“The documentary takes up a hitherto little-noticed but highly interesting aspect of German colonial history and its consequences. In 1907, the ‘Deutschkoloniale Frauenbund’ (German Colonial Women’s Association) is founded, with the help of which, among other things, the ‘supply’ of German brides to the Schutztruppen and settlers is to be promoted in order to counteract the supposedly threatening ‘grafting of the men in German Southwest and German East Africa’. Even after 1918, when Germany no longer had any colonies, the Women’s League still arranged for young women willing to emigrate to Windhoek, Swakopmund or Tanga as ‘bearers of German breeding and manners’. The film compiles historical archive material, contemporary photos, songs, quotes from plays or colonial novels and it contrasts this collage-like synopsis with the actual statements of some women who went to Namibia with the Women’s League in the thirties or forties and who still live there today. Thus, the film is not only of historical interest, but it also addresses the political attitudes and behaviors of ethnic German Namibians towards blacks in Namibia, which has now become independent from South Africa. ” (from the film description)
The film can be ordered from EZEF.
We Had a Dora in Southwest | Tink Diaz | D | 1992 | German | Documentary.