Qingdao (1897-1914) im Spiegel deutscher Selbstzeugnisse

Abstract

During the heyday of European imperial expansion in the late nineteenth century, competing European powers annexed new territories in Africa, Asia and the Pacific in quick succession. The colonizing powers used their colonies not only to further various economic and political goals, but also to display in concentrated form what they considered their most central characteristics, values, traditions and achievements. One of imperial Germany’s most ambitious and prestigious colonial project was in China’s Shandong province: Kiautschou (胶州, now transliterated Jiaozhou), a region surrounding the port city of Qingdao (青岛), experienced 17 years of German occupation. German expectations ran high for Qingdao, as a naval port as well as an economic and cultural centre. The planners hoped to establish a ‘model colony’ [Musterkolonie] that would showcase new approaches to colonialism within both the national and international context. In this study, I examine the first-hand experiences of German colonial actors to see whether their daily life echoed a collective understanding of Germanness that enabled them to establish a new Heimat. I assess whether a colonial Heimat could anchor the greater cultural unit and its modern representations in a place that is perceived as familiar by the German colonist. In particular, I explore the question how the various processes of constructing an individual and collective Heimat can be seen as an informal strategy of establishing colonial power. Individual perspectives provide new insights into how these dynamics were rooted in everyday experiences. Therefore, the main source analysed in this study are private documents (letters, diaries, memoirs and travel journals) of German colonial actors.