Week 5 - Germany and the “Colonial Guilt Lie”

Allison Brown HIST 4990: Weimar Dr. Blackler 16 February, 2023 Reading Response: Week 5 - Germany and the “Colonial Guilt Lie” Central to this week’s content and the ongoing discussion of Weimar’s political, social, and economic status, the “Colonial Guilt Lie” and three readings each discuss various elements of Germany’s overseas colonial empire as well as the Rhineland. Each of these readings discusses different spaces and times in Germany’s colonial rule, but similar themes persist relevant to the role that white women’s role in society and sexuality occupied in Germany’s colonial conquests as well as the Rhineland. Ultimately, this essay argues that the traditional gender ideologies in German East and Southwest Germany reflected similar concerns with white women’s sexuality in the Rhineland, all of which centrally emphasized the protection of white women, either in society or sexually, from the colonial sphere. To begin, this essay will analyze each of the readings, offering comments on the works as a whole as well as analyzing the aforementioned argument, and then transition to offer more broad observations and themes regarding this topic. To begin, Sean Andrew Wempe’s, “A Question of Respectability: German Colonial Responses to the Treaty of Versailles and Colonial Guilt,” Revenants in of the German Empire (2019). Chapter one of Wempe’s work focuses on how “colonial restitution” by former colonial officials such as Heinrich Schnee and Theodor Seitz, the last governors of East and Southwest German Africa respectively argued against the narrative of colonial guilt in order to maintain both nationalistic and imperial conceptions of the “German self” where the empire was central to the development of individualistic identity. Wempe and others argue that by utilizing the League 1 of Nations’s mandate system, those advocating for German colonialism and regaining of former colonies strongly advocated for the return of colonial lands as they were deemed fundamental to German nationalism derived from a colonial context. This context, in part, was developed and sustained by the gendered elements of colonial rule itself as an “unspoken gentlemen’s agreement” in which colonial powers were supposedly not to violate the unspoken agreement. Additionally Wempe referring to the Rhineland writes, “Germans, in their propaganda efforts against the occupying forces, told stories of rapes of German women by French-African troops. Angry Germans regarded such encounters—which were presumably more often consensual acts rather than rape— and the mixed-race children born of these unions as violations of European racial and sexual codes and therefore yet another 1 Allied front to Germany’s status as a European nation.” Violations of European “racial and sexual codes” being perceived as violated in the Rhineland is a direct reference to the space in which white German women existed in during the occupation of the Rhineland, their protection was paramount, and the perceived encroachments on physical German land threatened lebensraum, but on white German women threatened something equally or more important, Germany’s “status as a European nation” seen to be socially reproduced through their national identity and race. Proponents of Colonial Germany, including Schnee and Seitz, argued that the French occupation of the Rhineland, by colonial soldiers, was immoral to Germans and violated the mandate system of norms established by the League of Nations. Proponents of German Colonialism, staunchly opposed to events in the Rhineland believe this would “undermine 1 Sean Andrew Wempe, “A Question of Respectability: German Colonial Responses to the Treaty of Versailles and Colonial Guilt,” (2019) inRevenants of the German Empire, pg. 57 2 Europe’s civilizing mission by giving colonized subjects an opportunity to see a European group 2 —in this case, the Germans—as weak.” These perceptions and transgressions of sexuality by another race towards white women propelled forward highly racialized and sexualized depictions of French occupation in the Rhineland. Brett Van Hoesen, “The Rhineland Controversy and Weimar Postcolonialism,” in German Colonialism in a Global Age (2014) Chapter 15 focuses on the Rhineland and perceptions of race and violence during the French occupation. According to Van Hosen, “The Rhineland controversy has long served as a ripe arena for examining discourses of nationalism” additionally, building off of the work of Iris Wigger, the Rhineland controversy “should be discussed within the conceptual framework of ‘interlinked discriminations’ associated with 3 racial, sexual, class, and national stereotypes.” These ‘interlinked discriminations’ as argued by Wigger are key in establishing a fear of occupation in the Rhineland based on racial lines with implications along lines of gender. German government-sponsored media and the press took advantage of these fears, using propaganda to depict the colonial soldiers as sexual predators who posed a danger to the German population, especially to white German women. Propaganda campaigns were designed to foster a sense of outrage and fear among the German population, with the aim of galvanizing public opinion against the French. This was achieved by painting the French as "race traitors" who were willing to sacrifice the purity of their own race in order to exert control over the German people. 2 Sean Andrew Wempe, “A Question of Respectability: German Colonial Responses to the Treaty of Versailles and Colonial Guilt,” (2019) inRevenants of the German Empire, pg. 59 3 Brett Van Hoesen, “The Rhineland Controversy and Weimar Postcolonialism,” (2014) German in Colonialism in a Global Age, pgs. 302-303 3 Propaganda portrayed the occupation as a violation of German sovereignty, with the French seen as intruders seeking to impose their will on the German people. The use of racialized propaganda served to heighten anxieties surrounding the presence of non-white soldiers in the Rhineland. Posters and other forms of media portrayed colonial soldiers as barbaric, violent, and sexually aggressive, preying on innocent German women. These depictions reinforced the belief that the German population needed to be protected from the perceived dangers posed by the presence of black soldiers. Die schwarze Schmach or the “black disgrace” reference to the Rhineland by the German government, the press, and propaganda campaigns alike reveal just how racialized perceptions were. By making the propaganda overtly racist, the German authorities and press could tap into pre-existing prejudices and cultural attitudes, effectively mobilizing public opinion against the French occupation. In doing so, they deflect attention away from the underlying political issues and focus attention on the perceived threats to German society, particularly the sanctity of white German women. A number of propaganda posters used by Van Hosen to construct his argument focus on the protection of white German women and transgressions by occupying soldiers. Der Fiend and Raub der Jungrauen pictured both women and children as those primarily at risk of the 4 Rhineland’s occupation. According to Van Hosen, the Rhineland occupying soldier was also often seen in propaganda in primarily women's and children's social spaces, between Französischen the Kulturträgar again “reinforced prewar stereotypes and prefigured how these soldiers would become potent symbols of German resentment… Creating a consistent image der Feind of as a 4 Brett Van Hoesen, “The Rhineland Controversy and Weimar Postcolonialism,” (2014) German in Colonialism in a Global Age, pgs. 313, 320 4 black soldier who invaded the gendered and generational zones of women and children did not 5 deter the nuanced versions of this ‘menace.’” Der Feind and occupying soldiers of the Rhineland were in particular risk when they were linked not only with sexual violence towards German white women but with white children as well. With the example of racialized and sexualized propaganda in the Rhineland, it is evident a primary concern and perceived transgression of the French from 1918 to 1930 was concerned with a number of issues, but transfixed on the threat colonial soldiers posed sexually to white German women and children. Lora Wildenthal’s “The Woman Citizen and the Lost Colonial Empire in Weimar and Nazi Germany” (2001) inGerman Women for Empire offers insights into a time prior to the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 and how the German colonial sphere influenced notions of a traditional gender role and compounded racial elements again with a threat to white German women. At the core of Wildenthal’s argument is colonialism’s ambiguity in tandem with developing women as both “symbols and agents” of imperial German projects. Broadly speaking, Wildenthal’s work also analyzes how concerns in the colonial sphere regarding interracial romantic and sexual relationships necessitated white German women to be “necessary partners” in colonial projects. More broadly, Wildenthal’s work offers an analysis of how white German women were partners in colonial projects, as well as both the symbols and agents, in order to “successfully colonize” while maintaining traditional notions of gender, sex, and race in the colonial sphere. Wildenthal focuses in part on the Colonial School for Women, which inculcated traditional gender norms and domesticity in women before and after German colonial projects 5 Brett Van Hoesen, “The Rhineland Controversy and Weimar Postcolonialism,” (2014) German in Colonialism in a Global Age, pg. 308 5 until 1945. Wildenthal argues that the Colonial School was a “first step into independence, in a 6 new self-confidence, which certainly also often culminated in a quest for yet more education.” In some ways the author also casts this school as a “final setting” for women’s education and development, as their education in a limited sense was necessary first to the colonial project, then to continue to establish gender norms, but besides that offered no future for women as the entirely independent colonizers they perhaps dreamed to be. Propaganda as well as ideals from the German state and the Colonial School for Women at times painted the colonies as a unique space in which women were offered sexual freedom, more political agency, economic development, and a chance for education. However, as exemplified by Frieda von Bülow as well as other colonial women, agency and social mobility were offered with larger colonial projects in mind as a tool to ensure German women’s support. In addition to these imperial gender norms and the “imperial patriarchy” which developed in the German colonial sphere, the “continuous intensification of racism” and perceived threats of mixed-race and the protection of white German women guided norms in the colonial 7sphere. Looking to an earlier chapter in Wildenthal’s work, colonial policies did not establish a “sharp boundary line” of romantic and sexual race relations until the early twentieth century with 8 legislation prohibiting interracial relationships. Arguably, this legislation still protected German men's sexual freedom and privilege while limiting women’s and “colonized” peoples. Legislation such as this which limited women’s sexual autonomy however did not altogether exclude white 6 Lora Wildenthal, “ The Woman Citizen and the Lost Colonial Empire in Weimar and Nazi Germany,” (2001) in German Women for Empire, pg. 200 7 Lora Wildenthal, “ The Woman Citizen and the Lost Colonial Empire in Weimar and Nazi Germany,” (2001) in German Women for Empire, pg. 201 8 Lora Wildenthal, “ The Woman Citizen and the Lost Colonial Empire in Weimar and Nazi Germany,” (2001) in German Women for Empire, pg. 47 6 women from participating in colonial projects, but further regimented and defined the proper roles which they must inhabit. As women shifted to fit these roles in the colonial sphere, certainly distinct from the “New Woman” developing in Weimar, according to Wildenthal German women “no longer criticized German men for excluding them from a colonial paradise, but rather joined with the men.” 9 By establishing themselves in colonial structures, German women’s role related to victimization as not only women but Germans entirely, “... Colonialist women most often expressed their relationship to German men as maternal solicitude and comradeship in the face of common victimization. The new, post-1919 German colonialist identity, which was inflected 10 with a profound sense of victimhood, turned out to be well suited to colonialist women.” By establishing themselves, utilizing both their own perceived victimhood as German women with threats from racialized others to their sexuality, and the post-1919 colonial identity, both during and after German colonial projects, white women were able to exert a level of autonomy to increase their own agency in limited spheres which were inherently limited by the establishment of patriarchy. In conclusion, the works of Wempe, Van Hoesen, and Wildenthal offer evidence as to how traditional gender ideologies in German East and Southwest Germany reflected similar concerns with white women’s sexuality in the Rhineland, all of which centrally emphasized the protection of white women, either in society or sexually, from the colonial sphere. These ideologies, heavily racialized and sexualized, offered white German women limited agency in spheres where it benefited overseas colonial projects and rejected agency in the Rhineland where 9 Lora Wildenthal, “ The Woman Citizen and the Lost Colonial Empire in Weimar and Nazi Germany,” (2001) in German Women for Empire, pg. 174 10 Lora Wildenthal, “ The Woman Citizen and the Lost Colonial Empire in Weimar and Nazi Germany,” (2001) in German Women for Empire, pg. 175 7 white women’s own decisions could threaten broader German dialogues of victimization. Simply put, white German women and concerns regarding their social presence and sexualities, were paramount to German authority projects or propaganda to further establish gender norms and construct Germany as a victim in the colonial sphere and in mainland Europe. Word Count: 1,893 8