logo
episode-header-image
Feb 2023
52m 9s

Germany’s colonial past – A historical b...

Common Ground Berlin
About this episode

Germany’s colonial history isn’t something many Germans like to talk about – Some argue they weren’t as “bad” as other European colonialists or that focusing on German colonialism draws attention away from the horrors perpetrated by the Nazis during World War II. But critics of German silence over its colonial past argue those narratives ignore the impact Germany had on the places it colonized and perpetuate German racist attitudes to this day.

Host Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson and Senior Producer Dina Elsayed probe German colonialism and its modern-day consequences with cultural activist and journalist Nadja Ofuatey Alazard; MP and cultural policy spokesman Helge Lindh (SPD), and Hermann Parzinger, historian and president of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation. 

Dina Elsayed produced this episode.

The music is 'Delicates' by Blue Dot Studios. 

Up next
Dec 2024
The future of Common Ground Berlin
Happy New Year and what's next for Common Ground Berlin! 
56s
Dec 2024
The elusive “Führerschein” – Why drivers from abroad have a hard time getting a license in Germany.
Jen Palacios of Simple Germany in Dusseldorf and Matthias Roth of Asphalt-Profis in Berlin join host Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson in an informative and humorous conversation about the woes of getting a driver’s license in the land of Autobahns.Produced by Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson and Ede ... Show More
30m 2s
Dec 2024
Sprechen Sie Deutsch? And should you, if you live and work in Germany?
Host Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson explores whether people who move to Germany actually need to learn German with Steffen Sottung, managing director of international affairs at the Federal Employment Agency in Nuremberg; Britta Schneider, professor of language use and migration at Europ ... Show More
44m 8s
Recommended Episodes
Feb 2014
H. Glenn Penny, “Kindred by Choice: Germans and American Indians since 1800” (UNC Press, 2013)
If you have spent a bit of time in Germany or with German friends, you may have noticed the deep interest and affinity many Germans have for American Indians. What are the origins of this striking and enduring fascination? In many ways, it might be said to go back to Tacitus’ Ger ... Show More
50m 38s
Nov 2023
Jürgen Zimmerer, "Memory Wars: New German Historical Consciousness" (Reclam Verlag, 2023)
Erinnerungskämpfe: Neues deutsches Geschichtsbewusstsein (Ditzingen: Reclam, 2023) is a new, provocative volume on German memory cultures and politics edited by Jürgen Zimmerer. What can be loosely translated as Memory Wars: New German Historical Consciousness is a collection of ... Show More
1h 1m
Dec 2014
Michelle Moyd, “Violent Intermediaries: African Soldiers, Conquest, and Everyday Colonialism in German East Africa” (Ohio UP, 2014)
In her imaginative and scrupulous book, Violent Intermediaries: African Soldiers, Conquest, and Everyday Colonialism in German East Africa (Ohio University Press, 2014), historian Michelle Moyd writes about theaskari, Africans soldiers recruited in the ranks of the German East Af ... Show More
1h 6m
Feb 2024
The Ethnic Cleansing of the Germans
On today's episode, we set the background context for a topic in history that often isn't covered - the ethnic cleansing of Germans from European countries post WW2. Covering the lead-up to the cleansing, we explore how it came about that up to 15 million Germans were forcibly di ... Show More
1h 30m
May 2018
Dan Bendarz, “East German Intellectuals and the Unification of Germany: An Ethnographic View” (Palgrave, 2017)
In his new book, East German Intellectuals and the Unification of Germany: An Ethnographic View (Palgrave 2017), Dan Bednarz, Assistant Professor at Bristol Community College, examines the impact of German unification on East German intellectuals. Through a series of interviews c ... Show More
1 h
Dec 2022
Germany's Extreme Monarchists
Last week a celebrity chef, former police officers and serving army officers were arrested in Germany as part of an extremist coup to overthrow the government. The 'Reichsbürger' group has been described as a 'right-wing terrorist cell' by German media and was targeted by over 30 ... Show More
23m 44s
Dec 2023
Nazi Germany: the myth of the innocent bystander
In 1945, after defeat in the Second World War, many Germans claimed to have known nothing about what had happened to their fellow Jewish citizens – and with that, the idea of the ‘innocent bystander’ was born. But just how true was this claim? Delving into a rich archive of perso ... Show More
37m 18s
May 2023
German child evacuees of World War Two
Beginning in 1940 thousands of German children were evacuated to camps in the countryside to avoid the bombs of World War Two.These camps were seen as safe places where they could continue their education but also where Nazi beliefs could be taught. Alex Collins has listened to a ... Show More
9m 10s
Apr 2021
Erik Grimmer-Solem, "Learning Empire: Globalization and the German Quest for World Status, 1875-1919" (Cambridge UP, 2019)
The First World War marked the end point of a process of German globalization that began in the 1870s, well before Germany acquired a colonial empire or extensive overseas commercial interests. Structured around the figures of five influential economists who shaped the German pol ... Show More
1h 12m
Nov 2016
Benjamin Martin, “The Nazi-Fascist New Order for European Culture” (Harvard UP, 2016)
Benjamin Martin’s The Nazi-Fascist New Order for European Culture (Harvard University Press, 2016) examines the attempt by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy to forge a European cultural empire out of their military conquests during World War II. Martin shows that the idea of Europe ... Show More
1 h