Of the many incidents which occurred during the German colonial history, the Maji-Maji-war was the worst. The uprising led to more casualties than counted together in all other colonial wars. This was due to the strategy of the scorched earth by the Germans.

After the Maji-Maji-warriors had suffered heavy losses in battles on open ground they changed their tactics to a kind of guerrilla warfare. The warriors hid themselves in the forests and attacked the German troops from ambush. This led captain WANGENHEIM to the following conclusion:

“In my opinion, hunger and distress only will lead to a final and complete subjugation. Military actions alone ,more or less, remain a flop.” (acc. Götzen 1909: 149). Governor GÖTZEN agreed with this opinion and justified the actions taken by the Germans as follows: “As in all wars against uncivilized people (...) also in the present case it was indispensable to entail well- planned damage to goods and chattels of the hostile population. The destruction of economic values, like the burning down of settlements and of foodstuff, may appear barbaric to the outsider. If one realizes, however, on the one hand, how quickly the negro-huts are erected anew and how the luxuriant growth of the tropic nature produces new field crops, and, on the other hand, that in most cases what was confirmed by this uprising too, the subjugation of the hostile people was only possible by such procedures. In consequence, one will come to a more lenient view on this affair (as dira necessitas)."

GÖTZEN tried to justify his actions in front of his German fellow citizens who saw a value in the colonized people. This value had to be kept intact for exploitation. With the hint to the lush tropical nature he characterizes the action of his troops as a harmless event. But his explanations are inconsistent. If nature had been all that friendly the destruction of the settlements and fields would not have been able to break the resistance of the Maji-Maji-supporters. The cynicism and the contempt for the African people, which speak from those lines, call back to mind the war fought against the Herero in South West Africa at the same time. There the supreme commander, lieutenant-general TROTHA, gave order to final exter-mination. He proclaimed: “Within the German borderlines every Herero, with or without a rifle, with or without cattle, will be shot. I no more shelter women or children, instead, I will drive them back to their people (in the desert) or shoot them” (acc. to Westphal 1987: 176).

For East Africa, however, one has to confirm that GÖTZEN, despite his ruthlessness, never ordered a genocide. It was not in the intention of GÖTZEN to completely exterminate the enemy, nevertheless, he puts up with it to reach his objectives. Whether GÖTZEN thought different than TROTHA or whether he simply was more skilful in dealing with the colonial critics, I am not able to say. Without restraint and any considerateness of the colonial critics in Germany the “Siedlerpresse” formulated its point of view. The Deutsch-Ostafrikanische Zeitung of 2.12.1905 stated: “Not any longer should the achievement of peace be the prime aim, but the punishment of the rebels ...hence... unconditioned surrender or war until annihilation!” (Deutsch-Ostafrikanische Zeitung vom 2.12.1905 nach Die Liebe zum Imperium 1978: 161). The words war until annihilation clearly reveal genocide thinking. (Call, Mezger 2005:145).

The German troops in East Africa thus destroyed fields and burned down villages. In his diary surgeon-major von VERTH briefly described the capture of an abandoned village as follows: “A pursuit was impossible ... all huts - about 60 - were set on fire, foodstuff and fields destroyed, as far as time allowed it “ (Iliffe 1997: 195).

Picture 1: Despoiled village: Hans Paasche (Paasche 1907: 131)

Moreover, forays were made in order to feed the German troops, their allies and porters stealing the food stock from a population that was near starvation. And the German troops, consisting not only of soldiers but also their families and porters, needed a lot of food. Out of a group of 900 only 245 might be soldiers. Whoever surrendered to the Germans had to make payments in food - e.g. a group of Ngindo had to pay 100 goats and 500 `loads' of cereals, 100 `loads' of rice being enough to feed 900 people for several weeks, so it clearly meant driving the surrendering enemy into starvation. (Figures given by Nuhn 1998: pp.168,171)

Therefore a lot of Maji-supporters gave up, killed their leaders or handed them over and paid fines. “It is remarkable that under such conditions some of them were able to keep up their resistance into the year of 1908.”

Picture 2: Relatives of Kichi: Hans Paasche (Paasche 1907: 131)

Picture 2 is a different photo taken by Hans Paasche (1907:137). It shows members of the Kichi people who have surrendered to him. Here as in other photos it is remarkable how emaciated the people look.” There are more photos of prisoners taken before their executions.

Picture 3 (Weule 1905:45) “shows the Mwera leader Selemani Mambi, who had organized the attacks on the mission stations by the Lukuledi after his capture in January 1906.”

Picture 4 (Gundolf 1984:169) shows Abdallah Chimai, in most publications called the “murderer” of Bishop Spiss, although he kept denying the charge.

Picture 5:

Picture 5 (Wehrmeister 1906:248) shows a group of captured Ngoni leaders before their execution on February 27, 1906.  (1. Sultan Mrota, 2. and 3. Sons of Songea, 4. Fratera, 5. Maji ya kuhanga, 6. Tambalioto, 7. Songea )

Those who took part in the war lost their elite. In some areas the Germans took new leaders from their faithful followers, in others the descendents of the killed leaders were at least allowed to take over the positions of their forefathers.

Prisoners were usually executed soon after their capture, see picture 6 (Die Liebe zum Imperium 1978:164)

Picture 6:

However, fighting in the war and the executions did not lead to the majority of deaths. Most people were victims of the strategy of the “Burnt Earth”. Fields were destroyed and high payments had to be made. It was not the end of suffering when the fighting ended. People were either taking part in the war, fleeing from it or too weak to till the fields. Seeds were eaten rather than planted.

Picture 7 shows a woman (Missionsblätter St. Ottilien 1906:115) who fled to the mission station of Ndanda with her children. In that area the famine was officially over when only 1.500 people a month died of starvation (see Bald 1976:45).

Picture 7

A dramatic description of the situation in Ungoni was given by Father Troßmann in Peramiho:

As soon as in October 1906 food was getting scarce and expensive everywhere else. In the Matengo area by Lake Nyassa the situation was better because of a very good harvest. But the government blocked off the land and bought all the supplies for their troops. People started to starve. The majority of the population subsisted on what they could find - just like the beasts in the wilderness.

The children, especially babies, looked like skeletons the amazing fact being that they survived at all. The older ones had blown-up bellies caused by the unusual food, so the mortality rate was high among the children. Older people had no chance to survive on such a meagre diet.

Even young people were no longer laughing but just sitting in front of their huts and empty pots, any talk would soon be of “njaa”. Hunger turned people into beggars.

There are also descriptions of this time of starvation by Tanzanians. Agnes Sapuli's report dates back to February 1907:

“Since my birth I have never seen such shortage of food. I have experienced famines, but none that made people die. But in this famine many die, some are not able to do any work, they have no strength, their food consists of insects from bushes or forests that they dig up, cook and eat.”

Sixty years later Camelius Kiango remembered the situation in Matumbi-Land:

“There came three years of famine... This famine was called `Fugufugu' (adult). Never before or after the Maji-Maji-War had there been anything like it.... People died in large numbers, and their bodies were left to decay, because nobody was able to bury them.” Lions fed on one person after the other, because they slept in the open air having no houses any more. Before the war it was hard to find a piece of land to settle on, because there were too many people, now there was only bush left.

The reports show that in many places people were left unprotected, an easy prey to the beasts. A report by the German ethnologist Carl Weule testifies to the `lions' plague' of 1906. The whole route from Nyangao to Masasi in the area of the Makua and the Mwere was divided among four pairs of lions who fed on whatever human victim came along their part of it.

The only way to earn any money was the hated work on plantations.

At this point the question is: how many victims did the war claim? For the German side precise figures were laid down. On April 21, 1906 the German Colonial News (Kolonialzeitung) lists the following losses:

• “whites - killed in action: 4 members of the colonial force, 1 sailor, 1 Boer
• murdered: 7 members of the Christian mission, 2 settlers
• drowned: 1 member of the colonial force, 1 navy foot soldier
• died of illness: 6 members of the navy

total: 23 Europeans

• coloured people: killed in action: 66 askaris, 243 members of the auxiliary troops, 29 others
• wounded: 59 askaris, 115 members of the aux. troops, 7 porters, 20 others”

This balance sheet says nothing about those Tanzanians who were not in the

Germans' pay. Even the official report for the years 1906/1907 listed 75.00 victims (Wimmelbücker 2005:90). For several reasons this numbers is too low, one of them being that the famine had not reached its peak.

Estimating the number of victims leaves many questions open, as there are no exact population figures for the time before or after the war. The first true census was taken in 1948. So for the area of the war the population figures reach from 1 million to 1,4 millions. And how many of them died? According to different reports the number of inhabitants went down by 10, 25, 50 or 60% in different areas. And it is not known how many people were able to flee before the war. The Tanzanian historian Gilbert Gwassa estimates the number of victims at between 250.000 and 300.000, having only analysed one area in detail though. Wimmelbücker thinks there were 180.000 victims of the war. One fact is certain, however, the Maji-Maji-War was the worst in the time of German colonialism.

“But counting the dead does not end the discussion about the effects of the war. There are consequences of the war that are visible even today, a hundred years later.”

Whole regions were turned into scrubland again by keeping the people from cultivating the fields. So the number of wild animals increased, neither people nor fields could be protected against them. The worst outcome is that the tsetse-fly kept spreading along with the bush. Forced evacuation of large regions by the British because of the spread of the tsetse-fly, ultimately helped its further spread. Running parallel with the forced evacuation was the foundation and enlargement of the Selous Game Reservation, named after Frederick Selous who died there in World War I. “Ironically it was this Selous who helped to defeat a movement similar to the Maji-Maji, the first Chimurenga in Simbabwe, where Shona fought against the British with the help of supernatural support. That which today is sold to the tourist as `the last spots of untouched wilderness' is the result of a systematic depopulation that began with the Maji-Maji-War.”

Picture 8

The map (picture 8 Matzke 1975:38) shows clearly that today's reservation was the heart of the Maji-Maji movement: Kinjikitile's farm as well as the Pangani rapids where the god Bokero lives, and Madaba, a trade post, that was soon taken by the Maji-Maji warriors. The Ngindo area around Madaba was densely populated before the war and situated at a caravan-route (see Gwassa 1973:33, 71, 390). When the surviving 40.000 Ngindo were transferred to another area it became the largest wildlife reservation in Africa (see Matzke 1975:23-55, 1976:40, Rodgers 1976:21ff.) The countryside around Mgende in the southwest of the reservation was also an important site of the war being the area that the Maji-Maji leaders Chabruma or Abdallah Mapanda retreated to(Nuhn 1998:191f).The last major movements of the troops took place there.

“In advertising the travel industry does not refer to the Maji-Maji-War. Where today, in the Selous Game Reserve, tourists can experience `one of the last great original wildlife reservations of the world' (Best of Africa catalogue 1998), the Maji-Maji movement was born. The Selous Game Reserve as a `remote unspoilt country without a trace of human habitation' (Savanah Tours catalogue 1998) is not only wrong, but in my opinion also bad taste. I do not think that people should not enjoy the elephants in the wildlife reservation. But in the Selous Game Reserve not only Frederick Selous who died there in World War I should be remembered, but also the fact that the wilderness there is a product of colonialism, an effect of the Maji-Maji-War and the forced evacuation in connection with fighting the tsetse-fly.”

Today the whole southeast of the country, where the Maji-Maji-War started, is considered the least developed region of Tanzania. This is shown by the infrastructure, development indicators like education and average income or the mortality rate of children (Becker 2005).

However, other regions of the war developed in quite a different way. In spite of high losses the western regions could recover more quickly because of more rain and more fertile soil. The southeast on the other hand, was again the site of a war only ten years later, again the strategy being to leave only burnt earth, when the British fought the Germans during World War I. The region remained only thinly populated, which hindered the development of an infrastructure. German plans for a railway had never been realized. Because of a poor infrastructure the inhabitants of South-East Tanzania have problems to export their products and accordingly a very low income. So this region has become a big “labour reserve”. People have been forced to emigrate or become migrant workers. The third president of the country Benjamin Mkapa coming from the southeast, did not change a lot. The only good point was that the bridge across the Rufiji was finished. It would indeed connect the area with the rest of the country if only there were usable roads to the bridge.

Before the war there was very little Islamic or Christian influence in the area. After the war not only the economic differences developed, but also religious ones. Christianity quickly spread in the west, in Ungoni and around Mahenge, whereas Islam became dominant in the east. By confessing to Islam people followed the Muslim elites on the nearby coast. It also meant dissociating oneself from the Maji movement by denying one's ethnical ties and saying “I am a Muslim, not a Ngindo”. For a long time after the war the Ngindo and Matumbi were blamed for creating unrest and therefore avoided.

Christianity became a taboo in the east because people believed that by killing Bishop Spiss they had lost the sympathy of the Christian God. In the west, however people turned to Christianity, possibly because there was hardly any Islamic influence there, but there were lots of mission stations. People followed the principle of making friends with whoever they could not defeat.

All this does not mean that the traditional religious beliefs no longer existed. Believing in the ancestors or protective medicines can exist side by side with Christian or Islamic ideas. “Turning to Islam or Christianity is therefore not a complete renunciation of old traditions, but an attempt to reform one's own living conditions in order to be able to face the changes in the colonial times.”

“Finally it can be said that the Maji-Maji-War was a decisive point in the German colonial epoch. It meant the end of military conquests. After the war there was no longer any military resistance”. Colonial politics were then to further economic activities of the Tanzanians instead of using them as a mere force of labour in the interest of the settlers.

In British times the Maji-Maji-War served as a warning, in the 1950ies the ethnologist Hans Cory compared it to the Mau Mau movement in Kenya in order to point at successful ways of defeating it.

“At about the same time Maji Maji was re-discovered by the Tanzanian movement of independence, possibly because TANU activists kept being accused of causing a new Maji-Maji-War by striving for independence and of their leader Nyerere being a new Kinjikitile. TANU continued to stress the non-violent character of their fight for independence, but in Maji-Maji the discovered the element that united the different nations. For Nyerere the war was an example of a `natural call, a call of the spirit ringing in the heart of all men, and of all times, educated and not educated, to rebel against foreign domination,' as he phrased it in his speech in front of the United Nations in December 1956. Thus fifty years after its defeat the Maji-Maji movement became the founding myth of the modern movement for independence.” Therefore a lot of research of the Maji movement was done at the University of Dar es Salaam after independence, but the region where it was born did not profit from it. A museum, a stadium and a football-team got the name of Maji Maji in Songea- but there was nothing like it in the southeast.

“The relationship between Germany and Tanzania in our time is no longer concerned with the crimes of the colonial times. The 90.000 Germans who visited Tanzania in 2000 no longer came as members of the `master race' (Herrenmenschen) but mainly as tourists who are enthusiastic about the national parks, the beaches and the Tanzanian people. For Germany Tanzania is a key country for co-operation in development, and the bilateral relations are seen as problem-free and friendly. However, an official apology for the crimes committed in colonial times is still owing. As it is the accepted behaviour among friends to apologize for one's mistakes, the one hundredth anniversary of the outbreak of the Maji-Maji- War would be a chance to finally make up for this omission.”

(Taken from a speech delivered at the DETAF annual meeting, 02.04.2005 in Königswinter by Jigal Beez, Bremen, author of the book: Der Maji-Maji-Krieg, Geschosse zu Wasser-tropfen).

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