Migrant Activists and Cultural Spaces of Anticolonialism in Weimar Berlin

Abstract

Weimar Berlin was an anticolonial metropolis in the interwar period. After the ending of the Great War in 1918, Berlin developed into a hotbed of political activism, culminating in 1933 with the Nazi Party’s ascendancy to power, having migrants from the colonial and semi-colonial world arriving, living and working in the city. In this spatial and temporal setting established individuals, holding different national and cultural backgrounds, networks that overlapped with the political milieu of pacifism, socialism and communism in Germany. In some cases this resulted in anticolonial articulations that explicitly fused politics with culture. By mapping and locating these anticolonial articulations in Weimar Berlin, drawing inspiration from theoretical concepts on space and place, the essay analyze the spatial setting of anticolonial politics and culture, and how this constituted an articulated resistance against colonialism and imperialism, performed at theaters, in film, music, or curricular activities. The essay is based on archival research conducted in Berlin, Moscow and Stockholm.