History Chatter

For those who aren't aware of the German school system....it's divided into state-run systems....meaning sixteen varieties or systems throughout the country. In some districts, the books are free....in other districts, the kids pay for the books.  The books differ from district to district.

So it came up today in HR news (our public TV network in Hessen) that some petition business is going on, and they want a new emphasis to occur within Hessen.  What....you may ask?  They want more lectures in the grade school system of Hessen on racism and German colonial history.

As my son went through Pfalz school system, I pulled out his history book one day, and just kinda noted that almost half of the book dealt with Roman history....marginally covering the time from then, to the late 1800s, and then spending a lot of time from the 1920s to today.   Mention of the colonial period?  Non-existent.

Does Germany have a colonial period?  Yes and no.

The Prussians ran an 'empire' from the 1680s for about 40 years.  The island Arguin came under their control, along with the Brandenburger Gold Coast.  It's safe to say that both came to a failure point as a colony area.

The second effort started in the 1880s and ran to 1919.  This involved Eastern Africa (what is today Burundi, Rwanda, and part of Tanzania), Western Africa (what is today Namibia), Togoland, and Kamerun (what today is Cameroon).

It's safe to say that their relationships with the various tribes of the region never reached a fruitful situation, and no one appreciated the German efforts of colonization.  Along the way, deaths were part of the routine.  As the WW I concluded, colonization ended. 

If you go and bring this whole colonization effort up (especially the 1680s part), most Germans will confess a lack of knowledge.  Some will identify Namibia as having been a colony, but the rest of these areas will be mostly forgotten.

So the petition here....some chapter or sequence would have to be covered, and 'sins' of the period remembered (kinda like the Nazi sins). 

Some kids will analyze the material provided and then remark that in the Arguin/Brandenburger Gold Coast episode....Germans haven't been in the mix for 300-plus years.  Then the question will be....is this really necessary?

The Rwanda, Cameroon, Namibia discussion?  That might go further because it's only a hundred years ago.  But this will bring back the whole Kaiser discussion and some kids will just suggest that they got plenty of guilt or sin already on the plate.

An adequate way to discuss racism?  There's probably better ways.  History usually opens discussions that can go in wild directions and teachers can easily lose control of the content of discussion.