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Abstract. Тhe focus of the research are aspects of the colonialism study not considered before: mental structures and practices of ordinary perceptual representatives of the German colonial administration and an image of the “colonial hero”. This cultural and historical phenomenon requires additional, more specific interpretation. The author tries to approach this problem analyzing sources of personal origin – namely, for instance, letters home “from Africa” of junior officers of the colonial forces in German East Africa and German South-West Africa in early twentieth century. Problems of forms and methods of colonization, the reasons of personal strain Europeans in colonies, refined image of a German colonial officer in Africa, a correspondence of the “true safari’ man” image and its real content. The study showed that finding themselves in very different circumstances in Africa, but having identical education and similar training junior officers of the German colonial troops demonstrate similar mental characteristics. These junior officers perceive nature, the landscape and the population of Africa as a whole, in a nonseparable field. Perceptual practices presented by reflection and rarely – empathy completely absent in such a complex form of perception, as the casual attribution, assuming forecasting the behavior of the communication partner. As foreign direct copying (as a process of identification with the “adult” behavior) “Anglo-Indian” without genetic samples linked to the local culture, the German colonies were unable to solve any of their tasks, because they were inherently a playing garden. Under these conditions, the image of “colonial hero” fully proved its illusory nature and inconsistency that is clear from the analysis of the letters “from Africa” written by junior officers of the colonial forces in the early twentieth century.
Keywords: German colonies in Africa, the officers of colonial troops, letters home, the image of the “colonial hero”, perceptual practices.