ABSTRACT
After decades of mass emigration, Germans were to be found in all parts of the world by 1914. At the same time, the German Empire was engaged in informal and formal colonialism. The themes of emigration and colonialism triggered extensive public discourse about Germany’s global power-political aspirations. This chapter analyses the mutually reinforcing nature of these two discursive strands. Emigrants were increasingly represented as outposts of a ‘Greater German Empire’ whose ethnic links with the mother country had to be preserved for their own and the Empire’s benefits. The designation Auswanderer [emigrants] was replaced with Auslandsdeutsche [Germans abroad], denoting persisting ties despite residence abroad. Unification in 1871 created a focal point for these shifts, symbolized by the ‘nation’ and the ‘Kaiser’. The first part of the chapter points to terminological concurrences in the two discursive strands. By the end of the 19th century, emigration was clearly part of the German colonialist discourse and imagination, remapping the world in terms of diasporic locations. The second part of the chapter will show that the discursive appropriation of territory could lead to tensions with host societies, especially within colonial contact zones. The ‘Scramble for Africa’ was an important element of British–German imperialist tensions, and a closer look at southern Africa will explore how the ideological overload of Germans abroad could lead to frictions in situ. This chapter thus argues for a broader understanding of colonialism that is not confined to formal territorial possession but also includes of a complex web of discursive strategies.
