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Robbie Aitken, 2024

The life story of the Cameroonian Heinrich Sam Dibonge demonstrates the continued impact that colonialism and its aftermath had on the lives of Black men and women who moved between colonial Africa and Germany. Born into an elite family in Douala, Cameroon during the time of German colonisation. Dibonge, like many of his generation was educated by the colonisers before entering the service of a German trader. This brought him to Germany on several occasions, including in the months immediately before the outbreak of the First World War. At the war’s end Dibonge was effectively stranded in Hamburg – he never returned to Douala and he never saw his Cameroonian wife and young family again.

A German colonial subject, not a citizen pre-1914, in post-war Germany, which no longer possessed an overseas empire, Dibonge was now effectively stateless. In increasingly difficult circumstances he fought to create a life in Germany. In the war’s aftermath he found success as a skilled worker with Theodor Zeise, married again, and was connected to the wider Black community in Germany. At the same time, he served a prison sentence and was excluded from German citizenship. Following the Nazi seizure of power Dibonge’s situation and that of his German wife deteriorated rapidly and the couple was subjected to marginalisation and violence.

Stationen

Growing up in the German colony of Cameroon

Life of a colonial servant – a first trip to Germany

Living between Cameroon and Germany

Stranded in post-war Hamburg

Building a life in Altona

Dibonge’s daughter

Citizenship versus Statelessness

Surviving in Nazi Germany

Murdered in Königslutter: Wally Dibonge [1898-1941]

A new start?

Aftermath: Rebuilding a life in Postwar West Germany

Epilogue: Dibonge’s Children

Start