Honourable Soldier-Bureaucrats: Formations of Violent Identities in the Colonial Police Force of German Southwest Africa, 1905–18

Abstract

Policing in German Southwest Africa (1905–18) fell to a small force of German and African men called the Landespolizei. Charged with representing the colonial state and with claiming the monopoly of legitimate use of physical force, the policemen struggled to assert authority towards both the settler and the colonised population. The identities that emerged out of this uneasy position are the object of inquiry of this article.

I argue that honour played a significant role in the way colonial rule was executed in the everyday. The policemen of the Landespolizei were modern men of guns and paper. Their honour was the product of the correct coordination of violence and bureaucracy. White, black and mixed-race policemen aspired to respectable social standing, although racial hierarchy was preserved within this collective identity. Moreover, depending on the situation, policemen accentuated either their military or their civil duty, either their heroic or their paternalistic masculinity in order to be perceived as honourable. Above all, to the men of the police force, being policemen meant being authorised by the state and simultaneously being authors of the state. And the reciprocal reinforcement of individual and state honour made possible a highly adaptable state formation that seemed plausible to the actors of the colonial environment. The German colonial state was adaptable to various situations exactly because honour's reliance on external affirmation required improvised renegotiation in the everyday. This dynamic produced an effective and powerful colonial state with deeply transformative and devastating effects on the local society.

Notes

1 Report by Sergeant Julius Streibel, Windhuk, 30 Nov. 1908, Bundesarchiv Berlin-Lichterfelde (hereafter BA-B), Behörden des Schutzgebietes Deutsch Südwestafrika, Inspektion der Landespolizei, Sachakten, R 1002/ 2598, 55. For better readability, I have translated all titles and ranks into English equivalents: Polizeidiener = (African) police assistant; Polizist = constable; Sergeant = sergeant; Wachtmeister = staff sergeant; Diensttuender Wachtmeister = senior staff sergeant; Inspektionsoffizier = inspection officer; Inspekteur der Landespolizei = chief of police; Bezirksamtsmann = magistrate.

2 Ibid.

3 This article is based on my ongoing dissertation research in the Berlin and Windhoek national archives. Its ideas were first presented in a paper at the conference ‘German Post/Colonial History in a Global Age’ (Berlin, 15–17 Sept. 2011). I wish to thank all the participants in the conference who offered valuable feedback.

4 For Imperial Germany, although without taking into account the colonial theatre, see Goldberg, Honour, Politics, and the Law; for the British Empire, see Patterson, The Cult of Imperial Honour.

5 Iliffe, Honour in African History; Moyd, Violent Intermediaries.

6 In this way I wish to add an everyday, ‘bottom-up’ perspective to the scholarly debate about the nature of colonial states, their usage of violence and their limits of power. Historian Kathleen Wilson has very recently observed that ‘studies of the colonial state may seem to be characterized more by plentitude than by lack’. Wilson, ‘Rethinking the Colonial State’, 1294. For an introduction to the debate and the issues at stake, see Burbank and Cooper, Empires in World History, 1–22; Mamdani, Citizen and Subject, 3–34; Young, The African Colonial State.

7 For detailed numbers, see, for instance, annual report 1908 by Inspektion der Landespolizei, 14 May 1909, BA-B, R 1002/ 2672, 6–12; report 1909–10 by Inspektion der Landespolizei, 25 May 1910, BA-B, R 1002/ 2672, 28–30; Rafalski, Vom Niemandsland zum Ordnungsstaat, 71–75, 102. Two monographs have recently been published on the police in German Southwest Africa: Schepp, Unter dem Kreuz des Süden; Zollmann, Koloniale Herrschaft und ihre Grenzen. Both come to the conclusion that the police forces', and consequently the colonial state's, ability to enforce law and order were significantly limited.

8 For an introduction to police histories in Imperial Germany, see Funk, Polizei und Rechtsstaat; Jessen, ‘Polizei im Kaiserreich’; Lüdtke, ‘Sicherheit’ und ‘Wohlfahrt’; Lüdtke and Sturm, ‘Polizei, Gewalt und Staat’.

9 Rafalski, Vom Niemandsland zum Ordnungsstaat, 28.

10 Historian Mathieu Deflem comments on it only in passing in his study of the Nyasaland, Gold Coast and Kenya colonial police forces. Deflem, ‘Law Enforcement in British Colonial Africa’.

11 To name only few, Anderson and Killingray, Policing the Empire, and Policing and Decolonisation are the two important volumes that mark the beginning of an increased interest in British colonial policing in the early 1990s. The latest publications are Sinclair, At the End of the Line; Stapleton, African Police and Soldiers; Tollefson, Policing Islam.

12 For instance, Brewer, Black and Blue; Sinclair, At the End of the Line; Stapleton, African Police and Soldier.

13 Cynthia Enloe makes a similar observation for the social sciences: ‘So much of social science research on police has focused on only English and American police development. Those two cases have been poor bases for generalizations because (1) English and American police are atypical in their late acquisition of military arms and (2) they are atypical cross-nationally in their historical decentralization.’ Enloe, Police, Military, and Ethnicity, 139, n. 2.

14 The main corpus of regulations, the so-called Dienstvorschrift, was debated for almost two years, and when it was finally sent out in 1909, authorisation by the colonial ministry in Berlin was still pending. Circular by Chief of Police Joachim Friedrich Heydebreck, 18 Feb. 1909, BA-B, R 1002/ 2553, 56. Furthermore, local administrations did not necessarily forward the documents to their outlying police stations. Circular by Vice Governor Hintrager, 3 Jan. 1910, BA-B, R 1002/ 2552, 4.

15 For instance, how and when firearms were allowed to be used, and by whom, remained unclear up until the very end of German colonial rule. See the latest draft of a new regulation regarding firearm usage by Chief of Police Heinrich Bethe, 24 Jan. 1914, BA-B, R 1002, 2560, n.p.

16 Chief of Police Heinrich Bethe to Magistrate Berengar Zastrow (District Office Grootfontein), 9 June 1910, BA-B, R 1002/ 2709, 58.

17 Ausführungsbestimmungen gemäß Verordnung betr. die Rechtsverhältnisse der Landespolizei in Deutsch-Südwestafrika vom 4. Oktober1907, BA-B, R 1002/ 2692, 3.

18 See personnel files of the Landespolizei: BA-B, R 1002, 2792–3603.

19 Inspection Officer Hollaender (Police Depot Kub) to Inspektion der Landespolizei, 2 Aug. 1908, BA-B, R 1002/ 2601, 8–9.

20 Cf. historian Michelle Moyd's study of African soldiers in the German colonial service in German East Africa which gives a much more sophisticated answer to the question of why military service in a colonial army could have been appealing to African men. Moyd, Violent Intermediaries.

21 In 1910, Vice Governor Hintrager complained that policemen were still not doing enough riding training, and did not show the ‘required passion’ for shooting exercises. Oscar Hintrager to all local administration offices, 3 Jan. 1910, BA-B, R 1002/ 2489, 4. For an example of a weekly training schedule at police depot Waterberg, see report by Senior Staff Sergeant Hubert Knoche (Depot Waterberg), 27 June 1910, BA-B, R 1002/ 2535, 41.

22 For instance, the case of six policemen who had not properly saluted a Schutztruppe officer. Chief of Police Heinrich Bethe to Officer Saurma (Schutztruppe), 7 June 1911, BA-B, R 1002/ 2467, 35.

23 For instance, discussion of a ‘very portly [wohlbeleibt]’ sergeant in the report by Chief of Police Joachim Friedrich Heydebreck, Windhuk, 1 Feb. 1909, BA-B, R 1002/ 2693, 3; or the rejection of Sergeant Janowski for being too small (‘wegen zu geringem Größen-Maß’), Chief of Police Joachim Friedrich Heydebreck to Schutztruppe command, 9 Jan. 1908, BA-B, R 1002/ 2498, 15.

24 See, for instance, the application by Staff Sergeant Otto Olkiewicz, Nortof in Holstein, 12 March 1912, BA-B, R 1002/ 2501, 99.

25 Inspection Officer Hollaender (Police Depot Kub) to police headquarters, 23 Oct. 1908, BA-B, R 1002/ 2799, 18.

26 Qualification report of Constable Türk by Inspection Officer Hollaender (Polizeidepot Kupferberg), 17 July 1911, BA-B, R 1002/ 3513, 13.

27 Dedering, Hate the Old; Henrichsen, Herrschaft und Alltag; Lau, ‘Conflict and Power’.

28 Henrichsen, Herrschaft und Alltag, 256–64.

29 Iliffe, Honour in African History.

30 On epanga relationships, see Henrichsen, Herrschaft und Alltag, 228–31. On patron-client relationships, see, for instance, Moyd, Violent Intermediaries.

31 Bourdieu, ‘The Sentiment of Honour’, 208, 231.

32 Simmel, Gesamtausgabe, 602.

33 Ibid., 601. For a similar account of the partial internalisation of honour, see Iliffe, Honour in African History, 5–6, 246–61.

34 Simmel, Gesamtausgab, 599.

35 For an assessment of the difficulty of reconciling bourgeois norms and material constraints, see Windhuk government administrator Blumhagen's report to the colonial office in Berlin, 17 Aug. 1910, BA-B, R 1002/ 2431, 9.

36 Ibid.

37 Kundrus, Moderne Imperialisten, 77–96, 283.

38 Iliffe, Honour in African History,100.

39 See, for instance, §11 of the Dienstvorschrift für die berittene Landespolizei. Kaiserliches Gouvernement, 11–12.

40 Qualification report of Sgt. Johannes Boll by Magistrate Todt (District Office Windhuk), 5 Jan. 1914, BA-B, R 1002/2805, 67; qualification report of Sgt. Josef Ahlefelder by Magistrate Blumhagen (District Office Swakopmund), 9 Jan. 1908, BA-B, R 1002/ 2793, 25.

41 Patrol report by Senior Staff Sergeant Otto Donicht (District Office Karabib), 19 Sept. 1910, BA-B, R 1002/ 2709, 187–90. Chief of Police Bethe wrote in the margins (187) of the report: ‘Sehr guter Bericht und umsichtige Leitung.’

42 Examples of ‘prudent’: report re: Police Sgt. Link by Inspection Officer Hollaender to Distriktamt Gobabis, 10 Feb. 1910, BA-B, R 1002/ 2709, 231; of ‘attentive’ and ‘cautious’: patrol report by Senior Staff Sergeant Eggersglüß, Nanibas, 21 Jan. 1912, R 1002/ 2710, 204; of ‘conscientious’: qualification report for Sgt. Otto Müller by Distriktsamt Okahandja, 15 Dec. 1914, BA-B, R 1002/ 3224, 70.

43 Official complaint by Sergeant Bruno Lippke (Police Station Gurumanas) against farm steward Potthast (farm Naos), 24 April 1911, BA-B, R 1002/ 2466, 41–42, here 42: ‘Sie sind zu schlapp dazu, sie sind zu schlapp!’

44 ‘Die wehrlose Polizei’, Deutsch-Südwestafrikanische Zeitung, 25 Aug. 1909, no. 68, 2; ‘Polizei und Polizeitruppe in Deutsch-Südwest’, Deutsch-Südwestafrikanische Zeitung, 19 April 1913, no. 45, 3.

45 See, for instance, Constable Türk who, while on a farm visit, put a group of African men in chains, presumably because they could not show valid papers, and let them go the next morning after having dealt them ‘several blows into the face’. Judge Hirschberg (District Court Keetmannshoop), 24 May 1913, BA-B, R 1002/3513, 37. Or Sgt. Wandrei who ‘felt compelled to administer some blows’ to a prisoner who did not respond fast enough. Sgt. Hermann Wandrei (Police Station Gochaganas) to District Office Rehoboth, 30 July 1912, NAN, BRE, 34 E.5.e, 6.

46 Note by Section C, Windhuk government, re: official complaint against Sgt. Fick (Police Depot Spitzkoppe), 13 Dec. 1910, BA-B, R 1002/ 2466, 34.

47 Senior Staff Sgt. Heinrich Eggersglüß, (Police Station Maltahöhe), 17 May 1912, BA-B, R 1002/ 2710, 226.

48 For instance, confidential report by acting magistrate Ferse (District Office Bethanien) re: Sgt. Höning versus Sgt. Geffke, 29 April 1910, BA-B, R 1002/2466, 18–22, 24–26; or report re: Constable Fischer by Sgt. Wilhelm Reddig (Police Station Naukluft), 10 Jan. 1911, BA-B, R 1002/ 2416, 21–22.

49 For instance, reprimand of Sgt. Melzer who had caused a brawl in a bar. Magistrate Runck (District Office Warmbad), 28 July 1908, BA-B, R 1002, 1184, 24. When a fight was considered to have harmed the police force's reputation, it could however result in dismissal. See Vice Governor Oscar Hintrager to Sgt. Johann Sterzenbach (Police Station Choantsas), 18 Dec. 1912, BA-B, R 1002, 3483, 61.

50 See, for instance, an incident that occurred between Sgt. Max Kobert and Police Assistant Hendrik Frehse. Deposition by Sgt. Max Kobert and Police Assistant Hendrik Frehse (District Office Hasuur), 16 Feb. 1910, NAN, DAR, 18 E.II.5, 16–18. Or depositions by Sgt. Wilhem Wilhelmi and Police Assistant Lucas (Police Station Aninus), 19 Feb. 1913, NAN, DAR, 4 E.4.d, n.p.

51 Deposition by Sgt. Brumme (District Office Grootfontein), 19 Oct. 1906, BA-B, R 1002/ 281, 12–13.

52 Goldberg, Honour, Politics and the Law, 4.

53 Ibid., 13.

54 Weber, Gesamtausgabe, 161.

55 Emphasis added. Senior Staff Sergeant Karl Schlink (Police Depot Warmbad) to Police Depot Spitzkoppe, 11 Feb. 1913, BA-B, R 1002/ 2596, 56.

56 Examples of intervention and non-intervention: for the former, proceedings by Sgt. Hermann Hannemann (Police Station Rehoboth), 11 Sept. 1913, NAN, BRE, 28 E.2.d, 137; for the latter, statements by farmer Grüner collected by Sgt. v. Dufring (Police Station Okahandja), 16 Feb. 1908, BA-B, R 1002/ 2708, 35.

57 See, for instance, the role several African policemen played in a case of domestic violence in a Boer couple from South Africa. Statements collected by Sgt. Herold (Police Station Klipdam), 29 Sept. 1913, NAN, DAR, 4 E.4.d, n.p.

58 Cf., for instance, report by Vice Governor Oscar Hintrager to Colonial Office in Berlin, 30 Oct. 1908, BA-B, R 1001/ 1914, 53.

59 Report by Sgt. Johannes Becker (Police Station Ramansdrift), 22 Nov. 1908, National Archives Namibia (NAN), ZBU, 479 D.IV.o (vol. 1), 128.

60 Dienstanweisung über den Waffengebrauch der Polizeibeamten des deutsch-südwestafrikanischen Schutzgebiets, 4 Feb. 1914, BA-B, R 1002, 2560, n.p.

61 Weber, Gesamtausgabe.