Deutsche Welle Shadows of German Colonialism

Shadows of German Colonialism

A series exploring how German colonialism in Africa met fierce resistance, and descended into exploitation and violence. We find out how Germany's colonial legacy is remembered today.

Through podcasts, street debates and short videos, a new season of Shadows of German Colonialism sheds light on Germany's devastating colonial history across Africa, and specifically its impact on women. We meet heroines who fought German conquest and exploitation, and discover how women held communities and histories together against brutal colonial oppression in Tanzania, Namibia and Cameroon.
Once-off English South Africa Education
15 Episodes

Namibian women keeping traditions alive and history near

The atrocities of German colonialism remained largely, and purposefully, obscure as Namibians endured successive German and British colonial administration. Under the South African apartheid rule that only ended in 1990, there was little space to confront the crimes. But women kept, and continue to keep, their people's history and culture…
7 Dec 2024 11 min

From Douala to Ngonnso: How women fought resisted German colonialism in Cameroon

In 1893, Dahomey men and women revolted against abuse by German colonial officers in Cameroon in a famous uprising that Germany was unprepared for. We look at how female resistance against colonialism has taken different forms, from the Dahomey Revolt to the battle to return the Ngonnso sculpture to Cameroon.
5 Dec 2024 11 min

Who was Li'ti Kidanka, the Queen of the Bees?

As German colonialists swept into East Africa, they came up against a force none had reckoned with: Li'ti Kidanka. Shrouded in folklore, we tell the story of a Tanzanian heroine who fought German colonialism with a very unusual weapon.
4 Dec 2024 10 min

How Nduna Mkomanile fought German colonialism

Nduna Mkomanile tried to unite East African communities against German colonialism during the Maji Maji war in the early 20th century. She's now regarded as one of Tanzania's most notable female freedom fighters, but for decades her importance was overlooked. We find out why.
4 Dec 2024 8 min

Injected with fear: the legacy of colonial era vaccination programs

Tropical medicine boomed as European powers claimed territories in Africa. Germany sent the famed Robert Koch and many others to the colonies to find cures to tropical illnesses - but also to test new medicines. This shadowy practice led to Africans being mistreated, and many died in the process, leaving…
4 Mar 2024 11 min

Unsettling continuities – from colonial racism to Nazism

Respected German anthropologists made a career from dividing people by race, a new branch of science that conveniently put Europeans at the top. While eugenics and scientific racism was widely practiced in Western nations in the early 1900s, the ideas developed by Eugen Fischer and others served as the intellectual…
27 Feb 2024 10 min

Why African nations still fight over colonial era borders

Why does Namibia have a bizarre panhandle? Why do some Ghanaians talk of being from "Western Togoland"? Much of this has to do with African borders drawn up in Europe during late 19th century. Borders that to this day are still very much contested, and have had deadly consequences. We…
22 Feb 2024 11 min

How German colonization of Namibia resulted in genocide

After the decisive Battle of Waterberg between German and Herero fighters, colonial officers in the colony of South West Africa, today's Namibia, directed a violent, uncompromising persecution of Herero and Nama people. Their policies would result in the 20th century's first genocide.
14 Feb 2024 12 min

How German colonists changed power dynamics in Togo forever

Germany's control over Togoland drastically altered traditional power structures, favoring compliant chiefs and running roughshod over cultural norms. We explore how punitive expeditions and colonial subjugation has shaped Togo to this day.
5 Feb 2024 9 min

Why did Germany target colonies in East Africa

In East Africa and the Great Lakes region, German colonial conquest spurred courageous resistance from many local East African groups against well-armed and violent colonial forces.
30 Jan 2024 12 min

The colonial legacy of Africa's place names

In the context of colonial-era injustice, the renaming of landmarks almost seems like a footnote. But in this podcast we discover how renaming mountains, towns, and even people was another form of oppression. We also meet some characters who have outlived the colonialists' names, and why renaming landmarks is a…
23 Jan 2024 9 min

Quane Martin Dibobe: From exhibit to anti-colonial activist

Summer 1896: A Cameroonian man appeared in Treptower Park, Berlin as part of a human exhibition to increase enthusiasm for German colonialism. Little did anyone know this man — Martin Dibobe — would later become a pioneering human rights activist.
19 Dec 2023 11 min