Remembrance of colonisation and decolonisation

Gildas Riant. © Rights reserved

Can we talk about a colonial memory in France and Germany? How does each of these two countries approach its own colonial period?

Both countries have a colonial memory, but the intensity and chronology of the development of that memory has specific features on either side of the Rhine. Colonisation and decolonisation do not occupy the same place, either in the collective memory or in debates in the public sphere. This is largely linked to their pasts, namely their colonial pasts, but also to their contemporary migratory characteristics.

In France, the memory of a centuries-long colonial history has been at the centre of the public debate since the 1990s. We speak of hyperthymesia and a “war of memories”. Colonised, colonisers and repatriated settlers, veterans of the colonial wars, and the descendants of all these, make up a considerable proportion of the French population. They bring a plural, divided memory, with at times opposing representations and demands.

Germany is in a significantly different situation. German colonisation in Africa, Asia and Oceania lasted only 35 years, from 1884 to 1919 – aside from brief attempts in the 17th and 18th centuries. It came later and ended sooner, in 1919, when the Treaty of Versailles stripped Germany of its colonies. This meant it avoided having to deal with a more or less violent decolonisation process. The German colonial empire therefore came to an end more than a century ago. In addition, the majority of immigrants do not come from the former German colonies, although they may be the descendants of those colonised by other countries. The colonial period has been gradually erased from the German collective memory. However, there has been a reawakening since the 2000s. It is now a sensitive issue that is increasingly studied and discussed, though with less intensity than in France.

Map of the French and German colonial empires. © Questions internationales, N°107-108, ‘Géopolitique des océans’, May-August 2021.

Is there a policy in place in Germany concerning the memory of the colonial empire and decolonisations? Who is behind it? The State, voluntary organisations, etc.?

The coalition agreement signed in 2018 between the CDU-CSU and the SPD makes an explicit reference to the need to focus on German colonial history and memory, in a paragraph that also mentions the Nazi and communist dictatorships. Colonisation is beginning to form an integral part of German federal State remembrance policy. This brings challenges, both national and international, political and diplomatic. Namibia, formerly German South West Africa, is at the centre of that policy. After a decade of discussions, in 2015 Germany officially acknowledged the repression of the Herero and Nama Revolt (1904-07) as genocide (Völkermord). In 2018, it returned skulls and other bones. But the question of apologies and reparations has yet to be resolved.

There are also other organisations, both public and private, behind remembrance policy. Some local authorities support voluntary organisations that work from a post-colonial perspective to identify and, where appropriate, remove any traces of the colonial past in the public domain. This movement emerged in the 1980s with actions to change some street names, but its scope has now broadened considerably. Media coverage of its activities contributes to reactivating the colonial memory in Germany.

On the other hand, there is no remembrance policy for decolonisations, for the reason already mentioned.

German colonial policy in South West Africa (present-day Namibia): Herero prisoners being guarded by a soldier, 1904. © Roger-Viollet

In France, the memory of the wars of colonisation is the subject of national holidays, as well as temporary and permanent exhibitions in our museums. What about in Germany?

While the question of commemorating wars of decolonisation does not arise in Germany, the memory of the soldiers who took part in colonial expansion is today equally controversial, as exemplified by the case of General Lettow-Vorbeck. The commander of the German colonial troops in East Africa during the First World War died in 1964 with official honours, but today the barracks named after him are at the centre of a debate.

There are increasing numbers of exhibitions. Museums are reorganising their collections or running temporary exhibitions, some with a post-colonial perspective. In 2013-14, for instance, the Münchner Stadtmuseum put on an exhibition with the explicit title Decolonize München. The national museum of German history in Berlin (DHM), which sets aside limited space to the colonial period in its permanent collections, also ran a temporary exhibition on “German colonialism”, in 2016-17.

Controversy over the Humboldt Forum illustrates the awakening of German colonial memory. Two issues dominate the debate over the transfer of the collections from Berlin’s Ethnological Museum and Humboldt University to the rebuilt Berlin Palace in the heart of Berlin: the background to the acquisition of those collections and the legitimacy of this type of museum, accused of reproducing colonial representations by opposing Western culture and non-European cultures. The role played by French art historian Bénédicte Savoy, co-author in 2018 of a report on the return of African cultural heritage, underscores the transnational dimension of these debates, with transfers between France and Germany.

Humboldt Forum, Berlin, 12 February 2021. © Riesebusch

On either side of the Rhine, what are the expectations of public opinion, veterans and voluntary organisations regarding this memory?

Colonial memory is too delicate an issue to generalise about the expectations of public opinion. On both sides of the Rhine, as in other Western countries, there is a current of opinion that calls for greater account to be taken of the colonial past and criticises the continued prevalence of colonial representations, in particular racist representations. The recent episodes involving the statues of Colbert and Bismarck are part of this global trend.

Such demands tend to spark more of a debate in France, where opinion is more divided, as shown in 2005 by the controversy over a law which stipulated teaching the positive impacts of colonisation. Those who experienced colonisation and the wars of decolonisation, and their descendants, have opposing remembrance demands. Meanwhile, the French Third Republic and German Second Empire, regimes with policies of colonial expansion in the late 19th century, do not occupy the same place in the popular imagination of the two countries. In France, people are more reluctant to question the political or military personnel of a regime that also installed democracy and won the First World War.

Defacing of the Colbert statue in Paris, 23 June 2020. © Samuel Boivin/NurPhoto/NurPhoto via AFP

What place is given to this memory in French and German school textbooks?

The place textbooks give to this memory reflects how school curricula are changing. It is difficult to generalise about Germany, because education policy is decided at regional level. However, in 2014, the standing committee of education ministers of the Länder (KMK), a supra-regional body in charge of curriculum standardisation, published guidance recommending the inclusion of colonialism in education.

There have been some developments common to both countries since the 2000s. A more important place is given to colonial history, with a greater focus on the negative impacts on the colonised populations. It is now addressed by specific chapters. National colonisation is also more developed, with a particular orientation towards Algeria in France and Namibia in Germany. In 2015, the Länder of Berlin and Brandenburg adopted new curricula for the first stage of secondary school. The colonial question is addressed at two levels over a number of chapters. “European expansion and colonialism from the 16th to the early 20th centuries” takes the example of Prussia and Brandenburg for a long-term look at colonialism and the slave trade in the 17th and 18th centuries. Colonial representations and colonial violence are included in broader historical periods or processes in topics such as: the construction of the “Other” through “racist stereotypes since imperialism”, or the extermination of the Herero and Nama in a section on 20th-century genocides and mass crimes. While these topics may be addressed in the textbooks, they may still not be looked at in class because these are optional modules.

Colonial memory is also an explicit subject of study. Differences between the two countries have to do with specific educational approaches. In France, memory is more historicised. In 2011, a “historical reading” of memories of the Algerian War was introduced at the lycée – as an option alongside memories of the Second World War. In Germany, the memory present in modern-day society is what serves as a basis for classroom discussion and opinion-forming by students on contemporary issues like racism, especially where the history lesson takes place in a multidisciplinary setting.

Besides in the classroom, how else is this memory passed on to young people in France and Germany? Is it passed on at home?

In France, a large proportion of the population potentially has a family memory of colonisation. That memory is also passed on by other means, like film, literature or song, especially rap. The situation is markedly different in Germany. There is little or no passing on of memory within families, at least concerning German colonisation. The distance in time is too great for it to be passed on by survivors. Film and literature on this topic are less well developed and are not aimed primarily at young people.

Has Germany been confronted, like France, with the rejection of a chapter of this history?

More than rejection, in Germany there was a period of amnesia, mainly due to the remoteness in time and the importance of other periods in the collective memory. The memory of Nazism and the Second World War (to which that of the GDR was added subsequently) saturated and still dominates the German remembrance landscape. That memory casts its shadow over the memory of colonisation. Although the German concept of Sonderweg, or “special path”, is contested, historians interrogate the continuities between colonisation and the Third Reich, in particular concerning the genocide in Namibia.

The term “amnesia” has yet to be discussed. The colonial memory remained present in the 1920s and 1930s, supported in part by a policy of revision of the Treaty of Versailles. There was also a focus on German colonial history in the GDR, for ideological reasons, with a Marxist reading of colonialism. East German historians had access to the archives of the ministries responsible for colonisation, conserved in Potsdam. In West Germany, from the mid-1960s, and in particular in the 1980s, historians and voluntary organisations took an interest in these topics. But the phenomenon has remained marginal in the light of recent developments marked by a revival of colonial history since the 2000s and a greater sensitivity from public opinion towards post-colonial issues.

What are the challenges associated with this memory today, namely in terms of teaching and passing it on?

In his report “Remembrance issues concerning colonisation and the Algerian War”, delivered in 2021, Benjamin Stora highlights the risk of a “communitisation of memories” and the difficulty of building a common narrative in the context of an awakening of and confrontation with these memories. These findings can be extended to colonial memory more generally. History teaching has, along with other disciplines, a key role to play, which must not be reduced simply to a therapeutic purpose of reconciliation with memory. Colonial memory is a lively topic that interrogates and involves all the goals of school history: civic, cultural, identity and intellectual.

Two challenges predominate in the two countries. The first has to do with the focus and treatment given to the colonial past in the school curriculum. It is linked to the wider issue of the inclusion of minority histories and memories, namely those borne by the children of immigrants. This is not a new issue, but it takes on a new dimension with changing demographics. In France, the debate is more lively and more polarised. It is given regular media attention when changes are made to the curriculum or at election time. It opposes those who reject “repentance” or “national and colonial sadomasochism” and those who criticise the “colonial continuum” in the republican project.

The assertion of difference between memory and history constitutes a second challenge. The historical method implies critical distancing, contextualisation and consideration of a range of different viewpoints. It enables an analysis of the complexity of historical situations and remembrance constructions. Yet the distinction between knowledge and recognition, between history and memory, seems too theoretical when schools are asked to pass on a shared history, as well as to construct a collective memory.

The editorial team