I WILL ARGUE IN THIS ESSAY that 1903: Esch oder die Anarchie, the middle novel of the Schlafwandler trilogy (KW1), can profitably be seen in terms of German colonialism. At first glance, it may appear as if the novel does little more than allude to overseas emigration, and that these allusions belong more properly to the tradition of the America motif as articulated by Goethe and his nineteenth-century successors than to the theme of colonialism as we understand it today. In contrast to the detailed presentation of Wilhelmine Germany and two of its cities, Cologne and Mannheim, the parts of the plot that refer to Esch's longing to go to America seem to form a relatively underdeveloped counter-point. Even if we combine these moments in Esch's phantasmatic self-construction with the reflective passages about settler-colonists that translate his individual psychology into a larger issue, the novel's overall emphasis hardly appears to be on colonialism. Imperial Germany as it constitutes itself on European soil is certainly at issue, but can we say that the novel also undertakes an analysis of colonialism?

A closer reading of the novel Esch in fact reveals that it explores in minute detail Germany's position on the colonial question in 1903 (the year in which this volume is set). It presents a very specific diagnosis of the historical, social, and economic factors that gave rise to the German Empire's understanding of the colonial question, while at the same time glancing forward to the rise of German nationalism and National Socialism.