Controversial kinship: From colonial rule to the Holocaust?

European colonialism was marked by the — often extremely violent — exploitation of people and resources. [Pictured: Clearing of land by setting grass on fire during a German research expedition to Tendaguru in German East Africa, 1909–1913] Image: Archiv/Museum für Naturkunde

Racial hierarchy, dehumanization, concentration camps, settler expansion in the name of "living space," collective punishment and mass violence: At first glance, the continuities between colonial and Nazi violence appear obvious. In 1941, Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler himself compared Eastern Europe to "Germany's India" after the British colonial model, declaring that "like the English, we shall rule this empire with a handful of men."

But the extent to which Nazism was shaped by the age of empire, and whether the two systems of violence can even be compared, remains the subject of intense debate. This is particularly true in Germany, where the fear is often expressed that any comparison risks relativizing or minimizing Nazi crimes, and particularly the Holocaust . Others have argued that the intense focus on the Nazi era has, at least in part, come at the expense of a meaningful reckoning with Germany's colonial history.

本文の著作権はDeutsche Welleにあります。