Michael Rösser is going to present a paper on 'Forced Labour in German East Africa – Structural and Individual Continuities to WWI in Europe and Beyond'

As I have started to work on my Dissertation at the Max-Weber-Kolleg since December, this paper is a combination of my final thesis at the University of Regensburg, my exposé and provisional results of subsequent research. Scholars investigating forced labour policies at the occupied territories on the Eastern and Western front during WWI in Europe are divided on the issue whether German colonial policies provided an influential background for the issue. Analysing forced labour policies in former ‘German East Africa’ and Europe by means of the workers’ fundamental options to action (voice, exit) and their chances of survival, I try to illustrate structural similarities between forced labour policies in ‘German East Africa’ and the occupied territories in Europe during WWI (Poland, Lithuania and Belgium). Constructing infrastructural facilities in both East Africa and the occupied territories during WWI in Europe, continuities can be illustrated by means of the German companies Philipp Holzmann and MAN. Additionally, there are individual continuities not only by means of the companies’ personnel, but also by some former colonial administrators and advisors, who (probably) enacted forced labour policies in East Africa,