The Long Shadow of German Colonialism

At the beginning of the 20th century, the German Empire was one of the largest colonial powers. This is still barely present in the public consciousness. The history of colonial violence and its fatal consequences remained hidden for a long time.

The myth that the Germans were actually only involved for a ‘very short time’ and were more of a ‘good colonial power’ was reinforced by colonial revisionist tendencies during the Weimar Republic and the Nazi era. In the post-war period, the demand for extensive reappraisal fell by the wayside. This changed in the following decades, mainly due to the numerous grassroots initiatives. Much has been achieved – also political – but to this day, ‘challenging colonial asymmetries and blind spots’ still prevail, as Henning Melber puts it. 

In his book „The Long Shadow of German Colonialism. Amnesia, Denialism, Revisionism (London: Hurst), published in the middle of the year, Henning Melber recapitulates German colonial rule and its effects on and in Germany to this day. 

The discussion with René Aguigah will focus in particular on the challenges and potentials of remembrance work that addresses German colonial history in the present and for the future.

Contact 
Beate Adolf
E adolf@boell.de

Henning Melber came to Namibia as the son of German emigrants, where he joined the SWAPO liberation movement in 1974. He is a professor at the South African universities of Pretoria and the Free State in Bloemfontein and works at the Nordic Africa Institute in Uppsala/Sweden.

René Aguigah was born in Würzburg in 1974. He is head of the literature department at Deutschlandfunk and Deutschlandfunk Kultur. In 2023, Aguigah was a fellow at the Thomas Mann House in Los Angeles and is the author of the book ‘James Baldwin. The Witness. A Portrait’ (2024).

» Participation on site
at the the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung Conference Center, Schumannstr. 8, 10117 Berlin

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