Carl Peters (1856-1918) ranked
among Germany's most prominent
imperialists in the Bismarckian and Wilhelmine periods. In the 1880s he
emerged as a leader of the colonial movement and became known as the founder
of Deutsch-Ostafrika, a region many Germans regarded as the pearl of their
overseas possessions. In Nazi Germany he was revered as a precursor of Hitler
and ascended retrospectively to new glory as a pioneer in the struggle for Lebensraum. This scholarly
biography examines Peters's nationalist agenda and sheds light on his
colonial expeditions into East Africa. It seeks to explain
how this young academic who had written about Schopenhauer and metaphysics
eventually became a skilful agitator for a German world empire.
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