Kayser-Bril, Nicolas

Making German Children Swallow the Colonial Project : Der kleine Coco Magazine from 1909 to 1933 - 2026.


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In 1909, Dutch margarine manufacturer Jurgens & Prinzen became the first company to offer a free magazine for German children. Published every couple of months, Der kleine Coco accompanied every purchased cube of margarine, with millions of copies distributed across Germany between 1909 and 1933. This article provides a critical analysis of the publication, showing that its content, at least for the period 1909-1914, unequivocally supports the German colonial enterprise while promoting differentiated, gendered, and racialized representations and practices of children’s food education. The magazine portrays racialized subjects as grateful to their colonial rulers, who explain how margarine production in Europe benefits African populations. Read by both boys and girls, and almost certainly by their mothers as well, Der Kleine Coco shows that colonial discourse was by no means confined to adult men.