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SATIRE AND GENOCIDE: SIMPLICISSIMUS’ ANTI-COLONIAL PROTEST AND GERMANINTELLECTUAL COLONIZATION

Jeremiah Garsha

THIS article examines an anomaly, the forty-first issue of thesatirical German weekly magazine, Simplicissimus. This 1904

Special Issue was dedicated in its entirety to the European imperialismproject. In the sixty-one years the magazine was published, from 1896until 1967 (with an interesting ten year pause from ‘944 to 1954), thiswas the only issue that fully and explicitly addressed colonialism. Itsparticularity underscores the existence of a rare and overlookedmiddle-class baclclash to African coloniaLism and the ideology ofimperialism. The current historiography of European public dissent tocolonialism and imperialism during this period is understudied anddeserves much more attention.5’ This article is an attempt to drawscholarly focus to the existence of one episode of unique anti-colonialprotest, while at the same time elucidating the colonized mindset ofthe German anti-colonial artists.

I begin this article by setting up the history of the magazine inorder to show that Simplicissimus represented the attitudes andpolitical mindset of its middle-class authors and audience, who wereresponding to their lack of political power within the authoritative

In fact, only in the last few years have scholars begun to seriously research the shortand long-term effects German colonialism had on European and American cultural andpolitical history. Volker Langbehn is one of the few and certainly one ofthe best authoritieson this subject. See specifically, German Colonialism, Visual Culture, and Modern Memory,ed. Volker M. Langbehn (New York: Routledge, 2010).

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and militaristic system of government. Next, the article contextualizesthe global events surrounding the publication of the forty-first issue,specifically the South African War (1899-1902) and the beginnings ofthe Imperial German genocide of the Herero and Nama in SouthwestAfrica (‘904-1907). By connecting the Simplicissimus colonial issue tothe larger historical context, the illustrations can be read as texts inorder to unpack deeply ingrained signs and discourses. This paperconcludes with a thick analysis of three political illustrations that bestrepresent the ways in which the anti-colonial artists were captured bythe very imperial discourse they protested against. The first imagestands in for a larger discussion of intellectual tropes vis-ä-vis racialparadigms and the “civilization mission,” the second picture documents various yet interconnected dimensions of the “colonial duty,”while the third image is ripe for a gendered analysis. When takentogether, these three pages from the forty-first issue offer invaluableinsight into the mindset of the Wilhelmine bourgeois intelligentsiaand the larger issues they were protesting against.

In April 1896, Albert Langen, a Munich-born publisher, and Thomas Theodor Heine, a gifted art student from the Munich Academy ofFine Arts, founded Simpticissimus, a satiric weekly magazine that wasdramatically influenced by the emerging aesthetic style of the Jugendstil movement, the German version of Art Nouveau.52 It is worthnoting that from its inception, Simplicissimus was centered in Munich, the epicenter of Germany’s modern movements of art andliterature during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.Langen and Heine named their publication after the protagonist inthe 1669 novel Derabenteuerliche Simplicissimus Teutsch, or TheAdventures ofGerman Simplicissimus, by author and satirist HansJakobChristoffel von Grimmelshausen. The novel is one of Germany’sfirst and best works to use the picaresque style, a satirical type of prosefiction which details the humorous adventures of a witty and sociallylower-class hero through the corruptions of society.53 With its allusionto Grimmelhausen, Langen and Heine’s magazine underscore itsdirect connection to a Germanic legacy of satirical social commentary.In naming the publication after a working-class hero, the title Simplicissimus implies, while a product of left-leaning intellectuals, the

Stephen Eskilson, Graphic Design: A New Histoiy (New Haven: Yale UniversityPress, 2007), 96.

53John Heckman, “Emblematic Structures in Simplicissimus Teutsch,” Modern LanguageNotes, Vol. 84, No. 6 (1969), 889; Ulrich Wiclcs, ‘The Nature of Picaresque Narrative: AModal Approach,” Publications of the Modern Language Association ofAmerica, Vol. 89,No. 2 (ig), 248-249.

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authors and artists were in favor, theoretically, of the lower-classmasses and directly opposed to the traditional oligarchy of right-wingconservatism.

Simplicissimus’ critiques of authoritarian structures in government most often took the form of caricature. In a promotion of theJugendstil style, the magazine eschewed lengthy text and insteadrelied on large, often full-page, colorful illustrations. As a literaltranslation of its name suggests, Simplicissimus presented itself in oneof the simplest forms of expression, cartoons and political illustrations, and was thus more accessible to all segments of society. Thestandard format of the magazine featured a provocative cover illustration, followed by numerous smaller cartoon strips or and illustrations,a few poems and short stories, and an assortment of advertisements.The brief poems and stories were penned by young leftist authors, andin the early years of publication these authors helped shape Simplicissimus’ sharp satirical style.54 Simplicissimus’ provocative style andsubstance often caused controversy, which added to its appeal.

The German government’s attempts at censorship only succeededin dramatically increasing Simplicissimus’ readership. In just a fouryear period, between 1903 and 1907, the magazine was confiscatedtwenty-seven times.55 In its second year of publication, the thirty-firstissue of Simplicissimus featured a caricature and short poem mockingKaiser Wilhelm II during his 1889 visit to Palestine. In response, theGerman police force cracked down on the Simplicissimus contributors. In order to avoid arrest, publisher Albert Langen fled to Switzerland, and for five years edited the magazine in exile. IllustratorThomas Heine and author frank Wedekind were arrested and givensix-month prison sentences for the crime of majestatsbeleidigung,publically insulting the monarch.6 The scandal, dubbed “TheSimpticissimus Affair,” greatly increased demand for the magazine,and served to popularize the antiestablishment reputation of theartists.

Simplicissimus can be credited with launching the careers ofBruno Paul, a famed architect and illustrator, frank Wedekind, thewell-known dramatist, authors Gustav Meyrink, Heinrich and ThomasMann, and, most famously, authors Hermann Hesse and Rainer Maria

Peter Jelavich, “Art and Mammon in Wilhelmine Germany: The case of frankWedekind,” Central European History, Vol. 12, No. 3 (ig), 222.

Taylor Allen, Satire and Society in Wilhelmine Germany: Kladderadatsch andSimplicissimus, 1890-1914 (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1984), 41.

16 Mary M. Paddock, “Redemption Songs or How franlc Wedekind Set the Simplicissimus Affair to a Different Tune,” German Studies Review, Vol. z8, No. 2 (2005), 247;

Jelavich, Art and Mammon, 225.

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Rilke. It also made cover illustrator and co-founder Thomas Heine“the most popular and well-known illustrator in Germany” during theWilhelmine and Weimar period.57 The founding members andsubsequent contributors of Simpticissimus were usually members tothe Munich-based Jugendstil art movement. Generally, they wereleftist aligned, internationally versed members of the German liberalmiddle-class, who, like the Social Democrats, lacked political powerfor much of the late r8oos and early l900s. Both groups claimed to feelan affinity for the broad working-class.8 The cartoon format madethe magazine quite popular with the masses, allowing the style andmedium of the cartoons to convey the artists’ layered meanings andmessages.59 Simpticissimus was widely circulated across all segmentsof German society.6° It was not the working-class, however, who werethe target audience, but rather the emerging German middle-class.

The creation of an urbanized middle-class within Germany was aproduct of the Second Industrial Revolution (1870-1914). During thisperiod, most of Europe experienced profound social and economicchanges. Within Germany, however, the strong ethos of Prussianconservatism and militaristic culture continued to shape the domesticand foreign policy of the ruling elites. In Germany, writes historianFelix Gilbert, “aristocratic values were not replaced by bourgeoisvalues; instead, the German high bourgeoisie became feudalized.”°’Unlike other European great powers, Germany industrialized withouta bourgeois revolution. The nascent political and economic liberalismwas crushed beneath the state-sponsored system of big industry andbanlcing cartels, and the inherited legacy of Prussian conservatism.saLacking political power, the German middle-class was most receptiveto a magazine that made a mockery of the status quo rightwing rule.The popularity of Simpticissimus among the liberal middle-class shows

Timothy W. Hues, Thomas Theodor Heine: Fin-de-siëcte Munich and the Origins of‘Simplicissimus’ (New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 1996), 70-71.

David G. Blackbourn, ‘Class and Politics in Wilhelmine Germany: The CenterParty and the Social Democrats in Wurttemberg,” Central European History, Vol. 9, No.3 (1976), 225.

Rebecca Zurier, TheArtfortheMasses:A Radical Magazine and Its Graphics, 1911-1917 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1989), 139.

6o Felix Gilbert and David Clay Large, The End of the European Era: 1890 to the Present(New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2002), 79.

‘ Ibid., 7.6 Ralf Dahrendorf, Society and Democracy in Germany (New York: W.W. Norton &

Company, 1979), 45; Barrington Moore, Jr., The Social Origins ofDictatorship andDemocracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World (Boston: Beacon Press,1993), 485.

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that the magazine exemplified their frustrations with the conservativePrussian-based ruling group.

The magazine served as an important form of expression forbourgeoisie protest and progressive dissent. In her comparative workon satire and society during this period, Ann Taylor Allen concludesthat the popularity of Simplicissimus reflects “not only the disenchantment of a considerable segment of the middle-class public withthe ruling elite whose prestige had been seriously eroded, but [also]their tentative search for a new political ideology.”6 Logically, thefavored targets of Simplicissimus’ satire were the aristocracy andpolitical institutions of Berlin—the Kaiser, the clergy, the military, andthe industrialists—symbolic representatives of the crushing influenceof rigid conservatism and the Prussian tradition of authoritative rule.Simplicissimus, as a bourgeois product for a largely bourgeois audience, stood in as a manifestation of the middle-class mentality. Itsimages and writings, therefore, offer a window into how this newlyestablished class viewed both themselves and their society.

In explaining the origins of the 1904 “special issue” of Simplicissimus, it comes as no surprise that German colonial expansionunder the direction of Kaiser Wilhelm II would be an ideal target forsatire. German colonialism was a perfect combination of Prussianmilitary tradition, industrialists’ capital expansion, and the Kaiser’sseemingly corrupted search for monarchal power. What is shocking,however, is that in its sixty-one years of publication, Simplicissimusonly directly addressed the Kaiser’s colonial policies on May 3, 1904.

Subsequent issues in the 19305 do take up colonial planning again, butnever as an entire Special Issue, and only in reference to EasternEurope, never Africa (fig. i).

The historical context of the May 3, ‘904 issue is quite telling.Germany had already become an emerging colonial power in thei88os. While public opinion had originally persuaded Chancellor Ottovon Bismarck to begrudgingly take a few geo-strategic coloniesbeginning in 1884, by ‘9o4 the colonial project had failed to live up tothe Kaiser’s promise of giving Germany its “place in the sun.” In hisessay on German public opinion during this period, Wolfgang J.Mommsen wrote that the popular enthusiasm toward imperialistoverseas expansion waned following “the apparent failure of thecolonial policies on which Bismarck had embarked with considerablehesitation.”6” Furthermore, Mommsen argued “New Imperialism” was

63 Allen, Satire and Society, 227.64 Wolfgang J. Mommsen, “Public Opinion and Foreign Policy in Wilhelmian Ger

many, 1897-1914,” Central European History, Vol. 24, No. 4 (1991), 384. Mommsen uses

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a failure for Berlin, as “virtually all...imperialist ventures ended indisappointment. They seriously undermined Germany’s internationalposition and no longer paid off in domestic affairs.”6 While imperialexpansion benefited the massive German industrial and bankingmonopolies, it also caused the domination of both the working classand the small and middle-sized economic enterprises, such as thoseoperated by Simplicissimus’ primary audience. The opportunity toprotest the colonial mission crystallized with the conclusion of theSouth African War in 1902.

___

FIGURE r

______ __________

Simplicissimus, 11 October 1936

______

Title: “To the German CoIonialCongress”

_______

The caption underneath reads: “Muscles

___________

of humans strong through the work,

______

muscles of the nation tstronglby the workfor the nation, and such work is theColonization, and the only limit is therange of the world.”

_________ _______

—Note the contrast in artistic style andthe less overt lampooning of this imagetvhen compared to the others discussed inthis article.

ø*5i1’a

..- 4,,

‘/,

__

,,

,$_. 4,,,,j.—.i: ,‘ ‘ —‘

the term “New Imperialism” to refer to the rapid and industrialized overseas territorialgrab by European powers beginning around the 1884 Berlin Conference and endingfollowing the First World War in 191$.

65 Ibid., 390.

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The Simplicissimus colonial issue was released less than a year afterthe conclusion of the South African War. In many ways, the issue wasa reflection of the prevailing middle-class mindset as well as an overallexample of German public opinion at this time. While there is a greatdeal of historiography pertaining to European public opinion surrounding the events of the South African War, the great majority ofscholarship focuses on public reaction within Britain. The Britishmedia exposed the public to the harsh realities of colonialism,including detailed reports about the concentration camp system usedby the British to subdue the civilian South African populations. Theresult was a significant public outcry against the supposed civilizingmission of colonialism. What is often overlooked in the currenthistoriography is the specific German affinity toward the Afrikaners.

feelings of Burenbegeisterung (Boer Enthusiasm) existed withinthe larger German Vdlkisch movement. following the massive surge ofurbanization in the industrial period, much of the German publicexperienced widespread feelings of dislocation. As workers abandonedthe rural countryside and became industrialized manufacturers, theybecome inwardly isolated and outwardly alienated. Historian GeorgeI. Mosse, the foremost authority on the German Völkisch movement,argued that the movement began as a desire for unity, as individualswanted “to feel like they belong to something greater than oneself.66German nationalism, itself largely shaped by the Volkisch movement,was therefore a response to industrialization and an embracement ofthe “organic” and “natural” opposing elements of modernity. Romantics praised the notion of the Volk, the original people of Germany,with heroic statues, creating a mystical understanding of Germanness.6 If the ethnic Germans were imagined to be the fierce dissentients of Tacitus’ barbarian tribes that held off Roman incursion, thenVdtkisch ideology, wrote Tilman Dedering, depicted the Boers to be“Teutonic ‘blood-brothers’ in the African diaspora, who fought forsurvival in the wilderness, under constant pressure from ‘perfidiousAlbion’ [antiquity Englandj.”68

The Boer struggle against England, was therefore of genuine interest to the German public, beyond the context of geopolitical rivalry,which popularized an Anglophobic public opinion.6 The German

66 George L. Mosse, The Crisis of German Ideology: Intellectual Origins of the ThirdReich (New York: Grosset and Dunlap, 1964), 14.

67 Ibid., 14.68 Tilman Dedering, The ferreira Raid of 1906: Boers, Britons and Germans in

Southern Africa in the Aftermath of the South African War,” Journal ofSouthern AfricanStudies, Vol. 26, No. 1 (2000), 45.

69 Mommsen, Public Opinion and Foreign Policy, 389.

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public sympathized with the Afrikaners’ struggle. They embraced theAfrikaners as “low Germans,” and emotionally and vocally supportedthe Boer Republic cause. Perhaps, the debut of the Simplicissimuscolonial issue intentionally coincided to address the rising zeal forGerman colonialism under Burenbegeisterung. Certainly, the timing ofthe 1904 colonial issue shows that, similarly to England, withinGermany the South African War triggered a profound reaction to theimperial discourse.

The anti-colonial illustrations of the Simplicissimus issue stand inas intellectual and liberal dissent to the Pan-German Nationalistmovement. following the South African War, physical Germancolonialism only increased. In part, this was the result of nationalistcircles, which used the outcome of the South African War and thesurge of Burenbegeisterung to push the government toward a moreaggressive colonial policy. They argued that only increased Germancolonialism would protect the Volk’s Boer cousins from Britishdomination. The German imperial discourse went one step further,arguing that the Verdeutschtung (Germanization) of colonialismwould force the Boers to “eventually accept the supremacy of theirGerman siblings and merge with [the] expanding German settlerpopulation.”7°

Within the Southwest African colony, the Boer immigrants and refugees continued to maintain their own strong cultural independence,despite efforts to turn the Boers into the German Volk. Using theSouthwest African school system, colonial agents attempted to force theassimilation of Afrikaner children. One official proclaimed, “[pJursuedwith the right means and necessary consideration, it will be a question ofonly decades to make out of the Boers in German Southwest Africa trueDeutsch-Aftikaner (German-Africans).”7’ While the Boers could be wonover, in the words of another colonial official, “to Deutsch turn (Germanness) through the geistigen (spiritual/intellectual) weapons of Germanculture,” in the minds of the colonial agents and settlers, the indigenouspopulations of Southwest Africa represented the greatest threat tocolonial stability.72

While the Boers in Southwest Africa were marked for assimilation,the indigenous Herero and Nama ethnic groups were to be exterminated.On January 14, 1904, just five months prior to the publication of theSimpticissirnus colonial issue, the Southwest colonial government wired

70 Ibid, 45-52.‘ Quoted in Daniel Waither, “Creating Germans Abroad: White Education in German

Southwest Africa, 1894-1914,” German Studies Review, Vol. 24, No. z (2001), 328.Quoted in Ibid., 328.

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Berlin the following message: “All farms in the vicinity ofWindhuk (thecapital of the Southwest Colony) plundered by Herero. Whites living onisolated farms murdered. Situation very grave.”73 The revolt of the Hereropopulation was a direct response to years of settler encroachment. In1894, the same year the German imperial government took formalcontrol over the settler-colony, the colonial governor Theodor Leutwein,announced that “15 years from now, there will not be much left for thenatives,” but warned that “if they learn about this now, revolution isinevitable.”74 ‘While containing only 4,674 colonists, German SouthwestAfrica nevertheless comprised the largest overseas population of Germansettlers.75 Colonists fenced off the best grazing land, the colonial policeroutinely brutalized the local population, and coinciding with increasedEuropean settlement, the Herero pastoralists experienced a widespreadcattle plague. In short, German rule had dispossessed, impoverished, andsubordinated the Herero population. As their power slipped and theirliving conditions worsened, the Herero united in rebellion. The uprisingwas subsequently met with nothing short of genocide.

The swift and immediate response of the German colonial administration, under General Lothar von Trotha, was to “annihilate therebelling tribes with rivers ofblood and rivers of gold.”6 Beyond violentarmed suppression, the campaign of genocide relied on the tactic ofdriving the Herero into the eastern Omaheke Desert, while seizing andpoisoning waterholes. After pushing the surviving Herero into thecolony’s dry and arid region to die of dehydration, Trotha issued hisinfamous Vernichtungsbefthl (Extermination Order). In the October 2,

1904 proclamation, Trotha stated:

The Herero people must leave this land. If it does not, I will force it doso by using the great gun [artillery]. Within the German border everymale Herero, armed or unarmed, with or without cattle, will be shot todeath. I shall no longer receive women or children, but will drive themback to their people or have them shot at. These are my words to theHerero people77

7’ Quoted in Isabel V. Hull, Absolute Destruction: Military Culture and the Practices ofWar In Imperial Germany (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2005), 7.

‘ Quoted in Ben Kiernan, Blood and Soil: A World History of Genocide and Extermination from Sparta to Darfrir (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007), 381

7’ Alison Palmer, Colonial Genocide (Adelaide: Crawford House Publishing, 2000),

149.76 General Lothar Von Trotha, quoted in Benjamin Madley, ‘From Africa to Ausch

witz: How German South West Africa Incubated Ideas and Methods Adopted andDeveloped by the Nazis in Eastern Europe,” European History Quarterly, Vol. 35, No 3(2005), o; Hull, Absolute Destruction, 7.

7’ Quoted in Kiernan, Blood and Soil, 383.

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The settlers of German Southwest Africa did not, however, support acampaign of total genocide.

As with most African colonies in the late nineteenth century, German settlement depended on Africans as a force of cheap labor. Theeditor of the leading German newspaper in Southwest Africa summarized the prevailing settler view by decrying the genocide on the basisthat, “[theJ Herero are needed as laborers” and thus should not bedestroyed. The editorial did, however, condone the genocide of theNama, who were “an insignificant tribe.”8 Frustrated over Trotha’stactics and unlimited authority, in 1904 colonial governor Leutwienresigned, only to see Trotha appointed governor in his place.

As a general and governor, Trotha frequently corresponded withGerman newspapers, both in the colony and in Germany. He justifiedthe tactics of annihilation to a Berlin newspaper, stating, “[aJgainst‘Unmenschen’ (nonhumans) one cannot conduct war ‘humanely.’79 Ina second news article, Trotha wrote, “the destruction of all rebelliousNative tribes is the aim of our efforts.”8° In a response to settlerdemands, Trotha set up “prisoner-laborer” camps. The Germancolonial strategy was to fill labor shortages by creating a slave laborforce. The few weakened and emaciated Herero and Nama survivors,however, could not be used for practical labor, and the abysmal livingconditions of the prison camps only exacerbated death rates.81

According to Benjamin Madley, “a continuing desire to destroy theHereros played a part in the German maintenance of such lethal campconditions.82 Overall, the campaign of genocide decimated theHerero and Nama, reducing the populations by at least fifty percent.8The great majority were murdered without direct violence,rather theyperished in the desert, far outside the colonial and public gaze.Nevertheless, the 1904 Herero and Nama uprising and the violentcolonial response received a great deal of public attention within theGerman metropole. It was in this context of publicly reported genocide, just five months in the making and immediately following the

78 Quoted in Kiernan, Blood and Soil, 383.Quoted in Hull, Absolute Destruction, 33.

8o Quoted in Kiernan, Blood and Soil, 385.‘ Hull, Absolute Destruction, 74-76.

Benjamin Madley, “Patterns of Frontier Genocide 1803-1910: The Aboriginal Tasmanians, the Yuki of California, and the Herero of Namibia,” Journal of Genocide ResearchVol. 6, No. 2 (June 2004), i88.

8The overall death toll remains debated. Drawing off of census data, Isabel Hull putsthe Herero death rate much higher, at 66-75 percent. See Hull, Absolute Destruction,88. See also, Madely, from Africa to Auschwitz, 431.

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conclusion of the South African War, that the artists of Simplicissimusquestioned the system of colonization.

The May 3, 1904 issue of Simpticissimus featured a particularlystriking cover image by Bruno Paul (fig. 2). The image is titled “TheEnd of Zivilization (Civilization),” and the caption has two Africannatives stating that they must mine for gold again, lest the “Europeansbring us their Kultur (culture).” The illustration’s text immediatelysets up a dichotomy between the signifiers “Zivilisation” and “Kultur.”For Germans in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, theterm Zivitisation had very negative connotation. Under Vötkischideology, Zivilisation was a corrupting influence of western industrialization, a threat to the idealized, rural Volk. Zivilisation was arepresentation of materialism, internationalism, capitalism, and mostimportantly, urbanization and industrialization. Kultur, therefore,represented the opposing aesthetic elements—spirit, community,values, and, of course, a sense of rootedness—to the rural Germanlandscape.8 This illustration equates Kultur to the “civilizationmissions” of other European imperial powers. Colonialism is challenged in this image by showing that, under imperialism, the uniquelyGermanic notion of Kultur has been corrupted and transformed intoZivilisation.

In keeping with Simplicissimus usual satirical style, the title “TheEnd of Civilization” brings up a post-apocalyptic notion, which isunderscored by portraying Africa, not as a lush paradise, but rather abarren and rocky wasteland. Perhaps the small tree and lizard in theforeground are meant to represent Eden and the serpent, nowwithered and nearly destroyed by colonialism. It is important that thecaption has the Africans saying that they must mine for gold again.This signifies that the Africans are responding to a second wave ofcolonialism, perhaps this time led by Germany, rather than their tworival powers, Britain and France. Beyond its literal meaning, the title“The End of has Civilization” also suggests that as Germany, thelatecomer to colonialism, increases its role as a Great Power, Kulturwill no longer protect the Volk but rather become a stand-in forZivilisation. Under colonialism, the illustration argues, Kultur willbecome a weapon of exploitation, used to benefit the German industrial and banking cartels, not the Volk.

5Jeffery Herf, Reactionary Modernism: Technology, Culture, ond Politics in Weimorand the Third Reich (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986)6,16, 226; ErberhardDemm, “Propaganda and Caricature in the first World War,” Journal ofContemporaryHistory Vol. 28, No. i 176; Volker Langbehn, “Introduction: Picturing Race,”German Colonialism, Visual Culture, .

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FIGURE 2

Simplicissimus, 3 May 1904

Cover illustration title: “The End ofCivilization [Zivilisationi.”

The caption underneath reads: “Wemine for riches of gold again,otherwise the Europeans twill I bringus their culture [Kultur].”

The cover illustration also reveals the artist’s, perhaps unconscious,view of Africans. Bruno Paul’s mental colonialism is filled with earlytwentieth century racial stereotypes. The Africans exist as pure“others.” Hairless and dressed in grass skirts, the natives are drawn torepresent primates. The pose of the second native, perched on therock at the top of the image, is distinctly ape-like, and the added facialhair, absent on the other two natives, only adds to this conception.The image shows Africans as primitive people, wandering through thecountry in search of survival. There are no cities or even villages in thepicture, just fierce but curious tribesmen. Without the caption, theimage would appear to show the natives are more concerned with thelizard than with the golden colored rocks. The notion that the gold iswaiting for European consumption also alludes to the colonial notionthat Africans were not using their land properly. The gold does nothave to be mined as it is just lying on the ground, waiting to be pickedup. The Europeans exist only as a threat. The picture sells the notionthat ifAfricans want to save themselves from the horrors of the

Stipitassius

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civilizing mission, they had better forage for gold themselves, andhand it over to the Europeans. The artist’s purpose was to highlightthe true nature of colonialism, using the loaded terms Zivilisation andKultur. The image, however, also reveals the dominant paradigms ofhighly racialized colonial thought.

The next image is the most famous picture from this issue (fig.3)85 Here the artist, Simplicissimus co-founder Thomas Heine,illustrates a comparison of the colonial projects by the four largestEuropean colonizers of Africa. The first panel reveals the typical anti-Prussian militarism of Simplicissimus. In the German colony, orderreigned supreme. All the animals have been lined up and numbered.The giraffes have been taught to goose-step, and the crocodile hasbeen tamed. The small sign in the background indicates that all noisesand claws are forbidden. Conspicuously absent from the Germanpanel, but present in all the others, are any images ofAfricans. Africa,from the German panel’s perspective, appears as a zoo. The colony is alaboratory. It is a place where order can be imposed through violence,and where society and animals can be studied. The violent campaignof genocide, occurring as Heine created this image, may very well haveshaped this first panel. The presence of the absent Herero and Namaspeaks the loudest.

In the British panel, the plaid suit-wearing businessman is forcinghis product, in this case a jug of whisky (the label written in English),into the native mouth. Clearly the native represents the colonialmarket, being force-fed European manufactured goods. The businessman has cooped the soldier into literally pressing every cent outof the native, while the missionary idly proselytizes. This panelunderscores the perspective that empire is economically motivated,with the military working for the interests of big business. Thepresence of the pastor creates a trinity of civilization, commerce, andChristianity, all three of which were simultaneously used by theBritish to justify their colonial expansion.

For a conflicting interpretation of this image, see Niall Ferguson, Empire: The Riseand Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power (New York:Basic Books, 2003), 294-295.

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,_#_ —

JJ3

____

FIGURE 3

______

Simplicissimus, 3 May

-

:; 1904

Title: “Colonial Powers”

The captions, from top tobottom right, read:

“Colonization by theGermans, Colonization bythe English, by the French,and by the Belgians.”

The final panel shows pure exploitation of Africans via brutal measures. King Leopold II of Belgium is shown devouring the head of aroasted native. As the final image, it conveys the notion that no matterwhat the other European powers are doing, it is not as bad as what ishappening in the Belgian Congo. The use of King Leopold himselfunderscores that unlike the British, who are using business, themilitary, and the church in the services of empire, the Belgian Congois run as a private colony to benefit only King Leopold. The use of amonarch figure may also be an attempt to reflect back on KaiserWilhelm, Simplicissimus’ favorite target. Like most of the Simplicissimus images during the Wilhelmine period, the mocking of amonarch underscores the general disenchantment of the middle-classartists with ruling elites.Here we see that each panel, while supposedlya representation of national characters, actually all exist withinGermany. For Heine, only German big industry and banking, presented in the British panel, motivated and benefited from colonialism.

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The Kaiser, often accused as being a puppet to the aristocracy andindustrialists, feasted on the spoils of the colonial exploitation gainedthrough violent means.

The penultimate French panel is the most interesting. Unlike thesomber faces of the other European caricatures, the French soldiersand the native women are all smiles, frolicking together in the tropicaljungle. The racial mixing in the French panel is represented by thesmall child figure in the foreground. Colored slightly lighter than therest, the child is a subtle reference to the creation of Afro-Europeans,existing not as whites, but not as Africans. While every other figure inthe French colonial panel is embracing a carefree, free-love spirit, thechild is on the verge of tears. The French are able to ignore the childfor the moment, but perhaps the artist is attempting to draw theviewers’ attention to a problem in the making. The child will grow up,and existing in the middle ground, it is a threat to the establishedcolor line deemed so necessary by colonial officials. In the Frenchpanel, the relaxed racial relations, while perhaps meant as a humorousstereotype of Frenchmen, serve as a subtle warning of danger to all theother colonial powers.

In 1905, German Southwest Africa became the first German colonyto formally ban Rassenmischung (race mixing). It is no coincidencethat this image was created in the month proceeding the publicizedReichstag debates surrounding the drafting of a similar ban oninterracial marriage within Germany. According to Benjamin Madley,it was the press coverage of these debates that allowed terms like“Rassengeflihl (race feeling), Mischlinge (mixed-race people), dieMischlingsfrage (the mixed-race question)” to enter the generalpublic’s lexicon. Heine’s final panel shows that he too has beencaptured by the imperial discourse. The inherent evil of colonialism isits corrupting influence, most prevalent in the overt racial mixingoccurring the colonies.

The final illustration image takes up racial relations in a muchmore overt, and gendered fashion (fig. ). A colonial agent, shown inthe first panel, is enjoying an intimate moment with a docile andsubmissive native woman. Literally colored in deep black, the femalecharacter represents Africa. Unlike the French panel in the precedingcartoon, the whip in the hand of the colonial agent shows that this isnot consensual relationship, just like the European relationship toAfrica. In the next panel, the agent returns to his home in a genericEuropean metropole and is met enthusiastically by his innocent wife.

86 Madley, ‘From Africa to Auschwitz,” 439.

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She embraces him, but he does not embrace her in return. Dressed inan all black coat, the agent wears the skin of Africa, foreshadowingthat colonialism, like a sinister stowaway, has been carried back toEurope. In the third panel, domestic life has set in. The colonial agenthas lost his wild-west outfit, and sits in a chair bored and drunk,watching his wife perform her domestic duties. If the color blaclcstands in for Africa, painting the stove black shows an incorporationand transference of colonialism into the European home. From there,it spreads. In the next three panels, he paints his wife black, puts hiscolonial cowboy outfit back on, and gleefully whips her into submission.

A gendered analysis of this illustration says a great deal about relationships between men and women at this time. We see the malefigure as a colonial man-on-the-spot, pushing the empire forwardwhile his wife stays behind. The image maintains that in the colonialsetting, there is no place for European women. The female slave, oncedominated into submission, fulfills the sexual needs of the Europeanmale. Like Heine’s illustration on comparative colonial powers, racialmixing has corrupted the colonizer. He returns from his dutiesabroad, only to find that his experience has placed him outside ofsociety. There is no place for colonial fighters back home. As a retiredman, he does not assist his wife in any domestic duties, despite thefact that painting a cast iron stove seems to fall outside of feminineresponsibility. He sits around the home, bored and intoxicated. Hisboredom is broken when his colonial instincts return to him. It is notenough that colonialism has been painted into the home; he mustforce it into his wife.

The message of the comic is that colonialism has corrupted German men. They are no longer good husbands, but excessive brutes.The violence in the colonial setting has returned home and threatensto turn good husbands into bad males. The man does not beat his wifebut rather whips her. The illustration stresses that the victims ofcolonialism are the metropole’s females. From this perspective,colonialism is not harmful because it is exploiting Africans. Theproblem with colonialism is that it corrupts paternalism and threatensthe mothers of the imperial nations.

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4.

—. FIGURE4if.1 Simplicissimus,

3 May 1904-

i , Title: “Force of Habit”.& •1Note: Cartoon runs topdown, from left to right.

The illustration echoes Joseph Conrad’s message in Heart ofDarkness.The corrupting power of Empire is a great threat to Europeans. Theextent as to how much this particular image is meant as a directallusion to Heart ofDarkness remains speculative. The illustration waspenned Ferdinand Reznicelc, but the dearth of biographical information on many Simpticissimus artists makes it difficult, if not impossible, to uncover this artist’s intellectual influences. Certainly most ofthe bourgeois German writers and artists at this time would haveknown about Conrad’s groundbreaking work. Originally published inserial form in 1899, by 1902, the text had been bound into book formand was tremendously popular to Anglophone audiences. Heart ofDarkness was not translated into French and German until 1925 and

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1926, respectively, but the parallel messages of Conrad’s masterpieceand this illustration seem be more than coincidental.8 While intertextuality is difficult to prove, the concurring message shows that by1904, the colonial backlash drew off of the same notion—the greathorror of colonialism was that it is turning European men into

88 .brutes. The force of habit that has returned to the colonial agent inthe cartoon of the same name, is “uncontrolled violence of individuals” learned and practiced in the colonial setting.8

The contemporary events of rebellion and genocide in SouthwestAfrica, when converged with the outcome of the South African War,explain why the Simplicissimus colonial issue appeared in May 1904.

The ways in which the artists expressed their criticism of modernimperialism are show that, while on the surface each illustration was arejection of the colonial doctrine, the artists were also captives tocolonial thought.

In The Absent-Minded Imperialists, Bernard Porter argues thatmost Europeans’ were not concerned with events in the world’speriphery. He claims that their day to day lives had “little sympatheticcontact with the Empire” and in fact “[t]heir lifestyles and alternativediscourses alienated them from it.”9° While the production of only oneSimplicissimus colonial issue seems to substantiate Porter’s claim, itsvery existence shows that his blanket statement is a fallacy. Thecontext above shows that, at least in 1904, colonialism was very muchon the mind of certain bourgeois intellectuals, as well as the masspublic within Germany. Simplicissimus, while a representation ofmiddle-class thought, was also a product for consumption. Langenand Heine’s overall goal was to sell magazines, and this was donethrough satire of political relevant and highly topical subject matter.Their production of a special colonial issue should not be dismissed asa mere anomaly, but rather a reflection and interpretation of;9o4domestic and global events.

87 Translation dates found through author’s search of WorldCat.for a superb discussion of Conrad’s message in Heart of Darkness, see Sven

Lindqvist, ‘Exterminate all the Brutes’: One Man’s Odyssey into the Heart ofDarknessand the Origins ofEuropean Genocide (New York: The New Press, 1992).

89 Lindqvist, Exterminate all the Brutes, 123.90 Bernard Porter, The Absent-Minded Imperialists: Empire, Society and Culture in

Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 164. While Porter is largely discussingBritish public opinion, C.M. Andrew and A.S. Kanya-Forstner make the same argumentof French public indifference. See “Centre and Periphery in the Making of the SecondFrench Colonial Empire, 1815-1920,” Andrew Porter and Robert Holland (eds.), Theoryand Practice in the History ofEuropean Expansion Overseas, (London: Franlc Cass andCompany, 1988), 9, 28.

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While the artists of Simplicissimus were liberally aligned leftists,the art they produced was still very much a product of the times. Theirquestioning of African colonialism had less to do with its affect onAfricans than it did on the ways in which colonialism was harmingEuropeans. Racial depictions of Africans as primitives come throughin their art, as do nineteenth century concepts of masculinity andfemininity. Nevertheless, in an era of increased colonial pursuits, theMay 3, 1904 issue of Simplicissimus is one of very few anti-colonialprotests in Germany. And yet, a thick analysis of these three imagesproves that even the mindset of anti-colonial artists was deeplycolonized.

Jeremiah Garsha is a graduate student at San Francisco State, where hehas turned this article into his Master’s thesis. His academic interest iscomparative genocide with an emphasis on the collision ofEuropean andAfrican history. He plans to pursue a career as a History professor atthe university level.

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