The fourth largest overseas colonial empire in the world was that of the German Empire from 1884 to 1914. Nevertheless, this fact is hardly known and only a few school textbooks deal with German colonialism as a topic.

While debates about the effects of the empire on former colonies and colonized societies have been taking place in France and Great Britain for some time, the public has only recently become interested in how German imperialism was dealt with.

It was only in 2015 that the German government half-heartedly acknowledged for the first time that the extermination policy carried out in the settler colony of German South West Africa (now Namibia) between 1904 and 1908 should be classified as genocide.

However, the recent revival of the debate on Germany's colonial past has been hampered by continued repression, denial and a populist right-wing that seeks to impose revisionist reinterpretations of Germany's colonial past. A campaign against postcolonial studies has attempted to denounce and marginalize any serious examination of the crimes of the imperial age.

The author Henning Melber will present his new book.

Melber provides a comprehensive and unsparing overview of the history of German colonial rule and analyzes how its legacy affects and is debated in German society, politics and the media.

He also addresses the everyday experiences of Afro-Germans, the restitution of looted cultural assets and the impact of colonial history on important institutions such as the Humboldt Forum.

Prof. Dr. Marianne Bechhaus-Gerstis an Africanist, historian and cultural scientist. She is the initiator of "Köln Postkolonial - ein lokalhistorisches Projekt der Erinnerungsarbeit". On this evening, she will report on her research into German colonial history and colonialism in the Rhineland, particularly in Cologne. She will also explain her experiences regarding an appropriate way of dealing with the colonial past, especially in Cologne.

This includes the project "Köln Postkolonial - ein lokalhistorisches Projekt der Erinnerungsarbeit", which she initiated, and her work as curator of exhibitions on Cologne's and Aachen's colonial past and on colonial revisionism in the Rhineland. Her most recent publications include the anthology "Deutschland Postkolonial?" edited with Joachim Zeller (2021), edited with Joachim Zeller, and the anthology "Nordrhein-Westfalen und der Imperialismus" (2022), edited with Stefanie Michels and Fabian Fechner.

Rita Schäfer, freelance Africa scholar, will moderate the evening © Unrast Verlag Münster Henning Melber: Der lange Schatten des deutschen Kolonialismus Verdrängung, Verleugnung, Umdeutung translated from English by Thomas Brückner ISBN: 978-3-89771-313-0 Unrast Verlag Publication date October 15, 2025 Read more