German colonial empire

The German colonial empire (German: deutsches Kolonialreich) constituted the overseas colonies, dependencies, and territories of the German Empire. Unified in 1871, the chancellor of this time period was Otto von Bismarck. Short-lived attempts at colonization by individual German states had occurred in preceding centuries, but Bismarck resisted pressure to construct a colonial empire until the Scramble for Africa in 1884. Claiming much of the remaining uncolonized areas of Africa, Germany built the third-largest colonial empire at the time, after the British and French. The German colonial empire encompassed parts of Africa and Oceania.

Germany lost control of most of its colonial empire at the beginning of the First World War in 1914, but some German forces held out in German East Africa until the end of the war. After the German defeat in World War I, Germany's colonial empire was officially confiscated as part of the Treaty of Versailles between the Allies and German Weimar Republic. Each colony became a League of Nations mandate under the administration, although not sovereignty, of one of the Allied powers. Talk of regaining the colonies persisted in Germany until 1943, but never became an official goal of the German government.