Julius Scharlach (February 12, 1842 in Bodenwerder – March 18, 1908 in Hamburg) was a Hamburg lawyer, businessman and a prominent figure in the colonial history of Germany in the late 19th and early 20th century. He was a member of the Colonial Council, and founded the

Verein für das Deutschtum im Ausland ''Verein'' is a German word, sometimes translated as ''union'', ''club'' or ''association'', and may refer to: * ''Eingetragener Verein'' (e. V.), a registered voluntary association under German law * Swiss Verein, a voluntary association under Sw ...

(VDA). Scharlach got a degree in law from the University of Göttingen, where he became a member of

Corps Hannovera Göttingen Bismarck 1836 The Corps Hannovera Göttingen is one of the oldest German Student Corps, a Studentenverbindung or student corporation founded on January 18, 1809 at the Georg August University of Göttingen by students like Georg Kloss. The nam ...

. As a lawyer, he defended the dismissed Governor of

German East Africa German East Africa (GEA; german: Deutsch-Ostafrika) was a German colony in the African Great Lakes region, which included present-day Burundi, Rwanda, the Tanzania mainland, and the Kionga Triangle, a small region later incorporated into Mozam ...

, Carl Peters. As the lawyer of the Dynamit Nobel company, he became acquainted with leading financial circles in the United Kingdom, and with British colonialists, and between 1905 and 1908 he cooperated extensively with

Cecil Rhodes Cecil John Rhodes (5 July 1853 – 26 March 1902) was a British mining magnate and politician in southern Africa who served as Prime Minister of the Cape Colony from 1890 to 1896. An ardent believer in British imperialism, Rhodes and his Br ...

, aiming at preventing conflict between Germany and the United Kingdom. Scharlach had substantial business interests in the German colonies, notably in German South-West Africa and Cameroon. He founded the

Gesellschaft Süd-Kamerun The Gesellschaft Süd-Kamerun (german: South Cameroon Company) was a private trading corporation formed in 1898, facilitated by governor Jesko von Puttkamer, to run the rubber and ivory trade in the southeast of the German colony of Kamerun. See a ...

, the

South West Africa Company The South West Africa Company Limited (German: ''Südwestafrikanische Gesellschaft'') was a majority British owned and controlled company established under English law on August 18, 1892, in German South West Africa, the present day Namibia. The ...

and the Otavi Minen- und Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft. In 1902, Scharlach demanded for

German Empire The German Empire (),Herbert Tuttle wrote in September 1881 that the term "Reich" does not literally connote an empire as has been commonly assumed by English-speaking people. The term literally denotes an empire – particularly a hereditary ...

to create

forced labour Forced labour, or unfree labour, is any work relation, especially in modern or early modern history, in which people are employed against their will with the threat of destitution, detention, violence including death, or other forms of ex ...

in its colonies stating: ''But culture is impossible without work and for that reason, the native is obliged to work from the very first day of occupation by whites. I am not afraid to state that introducing compulsory labour for natives is a moral obligation toward the latter''Globalisation and the Nation in Imperial Germany Sebastian Conrad, page 88,Cambridge University Press, 2010 A river in Brazil was named in his honour by German settlers. His son Otto Scharlach was also a corporate lawyer and took over the Scharlach law firm.

References

Publications

* ''Zur Verteidigung von Dr. Carl Peters'', Berlin 1898.

Literature

* * ''Deutsches Koloniallexikon.'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Scharlach, Julius Jurists from Hamburg German mining businesspeople University of Göttingen alumni 1908 deaths 1842 births 19th-century German lawyers