i. Germany’s Overseas Expansion * Roger Chickering 1996 * Germany’s Kolonial reich (colonial empires) symbolized the country’s great power * Colonies gave assurance to economic security of the country, business expansion the bourgeois class and also to increase the people’s standard of living * Germany had already showed interest in overseas world * Due to Economic modernization, industries within Germany became dependent on overseas markets and the supplied raw materials * As large scale of emigration threatened Germany’s population, the only solution possible was for Germany to establish settlement colonies overseas * In 1884, Togo and Cameroon in West Africa, countries in Southwest Africa, Northeastern New Guinea and islands in the Pacific went under Germany * As well as areas in Micronesia, Samoa and Kiachow
* Dietrich Orlow 1999 * For Germany to be placed among the Great Powers, Germany necessarily has to acquire both navy and overseas empires. * Before World War I, Germany had already formed colonies and seized the Marshall Islands and the Bismarck Archipelago, Kiaochow of China, Cameroon, Togoland, German Southwest Africa (currently Namibia) and Germany East Africa (now Tanzania).
ii. Hegemonic Rule of Germany in the Succeeding World Wars and Cold War and the Consequences Brought * Roger Chickering 1996
World War I * It was believed that Germany’s desire for territories with Belgium, Luxemburg and Northern France has led to World War I * The war has been the cause of the excessive influence of soldiers in German politics at that time * Theobald von Bethman Hollweg, chancellor of Germany at that time, and the rest of the civilian leadership had supported programs regarding possessions of countries with the east and west in able to secure Germany’s hegemony on the European Continent as well as to