The Conundrum of Colonialism in Postwar Germany

After World War II East and West Germans alike contributed to the maintenance and dismantling of European colonialism, whether by means of direct participation or state policy. At the same time, Germans in both states fashioned a variety of narratives about Germany’s own colonial period, selectively including and interpreting facts in order to support sweeping pronouncements on Germany’s past, present, and future. In this regard Germans were not unique, as other Europeans after 1945 likewise struggled to find their way in a rapidly decolonizing world and to make sense of the history that had led them to this point. Yet, unlike other Europeans, Germans had been without a colonial empire of their own since World War I. In West and East Germany colonialism permeated political culture. German politicians, bureaucrats, businessmen, and workers dealt with colonialism, its decline, and its aftermath on a regular basis. Colonies were objects of foreign policy-making; decolonization provided an important context for political and economic developments within, between, and beyond both German states; and Germany’s colonial past offere