Abbot Norbert completed a writing entitled Euntes in mundum universum while the bells rang out the Feast of the Epiphany in St Ottilien on the evening of 5 January 1908. Jesus gave this instruction to his disciples before his ascension: "Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to all creation!" The sentence formulates the central mission of the Saviour returning to heaven. In order to recognise the significance of Weber's writing, it is necessary to consider the historical context.
Beginnings of the Benedictine mission in East Africa
When the first group from the recently founded St Benedict's Missionary Co-operative set off for the colony of German East Africa in 1887, which was still by no means militarily secure, it had no firm foundations either in terms of the state or the church. The departure took place just four days after the move from the first branch in the poorly renovated Reichenbach monastery to the equally ruinous buildings around the Ottilienkapelle chapel in Emming in Upper Bavaria. Not all of the 14 men and women were 20 years old when they boarded the train in Türkenfeld to set off for Africa. None of them were particularly well prepared. Two of them died quickly under the tropical sun, three of them died in an attack on the station they had built with their own labour in Pugu in January 1893, and four who had been taken prisoner were bought back. However, three members of this group returned to East Africa in the same year to renovate ruins from the time of Arab rule in Dar es Salaam to work with ransomed slaves. Difficulties arose when the founder of their society, Fr Andreas Amrhein, left St Ottilien. On behalf of Rome, the Beuron Congregation took over responsibility for the development. While Fr Maurus Hartmann consolidated the work in Africa as Apostolic Prefect and established the first stations in the interior of the country, Abbot lldefons Schober ensured the monastic security of the monastery in St Ottilien. A general chapter in April 1902 gave the congregation the name Missionary Benedictines. On 15 September 1902, Father Cassian Spiß was appointed Bishop of the Vicariate of South Zanzibar. On 18 December 1902, Father Norbert Weber was unanimously elected as the first abbot of St. Ottilien Monastery. For a long time it was not clear how the two roles related to each other.
Abbot Norbert set off on a visitation of the mission area in March 1905. When he returned home at Christmas, the stations of Nyangao, Lukuledi, Peramiho and Kigonsera had been destroyed by the Maji-Maji war in the south of German East Africa; he himself had fled with a group of sisters through Mozambique to Dar es Salaam, where he arrived "safe and sound" on 22 October 1905. The events at this time were dramatic. Weber's immediately written visitation process initially only refers to the everyday life of the "monachi missionarii". He therefore begins with the self-discipline of the monks and "asks and implores" them "to use the means that they have learnt to know and love in the motherhouse as a means of promoting their striving for perfection in the mission as well". There is no criticism of life in the stations. There is not a word about life with Africans.
Criticising colonial activities
The concern for the monastic life of the missionaries was one problem, the view of the Africans, to whom the work of the community was directed, was the other, which could by no means remain uncommented on. Already during his flight from Lake Nyassa to the south to reach the open sea via the Zambezi, Abbot Norbert found formulations for what was then called a "Negro uprising", now known as the Maji Maji War. When the employee of a German company claimed that sultans in East Africa had provoked the uprising, Weber vigorously disagreed and his diary contains unusual statements. Twice he used the word "struggle for freedom", which only decades later became the key word for the attack on the German colonial power. He felt reminded of the Germans' fight against Napoleon despite the terrible damage the mission had suffered and stated:
"The reason in German territory is certainly the hated tax and the even more odious tax collection. I would almost like to think of the war as a struggle for freedom by an oppressed and enslaved people who want to shake off the chains of slavery that have been put on them [...] As much as I search and as much as I and our congregation are affected by this uprising, I can find nothing unjust in it per se. We Germans also fought back to shake off the Napoleonic yoke, and we are proud of our heroic ancestors who did so in bloody battle. The way things are managed in our colonies and the way black people are often treated makes it easy to understand why they are fighting for freedom." (Mission in war. Abbot Norbert Weber's travel diary from East Africa 1905, edited by Sigrid C. Albert, St. Ottilien 2018, p. 350)
Criticism of colonial activities goes back to the early days of Ottilian life. Father Andreas Amrhein signed a contract in Munich and Rome in 1887 that made the mission completely dependent on the colonial rulers. But already in Pugu the distancing began. Even then, the mission's own magazine Missionsblätter called the unrest of 1889, the so-called "Arab Revolt", an "uprising of the people" - this is underlined in print. The reason for this was the "undeniable mistakes" of German politics and the behaviour of German officials. However, in order to remain in dialogue and to be able to resume missionary work as soon as circumstances allowed, the criticism from St. Ottilien was limited. Unfortunately, as was admitted, documents that were important for historical reasons were censored in St Ottilien. In February 1889, Fr Amrhein summarised reports from Africa for publication in the Missionsblätter (cf. Missionsblätter 1, 1888/89, p. 553ff) and explained: "Since Fr Boniface speaks very openly about East African society and other 'German' conditions, out of caution (so as not to harm our and the Catholic missions in East Africa too much) many things must not be published. I must therefore edit the reports from A to Z." (Annalen St. Ottilien 27.2.1889) A little later, the Annals wrote: "In a letter that arrived today, Fr Boniface again spoke out against the East African Society." (Annals of St Ottilien 11 March 1889)
It is not correct to claim again recently that the mission sided with the colonial power against the Africans. To go even further, it is gross nonsense to describe the Ottilian missionaries as "faithful imperialists". Their place between the parties can only be grasped with cautious consideration. In the weeks that he spent in Dar es Salaam after returning from his safari, Abbot Norbert kept a very low profile with the colony's prominent figures, making statements on the Maji Maji war that were expected of him. It was at this time that Berlin's colonial policy took a decisive turn. In April 1906, the multilingual Albrecht von Rechenberg, who was regarded as a "connoisseur of the natives", became the first civilian governor of German East Africa. (Deutsch-Ostafrikanische Zeitung, 19 May 1906) And in September 1906, the banking expert Bernhard Dernburg took over the Colonial Department of the Foreign Office. He was the first politician from Berlin to make an inspection trip. He came to Africa with the "reform concept of rational and humane colonisation" (Speitkamp, Deutsche Kolonialgeschichte, p. 137) and, alongside Rechenberg, stood for a policy that emphasised the "value" of the African population.
The politics of Rechenberg and Dernburg
At the time, there were only around 1,000 Germans in East Africa alongside around 18 million Africans. It was never known exactly how many there were and the influx of Germans could not be controlled. Therefore, if something was to be done "for the good of the country", then the situation of the Africans had to be improved. What was needed was a relaxation of coercion so that they could work for their own needs and not just live off forced labour for export crops, where they were often cheated out of the wages for their work. The sale of land belonging to Africans to white settlers was prohibited, as was the unauthorised use of the hippopotamus whip. There was also talk of greater self-government. In the Reichstag, Rechenberg's policies were labelled "Negro-friendly" and "anti-settler". There was fierce resistance from colonial organisations.
Both Albrecht von Rechenberg and Bernhard Dernburg sought contact with the Catholic Church in Dar es Salaam. The Missionsblätter greeted Rechenberg with the wish that he would succeed in "managing the colony's affairs for the good of the country and the fatherland". (Missionsblätter 10, 1905/06 (August 1906), p. 174) After a Sunday service on 30 September, Albrecht von Rechenberg asked the bishop for a walk and suggested that "in order to give the Christians an upper hand over Mohamedanism", capable African peoples should be turned into Christians without taking baptism too seriously, "this would not always have been done with the ancient Germanic peoples either, and yet they had become Christians". Following the example of the "Ethiopian movement", the mission churches were to organise themselves with the help of the Bible and ensure the unity of the colony. Bishop Thomas was so irritated that he "took his leave as quickly as possible", as he put it in his diary on 30 September 1906, because despite his good intentions, Rechenberg's contempt for the faith as well as for the Africans was clearly evident. However, historical scholarship concedes that Rechenberg was "orientated towards the African population on humane basic ideas" and that his "ethics of responsibility" provided "elitist political thinking with a limiting and guiding standard". (D. Bald, Die Reformpolitik von Gouverneur Rechenberg. Colonial trade expansion and industrial minority in Dt East Africa, in: D. Oberndörfer (ed.), Africana Collecta II, 1971, p. 243)
The attempt to better utilise the possibilities of German colonial policy than before and at the same time reduce the oppression of Africans, although the gentlemen did not agree at all, also corresponded to the goals of Bernhard Dernburg, who, as a "specialist for the restructuring of run-down joint-stock companies", took over the Colonial Department of the Foreign Office in May 1907, which became the Reich Colonial Office and was thus subordinate to the Reich Chancellor. The colonies were now regarded as "purely internal German affairs". At a lecture in Berlin, Dernburg interpreted "colonisation" as before as the "harnessing" of people for the benefit of the "colonising nation", but made a decisive turn: "If colonisation used to be carried out with means of destruction, today we can colonise with means of preservation, and this includes the missionary as well as the doctor, the railway as well as the machine, i.e. advanced theoretical and applied science in all fields." (Goals of the German colonial system. Zwei Vorträge gehalten von Bernhard Dernburg, Berlin 1907, p. 9) So it was not about the valorisation of the African that the missionaries wanted. But common interests became apparent.
Dernburg visited the Catholic church immediately after his arrival in Dar es Salaam, sat there alone for a long time and then registered for the next morning. As Bishop Thomas was not present, Provicar Fr Anton Ruedel took over the reception. Dernburg asked - a whole page was needed to note down the questions - above all how the mission proceeded when it approached the people; many settlers did this with a brutal approach. Fr Anton explained to his guests that the first contact with Africans when establishing a station was by "giving them work in return for payment". The natives thus learnt about the missionaries' intentions; regular lessons did not yet take place, partly because of the language problems. But because the missionaries pray daily, hold church services and deal with written material, the people become curious. Reading and writing lessons begin with two or three brave people. The same happens with catechetical lessons. "No one is forced to attend catechumen classes." (Annals Dar es Salaam 3-6 August 1907)
In 20 years, the mission had thus developed a programme for what politics was looking for. The last of Fr Anton's sentences was decisive for this programme: There is "hope" that it will show its effect "after a few (!) generations". Even during Dernburg's stay, a dispute arose in the newspapers. Radical settlers declared in the Usambara Post on 4 January 1908 that there was an intelligent population dependent on the work of their bodies alongside the "admittedly rather degenerate coastal Negroes". But the people only worked because they had to. And because they were lazy, they preferred to run around as porters instead of building railways or participating in economically valuable plantation construction. The conclusion was: "The material (i.e. in general: the Africans, JM) is good, but currently still very raw; it is neither dense nor durable enough for the country to really flourish." (Usambara-Post. Unabhängiges Organ für die wirtschaftlichen Interessen von Deutsch-Ostafrika 4.1.1908) Newspapers in the empire took up the accusation and accused Dernburg of protecting and coddling the natives. The abolition of corporal punishment would make the Africans insolent. In the meantime, there were examples of white settlers being beaten up by Africans in Dar es Salaam.
Mission at eye level
It was in this context that Abbot Norbert wrote "Euntes in mundum universum". The quotes he included show that he was familiar with colonial literature, and he also met "Excellency Dernburg" for a discussion in December 1907. Weber assumed that Benedictineism was "made for missionary work among the heathens" and criticised the current state of his own work. They had abandoned "Benedictine principles and traditions" and developed a "parish system" that served more to organise the stations than to try to "influence the blacks". At the time of St Benedict, the Church also faced "the great social question which the Roman
This was before the gulf "between the rich patrician and his serfs, who eked out a miserable existence on the latifundia". This gulf had to be overcome and "great social damage had to be repaired". Even in the present day, this could not be achieved through pure instruction, explained Abbot Norbert:
"Grace wants us to use human means. And one of the most excellent, indeed humanly speaking, an indispensable means is intervention in the life of the Negro. His cultural development does not take place exclusively in the school and in the church. His Christianity is not built on the instruction he receives here. Christianity should and must embrace the whole of life and transform it into a new form [...] We must, in order to have a base of operations for our campaign plan against unbelief and spiritual misery, descend to the Negro and meet him as peaceful co-warriors in the struggle against physical misery and social hardship [...] In addition to moral and spiritual training, the mission must work hard to create a certain material prosperity among the black peoples."
What is called "descending" here is only possible if the mission helps the Africans to help themselves, and for this it is necessary to make them independent. "The Negro may be transplanted to the trading town by the sea and may be given a carefree life there on the basis of horrendous wages, which his strong muscles earn with ease, but he will always remain an uncivilised man; indeed, he will sink lower than he was in his wilderness." A healthy development process among the people only takes place through independent labour "which yields a direct profit". It is explicitly added: It is not about profit through "labour for others".
Weber describes in detail the steps that African people can take to become independent of colonial employers based on agriculture. A special chapter is devoted to women and their potential advancement in society if they become owners of their own property. This is the only way to make Christian life possible:
"When this education has progressed so far that the people produce so much that they no longer have to live from hand to mouth, as is now the case, but that they have also set aside for the time of need; when the people have progressed so far that they begin to love their homeland as a result of a certain wealth of livestock and better soil culture and are now attached to the land; when the time has come when the people feel happy in a safer and better dwelling with a comfortable prosperity and with modest demands on life; then they are also more receptive to the teachings of Christianity; Christian communities are formed which constitute a self-contained whole. Christianity begins to permeate life, which has been uplifted and ennobled by the sedative power of labour."
Helping people to help themselves
The question remains as to why Weber's writing was hardly noticed even in his own community. A simple answer can be found by referring to the fate of Albrecht von Rechenberg and Bernhard Dernburg, whose concept of a "radical change of course and reconciliation with the Africans" (H. Gründer: Christliche Mission und deutscher Imperialismus. Eine politische Geschichte ihrer Beziehungen während der deutschen Kolonialzeit (1884-1914) unter besonderer Berücksichtigung Afrikas und Chinas, Paderborn 1982, p. 231) met with so much resistance that they abandoned it. During his stay in East Africa, Bernhard Dernburg in particular argued in vain with settlers who insisted that the Africans had to be "material" for their colonial prosperity. Unfortunately, no objection has survived from Bishop Thomas Spreiter, who certainly did not like Weber's "writing" and sought close contact with the colonial government for his work. Only a letter from Weber to his confreres from October 1908 has survived, in which he asked them to avoid all "criticising and grumbling among themselves" and to obey the bishop unconditionally. However, Weber insisted on his proposal to use "the indigenous language as the school language" instead of Kiswahili in schools, because this was the only way for children to learn to develop out of the world of their family through the use of their mother tongue without wasting time. Only if they succeed in "training capable craftsmen, gardeners and field labourers" will they be able to deal with things "that belong to them" over time.
The mission's work is in no way intended to increase the wealth of the settlers. What it offers the Africans is help to help themselves. However, this is only possible if it meets them as equals from the outset, i.e. in a different way to the settlers who are determined to enrich themselves. This idea could not be communicated in the colony for the time being, not even to the bishops. Bishop Thomas demonstrated this when he reprimanded and transferred Fr Johannes Häfliger when he spoke out strongly against soldiers in Kigonsera who were massacring rebellious Africans village by village.
The question is what remains if agriculture, which was Abbot Norbert's starting point, no longer forms the basis of modern life 120 years later. Perhaps we should consider the title of the scripture once again. It is Jesus' admonition to spread the message of his life across countries and peoples. However, the German translation is not correct. "Euntes" is a participle, not an imperative. It is translated as "Go into all the world ..." or "By going into the world, proclaim the Good News to all creation". Going into the world is something that is always happening for missionary Benedictines under constantly changing conditions. Weber's call for the proclamation to take place via agriculture refers to a specific historical situation, the steps of which are understandable in retrospect. What remains beyond this situation and becomes the life task of the Missionary Benedictines is the admonition with which Fr Norbert Weber concludes his book on the feast of the Epiphany. A departure into the world without losing the monastic foundation happens to help people who are entangled in living conditions that prevent them from setting out. This makes it possible to go into the open together so that Epiphany can begin: The apparition, the return of Christ.
