African Roots: Shadows of German Colonialism

Episodes

• Culture in Chief: Oba Ewuare and Leopold Sedar Senghor 16.06.2025 21m

  Cai explores how Senegal's first president, poet Leopold Senghor, believed a mix of African and French culture could carry Senegal into independence. Meanwhile, Laila tells Cai how Nigerian Oba Ewuare's taste in cultural investment still has African nations and European museums at loggerheads.
• Namibian women keeping traditions alive and history near 07.12.2024 11m

  The atrocities of German colonialism remained largely, and purposefully, obscure as Namibians endured successive German and British colonial administration. Under the South African apartheid rule that only ended in 1990, there was little space to confront the crimes. But women kept, and continue to keep, their people's history and culture alive.
• From Douala to Ngonnso: How women fought resisted German colonialism in Cameroon 05.12.2024 11m

  In 1893, Dahomey men and women revolted against abuse by German colonial officers in Cameroon in a famous uprising that Germany was unprepared for. We look at how female resistance against colonialism has taken different forms, from the Dahomey Revolt to the battle to return the Ngonnso sculpture to Cameroon.
• Who was Li'ti Kidanka, the Queen of the Bees? 04.12.2024 10m

  As German colonialists swept into East Africa, they came up against a force none had reckoned with: Li'ti Kidanka. Shrouded in folklore, we tell the story of a Tanzanian heroine who fought German colonialism with a very unusual weapon.
• How Nduna Mkomanile fought German colonialism 04.12.2024 8m

  Nduna Mkomanile tried to unite East African communities against German colonialism during the Maji Maji war in the early 20th century. She's now regarded as one of Tanzania's most notable female freedom fighters, but for decades her importance was overlooked. We find out why.
• Reclaiming Heritage: Dinknesh and Sarah Baartman 23.10.2024 19m

  One of the world's oldest humanoid fossils, colloquially known as Dinknesh, or "Lucy," has intrigued paleontologists for decades. But her name is also a point of pride for Ethiopians. Meanwhile Laila narrates how fascination and racist attitudes around Sarah Baartman resulted in a harrowing, cautionary tale of human exploitation.
• Injected with fear: the legacy of colonial era vaccination programs 04.03.2024 11m

  Tropical medicine boomed as European powers claimed territories in Africa. Germany sent the famed Robert Koch and many others to the colonies to find cures to tropical illnesses - but also to test new medicines. This shadowy practice led to Africans being mistreated, and many died in the process, leaving a legacy of physical and psychological trauma that has never been properly cured.
• Unsettling continuities – from colonial racism to Nazism 27.02.2024 10m

  Respected German anthropologists made a career from dividing people by race, a new branch of science that conveniently put Europeans at the top. While eugenics and scientific racism was widely practiced in Western nations in the early 1900s, the ideas developed by Eugen Fischer and others served as the intellectual bedrock for race-based crimes committed by Nazi Germany.
• Why African nations still fight over colonial era borders 22.02.2024 11m

  Why does Namibia have a bizarre panhandle? Why do some Ghanaians talk of being from "Western Togoland"? Much of this has to do with African borders drawn up in Europe during late 19th century. Borders that to this day are still very much contested, and have had deadly consequences. We explore how treaties designed to prevent war in Europe have caused conflict in Africa.
• How German colonization of Namibia resulted in genocide 14.02.2024 12m

  After the decisive Battle of Waterberg between German and Herero fighters, colonial officers in the colony of South West Africa, today's Namibia, directed a violent, uncompromising persecution of Herero and Nama people. Their policies would result in the 20th century's first genocide.
• How German colonists changed power dynamics in Togo forever 05.02.2024 9m

  Germany's control over Togoland drastically altered traditional power structures, favoring compliant chiefs and running roughshod over cultural norms. We explore how punitive expeditions and colonial subjugation has shaped Togo to this day.
• Why did Germany target colonies in East Africa 30.01.2024 12m

  In East Africa and the Great Lakes region, German colonial conquest spurred courageous resistance from many local East African groups against well-armed and violent colonial forces.
• The colonial legacy of Africa's place names 23.01.2024 9m

  In the context of colonial-era injustice, the renaming of landmarks almost seems like a footnote. But in this podcast we discover how renaming mountains, towns, and even people was another form of oppression. We also meet some characters who have outlived the colonialists' names, and why renaming landmarks is a form of reclaiming heritage.
• Quane Martin Dibobe: From exhibit to anti-colonial activist 19.12.2023 11m

  Summer 1896: A Cameroonian man appeared in Treptower Park, Berlin as part of a human exhibition to increase enthusiasm for German colonialism. Little did anyone know this man — Martin Dibobe — would later become a pioneering human rights activist.
• How colonialism boosted Germany's merchant fleets 07.12.2023 10m

  Running a colonial empire required a reliable merchant fleet. Hamburg-based businessman Adolph Woermann and his shipping line soon exerted considerable influence over Germany's colonial policy. We explore how the Woermann Company became an unofficial instrument of German colonization.
• How colonial Germany extended its empire in Africa 06.12.2023 10m

  By 1885, Adolf Lüderitz had acquired vast territories in today's Namibia. But his contracts with local people were so dodgy that even German colonial officials doubted them.
• The long road to Liberation: Nelson Mandela and Eduardo Mondlane 18.07.2023 36m

  For our last episode of African Roots, we profile two giants: Mozambique's Eduardo Mondlane and South Africa's Nelson Mandela. We look at how the two men shaped their respective nations' trajectories in different eras, and how their fight against oppression inspired thousands of young people to take up the armed struggle.
• Women to the Front: Margaret Ekpo and The Amazons 04.07.2023 20m

  Cai finds out how the legendary warriors, the Dahomey Amazons, have recently gained recognition - to dazzling Hollywood effects. But not all women fought on the battlefield: Laila explores how in neighboring in Nigeria, Margaret Ekpo blazed a trail for female participation in local politics as independence took hold.
• Of myths and legends: Sunjata Keita and Bayajida 20.06.2023 20m

  Oral histories are key to shaping nationalities, legends and identities. Cai and Laila explore the role of West African griots in keeping alive the phenomenal stories of Sunjata Keita from Mali and Nigeria's Bayajida.
• Legacy unravelled: Usman Dan Fodio and William Tubman 06.06.2023 25m

  The relentless march of time changes histories and, sometimes, tarnishes reputation. Cai and Laila meet two nation builders, Usman Dan Fodio, and Liberia's William Tubman, whose legacies are perceived very differently today than during their lifetimes.