Otto von Bismarck branded ‘coloniser’ as protesters topple statue in Frankfurt

The 125-year-old bronze statue was left lying on the ground with red paint sprayed across the body, face and helmet

Copy link
twitter
facebook
whatsapp
email
Copy link
twitter
facebook
whatsapp
email
Germany’s first chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, has been branded a coloniser by protesters who toppled and vandalised a monument dedicated to him in Frankfurt.
Pictures showed the 125-year-old bronze statue lying on the ground in the Höchst district of the city, with red paint sprayed over Bismarck’s face and spiked helmet.
“Coloniser” and “anti-colonial action” were painted over the statue, which police said had been sawn off its plinth before being pushed over on Friday.
The toppling came on the 140th anniversary of the start of the Berlin Conference, which is seen as emblematic of Europe’s 19th century colonisation of Africa.
An unnamed group claimed responsibility, writing on a far-Left website that Bismarck had “initiated a violent conquest and exploitation of the [African] continent, which led to years of systematic exploitation and enslavement”.
“To this day there are countless Bismarck monuments and statues in Germany,” it added. “Even today, he is still remembered positively, although his atrocities are left out.”
Frank Grobe, a local state deputy for the hard-Right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party said that “this is part of the Left-wing extremist Culture War and an attack on our history and identity”.
The editor-in-chief of the Right-wing Junge Freiheit magazine called it “unbelievable destructive rage and anti-German hatred from Left-wing extremists”.
The Berlin Conference was organised by Bismarck in 1884 at the request of Belgian King Leopold II, and is seen by some historians as formalising how European powers would manage the conquest of Africa.
The conference concluded with the signing of a treaty that guaranteed trade and navigation freedoms between the powers. It also outlawed the practice of slavery.
Bismarck is regarded in Germany as a skilled diplomat and politician who masterminded German unification and built the world’s first welfare state.
Although Germany acquired territory in Africa under Bismarck he was opposed to doing so, believing that colonies were a financial drain and that Germany’s interests were in Europe.
In recent years, Left-wing groups have attacked the legacy of the “Iron Chancellor”, saying his colonialist past has been overlooked.
After authorities in Hamburg were criticised for spending 9 million euros (£7.5 million) renovating a 112-foot-high statue of Bismarck in 2020, the city’s centre-Left government held a competition to “decolonise” the monument.
Artists and architects were invited to submit proposals for “recontextualising” the statue.
Hamburg’s Monuments Protection Office however decreed that the proposals could not alter the monument or attach anything to it, and so the competition was abandoned.
In Berlin on Saturday, activists from Berlin Dekoloniale were joined by Labour MP Bell Ribeiro-Addy.
“What happened here in Berlin was not just an act of territorial rearrangement, it was an act of violence, one that echoes throughout generations,” Ms Ribeiro-Addy said of the 1884 Berlin Conference.
“It wasn’t just about drawing borders,” she added. “It was about power control, exploitation, claiming resources, land, minerals, labour.”
Copy link
twitter
facebook
whatsapp
email