فلسطين في الرؤية الذاتيّة للإمبراطوريّة الألمانيّة: غوستاف دالمان وأرشيف الحرب البافاريّ

This article explores the cultural imperialist identities that accompanied the  semicolonial  policy  of  the German  Empire  during  World  War I. It examines the imaginations that interwove representations of the German imperial self, apparent in visual and textual artefacts in the archival   material   of   the   German air force mission, as well as in the academic and institutional work of German Protestant theologian and Orientalist   Gustav   Dalman   (1855–1941). The author shows how two aspects (the secular and the religious) of  the  German  mission  civilisatrice, the ideological backbone of its colonial ambitions, are reflected in the ways that the imagery of Palestine is created and connected within the struggle for power in the Near East. The author argues that the German secular mission went hand in hand with its aspirations to evangelize the Orient. The religious mission is evident in the aspirations of Dalman’s social milieu by interpreting modernity against the background of biblical salvation history as the “end of times.” In this regard, Palestine was perceived as both: a place of salvation history as well as a power and cultural- political  influence  zone.