The Cultural Legacy of German Colonial Rule

Klaus Mühlhahn

• Publisher: De Gruyter Oldenbourg
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9783110525724
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politique et relations internationales
• Subtopic: Colonialisme et post-colonialisme

This edited volume explores social, economic, political, and cultural practices generated by African, Asian, and Oceanic individuals and groups within the context and aftermath of German colonialism. The volume contributes to current debates on transnational and intercultural processes while highlighting the ways in which the colonial period is embedded in larger processes of globalization.

Craig Alan Volker

The legacy of the German language in Papua New Guinea

1.Introduction276

German colonial rule in the western Pacific began formally in 1884 when unbeknown to them, people in north-eastern New Guinea (Kaiser Wilhelmsland), the archipelago around the Bismarck Sea, and in the next year, almost all of neighboring Micronesia were proclaimed to be under German “protection”. This act changed ways of living that had existed for tens of thousands of years and laid the foundation for what eventually became the modern state of Papua New Guinea. This proclamation was made in German, a language that was then unknown to Melanesians and Micronesians.

Today the German language is again mostly unknown to most Melanesians and only a few visible traces of any German colonial legacy remain. There are no old colonial buildings, no monuments outside of a few small and almost hidden cemeteries, and no German Clubs or public signs in German. In this century there has not even been a German embassy. But it is impossible to step out in New Ireland (the former “Neu-Mecklenburg”), for example, without being confronted by a twenty-first century reality that is in part a creation of German colonial rule. Species that were introduced by the Germans still retain their German name, from clover, Klee in both German and the local Nalik language to pineapples (German Ananas / Nalik a nanas). The best rural road in the country, the Bulominski Highway was started by and named after the last German governor of Neu-Mecklenburg and a mountain range is known as the Schleinitz Range. Locals have names such as Gertrud, Helga, Gustav, Guenther, and even Adolf and the language spoken by the locals—Tok Pisin, is one peppered with German words that became the lingua franca in German New Guinea because of widespread mobility under the Germans.

Shopping in Kavieng, the provincial capital founded by Germans as Käwieng, is popular, from where the island of New Hanover can be spotted on a clear day. The best prices are at Chinese shops, many of which are still owned by descendants of people brought out under Germans. At the other end of Neu-Mecklenburg/ New Ireland, cotton grows wild. It was part of an experiment that died with the Australian invasion.

Klee (clover) garden in New Ireland (Neu-Mecklenburg)

In some villages it is difficult to acquire plots of land for gardening because of the large plantations surrounding the villages on land alienated from customary clan ownership by German colonial governors and which even today are controlled by foreigners.

The German colonial legacy is an ever–present background, but at the same time invisible and not part of conscious thought. The German legacy is rarely discussed and for most people not particularly controversial. Today the positive aspects of that time are usually emphasized, such as the beauty of the town of Rabaul (Simpsonhafen) before its destruction by volcanic eruption, the introduction of Christianity, and new technologies such as the wheel and iron tools. There is even a religious hymn giving praise for “living in a new day where we have wheels for travel, metal for tools, knowing the world knows us and we know the world”. Negative attitudes towards colonialism are usually reserved for Australia, the more recent colonial master, with unfavorable comparisons often made between the slow pace of development in the Australian era and the much greater development during the much shorter German era. Germany seems to have won the colonial popularity contest by losing its colony long before decolonialization could ever be even conceived of.

Bulominski Highway in New Ireland (Neu-Mecklenburg) (photo by Cláudio da Silva)

Language is the most palpable expression of culture, especially in Papua New Guinea, which with over 830 languages has more languages than any other country in the world. Since language is an important ethnic and cultural marker, this paper examines the visibility of the German language in Papua New Guinea in four historical periods, from 1884 to the present, using it as an indicator of the legacy of German colonialism, of the tenacity of this legacy, and of what Kößler has correctly called German colonial amnesia.277

2.The German language in the German colonial era (1884–1914)

2.1German in government and business

Until 1899, German New Guinea was administered directly by the Neuguinea Compagnie, so that business rather than ideology governed language policies. Melanesian Pidgin English, the ancestor of today’s Tok Pisin, developed on multi-ethnic sailing ships and spread quickly among “blackbirded” (indentured) Melanesian workers, who spoke many different languages and came together for the first time on plantations in both English and German colonies. Most German plantation and other commercial owners and employees already had a good command of English and found it much easier to use a pidginized English when speaking with indigenous and Asian people rather than trying to waste time and resources to teach them German. Some even argued against allowing indigenous people to learn German because it was such a useful secret language for Germans to use amongst themselves.278 In addition, many prominent business people in the colony, most notably “Queen” Emma Forsayth-Coe, were non-Germans, speaking English or other languages and having no vested interest in what was for them a foreign language.279 The situation was made even more complicated by the many Chinese and Malay speakers brought as artisans and craftsmen to the Bismarck Archipelago during this time.

Bureaucrats and jingoists in Berlin had a different opinion. In 1897, for example, the German Colonial Society lobbied the government to take over the colony and subsidize mission schools following a government curriculum that encouraged the learning and use of German.280 German was, of course, the language of administration once the government set up a colonial administration in 1899. Increasing attempts were made to foster the German language among Chinese and Melanesians. Just before the colony was lost to the invading Australians, the colonial government was drafting legislation to expand German-language education in the areas under its control.281 This legislation was never enacted.

Map of German New Guinea

2.2German names

During this period German geographic names were introduced throughout the island and coastal parts of the colony. In general these were used in places where there were no appropriate indigenous names. Often these words were used for large geographic entities that were too big to be a concept in the geographically small Melanesian cultures of the time, such as Neu-Pommern (today’s New Britain) or Kaiser Wilhelmsland (the northern pa...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Colonies, Empires, Nations: A Twentieth Century History
• Material Memories of Empire: Coming to Terms with German Colonialism
• Schaffe, schaffe, Häusle baue: German Entrepreneurs and Settlers on the Kenyan Coast since the 1960s
• Writing under Colonial Rule
• Is Togo a permanent Model Colony?
• Monuments – and what else? The Controversial Legacy of German Colonialism in Namibia
• Colonial Qingdao through Chinese eyes
• Germany in Samoa: Before and After Colonisation
• The legacy of the German language in Papua New Guinea