Otto Friedrich von der Gröben und der koloniale Diskurs.

In 1683, the Groß-Friedrichsburg fortress was built on the coast of what is now Ghana on the orders of Elector Frederick William of Brandenburg-Prussia. For just under 35 years, it served as a base for the Brandenburg-Prussian slave trade. Otto Friedrich von der Gröben, the diplomatic leader of the Brandenburg expedition to Africa, wrote several works about his travels. These works, including a travelogue and an epic poem, laid the foundations for the legitimisation of racism and colonialism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and are examined here for the first time from a literary perspective. This study combines an analysis of von der Gröben’s self-representation with an examination of how his texts fit into German colonial discourse around 1700. To this end, it not only draws on the writings themselves, but also compares them with other contemporary sources and texts from later periods. Non-textual sources such as images, sculptures and architectural works are also included in the analysis. The result is a discourse analysis that breaks new ground in postcolonial research.