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weirdestbooks · 2 months ago

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El Olvidado Mismo (Wattpad | Ao3 | CH HHM Oneshots)

This oneshot was inspired by one by @geisterland on ao3. It was really fun and something I've wanted to do for a while. It's the longest CH HHM oneshot by far so far.

Paraguay’s life had become a living hell. Ever since the outbreak of war four years ago, his life had warped into Hell on Earth as he watched his people, his friends, fall and die at the hands of the Triple Alliance.

Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay. At the rate the war was going, Paraguay would not be surprised if they attempted to kill him, to wipe his nation from the Earth, and take his land for themselves.

Paraguay was tired.

He was tired of war, tired of dying, tired of starving, tired of losing everyone and everything important to him.

He was just tired.

He fought anyway. Sometimes, he wasn’t sure why he still fought, not when there was so little hope of him winning. Sometimes, he wondered how he could have ever been optimistic about the war.

Sometimes, he wondered what the point of it all was.

The Triple Alliance was close to his capital now, close to his heart. Paraguay wondered if he would be able to defend it, if he had the men, the morale, the strength. He barely had the strength himself. He was weak from hunger and the war. His body’s strength was fading, and he felt as if he would collapse and not get back up any second.

He knew they could die and come back, but this war seemed to have stretched his immortality to the limit. God could only return him to life so many times in a row before his body did truly give up on him.

The battle they just fought at Lomas Valentinas had only seemed to prove that Paraguay was not going to be able to win the war. He had been taken captive. It was…it was over.

A part of him felt numb.

So when Brazil arrived, he didn’t say anything, just glared up at the man with hate.

“Olá, Paraguai,” the empire said, “I apologize for Argentina and Uruguay’s absence. They have better things to do.”

Paraguay gritted his teeth, anger flooding through him.

“I know they’re here, puta, so you can cut it out,” Paraguay snapped, staring Brazil right in the eyes. He may be weakened and defeated, but there was no way he was going to let Brazil humiliate him, not after everything the man and his armies had done to Paraguay.

“You could stand to be more polite. After all, we’ve won,” Brazil said. Paraguay rolled his eyes.

“No, you haven’t. I haven’t surrendered. Just because you’ve captured me doesn’t mean I or my people are going to give up,” Paraguay said. He knew that Brazil was right, that the war was as good as won for him and the Triple Alliance, but there was no way Paraguay was admitting that to his face.

Brazil just shook his head, lifting his gun.

“That is a very foolish decision,” he said, swinging the gun towards Paraguay. It cracked across his face, causing stars to light up in Paraguay’s vision, his head ringing from the force of the blow.

“Come now, little nation, if you surrender, this can all be over for you—no more death,” Brazil said, a smile curling at the corner of his lips. Paraguay shook his head before stumbling due to the wave of dizziness that brought him.

“Shut up, pendejo,” Paraguay eventually said through the ringing of his head. Brazil shrugged.

“Have it your way,” he said before swinging the gun again. Paraguay, too dazed to do anything about the coming blow, was once again hit in the head by the weapon, this blow causing him to collapse to the ground, head cracking against it.

Paraguay groaned, excruciating pain coating his head in a layer of agony. He wasn’t unconscious, but he couldn’t move. The blow had stunned him, leaving him still on the ground in more pain than he had ever been in before. Brazil crouched down beside him, frowning.

“Don’t worry,” Brazil said, lifting Paraguay's head with one hand and ignoring the low moan of pain it brought from Paraguay. I’ll make this quick for you.”

With those words, Brazil slammed Paraguay’s head into the ground, and he knew no more.

• ───────────────── •

He woke up in pain. His body ached, but most of all, his head ached like a…like a…

He groaned, voice sounding weak to his lips.

He tried to open his eyes but shut them as soon as they opened, the light worsening his pain. It was too bright, too much for his eyes.

“Sir?” a surprised voice said from somewhere beside him. The voice was like a sword being driven into his skull, causing excruciating pain to lace it. It scattered his fuzzy thoughts, leaving him dazed and in more pain than when he had woken up.

“Too loud,” he muttered quietly, his consciousness already fading.

Everything hurt too much. Everything…

He let himself fade away.

• ───────────────── •

He woke up with his head in less pain. It was the first time he felt aware upon waking up. He had woken before, brief glimmers of consciousness, but the darkness always reclaimed him in the end.

He couldn’t feel the darkness as strongly this time.

He pulled his eyes open, still feeling lethargic and weak. But he was…he was awake. With shaky arms, he began pulling himself but into a sitting position, trying to figure out where he was.

“Paraguay!” a voice exclaimed, worry and surprise in its tone. There was a man standing there–a doctor. The man had to be a doctor because he was…he was hurt, right?

What had happened again? What was a paraguay? Was that the kind of injury he had? That didn’t…that didn’t make sense. What was happening?

“Paraguay? What’s a Paraguay?” he asked, confused. The men exchanged looks, some kind of…of shock? Worry? Fear? There was something in their eyes. It wasn’t good.

“Yes, sir, you are Paraguay, our nation,” one of the men said, stepping forward. Paraguay. The name felt familiar, in a way that he couldn’t place, but it…it felt right. That was…that was his name. He—Paraguay clutched his head, trying to piece together foggy fragments of nothingness.

“Oh…I…” Paraguay trailed off, unsure what to say. How could he have forgotten his own name? How could he have forgotten…forgotten…how much did he remember?

What happened to him?

“Do you not remember?” The doctor pried again, waving his hand as another man entered the room, dressed like a soldier. Why did Paraguay remember that? Why did he know that man was a doctor and the other was a soldier, but not his own name? Why was that what he remembered? Why did he remember useless details but nothing about himself?

“I…not…not really? Some things are…fuzzy and fragmented, but…I…I don’t know,” Paraguay said, a frown on his face as he tried so hard to remember.

“I’ll inform the Triple Alliance.” the soldier said before rushing off. Paraguay’s eyes furrowed in confusion. Something about that name seemed familiar…

“What’s the Triple Alliance?” he asked. The doctor’s frowned, looking worried.

“Brazil, Argentina, and Uruaguy are the Triple Alliance,” the doctor said.

“Is that…is that important? Does alliance mean they are my friends?” Paraguay asked. The doctor stared at him in shock.

“You really don’t remember anything,” he muttered. Paraguay frowned.

“What does that mean?” he asked. The doctor didn’t respond, instead walking forward, placing a hand on Paraguay’s head. “What are you doing?”

“I’m just checking on your head. This is…I’ve never heard of this happening to one of your kind before,” he said. The doctor began poking at his head, asking Paraguay to tell the doctor if he felt any pain. Paraguay nodded and took the exam as an opportunity to examine his hands.

His right hand had a circle, with an almost complete circle of leaves inside of it and a yellow star in the middle. His name—his full name—Republic of Paraguay was written on it. It was…it was his seal. His other hand also had a circle on it but a different design: a lion with a strange red cap on a stick and the words “Peace and Justice.”

The lion made Paraguay hyperaware of the tail that lay alongside his leg and the claws on his fingers.

Something about them felt connected.

He wished he knew what.

Suddenly, his musing was interrupted by the door flying open and a tall man storming inside, some strange emotion on his face.

“Vá embora! Everyone!” the tall man said, striding forward. Like the soldier from before, he had on a uniform, and his face…it was…it was…a flag…that’s what that was, right? A flag, like Paraguay.

A country like Paraguay.

The country strode over to Paraguay, confidence and grace in his movements.

“My people tell me you don’t remember anything,” the country said.

“That’s right,” Paraguay said, shying away from the other nation, “I just remember waking up. Everything else is…”

He trailed off, unsure how to explain the weird state his head was in right now, how to explain how he felt.

“What is my name?” the tall country asked. Paraguay gaped at him, searching the fuzzy scraps of memory for a name but only coming up with vague emotions and sounds.

“I…I don’t know, sir,” Paraguay said, unsure of why he used that honorific, but something about it felt…right? Was that the right word?

Paraguay was confused.

The country scanned him over, making Paraguay shrink in on himself from the intense gaze before shaking his head.

“You really don’t remember me? Anything?” the country asked, disbelief clear in his tone. Paraguay shook his head.

“Were we close?” Paraguay asked. The tall nation laughed.

“You could say that. I am Brazil,” the nation—Brazil—said. Paraguay smiled.

“Nice to meet you, Brazil. Uh…we’re both countries, right? So did you come to see me because of…whatever happened to me?” Paraguay asked. Brazil shook his head, sadness overtaking his face.

“I should not be the one to explain what has just happened to you, but you will find out from your people, so I should at least tell you how things went down on the countryhuman side of things,” Brazil said. Paraguay, as weak as his body was, pulled himself up further so he could look at Brazil better.

“Tell me,” he said, a note of desperation in his voice. He needed to know. What happened to him. Who he was. He needed to know because he had nothing.

“You were at war with the Triple Alliance,” Brazil said, inadvertently answering Paraguay’s earlier question about who the Triple Alliance were. Now he knew. They were his enemies. “That alliance included your nephew, Argentina; my daughter, Uruguay; and myself.”

Upon hearing that, Paraguay pressed his back against the bedframe, nicking himself with his claws. Brazil was at war with him? Brazil was his enemy? Wait, he had a nephew?

Paraguay was suddenly hit with a realization.

He didn’t remember his family.

Brazil must have noticed Paraguay’s expression because he shook his head with a small sigh.

“We aren’t at war anymore. It ended a couple of months ago, around the same time you were injured,” Brazil said, “When we found you, we rushed you to get medical attention. But…you never woke up. Well, not for long, but you were delirious and out of it.”

Paraguay was glad he didn’t remember that.

“Oh…so I’ve been…”

“Unconscious for months, yes. We were getting worried you would never wake up,” Brazil said.

“Why would you be worried if we were at war?” Paraguay asked. Brazil shook his head.

“Our relationship is more complicated than that. We were at war, yes, but it was for a silly reason. You were—are stubborn, and you refused to back down even when it became clear you had lost the war. You became desperate. We had all wanted the war to end, but you kept it going based on a matter of principle,” Brazil explained. Paraguay bowed his head.

“Oh,” he said softly. He had extended the war? Had he made it longer? Did that mean his injury was his fault? Was he to blame for his own empty head?

“Oh, indeed. You stared it, too, over some silly little border disputes. Well…small with me. Argentina has much more land he wants to claim,” Brazil said. Paraguay nervously began wringing his hands together. How could he have forgotten this all? How could he have started the war that led to this?

“I’m sorry,” Paraguay whispered. How many men did Brazil and Argentina and the other one…the other…Uruguay! How many people did they lose because Paraguay started a war with them? How many people did Paraguay lose?

Brazil laughed, placing a hand on Paraguay’s head, smiling.

“Don’t worry about it. The war is over, so it is time to figure out our borders, but more importantly, you need to get your strength back. You may have woken up finally, but you were asleep for many months. You need to start recovering. Your government will appoint a person to help with negotiations. You don’t need to worry about that. You need to recover,” Brazil said.

“But…but shouldn’t I be helping?” Paraguay asked. Brazil frowned.

“Can you find yourself on a map?” he asked. Paraguay looked down at his hands, trying so, so hard to remember.

He couldn’t.

“No…I can’t,” he admitted, feeling shame run through him. Brazil sighed.

“Then you won’t be able to help. I know you want to. It is always in our nature as countries to want to be involved, but you need to regain your strength. That is the best way you can help your country. I will be in the city, which is Asunción, your capital city, by the way, so please feel free to come to me with any questions about how countries work or anything of the sort,” Brazil said. Paraguay frowned.

“I don’t know. Shouldn’t I go to my government for help remembering?” he asked. Brazil shrugged.

“I mean, you could, but your government is human. You and I are immortal. I have access to memories and our history that even they won’t. Besides, war is over. I’m not your enemy. I never wanted to be,” Brazil said, his voice gentle and concerned, and Paraguay felt embarrassed.

He didn’t know why. Was it because Paraguay had been told he had started the war and hurt Brazil by making the taller country become Paraguay’s enemy? Was it because he remembered nothing, even though he felt like he should?

Paraguay didn’t know. He really didn’t know anything.

He felt like crying.

His head was hurting.

“I’m sorry. I…didn’t think about that. Thank you. I…thank you. For your help,” Paraguay said. Brazil smiled again.

“It is not a problem, Paraguay. I hope you are able to recover soon, and I hope your memory returns,” Brazil said before turning and striding out of the room, leaving Paraguay alone with his empty, empty head.

• ───────────────── •

It had taken Paraguay months to regain the strength to walk. It took weeks of sitting in bed and just moving his legs in the hope of rebuilding muscle and then small, exhausting walks around the room, with help from the doctors and often Brazil.

While Paraguay had now met (or re-met, he guessed) Argentina and Uruguay, they knew him, but he didn’t know them. He had begun to grow familiar with that feeling. Argentina and Uruguay didn’t stick around like Brazil did. Argentina always seemed mad at him, and Uruguay seemed sad.

He wondered what he had done to them.

He was convinced now that his amnesia was probably the best thing that could happen to him. It seemed like he had been a horrible person before, that he was a person who craved war and caused others suffering and didn’t care about anyone other than himself and his pride.

Paraguay had asked Brazil if that was who he had once been. Brazil looked away and shook his head, telling Paraguay that he wasn’t.

Paraguay knew Brazil had been lying to protect his feelings. He knew Brazil had lied because he didn’t want to admit that Paraguay used to be…used to be like that. Maybe he was afraid of Paraguay becoming like that. Maybe he just wanted to give Paraguay a chance to be better.

He didn’t know.

Paraguay was confused a lot. Some things had started coming back, but it was clear they were childhood memories. Memories from long ago. Argentina had been kind enough to tell Paraguay that he was born in 1811, but Paraguay didn’t know his birthday.

Maybe that could come back in the fuzzy bits he had started getting back. Maybe it wouldn’t. Either way, it was the nicest thing Paraguay could remember Argentina doing for him.

Paraguay was walking around his capital for the first time in a long time, Brazil beside him in case Paraguay became too exhausted to move.

“I think we should head back to your room now. You look to be getting tired,” Brazil said. Paraguay shook his head.

“I’m not tired, I’m fine. I can keep walking. I want to know more about myself,” Paraguay said. Brazil huffed.

“Still as stubborn as ever. I hope that doesn’t get you in the same kind of trouble as before,” Brazil said, sounding annoyed. Paraguay flinched, thinking back to all that Brazil and his doctors had said and implied about the war, about who was to blame.

Paraguay shrunk in on himself.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be disagreeable. We can head back now. I’m just frustrated that it’s taking so long to heal,” Paraguay said softly. Brazil nodded, understanding in his eyes as he placed a gentle hand on Paraguay’s shoulder.

“It’s okay. But just know, you’re lucky to have survived, and it is amazing that you are doing this well now. Don’t sell yourself short because it isn’t an automatic fix,” Brazil said before turning them around, grip never wavering from Paraguay’s shoulder.

“I wish it was. I want to be better. I want it all to be over,” Paraguay said. Brazil laughed.

“Don’t worry, it should be. We just need to figure out the border, and everything will be fine,” Brazil said, moving his hand from Paraguay’s shoulder to wrapping his arm around Paraguay’s body, holding the smaller nation in place beside him.

“I hope so,” Paraguay said, frowning slightly, “I really do hope so.”

“It will. Just trust me, and it’ll all turn out okay.”

“Okay, Brazil. I trust you.”

• ───────────────── •

Paraguay was finally putting aside his country’s conflict with Brazil. Today they would create their new border, and then they wouldn’t have to exist in a state of war.

Paraguay was happy.

“Are you excited?” Brazil asked. Paraguay nodded.

“I’m ready for this to all be over. You’re staying in Asunción after this, right?” Paraguay asked his friend. He would miss the comfort Brazil provided him and his consistency in a time of confusion.

Paraguay had still barely recovered any of his memory. He had lost hope that he ever would.

“I am. I will need to stay until Argentina pulls his head out of his ass and works out his treaty with you,” Brazil said, putting a hand to his chin.

“I'm surprised you didn’t do one together, considering that you’re a part of the same alliance,” Paraguay commented, still puzzled as to why he and Brazil were doing it separately. Paraguay had never attended any of the peace talks that came with this treaty like Brazil had, too focused on his recovery.

He would get to participate in the one with Argentina, but he was a bit lost at times.

“Well, I did it separately because I do not want to be involved directly in the negotiating hell that will be Argentina’s claims, and I’m so eager for our countries to be at peace and get along, and I’m just happy that you no longer ha—I mean…I just care about you,” Brazil said. Paraguay looked away, guilt suddenly swarming him and making him feel sick.

He hated hearing about the kind of person he was before his amnesia. The kind of person he was to Brazil.

“I’m sorry for everything I did to you,” Paraguay said. A small part of him felt like he didn’t deserve to have a claim to any of his and Brazil’s (formerly) contested land and that Brazil deserved it for having to put up with him for so long. Most of him seemed to hate the thought of losing land, but Paraguay wouldn’t fight it.

It was…it was for the best. His government said so. Brazil said so.

“It’s okay, Paraguay. Now is not the time to focus on the past but on the future.” Brazil said before signing the treaty. “We can have a new start now, a better start.”

“I feel like we’ve already gotten that,” Paraguay joked as he signed the treaty as well. There was a great weight off his chest at that, and Paraguay felt as if he had made peace with a part of his past he didn’t remember. Brazil chuckled.

“Maybe so,” he said, “Maybe so. But you still have that treaty with Argentina to complete.”

Paraguay wanted to slam his head into the table.

“Brazil, I want to do literally anything other than that. He wants over half my country!” Paraguay exclaimed, throwing his hands in the air.

• ───────────────── •

Paraguay was tired of dealing with Argentina. He couldn’t wait until this treaty was signed, and he could go home. The negotiation had been long and hard, over four years since his treaty with Brazil. Argentina refused to give up his claims, and eventually, they had to send it to international arbitration.

Paraguay had never been more tense than in that moment. What if the arbitrator, United States, and his President Hayes didn’t care that giving Argentina the land would cause Paraguay to lose most of his country? What would happen if he lost it?

Brazil tried his best to soothe Paraguay’s nerves, but they did not fade until he found out that President Hayes had sided with Paraguay. Paraguay could not thank the man enough.

So now here he was, in Buenos Aires, leaving his country for the first time (that he could remember) to sign his treaty with Argentina. Paraguay wondered if he had ever been to the other man’s capital before, if they had been in this same building, signing other treaties.

Paraguay had arrived early, and now he was waiting for Argentina to arrive. When his nephew did arrive, he looked around the room with curious eyes.

“So, where’s your keeper?” Argentina asked, raising an eyebrow.

“My…my what?” Paraguay asked, confused. What was Argentina talking about? Keeper? What did that mean?

“Your keeper. Brazil. Did you have to ask him for permission to come down and see me?” Argentina asked, voice bitter. Paraguay felt anger swell up in him.

“Brazil is my friend,” he said. Argentina laughed.

“Sure he is. A real great friend,” the taller nation said.

“You’re just bitter because President Hayes sided with me. You’re just bitter that you lost,” Paraguay said. Argentina began laughing harder at that.

“I lost? I LOST? Oh, too bad you don’t have your memories. You have no idea how much you’ve lost due to Brazil,” Argentina said as his laughter faded. Paraguay only scowled, signing the treaty before crossing his arms.

“Just sign the treaty so I can leave,” Paraguay said, trying his best not to snap at the other man. Argentina then looked at Paraguay with sad eyes.

“It’s your choice to trust Brazil with your whole heart. It’s a bad one, but it’s yours. Just don’t come crying to me when it’s proven to be the wrong one,” Argentina said before signing and marching away.

Paraguay stared after him in confusion.

What on earth did Argentina mean? Brazil could be trusted. Brazil was his closest friend. Argentina was just lying because he was bitter.

Right?

• ───────────────── •

Brazil was leaving.

Paraguay knew it was going to happen eventually. The man was his own country, after all, but it felt too soon. He wanted Brazil to stay; he felt lost without the other man, the man who had helped him and guided him through how to be a country again. The man who provided stability for him after he lost…lost everything.

He didn’t want him to go.

“I wish you didn’t have to go,” Paraguay said, as he and Brazil had met up to talk one last time before they both had to go back to their lives as countries.

“I have to. I need to get back to my own capital. The war is over. You have your borders with Argentina and me. There’s no reason for our troops to stay. It violates your rights as a country,” Brazil said. Paraguay sighed.

“I know it does…I just…you’ve been my one constant since I woke up. Losing that will be hard,” Paraguay explained. Brazil laughed.

“You can always write me letters. It’s not like we’ll never see each other again,” Brazil said, “Besides, you’ll do fine. You were a country before, and you can be one again.”

“I was a very different person before,” Paraguay said, sighing again, “I’m just nervous, I guess. It’s the first time being alone and dealing with all this. I know you and I have different paths…but sometimes it’s hard not to wish things could be different.”

“Everything is different now. A good different. It’ll work out. You’ve been very good at playing your part so far,” Brazil said, putting a hand on Paraguay’s shoulder, grin widening. “You will be fine.”

“I hope so. Thank you, Brazil. For everything you’ve done to help me. With my memory, my recovery, just…thank you.”

“You’re very welcome, Paraguay. Now, I must be off. Hopefully, we can see each other very soon.”

With that final message, Paraguay’s only friend wandered off, joining his soldiers.

Paraguay would be alone for the first time since he lost his memory.

He hoped he was ready for it.

#countryhumans #oneshots by weird #historical countryhumans #countryhumans paraguay #countryhumans argentina #countryhumans brazilian empire #CH Hispanic Heritage Month #CH HHM 2024 #CH Hispanic Heritage Month 2024

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fatehbaz · 9 months ago

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On May 28, 1914, the Institut für Schiffs-und Tropenkrankheiten (Institute for Maritime and Tropical Diseases, ISTK) in Hamburg began operations in a complex of new brick buildings on the bank of the Elb. The buildings were designed by Fritz Schumacher, who had become the Head of Hamburg’s building department (Leiter des Hochbauamtes) in 1909 after a “flood of architectural projects” accumulated following the industrialization of the harbor in the 1880s and the “new housing and working conditions” that followed. The ISTK was one of these projects, connected to the port by its [...] mission: to research and heal tropical illnesses; [...] to support the Hamburg Port [...]; and to support endeavors of the German Empire overseas.

First established in 1900 by Bernhard Nocht, chief of the Port Medical Service, the ISTK originally operated out of an existing building, but by 1909, when the Hamburg Colonial Institute became its parent organization (and Schumacher was hired by the Hamburg Senate), the operations of the ISTK had outgrown [...]. [I]ts commission by the city was an opportunity for Schumacher to show how he could contribute to guiding the city’s economic and architectural growth in tandem, and for Nocht, an opportunity to establish an unprecedented spatial paradigm for the field of Tropical Medicine that anchored the new frontier of science in the German Empire. [...]

[There was a] shared drive to contribute to the [...] wealth of Hamburg within the context of its expanding global network [...]. [E]ach discipline [...] architecture and medicine were participating in a shared [...] discursive operation. [...]

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The brick used on the ISTK façades was key to Schumacher’s larger Städtebau plan for Hamburg, which envisioned the city as a vehicle for a “harmonious” synthesis between aesthetics and economy. [...] For Schumacher, brick [was significantly preferable] [...]. Used by [...] Hamburg architects [over the past few decades], who acquired their penchant for neo-gothic brickwork at the Hanover school, brick had both a historical presence and aesthetic pedigree in Hamburg [...]. [T]his material had already been used in Die Speicherstadt, a warehouse district in Hamburg where unequal social conditions had only grown more exacerbated [...]. Die Speicherstadt was constructed in three phases [beginning] in 1883 [...]. By serving the port, the warehouses facilitated the expansion and security of Hamburg’s wealth. [...] Yet the collective profits accrued to the city by these buildings [...] did not increase economic prosperity and social equity for all. [...] [A] residential area for harbor workers was demolished to make way for the warehouses. After the contract for the port expansion was negotiated in 1881, over 20,000 people were pushed out of their homes and into adjacent areas of the city, which soon became overcrowded [...]. In turn, these [...] areas of the city [...] were the worst hit by the Hamburg cholera epidemic of 1892, the most devastating in Europe that year. The 1892 cholera epidemic [...] articulated the growing inability of the Hamburg Senate, comprising the city’s elite, to manage class relationships [...] [in such] a city that was explicitly run by and for the merchant class [...].

In Hamburg, the response to such an ugly disease of the masses was the enforcement of quarantine methods that pushed the working class into the suburbs, isolated immigrants on an island, and separated the sick according to racial identity.

In partnership with the German Empire, Hamburg established new hygiene institutions in the city, including the Port Medical Service (a progenitor of the ISTK). [...] [T]he discourse of [creating the school for tropical medicine] centered around city building and nation building, brick by brick, mark by mark.

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Just as the exterior condition of the building was, for Schumacher, part of a much larger plan for the city, the program of the building and its interior were part of the German Empire and Tropical Medicine’s much larger interest in controlling the health and wealth of its nation and colonies. [...]

Yet the establishment of the ISTK marked a critical shift in medical thinking [...]. And while the ISTK was not the only institution in Europe to form around the conception and perceived threat of tropical diseases, it was the first to build a facility specifically to support their “exploration and combat” in lockstep, as Nocht described it.

The field of Tropical Medicine had been established in Germany by the very same journal Nocht published his overview of the ISTK. The Archiv für Schiffs- und Tropen-Hygiene unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Pathologie und Therapie was first published in 1897, the same year that the German Empire claimed Kiaochow (northeast China) and about two years after it claimed Southwest Africa (Namibia), Cameroon, Togo, East Africa (Tanzania, Burundi, Rwanda), New Guinea (today the northern part of Papua New Guinea), and the Marshall Islands; two years later, it would also claim the Caroline Islands, Palau, Mariana Islands (today Micronesia), and Samoa (today Western Samoa).

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The inaugural journal [...] marked a paradigm shift [...]. In his opening letter, the editor stated that the aim of Tropical Medicine is to “provide the white race with a home in the tropics.” [...]

As part of the institute’s agenda to support the expansion of the Empire through teaching and development [...], members of the ISTK contributed to the Deutsches Kolonial Lexikon, a three-volume series completed in 1914 (in the same year as the new ISTK buildings) and published in 1920. The three volumes contained maps of the colonies coded to show the areas that were considered “healthy” for Europeans, along with recommended building guidelines for hospitals in the tropics. [...] "Natives" were given separate facilities [...]. The hospital at the ISTK was similarly divided according to identity. An essentializing belief in “intrinsic factors” determined by skin color, constitutive to Tropical Medicine, materialized in the building’s circulation. Potential patients were assessed in the main building to determine their next destination in the hospital. A room labeled “Farbige” (colored) - visible in both Nocht and Schumacher’s publications - shows that the hospital segregated people of color from whites. [...]

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Despite belonging to two different disciplines [medicine and architecture], both Nocht and Schumacher’s publications articulate an understanding of health [...] that is linked to concepts of identity separating white upper-class German Europeans from others. [In] Hamburg [...] recent growth of the shipping industry and overt engagement of the German Empire in colonialism brought even more distant global connections to its port. For Schumacher, Hamburg’s presence in a global network meant it needed to strengthen its local identity and economy [by purposefully seeking to showcase "traditional" northern German neo-gothic brickwork while elevating local brick industry] lest it grow too far from its roots. In the case of Tropical Medicine at the ISTK, the “tropics” seemed to act as a foil for the European identity - a constructed category through which the European identity could redescribe itself by exclusion [...].

What it meant to be sick or healthy was taken up by both medicine and architecture - [...] neither in a vacuum.

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All text above by: Carrie Bly. "Mediums of Medicine: The Institute for Maritime and Tropical Diseases in Hamburg". Sick Architecture series published by e-flux Architecture. November 2020. [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me. Text within brackets added by me for clarity. Presented here for commentary, teaching, criticism purposes.]

#abolition #ecology #sorry i know its long ive been looking at this in my drafts for a long long time trying to condense #but its such a rich comparison that i didnt wanna lessen the impact of blys work here #bly in 2022 did dissertation defense in architecture history and theory on political economy of steel in US in 20s and 30 #add this to our conversations about brazilian eugenics in 1930s explicitly conflating hygiene modernist architecture and white supremacy #and british tropical medicine establishment in colonial india #and US sanitation and antimosquito campaigns in 1910s panama using jim crow laws and segregation and forcibly testing local women #see chakrabartis work on tropical medicine and empire in south asia and fahim amirs cloudy swords #and greg mitmans work on connections between #US tropical medicine schools and fruit plantations in central america and US military occupation of philippines and rubber in west africa #multispecies #imperial #indigenous #colonial #landscape #temporal #see also us mosquito campaigns in panama and british urban planning in west africa and rohan deb roy work on india bengal entomology #ecologies #bugs #tidalectics #archipelagic thinking #plantations #intimacies of four continents #carceral geography

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