Dreams and reality of an "ideal colony"

The almost two square meter map in a bird's eye view shows the city of Qingdao around 1900. Piers, lighthouses, ships, barracks and individual houses are depicted from an oblique angle and in great detail. In blue, green and brown, the landscape was also recreated in realistic colors. But the buildings on the Bay of the Yellow Sea are labeled in German: the Prinz Heinrich Hotel, a Deutsche Bank branch, a church and a prison. The streets are deserted and everything gives the impression of being orderly and peaceful. This is probably how the German occupiers would have wanted the city to look. The reality was different.

In 1897, when German naval ships dropped seven hundred sailors in the bay in November, Qingdao was a fishing village with clay huts, a temple and some military installations. Kaiser Wilhelm II had extorted the Chinese government into signing a 99-year lease for the entire Kiautschou area. China possessed large reserves of natural resources and coal deposits and had the promise of becoming a lucrative market for European products.
Immediately after the contract was signed, the Germans started to turn the village into a massive, loud construction site. Steamers dropped anchor as cranes hauled materials ashore.

Streets, railroad tracks and entire city districts were built. Strictly organized and technically state-of-the-art, complete with the latest infrastructure - this is how the Europeans envisioned their model colony on the Chinese coast. Life in the spacious, half-timbered houses was pleasant. With German bread, German beer, religious instruction and German education, the new "cultural center in the Far East" was meant to amaze and astonish the rest of the world.

Building this "fantastic city" cost the empire 200 million marks. In some places, colonial architecture, as can be seen on the map, still characterizes parts of the cityscape of Qingdao. Today, the metropolis has 9 million residents.

Travelers from all over the world visited and photographed the growing metropolis and bought souvenirs like this map. The artist knew exactly how to combine Chinese landscape painting while keeping the taste of the clientele in mind. The occupiers were more than unpopular with the inhabitants.

Colonial Qingdao was strictly segregated according to racial and class-related categories. The Europeans, who were only a couple of hundred in number, lived in mansions in the center of the city, separated from the residential quarters of the Chinese population and far away from the homes of the local workers. For them, homes with sewage systems and all the comforts of modern living were not provided. They were forced to obey the "Chinese order" (“Chinesenordnung”), which restricted their freedom with arbitrary regulations on lighting, curfew and clothing.

Chinese resistance groups also rebelled against missionaries. They called themselves Yihetuan or Yihequan, meaning "fists of justice and harmony". From this name, the name of the fighting alliances was derived, which later became known for the "Boxer Rebellion".
The colonial rulers reacted with so-called punitive expeditions and burned entire villages. In June 1900, Kaiser Wilhelm II assembled a corps to put down Chinese resistance as part of an "Alliance Army of Eight States." Fueled by the "Hun Speech" he had delivered at Bremerhaven during the deployment, the German troops were conspicuous for their particular cruelty to the civilian population.