Hermann Bötzow in "German East Africa"

In January 1903, Hermann Bötzow (1879–1945) travelled by ship from Hamburg to the then German colony "German East Africa". [i] Hermann Bötzow was 23 years old and unmarried, he called himself "Reindeer". He came from the long-established and extremely rich Bötzow family of land and brewery owners. [ii]

Plantation Owners

Shortly after his arrival in "German East Africa", Hermann Bötzow became co-owner of the Baga coffee plantation in the then district of Wilhelmstal, now Lushoto, in the western Usambara Mountains. [iii] "German East Africa" had been declared a German colony in 1885 after the so-called "Africa Conference" (also known as the "Berlin Conference"), which took place without the participation of African rulers. Europeans who wanted to settle here bought either plantations of other European farmers or so-called "crown land", i.e. land that was classified as "ownerless" by the colonial administrative authorities. Of course, the Usambara Mountains were neither unpopulated nor "ownerless". Rather, the mountains were inhabited thousands of years before German rule – even if we learn nothing about the history of these people from the sources of German colonialists.

For German settlers, the Usambara Mountains were particularly attractive: the soils seemed fertile, rainfall was plentiful, the climate was comparatively pleasant for Europeans, and the risk of contracting malaria was much lower in the higher mountain regions than in plains and river landscapes. The construction of a railway line along the mountain range was also of decisive economic importance.

In the late 19th century, the Mbugu lived in the central highlands of the western Usambara Mountains. The densely wooded plateaus were ideal for their livestock farming. The Mbugu were in close contact with their neighbours, the Shambaa (also Sambaa), who lived mainly on the slightly lower slopes and on the edge of the Usambara Mountains as farmers and cattle breeders. [iv] For the people in the mountains, the increasing land grabbing by European plantation owners meant not only the loss of land, but also the compulsion to hire themselves out as wage labourers on the newly emerging plantations. This work was not very attractive, and the plantation owners were also considered extremely brutal "employers". In addition, both Islam and Christianity questioned traditional value systems and religious beliefs by recruiting followers. German colonial rule thus intervened massively in the economy, culture and everyday life of the local population.

Even though there was no open violent conflict in the Usambara Mountains during the land grab by the Germans, the local population reacted resistively to the new power structures. In 1907, the authorities in the then district of Wilhelmstal introduced so-called labor cards, which forced every adult man to work a fixed number of days for wages on the land of a plantation owner. Those who refused could be forced to work for the colonial government without being paid. Many Shambaa resisted the labor card system, for example by working particularly slowly on forced working days, forging signatures for supposedly worked days, or making special agreements with employers. ^[v]

Like many other plantation owners, Hermann Bötzow initially grew coffee. When the world market price of coffee fell and rubber became an increasingly sought-after raw material in Europe, Bötzow entered rubber production and bought more land in northern Tanzania. [vi]

We know very little about the concrete conditions and everyday life on his plantations, because Hermann Bötzow himself left hardly any written sources. So we do not know his attitudes first-hand. [vii] However, many written sources were left behind by his neighbors, the plantation owners Tom Prince (later von Prince) (1866–1914) and Magdalene Prince (1870–1935). Magdalena Prince's memoirs and the surviving files speak of deep contempt for the native population, ruthlessness towards the interests and land holdings of Africans, and arrogance towards the German administration on the ground, whose policies the Prince family criticized as too friendly to the native population. This attitude was not untypical among European settlers and plantation owners in German colonies. ^[viii]

Big game hunters

In addition to growing coffee and rubber, Hermann Bötzow had time to go on safari. He was by no means alone in his hobby. Big game hunting exerted an extraordinary attraction on European immigrants. When hunting, (predominantly) men wanted to prove themselves in the "wilderness"; they wanted to demonstrate courage, endurance and athleticism. Equipped with a fashionable safari outfit, searching for the so-called "Big Five" of Africa – meaning buffalo, elephant, rhinoceros, lion and leopard – was an expensive and increasingly ritualised leisure activity for European settlers and travellers. ^[ix]

A safari was above all a trophy hunt. It was a matter of preparing the hunted animals or at least storing and exhibiting parts of the animals, for example horns or antlers. Hermann Bötzow also built up a "large trophy collection" out of "joy in hunting", as the family chronicle claimed, and in particular he owned a "beloved ivory collection". ^[x]

Hermann Bötzow obviously lived alone on his plantations. In any case, he did not marry as long as he lived in Africa. There were certainly women who dreamed of a life in the German colonies. They organized themselves in colonial women's associations, were trained in special courses for life in the "tropics" and took part in colonial political debates. ^[xi]

Back in Berlin

Shortly before the start of the First World War, Hermann Bötzow returned to Germany. Two explanations seem plausible: Either he was ruined by the collapse of the rubber market in 1913, in which many plantation owners lost a lot of money. Or he traveled to Berlin because of the death of his father in July 1914 and did not return to Africa due to the First World War, which began shortly afterwards.

With the end of the First World War, the former "German East Africa" became largely British mandate territory. [xii] The German colonial farmer Hermann Bötzow now became an East Elbe Junker: he took over the administration of the family's estates about 30 kilometers east of Frankfurt (Oder). He also worked in the Bötzow brewery, which was managed by his older brother Julius Bötzow after the death of his father.

In 1922, Hermann Bötzow and the much younger Ruth Lademann (1901–1945) married. In 1926, their son Klaus York Bötzow (1926–?) was born. When Hermann Bötzow's older brother Julius Bötzow died unexpectedly in 1926, he took over the management of the brewery and moved with his family into a villa on the brewery grounds on Prenzlauer Allee.

The Bötzows professed National Socialism. Hermann and Ruth Bötzow joined the NSDAP in the spring of 1940. ^[xiii] On April 25, 1945, Hermann Bötzow shot himself in his brewery in Prenzlauer Allee out of fear of the advancing Red Army. The following day, Ruth Bötzow also committed suicide. Her wounded son York Bötzow was being treated in a military hospital at the time. ^[xiv] After the division of Berlin, the Bötzow Brewery was located in the eastern part of the city. It was only continued as a state-owned enterprise for a few more years before production was discontinued around 1950.