2 PARIS, 1937: COLONIAL QUESTIONS AND PEACE 159mandate system,’ an interpretation that was encouraged by the fact that
Schacht indicated in his article that the question of sovereignty in its
political and legal manifestations was open to negotiation.^252 Explaining
Germany’s colonial demands Schacht stated the following:
Colonial raw materials cannot be developed without considerable invest-
ments. Colonial markets are not of the kind that can live by the personal
needs of the native population. Shirts and hats for the negroes and orna-
ments for their wives do not constitute an adequate market. Colonial
territories are developed by the building of railways and roads, by auto-
mobile traffic, radio and electric power, by huge plantations, etc. From the
moment that the German colonies came under the control of the Mandate
Powers, Germany was cut off from the delivery of goods required for such
investments. In 1913, for example, Germany’s exports to Tanganyika
formed 52.6 per cent of that area’s imports. In 1935 they formed 10.7 per
cent. The British Mandate Power as a matter of course places its orders in
England and not in Germany or elsewhere.
That is why Germany needs colonial territories which she herself admin-
isters. Since, however, the development of colonies depends upon long-
term investments, and these investments cannot be made by the native
negro population, the German currency system must prevail in the colo-
nial territories, so that the required investments can be made with German
credits. These then are Germany’s two basic demands in the colonial field:
that she have territories under German management and included in the
German monetary system. All the other questions involved—sovereignty,
army, police, the churches, international collaboration, are open to discus-
sion. They can be solved by means of international co-operation so long as
nothing unworthy is imputed against the honor of Germany.^253Claiming to want to clearly demonstrate for the benefit of his
American readers, the audience to which the article was openly addressed,
that for Germany the colonial question was ‘not to-day, any more than
it was before, a question of Imperialism and Militarism’ and implic-
itly responding to certain of the pretexts upon which Germany was
deprived of its colonies, Schacht pointed out that it was not the German
government which had ‘brought the war into the colonial territories’ or
(^252) Straits Times (Singapore), December 17, 1936. See also ‘What Germany Expects of
Colonies,’ Straits Times (Singapore), December 19, 1936.
(^253) Schacht, ‘Germany’s Colonial Demands,’ 233–34.