Germans continued to play a role in the country, e.g. as settlers like “Papa Götz” in Arsi (see the Zeitschrift für Kulturaustausch 1973), and also at the court. The wife of architect Haertel became the courtier of Empress Menen (this is also the subject of a recent novel, “Maskal” of Brigitte Beil), while Christine Hall, a younger Hall-daughter, became the governess of the Emperor’s children. Also political relations stayed friendly. The regent ras Teferi, the later Emperor Haile Selassie I, visited Germany twice, in 1924 and in 1954. Starting from the 1930s David Hall was his councillor of state and played a remarkable role in the relations with Nazi Germany. Himself being of partially African and Jewish descent, the good reputation of his family in Germany helped to facilitate quite unusual contacts with the German leadership: Through his good offices, the German state even delivered weapons to Ethiopia, in a moment, while fascist Italy was already preparing the invasion (1935). Generally one can observe, that the Nazi propaganda tended to exclude Ethiopia from its racist campaigns. – After World War II emperor Haile Selassie was the first head of state to visit the Federal Republic of Germany. This was answered by the state visit of the West-German Federal President Lübke and the foreign minister Scheel. Engineers, teachers, merchants and medical doctors from Germany entered into the services of Ethiopia.

After the fall of the Emperor, the relations with the Western part of Germany became more difficult. The German School was “nationalized”, and the German Cultural Institute closed down. Later, however, especially starting from the mid-1980s, this was followed by massive West-German involvement in development aid through inter-state agencies like the Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) and private associations like Menschen für Menschen. Technical, military and political consultants were sent from the Eastern part of Germany after the revolution of 1974. The Medical College of Gondar owes its existence much to the aid of the German Democratic Republic. A series of state visits from unified Germany starting from the 1990s, again by the Federal President and later also by the Chancellor, responded by state visits from Ethiopia, underlined the continuation of the “special relationship” between both countries.

To finish, I may refer to two rather unusual examples for quite practical consequences of Ethio-German relations – the first from the early 19th and the second from the late 20th century. Unknown to most of today’s potato eaters, the first historical appearance of potatoes in Northern Ethiopia is linked with the German immigrant Wilhelm Schimper. When he became a governor of Enticco in Tigray under dejjazmach Wubé, he planted the first potatoes imported from Germany in his gardens. During his subsequent posts under the Ethiopian leaders Wubé, atse Tewodros II. and atse Yohannes IV., in Simén, Debre Tabor and Adwa, he continued to promote the cultivation of potatoes until the 1870’s. – Also modern development aid has quite recently contributed to the appearance of one more change in agriculture: Especially in Oromo areas one can today observe a rising number of “Dutch” or Frisian black-white cows, which have their origin in the German-Dutch border area, which over the centuries was renown for the breading of high-quality cows. In fact, for a North German, travelling through some of the fertile Southern regions, the landscape may often strikingly remind him of North German areas with their herds of black-white cows. This may illustrate the feeling of “closeness” which, in spite of all differences, continues to animate the relations between both countries and both peoples.

Wolbert Smidt, University of Hamburg