Cologne in the German colonial empire
From 1905 onwards, the city of Cologne was a member of the Kolonial-Wirtschaftliches Komitee, or KWK (Colonialist and Economic Committee), paying a yearly fee of 100 marks.
A large proportion of the teaching staff at the chamber of commerce, the Handelshochschule business school, and other institutions, were also members of the German Colonial Society, including for example Christian Eckert, Kurt Wiedenfeld, Paul Moldenhauer, Oskar Jäger, Heinrich Geffcken, Otto Wilhelm Thomé and Richard Hindorf.
On the evening of 19 October 1888, a large number of citizens arrived to the "upper reception hall" of the "Roman walkway", in order to enact the establishment of the Cologne subdivision of the German Colonial Society.
[5] The Kölnische Zeitung newspaper had already existed for nearly a hundred years when German colonialism began, and was firmly established as a source of information among the middle class and nationalist-conservatives.
Like the general attitude in Western society at the turn of the century, the Kölnische Zeitung's articles were racist, nationalist and euphemistic from a modern perspective.
The "colonial journalism" of the time typically consisted simply of copies of articles from leading newspapers, or of second-hand accounts from travellers, traders or missionaries.
Its editor was sent on a colonial-science educational trip in 1879, and to West Africa from 1884-1885, in order to participate actively in the acquisition of new territories alongside the German Empire's consul-general, Gustav Nachtigall.
[9] Paul zu Lukuledi from the missionary station in St. Peter remarked:At the northern border of our prefecture, I found the main obstacle to the East African missions everywhere - namely, an extremely sparse population.
Many times, it was not until evening, after a six or eight hour long march through undeveloped and uninhabited Pori [bushland], that we found a small village with a few dozen Negroes, mostly half-starved, ghostlike figures, whose poverty stared at me through their sunken-eyed faces, the like of which can hardly be imagined in Europe.
The Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger newspaper wrote about the "soldiers in petticoats", saying "The female warriors are clever, mostly with well-formed figures and maroon-coloured skin, only one or two are lighter in colour, as well as some who are also darker.
[13]The members of the human zoo exhibit had to perform dances and weapon-play several times a day, and twice a week they had to prepare an entire roast pig in a cooking-pit filled with leaves and hot stones, for the public's entertainment.
A chute was also installed as an additional attraction, which the Samoans would slide down dressed in only grass skirts and flower chains, into a pool of water, where they would swim around or paddle in canoes.
[13]The pro-colonial Kölnische Zeitung newspaper published the travel accounts of the geographer and ethnologist Wilhelm Joest shortly before the 1884/1885 carnival season, which were received with considerable public interest in Cologne.
