Manga Bell – A good German

Duala Manga attended grammar school in Ulm with the very same Hermann Röhm around 20 years earlier. In the course of the Court Room drama, Rudolf Duala Manga Bell emerges as a perfect example of the “cultural uplift” that the German colonizers ostensibly had in mind when they subjugated the “protectorates”. However, his perfect German, his comprehensive knowledge of German customs and the German legal system and, last but not least, his outstanding intellect meant that he was by no means safe, but was targeted by the colonial administration and its representative Röhm. Against the historical backdrop, the painful story of this friendship, which ends in fatal betrayal through the process of unfriending, forms a metaphor for German behavior as a colonial power.

The story of Rudolf Duala Manga Bell, who loved German culture and whose persistent belief in justice ended in a German judicial murder, is still little known. It is time to tell the story of this special man.