Herero and Namaqua genocide

The genocide of the Herero and Nama occurred during and after the suppression of uprisings by the Herero and Nama against the German colonial power in the colony of German South-West Africa during the years 1904 to 1908.

The uprising, fuelled by existential fears, began in January 1904 with an attack by the Ovaherero under Samuel Maharero on German installations and farms. Since the colony's Schutztruppe was initially unable to cope, the Reichsleitung then immediately dispatched reinforcements. With about 15,000 men under the command of Lieutenant General Lothar von Trotha, the Herero uprising was crushed by August 1904.

The majority of the Herero then fled to the almost waterless Omaheke desert. Trotha had the desert sealed off and chased away the refugees from the few watering places that existed there, so that thousands of Herero died of thirst together with their families and herds of cattle. Trotha had them informed in the so-called extermination order: "The Herero are no longer German subjects. [...] Within the German border, every Herero with or without a rifle, with or without cattle, will be shot; I will take in no more women and no more children, drive them back to their people or have them shot as well."

Trotha's warfare aimed at the complete annihilation of the Herero ("I believe that the nation as such must be destroyed"); his actions are considered by scholars to be the first genocide of the 20th century. Trotha was supported in this by the Chief of the General Staff Alfred Graf von Schlieffen ("The racial struggle that has broken out can only be concluded by destroying [...] the one party") and Kaiser Wilhelm II.

In the face of the incidents, the Nama rose up under their captains Hendrik Witbooi and Jakob Morenga in October 1904. Learning from the warfare against the Herero, the Nama avoided open battle against the German occupation and began a guerrilla war. Demoralized by the deaths of Witbooi, Morenga, and other leaders, nearly all Nama groups eventually submitted to German subjugation treaties, and the war was declared over on March 31, 1907. But this was not the end of the colonial policy of extermination. Following the fighting, the Herero and Nama were interned in concentration camps, where nearly every second inmate died. Of the Herero people, estimated at around 60,000 to 80,000 in 1904, only 20,000 were still alive in 1911. The genocide in German South-West Africa had thus cost the lives of 40,000 to 60,000 Herero and about 10,000 Nama.

The Herero commemorate the victims annually through Herero Day and the Witboois with Heroes' Day held near Gibeon. For decades they have been striving for official recognition by the United Nations as victims of genocide. The German government did not take a position on the assessment of the event for a long time, and as late as August 2012 dismissed any responsibility for genocide. On 10 July 2015, the German Foreign Office described the events as genocide for the first time.

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After a drought starting in 1830, the Nama had been violently harassed by the nomadic Herero pastoralists seeking new pastures. With the help of the modern armed Orlam Afrikaners under their Kaptein Jonker Afrikaner, the Nama had been able to secure their tribal areas and had moved north with their allies. A decades-long war of robbery and defence now began between the Nama and the Herero. Jonker and his Orlam Afrikaners advanced as far as the central tribal area of the Herero near Okahandja and killed large numbers of Herero there around 1850 in their war of extermination. The end of the advance of the Orlam Afrikaners and the Nama was sealed in three battles in 1863 and 1864 at Otjimbingwe. There, with the help of the Swedish adventurer Karl Johan Andersson, who had formed an army from Herero warriors and equipped them with modern firearms and two field guns, the Herero managed to decisively defeat their opponents.

After a ten-year pause for peace, the nationwide attacks and looting by the Nama under their Kaptein Hendrik Witbooi began again. Even the now outnumbered German Schutztruppe did not succeed in protecting the Herero and ending the Nama's struggle, which is why the Herero briefly rescinded their protection treaties with the Germans in protest. Only after the Schutztruppe had been reinforced several times did the commanding major, Theodor Leutwein, succeed in subduing the Nama in 1894. As a result, a friendship developed between Samuel Maharero, who had been made captain of the Ovaherero by the Germans, and Leutwein.

Reasons for the uprising

There were two reasons that motivated the uprising: on the one hand, the German settlers claimed ever larger parts of the country for themselves, and on the other hand, the Herero and Nama suffered from the racist behaviour of the settlers and the organs of the colonial administration.

The Herero traditionally earned their living with cattle breeding. When a cattle plague occurred in 1897, the Herero herds were severely decimated. The increasing appropriation of the land, especially valuable grazing land, and fraud by which the German settlers tried to gain possession of the cattle, led to severe losses for the Herero not only in economic but also in cultural terms.

Due to the ensuing impoverishment, many Herero were forced to accept wage labour on German farms. Herero who still owned cattle increasingly came into conflict when they let their cattle graze on land now claimed by settlers. This drew the wrath of the settlers, who often had the herders forcibly evicted.

Since the legislative period 1893/1894, the Reichstag had been dealing with the land question of the Herero and Nama in the German "protectorate". In 1897, with the cooperation of the Rhenish Mission, a territory of 120,000 hectares to be reserved for the Nama was contractually regulated.

Apart from the loss of ever larger grazing areas, which threatened their existence, it was the racist discrimination against the Herero that acted as a trigger for the uprising. Thus, the lending practice of the German merchants, which had been practiced for many years until the ban in 1902, fostered the resentment of the Herero, whereby the Kaptein were supposed to pay for the debts of their tribesmen.

In July 1900, 75 citizens of the Southwest African city of Windhoek submitted a petition to the Colonial Department of the Foreign Office against the abolition of corporal punishment, saying: "In the long run, the native has no understanding for leniency and forbearance: he sees only weakness in them and consequently becomes arrogant and insolent against the white man, whom he must learn to obey, because he is spiritually and morally so far below him. The victims, who were often tied naked over a beer barrel, were abused with batten sticks and rhinoceros whips, among other things, until they suffered severe injuries. The colonial official Wilhelm Vallentin summed up his impression in the words "A raw, chopped beefsteak is nothing compared to that!".

Other serious offences were rape and murder, of which settlers were guilty towards Herero. The fact that these cases were often not punished or only mildly punished further increased the tensions.

Theodor Leutwein (seated left), Zacharias Zeraua (2nd from left) and Manasse Tyiseseta (seated, 4th from left), 1895 .