Carl Peters and German Imperialism 1856-1918

Book excerpt: Carl Peters (1856-1918) ranked among Germany's most prominent imperialists in the Bismarckian and Wilhelmine periods. In the 1880s he emerged as a leader of the colonial movement and became known as the founder of Deutsch-Ostafrika, a region many Germans regarded as the pearl of their overseas possessions. In Nazi Germany he was revered as a precursor of Hitler and ascended retrospectively to new glory as a pioneer in the struggle for Lebensraum. This scholarly biographyexamines Peters's nationalist agenda and sheds light on his colonial expeditions into East Africa. It seeks to explain how this young academic who had written about Schopenhauer and metaphysics eventually became a skilful agitator for a German world empire.