Togoland was a German colony in West Africa, which was very prosperous and had a healthy economy. Togoland served as a model colony for the German Empire. The colony was important as well for its radiostation at Kamina. The Germans were keeping Togoland well infrastructure by building railways and roads in the colony for easier transportation of people and good. The colony became an agricultural hub for Germany and was vital to keep alive. This week’s episode is on the colony of Togoland.
Don't Forget to support me by visiting my Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/historyinsound
Also, visit my website at
And my Anchor account at
And if you want to support me on Anchor go to
And help me grow my Podcast for the Future but most importantly the present.
My Discord Server
Special Shoutout to Ben Coppersmith for the support of $1 a month. It doesnt sound like a lot but it really helps. Thank you so much.
It helps me grow my Podcast for the Future but most importantly the present.
Background
Togoland was a fairly small German territory in Africa along with the 3 other German territories of German East Africa, German Southwest Africa, and the Cameroons. Togoland was a protectorate of Germany since 1884 and was the smallest of the German African Territories, it was a small oblong-shaped possession on the Gulf of Guinea slightly larger than Ireland in landmass and had a population of about 1 million people in 1914. It’s 32 miles (52km) of seaboard on the Bight of Benin in the Gulf of Guinea formed part of what is often called the slave coast, for Togoland lay in the area which supplied the most slaves to the new world from 1560 and 1860. In the early 20th century Togoland was divided into 5 “administrative circles” those being Lomé-Ville, Lomé-circle, Anécho which was the capital from 1885 to 1887, Misahöhe and Atakpamé with its subdivision of Nuatja (Nuachia) and three “post circles” those being Kete Krachi, Sokode with Bassari for subdivision, Sansanné-Mango with its subdivision of Yendi.
Economy:
Togoland was able to become a model little colony in less than 40 years because of effective management by the Germans allowing the colony to have a stable government and a reasonably prosperous economy. By 1914 it was the only German colony to become financially independent from the Fatherland. The Germans had made the southern area one of the most developed colonies in Africa. Togoland was acknowledged as a small but treasured possession. In the years just before World War I, Lomé had grown into the "prettiest town in West Africa". The currency that Togoland used was the German Gold Mark. In 1894 The German Polizeitruppe conducted operations against Kpandu, and "a number of towns in central Togo which had resisted the government was attacked and razed to the ground, the property of the inhabitants confiscated and the people fined sums ranging from 200 marks to 1,110 marks."
Agriculture:
Agriculture-primarily the growing of yams, maize, and cotton-was fostered and a handful of efficient government officials exhibited a more careful consideration for the well-being of the inhabitants than was shown by Europeans in most African colonies.
The "Kolonial-Wirtschaftliche Komitee" known as the Colonial Economic Committee (KWK) was a non-profit for the German Empire based in Berlin that worked in German colonies. Its jobs were the Development of traffic with and in the colonies, especially the railway network there, Promotion of the settlement of Germans in the protected areas, Promotion of raw material production in the colonies in the interests of domestic industry and folk nutrition, and Increase in sales of domestic industrial products, especially those of the machine industry in the colonies. Early in 1900, the KWK began to devote special attention to extending the cultivation of cotton in the German colonies. The Committee had obtained financial aid from the German Government, and the assistance of scientific men, and instituted experiments on the best method of cultivation, and also organized a system of encouraging the industry amongst the natives by purchasing cotton from them and by establishing ginning and baling machinery at suitable centers.
Cart with the inscription KWK during the cotton transport in the German colony Togo
Togo, adjoining the British Gold Coast Colony, was the first locality selected for their operations; here the export of cotton was raised from nothing up to 100 tons in 1904, and the harvest from 1904-1905 was estimated at 250 tons of ginned cotton. A training farm for natives was in operation at Nuatscha. The colony was based on the establishment of plantations and export of food and palm oil.
Gold Coast Colony of The British
To ensure native labor for these estates the natives were subjected to a poll tax of 6 marks. per head annually. In order to pay it, and with rare exceptions they had no other means, they were obliged to sell themselves for a part of the year. This made the cultivation of their own farms difficult. To add to the difficulty they were subjected to annual corvees. In large gangs they were transported from one part of the country to another, and, under conditions which caused a high rate of mortality, forced to labor on the making of roads and other works. Almost always these demands coincided with their own seed-time.
A shackled female corvée worker in a phosphite mine, German Togoland, 1910.
through the resultant losses of their crops, they were brought down to a state of abject penury. Since, too, their cotton could now only be sold to Germans, it became no uncommon practice for a German official, when the crop was ripe, to come along, inspect it, and "purchase" it for one shilling, or two shillings. But the grievances of the natives were not economic merely. There were the same punishments without inquiry and the same abuse of the lash for infringements of a Code of which the natives remained totally ignorant. And in regard to native women, there was the same disregard for honor and decency. In a word, Togoland became in West Africa an area of misery from which all who could escape across its boundaries.
Natives of Togoland
Geography:
Its width averaged 120 miles (193km) and its length 300 miles (484km). The territory had a mountain range with heights of over 3,000 ft (910m) that ran south-east to north-west and restricted traffic between the coast and the hinterland. South of the high ground, the ground rises from coastal marshes and lagoons to a plateau about 200-300ft (61-91m) high, covered in forests, high grass, and scrub. The climate of Togoland was tropical with more rainfall in the interior and away from the mountains, August was usually a rainless month. The temperature in the shade hovered around 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32.2 C) and the high level of humidity sapped strength from men and women who worked, particularly if they were European.
Satellite image of Modern Day Togo
Border:
The small 34,934 square mile (or 90,476 Square Kilometers) territory of Togoland was sandwiched by the Gold Coast territory of the British, modern-day Ghana, to the West and Dahomey, modern-day Benin, to the east. To the north was French upper Senegal and Niger. Half of the Border with the Gold Coast ran along the Volta river and a tributary but in the south, the border was beyond the east bank for about 80 miles (130km).
Infrastructure:
The infrastructure of the colony was developed to be one of the highest levels in Africa. There were 3 short metre-gauge railways laid from the capital city, the main city, and chief port of Lome, going northwest, east, and north. The northern line terminated just past Atakepamé near Kamina, approximately 100 miles (161 km) from Lome. The three rail lines went from Lome: a 27-mile (43 km) long line along the coast to Aného near the French frontier in 1905 which transported coconuts, a 74 mile (119 km) long line to Palime (modern-day Kpalimé) in 1907 which transported cocoa and coffee, and the longest railway line, the Hinterlandbahn, about 100 miles long to Atakpamé by 1911 and blitta which transported cotton. All terminals ended in the Lome wharf. Colonial officials had also built roads and bridges towards the interior mountain ranges. By 1914, over 1,000 km (621 miles) of roads were built allowing the linking of rich agricultural hinterland with the coast. The roads had been built from Lome to Atakpame and Sokode, Palime to Kete Krachi, and from Kete Krachi to Sansame Mangu; in 1914 the roads were reported to be fit for motor vehicles. There was no port in Togoland and ships had to lie off Lome and transfer freight via surfboat but a wharf at Lome was built in 1904.
Togoland in 1914
Train station in Agbeluvhoe, German Togoland
Togo, Lome, loading cotton bales
Loading the cotton on the Lome bridge.
Africa, Togo
On the route to Atakpamé
Kamina Wireless Station:
Kamina Funkstation was a shortwave radio transmitter in the German-occupied colony of Togoland
The wireless station was built by Telefunken near the village of Kamina, in Togoland. Telefunken was a German radio and television apparatus company, founded in Berlin in 1903, as a joint venture of Siemens & Halske and the Allgemeine Elektricitäts-Gesellschaft (AEG) (General electricity company). Telefunken, on behalf of the German government from 1911 to 1914 created the station. The station was designed as a node and switching point for other German colonial radio stations.
Kamina wireless station was completed in July 1914 and was a pivotal point for German naval communications in the Atlantic. Its nine masts meant it was high-powered enough to link all of Germany’s African colonies with Berlin. This enabled it to send reports of Allied naval movements around the coast of Africa. The British feared this would put troopships from Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa in danger of attack.
Merchant ships were also at risk. Britain relied heavily on its empire for resources, from steel to wool to horses. A British liner carrying 30,000 chests of tea was captured by a German cruiser off the east coast of Africa, just two days into the war.
In the words of the Governor of The Gold Coast, Sir Hugh Clifford, this station was: “destined to be the pivotal point of the German worldwide wireless system . . . designed to communicate with Berlin on the one hand, with Windhoek in German southwest Africa, and with Dar Es Salaam on the east coast with the other”. The station could also communicate easily with the Cameroons and with German ships in the Atlantic Ocean.
An aerial mast at the Kamina Funkstation, (wireless transmitter)
Kamina transmitter
The main wireless station of Kamina after its seizure by French troops
Government:
Efforts had been made to reconcile the natives to German rule. This process began in the schools, where the children were taught to sing the German national anthem and to wave German flags; the teaching of English formerly common in the mission schools was abandoned. But the emigration of natives to the Gold Coast, which had resulted from the harsh methods of Herr W. Horn (governor 1902-1905) and other officials was still marked in 1913, while on the east there was a similar attraction to Dahomey.
Herr Horn had been dismissed for misconduct; his successor, Count J. von Zech, was more conciliatory to the natives and gave much attention to the development of railways and trade. In 1912 Germany made a departure in its colonial appointments by sending out as governor a member of one of the reigning families. The last German Governor of Togo in 1914 was Adolf Friedrich, Herzog von Mecklenburg-Schwerin, a relative of the Russian Czars through Catherine the Great. Mecklenburg, who was known as the leader of an expedition which had crossed Africa. The duke had overseen the linking up of Togoland to Germany by submarine cable (Jan. 1913), the extension of agriculture, and an expansion of exports.
Julius von Zech auf Neuhofen [de],
Governor
27 July 1905 to 7 November 1910
Governor
19 June 1912 to 31 August 1914
As the Governor of Togoland, Duke Adolf Friedrich zu Mecklenburg was on leave in Germany the military commander and acting governor was Major von Doering. Maj. von Döring had the advantage in the critical days of July 1914 of direct communication with Berlin by a wireless station at Kamina, which had just been erected. He made preparations to invade Dahomey, on the assumption that Great Britain would not enter the war. When this supposition was proved to be the wrong Maj. von Döring received instructions from Berlin to propose that Togoland and the adjacent French and British colonies should remain neutral. The offer was made to the local authorities concerned but was rejected, in the case of the British by order of the Colonial secretary in London. The chief concern of Berlin in regard to Togoland was to preserve the use of the Kamina wireless station, through which they could communicate with all the other German colonies in Africa.
Hans Georg von Doering [de],
acting Governor
August 1914
The Future of German African:
The Germans were very anxious to keep their footing in this part of Africa. Togoland was looked upon as the nucleus of a much larger possession. Assuming German success in the war, the probabilities were judged to be that the African dependencies of the German Empire would stretch across the Continent from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean, and from the Mediterranean to the northern boundary of the South African Union. In brief, the Union would become the only non-German part of Africa, and even that an appanage. In 1914 these ambitions were no secret. That Germany aspired to found in Africa a vast consolidated dominion was a project which had reached the stage of public discussion.
Many Assumed Maps of the World and Africa if Germany and the Central Powers Won
The German Tropical Empire was to comprise not only both German and British East Africa, but the Congo Free State and French Equatorial Africa, thus linking East Africa up with the Cameroons. And on the north, it was to comprise Uganda and the Soudan, with Egypt and Tripoli, again becoming nominally Turkish but really German dependencies. There was even in view a German express route from Berlin via the Mediterranean to Timbuctu. On the south, the possession was to be linked up with German South-west Africa by the annexation of Portuguese Angola, and Rhodesia as well as Nyasaland, and Portuguese East Africa. The capability of these African territories of supplying raw materials for the German industry at a cheap rate had been carefully gone into, and the easiest means of economical control by an apparent alliance for the time being with Mohammedanism in the north schemed out.
Military Forces:
Given the bellicose nature of the Kaiser’s Imperial Germany, it is curious that Togoland was the only colony on the West Coast of Africa without a standing army. There existed only a paramilitary police force, the Polizeitruppe. The police force consisted of a commander and deputy commander, 10 German sergeants, 1 native sergeant, and 660 Togolese policemen and consisted of two regular officers seconded from the German Army and six German Polizeimeisters. 693 Polizeitruppen (paramilitary police) were under the command of Captain Georg Pfähler, 560 being African non-commissioned officers and men. There were no German army Schutztruppe units but there were believed to be 800 armed police and 200 or more German civilians who had received some military training. Most of this force was scattered about the colony in small posts; it was clearly designed for internal security and police work.
A native army of from 60,000 to 80,000 men, trained on European methods, and scientifically equipped, could, it was computed, be maintained without costing the German Imperial Treasury a cent. Most of this force was scattered about the colony in small posts; it was clearly designed for internal security and police work.
Polizeitruppe training with rifles
Lance Corporal Alhaji Grunshi of the Gold Coast Regiment
Comments