophy, who had lived in London from 1881 to 1883, founded the “Society for German Colonization” and traveled as a simple civilian to Zanzibar, where he acquired many of the territories which were subsequently to become the colony of German East Africa. In spite of his entirely unacceptable colonial administration and policies, which included burning down several native villages and ordering the hanging of his African concubine, Peters came to be regarded, particularly in the Third Reich, as the greatest pioneer of German colonialism. His life was even made the subject of a fi lm, starring the famous actor Hans Albers.