Carl Peters - Legacy

Legacy

Besides the books already mentioned and some smaller treatises Peters published a philosophical work entitled Willenswelt und Weltwille (1883), and a disquisition on early gold production entitled Das goldene Ophir Salomo's (1895), translated into English in 1898.

Among colonial minded circles he was feted as a national hero. In 1914 he was able to return to Germany, after Emperor Wilhelm II by personal decree had bestowed upon him the right to use the title of an Imperial Commissioner again and had given him a pension from his personal budget, while the sentence by the disciplinary court remained in force. Peters was officially rehabilitated by personal decree of Adolf Hitler 20 years after his death when the Nazis had discovered him as an ideological relative. A propaganda film "Carl Peters" by Herbert Selpin was released in 1941, starring Hans Albers. A number of towns in Germany had streets named after Peters but in recent years some of them received changed names after a debate on his legacy.

Critical voices among Social Democrats, Catholic and Free-minded politicians called Peters a butcher and a national shame. The Austrian Africanist Oscar Baumann referred to him as "half crazy". While the East African indigenous people called him as Mkono Wa Damu (Swahili for "Bloody Hands"), one of his constant nicknames in the German critical press was Hänge-Peters ("Hangman-Peters").