ABSTRACT
Although Kurfürst Friedrich Wilhelm of Brandenburg displayed colonialist ambitions at the end of the 17th century when he founded the colony of Great Friedrichsburg on the Gold Coast, Prussian imperialism appears to have only gained real momentum when the Second Empire was formed in 1871. In contrast to England, France and Holland, with their solid colonial and military infrastructure, in particular their navies, Germany was only able to assert itself as a colonial power towards the end of the 1880s. The Congo Conference of 1884 marked the official beginning of an offensive and aggressive German imperialism for the new nation and its idea of civilization, a nation that needed to be consolidated and also to establish itself as a competitor, particularly against England and France, for raw materials for its industries at home, for its markets and for living space for its growing population. As a latecomer on the world colonial stage, Germany lacked experience as a colonizer. Its sense of inferiority lasted through its time as a colonial power and up until the Treaty of Versailles. The idea that German imperialism was unlike that practised by other European nations will be illustrated in this chapter using examples from popular travel literature and using Michel Espagne’s ‘cultural transfer’ theory as well as the ‘histoire croisée’ theory of Bénédicte Zimmermann and Michael Werner.
