The servants of empire : sponsored German women's colonization in Southwest Africa, 1896-1945

Capturing the history of thousands of German women recruited to colonize Southwest Africa between the 1890s and 1940s, __The Servants of Empire__ engages a radical nationalist history of German efforts to prevent interracial unions and establish permanent white settlement. As colonists, sponsored women often supported or even helped perpetrate extreme patterns of racist violence and vigilantism in Namibia, which linked them inextricably to marked atrocities such as the Herero and Nama Genocides. Navigating the intersections of German attitudes toward race, class, ethnicity, gender, and nation, this revealing study traces the German settler community’s gossip and rumors to uncover how the many poor white female settlers in Southwest Africa disrupted bourgeois race and gender relations and contributed to the trenchant sexual and racial violence in the territory. "Capturing the history of thousands of German women recruited to colonize Southwest Africa between the 1890s and 1940s, The Servants of Empire engages a radical nationalist history of German efforts to prevent interracial unions and establish permanent white settlement. As colonists, sponsored women often supported or even helped perpetrate extreme patterns of racist violence and vigilantism in Namibia, which linked them inextricably to marked atrocities such as the Herero and Nama Genocides. Navigating the intersections of German attitudes toward race, class, ethnicity, gender, and nation, this revealing study traces the German settler community's gossip and rumors to uncover how the many poor white female settlers in Southwest Africa disrupted bourgeois race and gender relations and contributed to the trenchant sexual and racial violence in the territory"-- Provided by publisher. Contents List of Illustrations Acknowledgments List of Abbreviations Map of South West Africa Introduction. Sponsored German Women’s Settlement in German South West Africa Part I. The Origins and Biopolitics of German Women’s Settlement Chapter 1. Colonial Fanaticism Chapter 2. “The Defi lement of Our Daughters” Chapter 3. The Race War Part II. Colonial Gossip, Moral Panics, and Racial Conflict Chapter 4. The Malice of Native Women Chapter 5. A Moral Danger for the Children of White Mothers Chapter 6. African Stories Part III. German Women’s Colonialism after the Loss of the German Colonies Chapter 7. German Colonial Women in World War I Chapter 8. Weimar Women’s Colonial Activism Chapter 9. German Women and the Nazi Colonial Movement Conclusion Appendix Bibliography Index