Making Enemies: British and German Missionary Personnel in East African Internment Camps during the First World War

Abstract During the First World War, German and British citizens in British and German colonies in East Africa were placed in internment camps. Men, women and children were separated and transferred over imperial boundaries to keep enemy citizens apart from their erstwhile colonial lives. Amongst the interned were many Protestant missionaries and their families, who had not expected to be affected by the European war and believed themselves above worldly politics. This article examines reports from British and German missionaries, focusing on the narratives of three men interned and deported from East Africa: a German in British East Africa; a British man in German East Africa; and a German in German East Africa. By attending to this array of voices, the article can demonstrate how religious figures adopted a political stand in their denunciation of enemy policy towards missionaries. The prewar Anglo-German relationship between Protestant missions in East Africa had been characterized by collaboration, and offers of assistance were made in the early months of the war. Once missionaries had been interned, however, the relationship was severely damaged, and it remained so in the decades after the First World War.