The history of Waswahili in Germany before the end of World War II, their life histories and living conditions have not as yet been subject of scientific research. In the period before the colonial occupation of Africa Africans came to Germany in small numbers voluntarily or as victims of violent abduction (Martin 1993). The Germans were interested in the exotic looks of the foreigners, but did not care about their regions of origin. Africa was the unknown black continent, terra incognita, its inhabitants indiscriminately `blacks´ or `negroes´. Their homelands and ethnic or linguistic identities remained obscure, relevant only to a small group of researchers with an early interest in the continent and its peoples. Concerning the so-called Swahili people from Eastern Africa who came to Germany from the colonial period on, one has to keep in mind that until the end of the forties their identities were usually defined by their knowledge of Kiswahili, not by their actual ethnic or linguistic origins. In this article some stories are told about Swahili- speaking people from the former colony of German East Africa, now Tanzania, who came to Germany temporarily or permanently and for different reasons left traces in written records, which help us to reconstruct parts of their biographies.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:DRESDEN/oai:qucosa.de:bsz:15-qucosa-97817 |
| Date | 30 November 2012 |
| Creators | Bechhaus-Gerst, Marianne |
| Contributors | Universität zu Köln, Institut für Afrikanistik, Universität zu Köln, Institut für Afrikanistik |
| Publisher | Universitätsbibliothek Leipzig |
| Source Sets | Hochschulschriftenserver (HSSS) der SLUB Dresden |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | doc-type:article |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Swahili Forum; 5(1998), S. 155-172 |
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