German Missionaries Research Articles

THE PLIGHT OF GERMAN MISSIONS IN MANDATE CAMEROON: AN HISTORICAL ANALYSIS

A Primeira Guerra Mundial e seus sistemas resultantes de Mandato e Tutela afetaram consideravelmente a missão alemã nos Camarões. Além de causar a expulsão vigorosa de missionários alemães dos Camarões, os britânicos e os franceses que a Liga das Nações e as Nações Unidas conferiram sucessivamente com poderes de administração nos quadros de Mandato e de Tutela adotaram políticas hostis às missões alemãs. Desde o início da guerra até a era pós-Segunda Guerra Mundial, a fundação das missões alemãs estava seriamente ameaçada. Este artigo analisa criticamente o tratamento das missões alemãs tanto nos Camarões Britânicos como Franceses durante os períodos de Mandato e Tutela, concentrando-se especialmente nas atitudes de ambos os poderes administradores em relação às missões em suas esferas de influência. O artigo estabelece que o tratamento dispensado pelos poderes administradores às missões alemãs, sustentado por exigências imperiais e nacionalistas, despertou a realização da agenda tripartite de implantação de igrejas autossustentáveis, autônomas e auto evangelizadoras. Assim, argumenta-se que a Primeira Guerra Mundial desencadeou o maltrato das missões alemãs, sendo algumas delas obrigadas a encerrar suas atividades, enquanto outras foram autorizadas a continuar seu trabalho missionário sob duras condições.

German Missionaries and Australian Anthropology

ABSTRACTIn their primary task of converting Indigenous Australians to Christianity, German missions active in various parts of Australia through the nineteenth and into the twentieth century recorded relatively few successes. On the other hand, their endeavours in observing and recording Aboriginal languages and cultures have left a rich – and yet frequently overlooked – anthropological legacy. A common element in that legacy is their work in the area of linguistics, which they understood to be a necessary foundation for their evangelical work. Nonetheless, caution must be exercised in evaluating the German missionary contribution to Australian anthropology according to either national or religious paradigms. German anthropology, as practised within the community of missionaries and outside, evinces a variety of theoretical and methodological approaches. Moreover German anthropologists, including missionaries, were by the late nineteenth century connected into international knowledge networks.

Evangelism, Ethnography and Linguistics: Carl Strehlow and J. R. B. Love

ABSTRACTThis article considers the intersection of evangelism, ethnography and linguistics in the work of two missionaries living among Aboriginal communities in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Carl Strehlow was one of several German missionaries working in central Australia in the 1890s and into the twentieth century. J. R. B. Love met Strehlow briefly in 1913, but did not become a fully committed missionary himself until the 1920s. This paper first considers Strehlow’s evangelical, linguistic and ethnographic interests in relation to some of his German contemporaries, before comparing his approach to that of the younger, Presbyterian, Love to elucidate the inter-relationships between evangelism, linguistics and ethnography in the 1890s and early twentieth century in Australia.

Asia. The fifth column in World War II: Suspected subversives in the Pacific War and Australia By Robert Loeffel Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. Pp. 220. Plates, Notes, Bibliography, Index.

Asia. The fifth column in World War II: Suspected subversives in the Pacific War and Australia By Robert Loeffel Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. Pp. 220. Plates, Notes, Bibliography, Index. - Volume 48 Issue 2

Un análisis del trayecto histórico del currículo en Colombia Segunda mitad del siglo XX

Objetivo: dar cuenta del recorrido de las teorías curriculares que han soportado el devenir educativo en Colombia en la segunda mitad del siglo XX, tomando como base esencial la institucionalización de la segunda misión alemana y la propuesta de las guías de instrucción que dieron paso a la implementación de la Tecnología Educativa en los años 1960 y 1970, hasta llegar a la Ley General de Educación 115 de 1994, que surgió como fruto del gran Movimiento Pedagógico Colombiano promovido por los maestros del país a partir de 1982. Metodología: escrito de orden histórico- educativo, basado en el análisis documental. Hallazgos y conclusiones: en el análisis realizado se da cuenta de las diferentes, y en ocasiones paralelas, posturas que se presentaron en la época, las cuales respondían a intencionalidades más de orden económico que social en su instauración, lo cual por supuesto, afectó la naturalización de las propuestas curriculares en las instituciones escolares; en tanto se justificaron para algunos, desde lo que se presupuestaba en el mundo frente a estos temas, mientras que otros asumieron posturas críticas y férreo rechazo especialmente por parte de colectividades intelectuales, aspecto que se evidenció sobre todo con los postulados del Movimiento Pedagógico Colombiano.

Influencias externas en la organización del Ejército colombiano en la primera mitad del siglo XX

La profesionalización y organización del Ejército Nacional fue una tarea emprendida durante el periodo presidencial del general Rafael Reyes. Aunque presentó contradictores, su objetivo fue traer un selecto grupo de militares extranjeros del Ejército chileno. Ellos, con su experiencia y conocimiento, tuvieron a cargo la empresa de estructurar la carrera militar en el siglo XX, organizar la escuela de formación, escribir los manuales y establecer todo lo relacionado con la doctrina militar del país. Dispuesto así, se trajeron cuatro misiones chilenas a partir del año de 1907. Se eligió al Ejército chileno por la trayectoria de su formación militar, iniciada en 1885 cuando este contrató una misión alemana para que lo formara e instruyera en la doctrina militar de importancia a nivel mundial. Desde ese momento y por tal razón, el Ejército chileno se destacó entre los existentes para la época en Latinoamérica. Por este motivo, la profesionalización de la carrera militar en los inicios del siglo XX obedeció a una fuerte influencia chilena –y esta última, a su vez, de la escuela alemana–. Posteriormente, con la participación del Batallón Colombia en la Guerra de Corea, llegó la influencia norteamericana de la mano de la instrucción militar, el armamento, los uniformes y accesorios que recibieron los militares activos colombianos que participaron en la actividad bélica en nombre de los Estados Unidos de Norteamérica.

The Quest for an “Indigenous Church”: German Missionaries, Chinese Christians, and the Indigenization Debates of the 1920s

The Quest for an “Indigenous Church”: German Missionaries, Chinese Christians, and the Indigenization Debates of the 1920s

‘Fate Comes to the Mission Schools’: Fire at Bethel, 1953

In May 1953, students burnt down the buildings at the Bethel Training Institute run by German missionaries. The article draws on recent approaches to the study of fire in South African protest movements to argue that the incident was a turning point in the history of the institution. It argues that the fire can be understood as both destructive and productive. It destroyed existing institutional tensions around disciplinarian as opposed to liberal approaches to the governance and management of the institution. But it also paradoxically helped to usher in a new order, that of Bantu Education. As such, it provides insight into some of the material conditions of compliance of this Mission Society with the new emerging order of state control. The article explores both these dimensions: the internal educational regime of the institution thus revealed and how conditions were created for a rapid transition to state control. The article is based on a combination of mission and official sources.

Too hot to handle: A German Missionary’s Struggle with Ethnography in Australia

Too hot to handle: A German Missionary’s Struggle with Ethnography in Australia

Tranquebar: Charting the Protestant International in the British Atlantic and Beyond

From Boston to London, Germany to India, Protestants understood missionary work as a global process, one that flouted denominational, geopolitical, and oceanic divisions. The rise of Tranquebar, a Danish-controlled Indian seaport housing a German mission that was backed by London Anglicans and Puritan New Englanders, showcases how such connections were forged and what they meant for the people who created them. Tranquebar was one of the most widely lauded mission sites among British evangelists in the Atlantic world, but it was neither British nor in the Atlantic. Letters, sacred texts, anti-Catholic rhetoric, and a vision of a global Protestant takeover united Protestant evangelists and forged an expansive imagined community that scholars have called the “Protestant International.” And yet for British Protestants in the wider Atlantic, these connections fluctuated, evolved, and were ultimately unsustainable. The rise and fall of Tranquebar as an international and interdenominational mission site thus demonstrates the potential as well as the limits of a global approach to understanding the development of evangelical networks and transoceanic communities.

The Collapse Of The SVD Togo Mission (1914-1921)

This case-study is a study of the three stages of “The Collapse of the SVD Togo Mission (1914-1921)”: the Anglo-French Occupation (1914-1917); the Expulsion and Internment of the SVD Missionaries (1917-1918) and the Definitive Loss of the SVD Togo Mission (1918-1921). The investigation, based on archival sources of the SVD Generalate Archives in Rome (AG SVD) traced the unfolding of events within the international efforts to save the mission in the thriving Protectorate of Togo. The collapse of the SVD Togo Mission driven by rampant nationalism was brought about by the expulsion of its 53 missionaries in seven groups within three months. Even if the expelled German missionaries were pervaded by a deep spirit of patriotism, they were first and foremost religiously motivated men. In the end, they wound up as victims of the political entanglements. The Treaty of Versailles deprived the missions of significant apostolic forces. More than 1,000 German missionaries, including 130 Divine Word Missionaries, were thus excluded from mission territories as victims of political calculations. The SVD missionaries were released from internment within the year due to the urgent actions of their Superior General, Fr. Nikolaus Blum. They accepted the course of events in a truly apostolic spirit and received new assignments, mainly to the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia).

Sisters Crossing Boundaries. German Missionary Nuns in Colonial Togo and New Guinea, 1897–1960, written by Katharina Stornig

Sisters Crossing Boundaries. German Missionary Nuns in Colonial Togo and New Guinea, 1897–1960, written by Katharina Stornig

THE MAKING OF A BISHOP: PERSONAL REFLECTIONS BY A COMPANION ALONG THE WAY

With this text a German missionary, originating from the Lutheran Hermannsburg Mission, describes his way of service in southern Africa through which he is getting ever closer to Dr Manas Buthelezi. From the outset of Lüdemann’s ministry in KwaZulu-Natal he got to know the young but already widely acclaimed theologian (Buthelezi) in the same diocese. The intensive involvement of Buthelezi in the Black Consciousness Movement gave Lüdemann a deeper insight into his own challenges in apartheid South Africa, and at the same time he understood the critical position in which he had to see himself as a foreigner from Europe.Buthelezi ─ through various positions in his own Lutheran Church (Bishop of ELCSA-Central Diocese, Lutheran World Federation) and in the ecumenical context (Christian Institute, South African Council of Churches) ─ deepened his theological expression in view of the endangered society, and at the same time formulated the specific prophetic message of a relevant Christian gospel. This meant that he was severely challenged in conflicts between various interest groups. More and more he realised that he could with his ministry only survive through a clear scripture-related spirituality as part of the work of the Holy Spirit.

The Dwarf, the Goetzen and C. S. Forester’s African Queen: A Reassessment of Naval Operations in First World War Africa

ABSTRACTPublic awareness of the African theatre in the Great War stems largely from C. S. Forester’s 1935 novel The African Queen, and its subsequent 1951 film adaptation. Long thought to have been inspired by British activities on Lake Tanganyika, Forester’s novel more closely resembles events in Cameroon where German missionary Alphons Hermann attempted to sink HMS Dwarf using homemade torpedoes.

THE 2008-2009 EXCAVATIONS AT THE SAC LOCALITY, REBER-RAKIVAL LAPITA SITE, WATOM ISLAND, PAPUA NEW GUINEA

The Reber-Rakival site on Watom Island is of particular significance, as it is the first place where what is now known as Lapita pottery was found, by a German missionary in 1909. It is also significant as a Lapita-era burial site, although there has been much debate about the exact relationship between the burials and the Lapita occupation. In 2008 and 2009 an Otago University/Otago Museum/Papua New Guinea expedition carried out new excavations at the SAC site in Rakival Village, in order to increase the sample size of both burials and ceramics, and to address some of the ogoing debates. The expedition found more burials, Lapita ceramics and associated artefactual material, and while it confirmed the relationship between the burials and the Lapita occupation, it also found that previous excavations had not reached the base of the site, and evidence of human occuption was found up to 0.8m deeper than previously known. Based on this work, a refined stratigraphic sequence is presented, with 7 layers replacing the old 4 zone model that has been used to date. This paper presents the description and interpretation of the SAC locatily at Watom, and provides a basis for other more specialist papers that are in preparation.

The making of a bishop: personal reflections by a companion along the way

With this text a German missionary, originating from the Lutheran Hermannsburg Mission, describes his way of service in southern Africa through which he is getting ever closer to Dr Manas Buthelezi. From the outset of Ludemann’s ministry in KwaZulu-Natal he got to know the young but already widely acclaimed theologian (Buthelezi) in the same diocese. The intensive involvement of Buthelezi in the Black Consciousness Movement gave Ludemann a deeper insight into his own challenges in apartheid South Africa, and at the same time he understood the critical position in which he had to see himself as a foreigner from Europe. Buthelezi ─ through various positions in his own Lutheran Church (Bishop of ELCSA-Central Diocese, Lutheran World Federation) and in the ecumenical context (Christian Institute, South African Council of Churches) ─ deepened his theological expression in view of the endangered society, and at the same time formulated the specific prophetic message of a relevant Christian gospel. This meant that he was severely challenged in conflicts between various interest groups. More and more he realised that he could with his ministry only survive through a clear scripture-related spirituality as part of the work of the Holy Spirit.

Imaginary Conquest and Epistemology in Nineteenth-Century Adventure Literature: Africa in Jules Verne, Burmann, May, and Twain

The article examines fictitious adventure literature set in Africa from the last decades of the 19th century. In Cinq semaines en ballon (1863), Jules Verne surveysthe continent and thereby renders it accessible to European penetration. Carl Burmann (1880) and Karl May (1889) contribute to defining a specifically German mission in Africa. In Tom Sawyer Abroad (1894), Mark Twain uses the continent, and the West’s obsessive preoccupation with its mysteries, as a means to stage the negotiation of an epistemological agenda.

The European way to gravimetry: From GOCE to NGGM

The European gravity mission GOCE (Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer), which flew between 2009 and 2013 with extraordinary success, was the result of more than 20years of system studies and technology developments directed by the European Space Agency (ESA). Already while GOCE was being developed, ESA started preparatory studies for a Next Generation Gravity Mission (NGGM). While GOCE aimed to provide a high resolution static map of the Earth’s gravity, the objective of NGGM is long-term monitoring of the time-variable gravity field with high temporal and spatial resolution, by satellite-to-satellite tracking, a technique flown with the US–German mission GRACE for the first time. With respect to GOCE, the new mission implies new measurement techniques and instrumentation, a new mission scenario and different spacecraft design drivers. Despite the differences, however, several achievements of GOCE (e.g. demonstration of long-duration wide-band drag compensation, ultra-sensitive accelerometers, stable non-cryogenic temperature control in low Earth orbit) stand as the basis upon which NGGM is being defined. Technologies and techniques specific of the new mission (laser metrology, multi-task control architectures, high performance propulsion) are undergoing parallel developments in anticipation of the NGGM implementation phase. The paper recalls the GOCE mission and heritage, and introduces the objectives, scenarios, concepts and challenges of the NGGM, highlighting commonalities and differences between the two missions.

"Die Moderne macht sie geisteskrank!"

Abstract This article opens with a discussion of the British anthropologist and psychiatrist Margaret Field’s famous study of Ghana, “Search for Security” (1960), before going on to investigate the long history of discourses and practices hinged upon the idea that traumatic everyday experiences of modernity such as industrialization and agricultural mechanization induced insanity in so-called primitive peoples in tropical Africa. The article focuses especially on the way in which British, French, German, and North American psychiatric knowledge travelled to Africa from the late nineteenth century onwards before returning back to the Global North. Finally, the article presents two case studies from a mental hospital run by German missionaries in Tanganyika and a British colonial asylum in Kenya that underscore the manner in which tropical Africa served as a “living laboratory” (Helen Tilley) for frequently violent and abusive psychiatric research.

German Missionaries’ Views on Korean Funeral Rites During the Transition to Modernity

의례변화는 당대 사람들이 그 시대가 부과하는 변화를 받아들이는 온도를 측정할 수 있는 중요한 단서이다. 정치 경제의 여타의 변화와 달리 의례는 가문과 개인의 삶을 통제하고 조직해온 뿌리 깊은 전통에 대한 접근이기 때문이다. 1934년 발포된 『의례준칙』은 식민지 동화정책의 성격을 그대로 드러내주는 것이었다. 신주는 무시되었고 호곡은 무의미한 가장허식으로 폄하되었다. 상여 선소리가 금지되고 운구 때에 차량을 사용할 수 있다는 허가 규정이 개입되었다. 이는 죽음의 의례에서 격발되는 감정의 최고치를 무화시키고, 근대적 편의를 교묘히 혼합시킴으로써 민족 전통의 이데올로기를 점진적으로 부식시키는 장치였다. 조상숭배와 제사금지 규정으로 상례 실천에 수세적이었던 가톨릭 상례는 서구 기독교 의례 안에 한국의 전통적 요소를 가미하여 절충되었다. 그것은 교계제도와 교회주의에 치중한 상부구조에 의해 촉발된 것이 아니라 아래로부터 신자들의 자발적인 상호부조 운동에서 구체화된 것이었다. 『의례준칙』에 의한 강제적 변형과 기독교 의례와의 절충이라는 부분적 습합 속에서도 한국인들이 포기할 수 없는 예(禮)의 요소들이 있었고, 변화는 지연되거나 기형성을 띠었다. 그것은 ‘의례’에 대한 한국인들의 의식을 말해주는 것이며 독일 선교사들의 시선에 한국인들의 특유한 의식(意識)으로 포착되었다.