One mid-morning in March the following year a policeman on a bicycle rode up to the Biashara Furniture and General Merchandise timber yard. It was raining lightly, hardly spotting his khaki, the end of the vuli rains, the short rains. The policeman was of medium height, with a thin mild-looking face and a small nervous twitch around his left eye. He leaned his bicycle under cover and entered Nassor Biashara’s office.
‘Salam alaikum,’ he said politely.
‘Waalaikum salam,’ Nassor Biashara replied, leaning back, his spectacles on his forehead, suspicious. There was never a good reason to be visited by a policeman.
‘Is Hamza Askari here?’ he asked in a voice as mild as his appearance.
‘There is a Hamza here but his name is not Askari,’ Nassor Biashara said. ‘He was one a long time ago. What do you want with him?’
‘That must be him. Where is he?’
‘What do you want with him?’ Nassor Biashara asked again.
‘Bwana mkubwa, I have work to do and so do you. I don’t want to waste your time. He is wanted at HQ and I have to take him there,’ the policeman said politely, even smiling. ‘Kwa hisani yako, please call him for me.’
Nassor Biashara rose to his feet and led him off to the workshop where the policeman informed Hamza that he was to follow him to Police HQ at once. What has he done? Nassor Biashara asked, but the policeman took no notice, facing Hamza and pointing to the door with his left arm outstretched.
‘What is this about?’ Hamza asked.
‘It’s not my business, let’s go. I am sure you will soon find out,’ the policeman said.
‘You can’t come here and arrest a man and not even tell him what it is about,’ Nassor Biashara protested.
‘Bwana, I have work to do. I am not here to arrest him, but I will if he does not come with me willingly,’ the policeman said, his right hand reaching for the handcuffs hooked to his belt.
Hamza raised his hands placatingly. They walked through the streets, Hamza slightly in front, the policeman wheeling his bicycle just behind. They drew glances but no one addressed them. At Police HQ another officer wrote Hamza’s name in a book and pointed to a bench where he was to wait. He tried to guess what this summons was about. The policeman had asked if he was Hamza Askari so it was something to do with the schutztruppe. He never called himself Askari. Were they going to detain him after all these years? There were rumours that some of the German settlers in the country were making ready to leave. The growing talk of war between the British and the Germans raised fears of the detention of enemy aliens.
After what felt like an hour but was probably less, he was called and taken down a short corridor to an office. A European policeman with thinning hair, bristling moustache and glittering eyes was sitting behind a desk. He was not in police uniform but was dressed in a white short-sleeved shirt, khaki shorts, white stockings and polished brown shoes, the uniform of a British colonial official. Another policeman in khaki uniform but without his hat was sitting at a small desk near him, ready to take notes. The British officer pointed to a chair without speaking. He waited while Hamza settled down and then waited a moment longer.
‘Is your name Hamza?’ he asked in Kiswahili, his voice rasping and menacing, seeming to come out of the corner of his mouth. There was a brief and unexpected glint of amusement in his eyes, then he repeated the question in a gentler voice. ‘Hamza?’
He thought he recognised a contained violence in that tone that he had heard so often from the German officers. He had not had much to do with British officials and this police officer was the first one he was meeting in this town. ‘Yes, I am Hamza,’ he said.
‘Hamza, can you read?’ the British officer asked, speaking again in that rasping voice.
‘Yes,’ he said in surprise.
‘In German?’ the British officer asked.
Hamza nodded.
‘Who do you know in Germany?’ the police officer asked.
‘I don’t know anyone,’ Hamza said, and remembered the Frau even as he made this denial.
The police officer held up an envelope. It had been opened. ‘This is addressed to Hamza Askari, using the Post Office Box number of Biashara Furniture and General Merchandise. Is this you?’
She had replied! He stood up and reached out for the letter. The uniformed policeman also stood up.
‘Sit down,’ the British officer said firmly, looking from one man to the other.
‘It’s my letter,’ Hamza said, not sitting.
‘Sit down,’ the officer said more mildly, and waited until Hamza sat. ‘How do you know this woman?’ he asked, speaking her name.
Yes, she replied! ‘I worked for her many years ago,’ he said, and the officer nodded. There could be nothing irregular about a native working for a European. The officer took out the letter and seemed to read it through silently.
‘It’s my letter. Why are you keeping it from me?’ Hamza demanded loudly.
‘For security reasons. Don’t raise your voice at me or you will not see this letter, ever,’ the officer said in fluent German. ‘Why would a respectable German woman write to you and how is it that someone like you can read a letter written in such sophisticated language? What other letters have you exchanged with her?’
‘I have not received a letter from anyone in my whole life,’ Hamza replied in Kiswahili, understanding now why the police officer was interested in his letter. ‘We have been waiting for news of my brother for many years. He was an askari. I know a little German so in the end wrote to the Frau to ask for her help. Does it say his name in that letter?’
The officer held out the letter and Hamza stood up to take it. ‘Tell me what it says,’ the officer said.
Hamza read it silently through, and then read the letter again. It was a long letter, two pages, and he took his time, making a pretence of struggling to understand it all. ‘It says he is alive and in Germany,’ he said. ‘Alhamdulillah, she managed to find out. Someone who helped the Frau found his name mentioned twice in the office dealing with askari records, in 1929 when he applied for his pension and 1934 when he applied for a medal. So he’s alive, alhamdulillah, but she does not know any more. She says she will keep asking. It’s unbelievable. She says my letter took a long time to reach her because they have moved but it did, and then she had to get in touch with …’
‘That’s enough,’ the British officer said, cutting off his babble. ‘I have read the letter. What is all this about a book by Heine? Have you read this book?’
‘Oh, no, madam gave it to me,’ Hamza said. ‘It was a joke, I think. She knew it was too difficult for me. I lost it many years ago.’
The British officer considered this for a moment and then decided to let it go. ‘Affairs with Germany are very tense at the moment. If there are further exchanges with anyone living there we will investigate and may withhold correspondence. There could be consequences for you. Be aware that we will keep a close watch on you and on this address from now on. You may go.’
Hamza pocketed the envelope and strolled back to the timber yard, relishing the anticipation of how he would break the news to Afiya later. They crowded around him when he returned to the yard and he made light of it, saying he was questioned by a British officer about his time in the schutztruppe. He wanted to keep the news of the letter for Afiya first. ‘They must be checking up on old askari,’ he said, ‘to recruit them for the KAR. I told them I was injured so that was that.’
He waited for them to come home for lunch. Khalifa no longer worked at the warehouse, spending his mornings at home or dropping in at one café or another to share the news of the day, and then he went to the market for fruit and vegetables as instructed by Afiya, who worked at the maternity clinic in the mornings. Ilyas was back from school when she came home to prepare their lunch. They did not usually eat until two in the afternoon. Hamza waited until after lunch, eating the matoke and fish with silent relish, then he washed his hands and called for attention.
‘What are you up to?’ Afiya said, smiling. ‘I knew there was something.’
Hamza pulled the envelope out of his shirt pocket and they all knew at once what it was. None of them ever received any letters. He read it to them, simultaneously translating as he did.
Dear Hamza, It was such a lovely surprise to receive your letter. It was such a long time ago and we often talk about our time in Ostafrika and the mission. I am glad to hear you are well and that you are now a carpenter and a married man.
Your letter took a long time to reach us because we no longer live in Berlin but now live in Würzburg, so it had to be forwarded to us. We were very sorry to hear about your brother-in-law and started enquiries immediately. It is very fortunate that a friend of ours works in the Foreign Affairs Office in Berlin and he found two references to Ilyas Hassan in the schutztruppe records, which are held in that Office, so your relative is here in Germany. Such a striking name, I think there could only have been one Ilyas Hassan in the whole of the schutztruppe. The first reference to the name was in 1929 when he applied to receive his pension, and the second was in 1934 when he applied to receive the campaign medal for the Ostafrika campaign. He made both these applications in Hamburg so it is likely that he is living there. Many foreign people do because they work on the ships, so maybe that is his work too. He was unsuccessful with the pension application because he did not have discharge papers. He was also unsuccessful with the application for a medal because it was only awarded to Germans and not to askari.
These recent years have been difficult years for Germany, and as a foreigner I expect that life has not been easy for your brother-in-law, but at least you know now that he is alive. Our friend was not able to find out when he came here and where he was before that. I expect there is more information available and we will make further enquiries. We will let you know if we learn any more, and will give him your address when we find him. It would be so very good if you were able to be in touch again.
By the way, when our mail was forwarded from the mission, there was a letter from the Oberleutnant, your old officer who brought you to us. He wrote to us after he was repatriated to Germany in 1920 when we ourselves were already here. It seems he was detained first in Dar es Salaam and then Alexandria. He asked after you and I was able to write to him and tell him that you made a full recovery and your German had progressed in leaps and bounds, and that you were a devoted reader of Schiller. The pastor sends his regards and would like to know how you got on with Heine. That is how he remembers you, not as the man whose leg and perhaps his life he saved, but as the askari who presumed to read his Heine. That was his copy I gave you. Please accept our best wishes to you and your family.
*
They never received another letter. Hamza replied to thank the Frau but perhaps the letter did not leave the country. If it did and she replied with more news, perhaps her letter did not get past the watchful police officer. In September that year war was declared between the United Kingdom and Germany and that was the end of postal services between the two countries. In the town they were very distant from this war and only knew about it as news for a while, despite the deployment of KAR through Tanga towards the campaign against the Italians in Abyssinia. Khalifa did not survive the war. He passed away quietly one night in 1942 at the age of sixty-eight. When his body was taken in the bier for the funeral prayers, it was the first time he had entered a mosque in decades. He left nothing for anybody apart from a few rags and a pile of old newspapers.
Ilyas finished Standard VIII in 1940 but there was no further schooling available in the town, and Standard VIII was achievement enough in many people’s eyes. It was good enough for training as an officer of some kind in a government department, health or agriculture or customs. Ilyas enlisted in the KAR in December 1942 soon after Khalifa’s passing and a few months after the defeat of the Italians in Abyssinia. He was in his nineteenth year. He had been talking about joining up for more than a year but Khalifa so vociferously opposed this move that Ilyas did not dare disobey. This is nothing to do with you, he said to Ilyas. Isn’t it enough that your father and your uncle were stupid enough to risk their lives for these vainglorious warmongers?
After Khalifa’s passing, Ilyas wore his parents down with his pleas. The British administration promised to send qualified veteran KARs for further studies at the end of the war and Ilyas could not resist the lure. He was sent to Gilgil in the highlands in Kenya Colony for training and then was posted to Dar es Salaam for garrison duties with the coastal regiment for the rest of the war. He did not take part in any fighting but he learned a great deal about the British and their pursuits. He also learned to ride a motorcycle and drive a Jeep, and even to tinker successfully with its engine. He played football and tennis and went fishing with a speargun and flippers. For a while he even smoked a pipe.
At the end of the war, the promised further studies became training as a school teacher in Dar es Salaam and afterwards Ilyas found work in a school in the city and rented a room in Kariako Street. These were the years when new stirrings of anti-colonial sentiment were spreading, informed by the successful campaign in India and the triumph of Nkrumah in the Gold Coast and the defeat of the Dutch in Indonesia. Students politicised by their university experiences in the African Association in Makerere University College and by their involvement in student organisations in England and Scotland, were active in this movement. They and everyone else who knew about it were alarmed by the settler leanings of the new colonial administration. Ilyas was not yet drawn into these activities although he would be later. In these years, when he was in his late twenties, he played sports and taught school, and as time passed he began making a name for himself writing stories in Kiswahili, which were sometimes published in the newspapers. In the 1950s the colonial administration introduced a new radio service. It aired news and music programmes and features on improvements in health, agriculture and education. The news soon became strident accounts of Mau Mau atrocities in Kenya, which were so persuasive that mothers threatened their children’s misbehaviour with the appearance of the rebels.
For a few days every vacation, Ilyas went to see Hamza and Afiya. Parts of the town now had an electric supply, including their old house. He strolled the streets with some pleasure but he soon became restless and longed to return to the city. His parents loved his stories from there, asking to hear details of his classroom achievements and the success of his publications in the newspapers. Afiya gasped with amazement at his sporting exploits, exaggerating her surprise, which flattered Ilyas and made him feel proud that he had prevailed against his timidity as a youth. He asked about his uncle Ilyas, if they had any more news. He always asked, not expecting any. His father told him that he had written again to the Frau pastor but received no reply. Stories of the wartime destruction in Germany were only slowly reaching them, and he was fearful that the Frau and the pastor might not have survived. Hamza was by now in his fifties, slowing but content and well, managing the Biashara timber yard for Nassor who was now no longer a businessman but a magnate with a variety of trading outlets – pharmaceutical companies, furniture stores and most recently electrical products, including radios. Hamza and Afiya owned one.
A popular feature on the radio service was a story programme that invited contributions from listeners. The assistant to the producer of the programme drew his boss’s attention to one of Ilyas’s stories. The producer asked to meet him. He was a big genial Englishman with a large face and a coppery moustache. He was dressed in the colonial uniform of white shirt, khaki shorts, white calf-length socks and brown shoes. The exposed parts of his arms and legs were muscular and covered with coppery hair, just like his face.
‘My name is Butterworth and I am on secondment from the Department of Agriculture,’ he told Ilyas. ‘I am not an expert on either radio or stories. They might as well have sent me to the National Authority for Anchorages and Tunnels but you have to muck in and get on with it. Now I know I like stories to have some element of instruction to them. This one here about the experiences of a school teacher will do very well. Can you do another with something about farming in it?’
Mr Butterworth was also a reserve KAR officer and when he learned that Ilyas was a veteran, he found ways of showing favour to him. That was how he was given the opportunity to read his own stories on the radio and become a minor celebrity. Mr Butterworth was relieved of his secondment in the mid-1950s and was transferred to the West Indies but by then Ilyas was in and making his own way in his new profession. In time he came to be a full-time member of the production team of the broadcasting service, working mainly in the newsroom and writing stories when he found the time. The mid-1950s were the years of TANU’s march to independence under the leadership of Julius Nyerere, the mission- school boy who had at one time considered ordination into the Catholic Church before he became a radical activist for Independence. By the elections of 1958, it was evident that the British colonial administration was in disarray and on the retreat. The elections of 1960, held under the supervision of the colonial administration, gave TANU and Nyerere 98 per cent of the elected members of Parliament. These were not results produced out of a hat by a corrupt electoral commission but ones achieved under the grumbling surveillance of reluctant colonial officials. There was no way to argue against that and by the next year the British were gone.
In 1963, two years after Independence, which both his parents lived to see, Ilyas was awarded a scholarship by the Federal Republic of Germany to spend a year in Bonn learning advanced broadcasting techniques. He was thirty-eight years old. The Federal Republic of Germany was what was popularly known as West Germany, a federation of the regions occupied by the US, the British and the French after the war. The part of Germany occupied by the Soviet Union became the German Democratic Republic. The GDR was highly active in colonial politics, and along with other Soviet East European allies provided sanctuary, training and arms to insurrectionist liberation movements in many parts of Africa. It had positioned itself as the champion of decolonising nations, and the Federal Republic scholarships were gifts intended to match those of the German Democratic Republic and to win support from poor nations at forums like the United Nations. Ilyas was interviewed and assessed and was delighted to be awarded the scholarship. He had never travelled anywhere, apart from those months in Gilgil where he did his basic training. Now he was travelling as a mature man with his eyes open and curious.
He spent the first six months in Bonn in an intensive course in German language. He enjoyed his time there, attending every class, practising for hours, walking the streets every day to see whatever there was to see, wandering into shops and exhibitions, sending postcards to his parents and friends at work. He lived in a three-storey building that provided accommodation for mature students. There were six large rooms with shared bathroom facilities on each floor. It was not far from the university cafeteria and was altogether comfortable and suited to Ilyas’s needs. It seemed he must have inherited something from his father because he made rapid progress in German, and his teachers praised him for his competence in it.
At the end of the first six months he began the broadcasting part of the program. As part of it, he was expected to work on a journalistic project requiring research and recorded interviews. He was given a budget and six hours of consultation time with a supervisor for technical assistance. He knew about this before he came and already knew what his subject would be. He chose to work on the whereabouts of his uncle Ilyas. He had copied the Frau pastor’s address from his father’s volume of Heine, and while he was still on the language course began reading about Würzburg. He learned that 90 per cent of the city was destroyed in an air raid on 16 March 1945 by hundreds of British Lancaster bombers dropping incendiary explosives. There was no pressing military imperative behind the raid, which was intended purely to demoralise the civilian population. He found a contemporary map of the reconstructed town in the university library and searched for the street named in the Frau’s address. The details of the wholesale destruction made him doubtful that it would still be there, but it was. When his German was good enough, he wrote a note explaining that he was the son of Hamza the askari and wished to extend his father’s greetings to the pastor and Frau. He wrote his address on the left-hand corner of the envelope. Ten days later his letter came back unopened with Nicht bekannt unter dieser Adresse written across the bottom of the envelope. Not known at this address.
His assigned supervisor, Dr Köhler, frowned as Ilyas began to describe his project. ‘A war in Africa fifty years ago,’ he said. ‘Germany gets no rest from her wars.’
Dr Köhler was in his early forties, tall and fair-haired, a striding smiling presence in the department, and Ilyas was disappointed by his disapproval. He waited for a moment before continuing and then explained that the schutztruppe he was trying to trace was his uncle who had come to Germany after the war in Ostafrika. Dr Köhler lifted his chin and then gave a small nod for him to continue. Ilyas explained about the pastor who had saved his father’s leg and perhaps his life, and the mission in Kilemba, and the letter from the Frau pastor about his uncle. He told Dr Köhler about the letter he had written to the Würzburg address and that it was returned. Dr Köhler shrugged. Ilyas thought he understood what that shrug meant.
‘A pastor means he is a Lutheran,’ Dr Köhler said. ‘A Lutheran minister in Catholic Würzburg should not be too difficult to trace. How do you intend to proceed?’
‘I was planning to go there to see if there are any records about the street or anything about the pastor or the Frau.’
‘The sooner the better,’ Dr Köhler said with a glimmer of enthusiasm. ‘Where will you look for these records?’
‘I don’t know. I’ll enquire when I get there,’ Ilyas said.
Dr Köhler smiled. ‘If I were you, I would begin at the Rathaus. As you know, you can claim your travel and subsistence expenses for trips associated with your project but only afterwards. Our bureaucracy is very thorough about funds … oh, about everything. German bureaucracy is the envy of the world. I hope you have enough money to spend and then claim. This is your project and you proceed as you wish, but I would like us to meet like this once a week for you to give me a report. Yes, go and check the Rathaus in Würzburg. It was a lovely town but I have not been there since the war.’
Ilyas took the train from Bonn to Frankfurt and changed there for Würzburg. At the Rathaus he was directed to the Civil Registration Office where he found out that the street the pastor and his family lived in was completely destroyed and the pastor, the Frau pastor and a daughter were presumed dead in the fire that followed the raid. There were two daughters, he remembered, but one was evidently no longer living with her parents then. That was all the record held in that office contained, their names, the street they lived in and its destruction. The woman in the office explained that if the person he was looking for was a Lutheran pastor, then he should check the Lutheran archive for Bavaria in Nuremberg.
He reported his findings to Dr Köhler who advised him to make a phone call to the archive before going there. In the meantime, he showed him a Compact Cassette recorder released by Phillips only a few months before. The department had acquired two of them, he said, and why did Ilyas not take one with him in case he was able to record a conversation with the archivist? He made his phone call and took another trip to Bavaria, travelling through Frankfurt and Würzburg again. He had not known how close he was to Nuremberg on his previous trip. The archivist was a lean elderly man in a dark suit, which was a little loose on him. He took Ilyas into a room with a long table on which he saw a small stack of papers. The archivist sat at one end of the table with some papers of his own, presumably to keep an eye on him. If you need any assistance, please do not hesitate to ask, he said.
Ilyas read in the papers that after his return from Ostafrika, the pastor was attached to the Evangelical Lutheran Church of St Stephan in Würzburg. The church was totally destroyed in March 1945 and rebuilt in the 1950s. He also taught part-time at the Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg. He taught a course in Protestant Theology. The Frau’s occupation was not recorded. Both had perished with their younger daughter in the bombing raid. Do you know what happened to the other daughter? Ilyas asked the archivist who shook his head but did not speak. Among the papers was a brief cutting from a newspaper or magazine about the mission in Kilemba, just a couple of paragraphs about a clinic and a school and the pastor’s name. There was no photograph and the title and date of the publication had been cut off. Ilyas asked the archivist if he knew the source of the cutting.
He came over to where Ilyas was sitting and looked at the cutting for a moment. He said, ‘Most likely Kolonie und Heimat, the old one before it was taken over by the Reichskolonialbund.’
‘What is that?’ Ilyas asked.
The archivist looked stern, almost contemptuous of his ignorance. ‘It was the bund, the Gleichschaltung for the recolonising movement. There was a campaign to get back the colonies taken away by Versailles.’
‘What is that word? Gleichschaltung?’ Ilyas asked. ‘Please, I would be very grateful for your help.’
The archivist nodded, perhaps mollified by his manner of asking. ‘It refers to the way the Nazi government brought organisations together under one administration. It means … coordination, control. The Reichskolonialbund brought together all the recolonising associations and put them under the control of the party.’
‘I knew nothing about a recolonising movement,’ Ilyas said.
The archivist shrugged. Dummkopf. ‘They revived Kolonie und Heimat, which was a publication from Imperial times. I think this cutting is from the old one,’ he said, and returned to his place at the table while Ilyas wrote up his notes. It was then that he realised he had forgotten to switch on the Phillips Compact Cassette recorder. He did not think he could ask the stern man to repeat what he had said about the Reichskolonialbund. As he was taking his leave, it suddenly occurred to Ilyas to ask, Were you in Ostafrika? They were standing at the outside door when he asked and the archivist said yes and turned away before Ilyas could ask any more.
Dr Köhler was also surprised to hear that Ilyas had not heard of the recolonising movement. ‘It was a big thing, a real grudge for the National Socialists to exploit. I remember the marches. Did you use the Compact Cassette? Oh, that’s a pity. You are making a radio programme so it would be good to have some clips from someone like the archivist. Maybe on your next search.’
Ilyas found out that the archives of the Reichskolonialbund were in Koblenz, not at all far from Bonn, a beautiful old city at the junction of the Rhine and Moselle rivers. He rang ahead with his request to look at the Kolonie und Heimat archive and was met by a woman archivist who led him to a large room with lines of shelving stacks. She said her office was next door if he needed her. In the archives he found out that the Reichskolonialbund was established in 1933 and incorporated into the National Socialist Party in 1936. Kolonie und Heimat was revived in 1937 and was as much a magazine as a photo-journal. As he searched the copies he saw many photographs of colonial homesteads and ceremonies, taken before the loss of the colonies, but also photographs of events that were organised by the Reichskolonialbund to campaign and agitate for the return of the colonies. In the rallies and on platforms, members wore the uniform of the schutztruppe and carried a specially designed flag. In a November 1938 issue he saw a grainy photograph of a group standing on a stage, two adult Germans in uniform, a German teenager in a white shirt and black shorts, standing before a microphone, and behind him and to the left of the frame, an African man in schutztruppe uniform. Behind them was the flag of the Reichskolonialbund, a corner of which displayed the swastika. The caption to the photograph described it as the Hamburg Reichskolonialbund Gala but did not name the four figures. He asked the archivist if it was possible to find the original photograph or any details of the source or occasion. This time he remembered to switch on his Phillips Compact Cassette.
‘We have many of the original photographs but I am not sure where they are exactly or if they are properly classified,’ she said apologetically. ‘I have some deadlines to meet, but if you give me a few days I will get back to you. I have the telephone number of your department at the university.’
A few days later he was back in Koblenz and, with the Cassette running, the archivist helped him go through the boxes of photographs which were collected by year. They found the original photograph with ease. On the back of it was a label with the name of the photographer and those of the figures in it, which the picture editor must have decided to leave out of the caption. The label also said that the event was a rally after the screening of a film about a Deutsch-Ostafrikan community, shown in Hamburg. The African man in schutztruppe uniform was named as Elias Essen. Those eyes, that brow.
He asked the archivist for a copy of the original and sent it to his mother. She replied in a few days to say it was his uncle Ilyas.
He was in Bonn and lived within walking distance of government offices, including the Foreign Affairs Office, and his accreditation as both a student on a broadcasting program funded by a Federal Government scholarship and a journalist by profession gave him access to many officials. Even when they were not able to supply him with the information he required, they were often able advise on where he should be looking. He wrote home to let his parents know about the progress of his search, but some of his finds were too inconclusive to announce in a letter.
He made trips to Freiburg to the Institute of Military History, to Berlin to the archives of the Colonial Association, to the Institute of Oriental Languages in Berlin to meet linguists and search their archives for the language training of policemen and administrators who were to run the regained colonies. Some of the researches were to consolidate the information he had already gathered, some to provide more context and background. He met military enthusiasts, amateur and professional historians, his Phillips Compact Cassette recorder running whenever the person he was speaking to allowed it, and gradually he was able to assemble a sketch, a story, which still required lengthier and more determined research to fill out in detail, but was quite adequate enough for his radio project. Dr Köhler was delighted with the effort and thought that the poor-quality sound the Compact Cassette produced somehow enhanced the emotional power of the proceedings.
He waited until he returned home before telling his parents the full story of what happened to Uncle Ilyas. This was what he told them. Uncle Ilyas was wounded at the Battle of Mahiwa in October 1917. (I was there, Hamza said. It was a terrible battle.) He was taken prisoner and held in detention first in Lindi and then in Mombasa. (So he was only a day away from us here, Afiya said.) After the war, the British repatriated the German officers to Germany but released the schutztruppe askari any old how, just let them out and allowed them to look after themselves as best they could. Ilyas was not sure where or when Uncle Ilyas was released. He could not find out anything about that. He might have ended up anywhere on the coast or even across the ocean. Nor was he sure what kind of work he did after his release. At some point he worked on ships as a waiter or a general servant of some kind. For sure he worked on a German ship and was in Germany in 1929 as they knew from the Frau’s letter and from what Ilyas saw in the Foreign Affairs Office record. By this time he had changed his name to Elias Essen and was making a living as a singer in Hamburg. He was remembered as Elias Essen, a performer in low-life Hamburg cabarets who wore the military uniform of an askari on-stage, including the tarbush with the Imperial eagle badge. He married a German woman in 1933 and had three children. Ilyas knew that because one of the entries on his record was the appeal his wife made against eviction from their rented property, and she provided details of her marriage and the birth of her children and her husband’s record as a veteran of the schutztruppe. Another entry was his application for a campaign medal in 1934, but they knew about that already because the Frau had told them. What they didn’t know, because the Frau did not know it either, was that Uncle Ilyas was marching with the Reichskolonialbund, a Nazi Party organisation. The Nazis wanted the colonies back, and Uncle Ilyas wanted the Germans back, so he appeared on their marches carrying the schutztruppe flag and on platforms singing Nazi songs. So while you were grieving for him here, Ilyas said, Uncle Ilyas was dancing and singing in German cities and waving the schutztruppe flag in marches demanding the return of the colonies. Lebensraum did not only mean the Ukraine and Poland to them. The Nazi dream also included the hills and valleys and plains at the foot of that snow-capped mountain in Africa.
In 1938 Uncle Ilyas was living in Berlin, and perhaps just as the Frau was making her enquiries on their behalf, he was arrested for breaking the Nazi race laws and defiling an Aryan woman. Not for marrying his German wife! That marriage took place in 1933 and the race laws were not passed until 1935 so could not be applied to them. It was for an affair he had with another German woman in 1938. That is what the rule of law means. He broke the law fair and square in 1938 but he did not in 1933 because the race law was not yet passed. Uncle Ilyas was sent to Sachsenhausen concentration camp outside Berlin and his one surviving son, who was called Paul after the General in the Ostafrika war, voluntarily followed him there. It is not known what happened to his wife. Both Uncle Ilyas and his son Paul died in Sachsenhausen in 1942. The cause of Uncle Ilyas’s death is not recorded but from the memoir of an inmate who survived, it is known that the son of the black singer who voluntarily entered the camp to be with his father was shot trying to escape.
So what we can know for sure, Ilyas told his parents, is that someone loved Uncle Ilyas enough to follow him to certain death in a concentration camp in order to keep him company.