Imperialism And Colonialism
Race Power, Freedom, And The Democracy Of Terror In German Racialist Thought

When Chancellor Bismarck suddenly undertook a policy of overseas expansion in 1884, Germany was almost wholly unprepared for the legal and ideological stresses of colonial domination. Since it was determined from the outset that overseas polities would not be brought into the German federation as member states, the German constitution provided no model for the incorporation of colonial territories and German citizenship law was equally useless for defining the status of Germany's new subjects. Dominant thinking among officials and the public was very much influenced by the traditions of the old Prussian territorial state, where expansion was generally coupled with inclusion, irrespective of national or ethnic affiliations. So, for example, Prussia counted Danish and Polish speakers as its citizens and defined belonging in terms of loyalty and obedience to the monarchy. This tradition of legal assimilation informed the approach of many officials and members of the public towards Germany's colonies and especially towards the people living there, leading to confusion and contradiction among legal scholars, state offices, colonial bureaucrats, the press, and ordinary Germans.