UN LIEU NOMMÉ WAHALA Ein Ort namens Wahala
Germany/Togo/France 2021. Director: Jürgen Ellinghaus. Documentary film. 56 mins. DCP. Original version with German subtitles.
The annual commemoration in Wahala, Togo, recalls German colonial history in the African country. In August 1914, shortly after the Battle of the Chra River between German and Franco-British colonial troops, Germany’s first surrender in the First World War was signed some 50 kilometers to the north. It meant the de facto abandonment of the then “model colony” of German Togoland. But the history of Wahala goes back even further: in 1903, the German colonial administration created a “reform settlement” there, where people who stood in the way of the colonial order were forcibly resettled.
