PAN-GERMAN PROPAGANDA AND CHINA: THE AIMS OF GERMAN COLONIAL POLICY IN CHINA IN THE LATE 19TH – EARLY 20TH CENTURIES

Abstract

The article analyzes Pan-German propaganda regarding German colonial policy in China (late 19th – early 20th centuries) and describes German-Chinese diplomatic relations in the context of the establishment of the German colonial presence in Kiautschou, as well as the role and significance of the Pan-German League in forming imperial colonial discourse. Key points concern the development of public opinion in Germany regarding colonial policy with the participation of the Pan-German League. The ideas of living space, racial superiority and imperial power, actively developed in the second half of the 19th century, were reworked into the ideology of social radical nationalist associations of the Wilhelmine era, which were systematized in the context of Pan-Germanism. The German colony at Kiautschou was to become a “Musterkolonie”, reflecting the intention of the German elite to compete with the existing colonial empires and avoid fighting, unlike previously, with the local native populations of Africa and Asia, as well as with the governments of economically and politically underdeveloped countries. Pan-German colonial propaganda, oriented, among other things, to this task, nevertheless had as its goal the formation of public opinion within the Reich. The solution to this problem, given the high publication activity within the country (the publication of Alldeutsche Blatter and the purchase of mass periodicals), was due to strategic goals related to direct influence on the Reich government. In the context of Pan-Germanism, the structurization of the previously isolated colonial movement took place, which, thanks to the efforts of the Pan-German League, became one of the leading factors of public opinion.