Remembering the Germans in Ghana

Dennis Laumann

Remembering the
Germans in Ghana

PETER LANG

New York • Bern • Frankfurt • Berlin

Brussels • Vienna • Oxford • Warsaw

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Laumann, Dennis, author.
Title: Remembering the Germans in Ghana / Dennis Laumann.
Description: New York: Peter Lang.
Series: American university studies. IX, History; vol. 209 | ISSN 0740-0462
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2007000752 | ISBN 978-0-8204-8621-5 (cb: alk. paper)
ISBN 978-1-4331-4403-5 (ebook pdf) | ISBN 978-1-4331-4404-2 (epub)
ISBN 978-1-4331-4405-9 (mobi)
Subjects: LCSH: Germans—Ghana—History.
Classification: LCC DT510.43.G47 L38 | DDC 966.7/00431—dc22

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017013132

DOI 10.3726/b11203

Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek.

Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the “Deutsche
Nationalbibliografie”; detailed bibliographic data are available
on the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de/.

Cover image: Kente cloth from Kpetoe in the Volta Region of Ghana,
from the personal collection of the author. Photo by Keith Bratton.

© 2018 Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., New York
29 Broadway, 18th floor, New York, NY 10006
www.peterlang.com

All rights reserved.
Reprint or reproduction, even partially, in all forms such as microfilm,
xerography, microfiche, microcard, and offset strictly prohibited.

About the author

DENNIS LAUMANN is Professor of African History and Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of History at The University of Memphis. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles and he is the recipient of numerous teaching awards. Laumann is also author of Colonial Africa, 1884–1994 (2013).

About the book

Memories of the German presence in the central Volta Region of Ghana are deep and vivid. This ethnically diverse area was part of the German Togoland colony from roughly 1884 to 1914 but German-speaking missionaries established stations earlier in the mid-nineteenth century. Ghanaian oral historians describe the violence, burdens, and inconveniences they associate with German rule, yet place greater emphasis on the introductions by German missionaries of Christianity and western education and the prevalence of what they say was the “honesty,” “order,” and “discipline” of the German colonial period. Remembering the Germans in Ghana examines this oral history, scrutinizes its sources and presentation, contextualizes it historically, and uses it to make larger arguments about memory and identity in Ghana. It also presents the case for more deliberate and extensive use of oral history in reconstructing the African colonial past and provides a methodology for its collection and analysis.

This eBook can be cited

This edition of the eBook can be cited. To enable this we have marked the start and end of a page. In cases where a word straddles a page break, the marker is placed inside the word at exactly the same position as in the physical book. This means that occasionally a word might be bifurcated by this marker.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations

List of Tables

Acknowledgments

Preface

Chapter One: Theoretical and Methodological Contexts

Chapter Two: Cultural and Historical Contexts

Chapter Three: A Written History of the “Model Colony”

Chapter Four: An Oral History of “Gruner’s Time”

Chapter Five: Nostalgia, Neglect, and Nationalism under the British

Chapter Six: German Scholars, Performance, and Sites of Memory

Conclusion

Index ←ix | x→ ←x | xi→

Illustrations

Figure 1.1 Central Volta Region with interview sites highlighted

Figure 2.1 Ghana with Volta Region highlighted

Figure 2.2 Julius Agbigbi, an oral historian in Akpafu Todzi

Figure 2.3 Emmanuel Amanku, an oral historian in Akpafu Todzi

Figure 3.1 Hans Gruner, from his collection

Figure 3.2 Dagadu II, from the collection of Hans Gruner

Figure 3.3 German Togoland

Figure 4.1 Dagadu II with German colonial officials, from the collection of Hans Gruner

Figure 4.2 The bridge at Gbefi, from the collection of Hans Gruner

Figure 4.3 Nicholas Asamani, a blacksmith in Kpandu

Figure 4.4 Jane Atakumah, granddaughter of Dagadu III

Figure 6.1 Theresa Nyagbe, an oral historian in Hohoe

Figure 6.2 Mathias Yevu Tegbe, an oral historian in Hohoe ←xi | xii→ ←xii | xiii→

Tables

Table 1.1 Territories in which the central Volta Region has been included

Table 1.2 Interview sites during 1996–97

Table 1.3 Occupations of oral historians

Table 1.4 Numbers of female oral historians

Table 1.5 Languages in which interviews were conducted

Table 1.6 Progression of the typical interview

Table 3.1 District officials in Misahöhe

Table 5.1 Ewe populations in 1956

Table 5.2 Results of 1956 Plebiscite in British Togoland ←xiii | xiv→ ←xiv | xv→ ←xv | xvi→

Acknowledgments

Many individuals, in different ways, and over the years, contributed to making this book possible, and I apologize if I neglect to acknowledge anyone who somehow influenced this work. First and foremost, I am profoundly thankful to the oral historians in the central Volta Region who allowed my co-researchers and me to interview them.

As an undergraduate student at Binghamton University, I benefited from the wisdom and kindness of my advisors Akbar Muhammad and the late Ali A. Mazrui. At the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), I was fortunate to be advised by the great historians Christopher Ehret, the late Boniface I. Obichere, and above all my mentor Merrick Posnansky, as well as the anthropologist Anna Simons, as I carried out my research and wrote my dissertation. Many graduate school friends helped shape the ways I think and write about African history, especially Nwando Achebe, Agbenyega Adedze, Gibril R. Cole, T.J. Desch-Obi, Mary Dillard, Catherine Cymone Fourshey, Rhonda Gonzales, L. Lloys Frates, Michael R. Mahoney, Kendahl Radcliffe, Jasamin Rotsam-Kolanyi, Bridget A. Teboh, and Susanna Wing.

My research in Ghana would not have been possible without the guidance and companionship of my very good friend Kofi Baku, a historian at the University of Ghana. I am particularly thankful to my coresearchers, Cornelius Adedze, Joseph “Montana” Asamoah, Divine Dzokoto, and Gavivina Tamakloe, who helped arrange and conduct the interviews that generated the oral history examined in this book. I also thank Vivian Asempa and Olivia Baku who transcribed many of these interviews.

In Germany and Togo, on innumerable occasions, Peter Sebald generously shared his time, knowledge, and materials with me as well as guided my research and writing. I am grateful to him and Sybille Senger for welcoming me into their home after long days at the archives in Berlin.