Reichskolonialbund

Reichskolonialbund
Name	Reichskolonialbund
Formation	1936
Dissolved	1943
Type	Political organization
Headquarters	Berlin
Leader	Ernst von Harnack†
Affiliations	Deutsches Reich, NSDAP

Reichskolonialbund was a state-sanctioned German association founded in 1936 to coordinate colonial revisionism, propaganda, and settler advocacy after the loss of overseas territories in 1919. It operated as a cultural and political vehicle linking veteran associations, nationalist societies, and political activists to broader currents in Weimar and National Socialist-era politics. The organization sought restoration of former imperial possessions and promoted public support for territorial revision through exhibitions, publications, and educational programs.

History

The association emerged from a lineage of pre-1918 and interwar groups such as the Deutsch-Österreichische Kolonialgesellschaft, the Deutsche Kolonialgesellschaft, and the Hamburger Kolonialverein, adapting older imperial networks to the political climate shaped by the Treaty of Versailles, the Kapp Putsch, and the Occupation of the Ruhr. After the rise of the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei in 1933 and the Gleichschaltung policies that followed the Reichstag Fire Decree and the Enabling Act of 1933, various colonial organizations were either absorbed or marginalized. The association was created in the mid-1930s as part of a consolidation that also involved figures from the Alldeutscher Verband and veterans of the Schutztruppe from German Southwest Africa, Kamerun, Togoland, and Deutsch-Ostafrika. Its dissolution in 1943 reflected shifting priorities under wartime exigencies and directives from institutions like the Reichskanzlei and the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht.

Organization and Leadership

Leadership drew on aristocratic, military, and civil-service elites connected to the former Deutsches Kaiserreich. Prominent personalities associated with the movement included colonial veterans and intellectuals whose careers intersected with the Preußischer Landtag and the Reichstag (German Empire), and who had links to ministries such as the Reichsministerium des Innern and the Auswärtiges Amt. Administrative structure mirrored contemporary mass organizations exemplified by the Bund Deutscher Mädel and the Hitlerjugend in employing regional branches (Gaustellen) and centralized propaganda bureaus patterned after the Reichspropagandaleitung. Funding streams incorporated membership dues, donations from industrialists involved with the Deutsche Bank, and patronage from colonial entrepreneurs tied to firms like Deutsch-Ost-Afrika Kompanie and trading concerns in Hamburg and Bremen. Oversight frequently intersected with offices under Joseph Goebbels and the Reichsleitung der NSDAP without full party integration.

Ideology and Objectives

The association's ideology combined revanchist nationalism rooted in the aftermath of the Battle of Tsingtao and the loss recognized by the Treaty of Versailles with racial theories prevalent in Nazi racial policy and scientific racism debates engaging figures from the Kaiser Wilhelm Society. Objectives emphasized demand for restitution or compensation for former colonies, promotion of settler projects inspired by earlier plans for German East Africa, and cultivation of a German colonial consciousness through narratives that invoked explorers like Carl Peters and administrators such as Gustav Nachtigal. Racial hierarchy, Lebensraum discourses influenced by Friedrich Ratzel and Julius Streicher-era propaganda, and integration into broader National Socialist foreign policy goals created ideological consonance with the Foreign Policy of Nazi Germany while sometimes clashing with pragmatic wartime strategy advocated by the OKW.

Activities and Programs

Programs included public exhibitions modeled on earlier colonial displays in Hamburg and Berlin, publication of periodicals and pamphlets resembling outputs of the Deutsche Kolonialzeitung, and school curricula supplements aimed at youth organizations like the Jungvolk. The association coordinated commemorative ceremonies for colonial campaigns such as the Herero and Namaqua Genocide memory controversies and organized lobbying delegations to ministries, drawing on expatriate networks in former colonies and commercial ties to shipping companies like the Hamburg-Amerikanische Packetfahrt-Actien-Gesellschaft. It maintained pictorial archives, supported ethnographic displays linked to museums such as the Museum für Völkerkunde zu Leipzig, and staged lectures featuring speakers from the Kaiserliche Admiralität and academic institutions including the University of Berlin and the University of Göttingen.

Relations with the Nazi Party and German Government

Relations were complex: the association cooperated with the NSDAP and its propaganda organs while retaining semi-autonomous structures common to many Nazi-era mass organizations. Ties to the Reichsleitung der NSDAP and the Reichsministerium für Wissenschaft, Erziehung und Volksbildung facilitated access to schools and youth channels, but friction arose with agencies prioritizing immediate wartime diplomacy and colonial planning conducted by the Auswärtiges Amt and the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht. Some members entered party organs and the SS, while others remained in conservative networks linked to the Preußischer Staatsrat and the Reichslandbund. Policy alignment fluctuated as Nazi expansion in Europe and campaigns in Africa and the Afrikakorps theater shifted feasibility assessments.

Membership and Demographics

Membership encompassed former colonial administrators, veterans of the Schutztruppe, businessmen with interests in overseas trade, and civic activists from cities such as Hamburg, Bremen, Cologne, and Munich. Social composition leaned toward conservative middle and upper classes including civil servants, officers from the Reichswehr, and academics with affiliations to the Kaiser Wilhelm Institut. Membership rolls showed participation by youth groups, expatriate returnees from regions like German South West Africa, and families with ancestral ties to colonial enterprises; women’s auxiliary groups paralleled organizations such as the Deutscher Frauenverein.

Legacy and Historical Assessment

Historians assess the association as both a cultural heir to imperial colonialism and a vehicle that adapted colonial revisionism to National Socialist priorities, linking continuities from the German Empire to the Third Reich. Scholarship situates it within studies of colonial memory politics, post-1918 revanchism, and the interplay between conservatism and radicalism analyzed in works on the Weimar Republic, the Night of the Long Knives, and bureaucratic collaboration in the Third Reich. Debates continue over its role in normalizing colonial ideologies that fed into broader expansionist and racial policies during World War II, with archival material held in repositories such as the Bundesarchiv and municipal archives in Berlin and Hamburg informing recent reassessments. Category:Organizations established in 1936