German_interest_in_the_Caribbean
German interest in the Caribbean involved a series of unsuccessful proposals made by the Imperial German Navy (Kaiserliche Marine) during the late-nineteenth century to establish a coaling station somewhere in the Caribbean. The German Empire (founded in 1871) was rapidly building a world-class navy, but coal-burning warships needed frequent refueling and could operate only within range of a coaling station. Preliminary plans were vetoed by Otto von Bismarck (Chancellor from 1871 to 1890).
The countries of northern South America – Ecuador, Colombia, and Venezuela – were viewed by German planners as a buffer to protect German interest in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Uruguay from the growing influence of the United States.[1] By 1900 American "naval planners were obsessed with German designs in the hemisphere and countered with energetic efforts to secure naval sites in the Caribbean."[2] German naval planners in the 1890-1910 era denounced the Monroe Doctrine as a self-aggrandizing legal pretension to dominate the hemisphere. They were even more concerned with the possible American canal in Panama, because it would lead to full American hegemony in the Caribbean. The stakes were laid out in the German war-aims proposed by the Imperial Navy in 1903: a "firm position in the West Indies", a "free hand in South America", and an official "revocation of the Monroe Doctrine" would provide a solid foundation for "our trade to the West Indies, Central and South America."[3]