Imperial Colonial Office

The Imperial Colonial Office was an imperial authority in the German Empire, whose task was the administration of the colonies.

Development

By 1890, the political department of the Foreign Office, Department for German interests overseas, in charge of the German colonial policy. From this time there was a separate Colonial Department, which was indeed located in the Foreign Office, but reports directly to the Chancellor. As of 1896, the department was also home to the command of the guard troops, which had been settled by then the Imperial Navy Office ( from 1897, " Command of the protection forces "). By a decree of 17 May 1907, the Imperial Colonial Office was formed. This was primarily an administrative change: the colonial department was largely converted into an independent authority unchanged.

The Imperial Colonial Office was reporting directly to the Chancellor. At the top of the authority were a Secretary of State and a State Secretary.

After the First World War, the Reich Ministry of Colonies occurred on 20 February 1919, the successor to the Imperial Colonial Office. It dealt primarily with the handling of the lost colonies.

Structure

The Imperial Colonial Office had four departments. Section A dealt with political and general administrative Ange location characteristics, Section B machined finance, transport and technical tasks and Section C was responsible for personnel matters. The fourth department acted the command of the peacekeepers. For cash matters in the narrower sense, it was a " colonial main cash ".

As an advisory body initially served the Kolonialrat, but was dissolved in 1908 and replaced by commissions of experts. For scientific, in particular geographical tasks existed a few years before the dissolution of the Office a " Landeskundliche Commission ". 1911 was also a " Permanent Economic Commission " formed. In the German Agricultural Council and the German Agricultural Society there was beyond commissions that have been specially formed to advise the Imperial Colonial Office. Settled was the authority in the Wilhelmstrasse 62 in Berlin -Mitte. The surviving records of the Reich Colonial Office are in the Bundesarchiv, Berlin branch light field.

Expeditions of the Office

  • Medical and demographic German New Guinea Expedition (1913 /14)
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