This volume includes 22 contributions from participants of the international conference "The (Colonial) Encounter: Africans in Germany (1880-1945) - Germans in Africa (1880-1918)," which took place in September 2001 in Bonn-Bad Godesberg. Representatives from various disciplines, such as African Studies, History, Ethnology, Law, Literature and Religious Studies, as well as Sociology, engaged in interdisciplinary discussions about the diverse aspects of the encounter between Africans and Germans during the colonial and post-colonial periods up to 1945. Notably, it was emphasized that the histories of the encounters between Africans and Germans in the former German colonies and in Germany itself should be viewed as different aspects of a shared or common history. Many contributions in this volume make it clear that the previously practiced separation of these two aspects is an artificial one.