Present-day echoes of telegraphy between Nauen, Kamina and Windhoek
In 2024, when I read Lene Albrecht’s novel Weiße Flecken (White Spots), I heard of Kamina for the first time: a high-power wireless station in Togo, a former German colony. The white German protagonist Ellen visits the site, where only ruins of the transmitting station remain. Ellen travelled to Togo to do research on the traces of German colonialism. The novel does not provide any details about wireless technology as an instrument of colonial control. I mainly remember the scene because the protagonist injures herself there, which marks a turning point in the story.
This year, when I heard about the exhibition “Signals of Power: Nauen, Kamina, Windhoek” at the Brandenburg Museum in Potsdam, which focuses on previously underexplored aspects of the history of wireless telegraphy, it rang a bell and immediately piqued my interest. In the past, I had taken tours of Potsdam and Cottbus, during which local initiatives explained the colonial entanglements of certain buildings, monuments and historical figures. Now, I was curious to see how a museum dedicated to the exploration of the history and identity of the state of Brandenburg approached related topics.
During my visit, I learned that the high-power wireless stations in Nauen, Brandenburg, Kamina, Togo, and Windhoek, Namibia, formed a colonially shaped communication triangle of the German Empire at the beginning of the 20th century, controlled exclusively by the German rulers. The German colonial power didn’t shy away from the great expense and the exploitation of local workers when building these technically advanced stations in Kamina and Windhoek. Nauen now played a key role in the transcontinental communication between Germany and its former colonies – messages and orders could be transmitted wirelessly in real time, which was crucial for coordinating the military and the colonial administration as well as for keeping the colonized population under surveillance. At the time, the European colonial powers were competitors, and unlike Germany, France and Great Britain still relied on cables, which were easier to sabotage.
The exhibition at the Brandenburg Museum offers a detailed timeline from 1885 to the present day, because although the Germans destroyed the wireless stations in Africa shortly after the start of the First World War to prevent the technology from falling into the hands of other European colonial powers, that was not the end of the story. “Signals of Power” shows the impressive works of artists from Namibia, Togo, and Germany who approach the subject from a contemporary perspective in film and sound. In their installation, Frederike Moormann and Angelika Warniek from Germany interweave contemporary audio recordings and video images from the three wireless stations with film footage of rockets taking off. They show how connected people and places are, but also how those in power often use violence to establish these connections in the pursuit of their own interests. Next, visitors can watch two short clips from Madjé Ayité’s documentary film “Fragments”. In it, the Togolese filmmaker interweaves the personal memories of various interviewees with aspects of colonial technological history. Finally, there is a recording of Tuli Mekondjo’s two performances in Nauen and Windhoek, cleverly interwoven with each other. In 2024 and early 2025, the Namibian artist traveled to these historically charged locations for an artistic intervention, thereby establishing a new symbolic connection. “Signals of Power” contributes to furthering the examination of Germany’s colonial past: exploitation, forced labor, and their consequences still require recognition and reparation.
The exhibition runs until November 1, 2025. But anyone interested in wireless telegraphy and its colonial history who can’t make it to Potsdam before then can read the workbook “From Windhoek to Kamina to Nauen” published by Akono Verlag in 2023, which is, in a way, a precursor to “Signals of Power.” Some of the artists featured in the exhibition have already contributed critical reflections on this colonial communication network to the workbook. Noteworthy, the workbook also addresses what wireless telegraphy eventually developed into: today’s global internet technology. In 2020 – before Elon Musk’s takeover – Twitter was particularly useful for mobilizing people in Namibia for decolonial protests. Especially in the current political climate, it gives me hope to see in how many different ways people are working for justice and reconciliation by drawing attention to German colonialism and its legacies.