The German History Society is proud to announce that the 2024 ‘Rethinking German History’ prize has been awarded to Miguel Gaete Caceres for the article ‘A New Moral World Order: Carl Alexander Simon and the German Colonization of Southern Chile’, German History, 42/4 (2024).
The article focuses on overlooked aspects of German colonization in southern Chile by examining the treatise Auswanderung und deutsch-nationale Kolonisation von Süd-Amerika mit besonderer Berücksichtigung des Freistaates Chile (Emigration and German National Colonization of South America with Special Attention to the Free State of Chile) by Carl Alexander Simon. Simon was a Romantic artist who advocated for overseas colonization and settled in Chile to promote his ideas. His treatise, which blended poetry and Romantic rhetoric with political ideas, aimed to encourage German occupation of Chile and South America based on the supposed physical and intellectual superiority of the Germans. The winning article argues that Simon’s work is integral to understanding the intersection of Romanticism and German colonialism in the nineteenth century and how racial and nationalistic sentiments fuelled German colonialism in remote corners of the world. Furthermore, it contributes to discussions on German nation-building overseas and the connections between German colonialism and race, the legacies of German colonialism, German colonial fantasies, and indigeneity and Germanness. Finally, this study of Simon’s work complements existing research on German settlements in Africa, Asia and the Pacific from 1850 onwards, highlighting the importance of considering the role of Germany in the global colonial project.
The GHS awarding panel commented that:
The panel was extremely impressed by Dr Gaete’s identification and investigation of an under-researched topic. His discovery, collation and interpretation of primary sources is commendable. The panel judged that the article, which is well-written and authoritative, will make an original and important contribution to the field.
Dr Miguel Gaete is a social art historian and a lecturer in Art History and Curatorship at the University of Melbourne. He holds a PhD in History of Art from the University of York and a second PhD in Aesthetics from the Autonomous University of Madrid. Dr Gaete’s research focuses on European Romanticism and Modern Art, with particular attention to the intersections of science, race, and colonialism in the visual representation of Latin America from the 19th century to the present.