Herero and Namaqua Genocide

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search
 This article or section needs copy editing for grammar, style, cohesion, tone or spelling.
You can assist by editing it now. A how-to guide is available. (October 2007)
This article or section is missing citations or needs footnotes.
Using inline citations helps guard against copyright violations and factual inaccuracies. (June 2007)
Surviving Herero after an escape through the arid desert of Omaheke
Surviving Herero after an escape through the arid desert of Omaheke

The Herero and Namaqua Genocide occurred in German South-West Africa (modern day Namibia) from 1904 until 1907, during the scramble for Africa and is thought to be the first genocide of the 20th century.[1] On January 12, 1904, the Herero people under Samuel Maharero rose in rebellion against German colonial rule. In August, German general Lothar von Trotha finally defeated the Herero in the Battle of Waterberg and drove them and their families into the desert of Omaheke, where most of them died of thirst. In October, the Nama also took up arms against the Germans and were dealt with in a similar fashion. In total, between 24,000 and 65,000 Herero (all values are estimate, 50% to 70% of the total Herero population), and 10,000 Nama (50% of the total Nama population) perished. Two characteristics of the genocide were death by starvation and the poisoning of wells used by the Herero and Nama populations that were trapped in the Namib Desert.

In 1985, the United Nations’ Whitaker Report recognized Germany’s attempt to exterminate the Herero and Nama peoples of South-West Africa as one of the earliest attempts at genocide in the 20th century. The German government has also apologised for the events: Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, Germany's Aid Development Minister, declared in 2004, “We Germans accept our historic and moral responsibility.”[2]

Contents

[edit] Background

Theodor Leutwein (far left) with Samuel Maharero (fourth from left) 1895
Theodor Leutwein (far left) with Samuel Maharero (fourth from left) 1895

The Herero were originally a tribe of cattle herders living in the region of modern Namibia. Formerly, Namibia was called German South West Africa and the area occupied by the Herero was known as Damaraland.

During the scramble for Africa, the British made it clear that they were not interested in the territory; so, in August 1884, it was declared a German Protectorate and, at that time, the only overseas territory deemed suitable for white settlement that had been acquired by Germany. From the outset, there was resistance by the Khoikhoi to the German occupation, although a tenuous peace was worked out in 1894. In that year, Theodor Leutwein became Governor of the territory and it underwent a period of rapid development, while Germany sent the Schutztruppe, or imperial colonial troops, to pacify the region.[3]

White settlers were encouraged to settle on land taken from the natives, which caused a great deal of discontent. German colonial rule was far from egalitarian, the natives including the Herero were used as slave labourers, their lands were frequently seized and given to colonists, and resources, particularly diamond mines, were exploited by the Germans.

[edit] Revolts

German Schutztruppe in combat with the Herero in a painting by Richard Knötel
German Schutztruppe in combat with the Herero in a painting by Richard Knötel

In 1903, some of the Nama Tribes rose in revolt under the leadership of Hendrik Witbooi, and about 60 German settlers were killed.[3] Khoikhoi and Herero joined the Namas months later.

In January 1904, the Hereros revolted, led by Chief Samuel Maharero, and killed about 120 Germans, including women and children, and destroyed their farms. The rebels surrounded Okahandja and cut links to Windhoek, the colonial capital. Having few troops within the colony, Leutwein requested reinforcements and an experienced officer from the German capital, Berlin.[4] Lieutenant-General Lothar von Trotha was appointed Commander in Chief of German South-West Africa on 3 May, arriving with his force of 14,000 troops on June 11.

The civilian Leutwein was subordinate to the Colonial Department of the Prussian Foreign Office, which reported to Chancellor Bernhard von Bülow. Trotha, on the other hand, reported to the military German General Staff, which was only subordinate to William II, German Emperor. Leutwein desired to defeat the most determined Herero rebels and negotiate a surrender with the remainder to achieve a political settlement.[5] Trotha, however, wanted to crush native resistance.

[edit] The genocide

Von Trotha's troops defeated 3,000–5,000 Herero combatants at the Battle of Waterberg on 11-12 August, but were unable to encircle and eliminate the military threat.[5] The survivors retreated with their families towards Bechuanaland, after the British offered the Hereros asylum under the condition not to continue the revolt on British soil.

Some 24,000 Hereros managed to flee through a gap in the netting into the Kalahari Desert in the hope of reaching the British protectorate. German patrols later found skeletons around holes (25–50 feet deep) that were dug up in a vain attempt to find water. Maherero and 1,000 men crossed the Kalahari into Bechuanaland.

Lothar von Trotha
Lothar von Trotha

On 2 October, Trotha issued an appeal to the Hereros:

I, the great general of the German troops, send this letter to the Herero people... All Hereros must leave this land... Any Herero found within the German borders with or without a gun, with or without cattle, will be shot. I shall no longer receive any women or children; I will drive them back to their people or have them fired upon. This is my decision for the Herero people.[6]

Unable to achieve a conclusive victory through battle, Trotha ordered that captured Herero males were to be executed, while women and children were to be driven into the desert.[5] Leutwein complained to Bülow about Trotha's actions, seeing the general's orders as ruining any chance of a settlement and intruding upon the civilian colonial jurisdiction.[7] Having no authority over the military Trotha, the chancellor could only advise William II that Trotha's actions were "contrary to Christian and humanitarian principle, economically devastating and damaging to Germany's international reputation".[7]

After a political battle in Berlin between the civilian government and the military, William II countermanded Trotha's decree of 2 October on 8 December, but the massacres had already begun. When the order was lifted at the end of 1904, prisoners were herded into concentration camps and given as slave labourers to German businesses. Many prisoners died of overwork and malnutrition.

The German administration never conducted a census before 1904. Only in 1905 did a counting take place which revealed that 25,000 Herero remained in German South-West Africa.[citation needed]

Survivors, mostly women and children, were eventually put in concentration camps, such as that at Shark Island, similar to those used in British South Africa during the Second Boer War. The German authorities gave each Herero a number and meticulously recorded every death, whether in the camps or from forced labor, even including the name of each dead person in their reports. German enterprises were able to rent Hereros in order to use their manpower, and workers' deaths were permitted, and even reported to the German authorities. Forced labour, disease, and malnutrition killed an estimated 50–80% of the entire Herero population by 1908, when the camps were closed.

According to the 1985 United Nations’ Whitaker Report, some 65,000 Herero (80 percent of the total Herero population), and 10,000 Nama (50% of the total Nama population) were killed between 1904 and 1907. Other estimates give a total of 100,000 killed. However, German author Walter Nuhn estimates that in 1904 only 40,000 Herero lived in German South-West Africa, and therefore only 24,000 could have been killed [8]. Recent publications consider the total of 24,000-40,000 people killed to be the most reliable estimate.

Dutch historian Jan-Bart Gewald of the University of Cologne has written that the Germans set up special camps for their troops and that many children were born of German fathers and Herero mothers. After most Herero males had been killed, the surviving women were forced to serve as prostitutes for the Germans.[9] Trotha was opposed to contact between natives and settlers, believing that the insurrection was "the beginning of a racial struggle" and fearing that the colonists would be infected by native diseases.[7]

It took until 1908 to fully re-establish German authority over the territory. At the height of the campaign, some 19,000 German troops were involved. At about the same time, diamonds were discovered in the territory and this did much to boost its prosperity. However, it was short-lived. The German colony was taken over and occupied by the Union of South Africa in 1915, in one of the colonial campaigns of World War I. South Africa received a League of Nations Mandate over South-West Africa in 1919 under the Treaty of Versailles.

[edit] Recognition, denial and compensation

Many modern historians believe the Herero were the first ethnic group to be subjected to genocide in the 20th century.[10] Larissa Förster, a Namibia expert at the Museum for Ethnology in Cologne, explains, “It was clearly a command to eliminate people belonging to a specific ethnic group and only because they were part of this ethnic group.”[11] It has also been linked to later events in Nazi Germany.[12] Other researchers,[who?] accused by those who disagree with them of being historical revisionists, use the term "Herero Wars". While acknowledging the massacres, they deem the evidence insufficient to call it a genocide and reject comparisons to Auschwitz as sensationalism.[citation needed]

Herero chained during the 1904 rebellion
Herero chained during the 1904 rebellion

In 1998, German President Roman Herzog visited Namibia and met Herero leaders. Chief Munjuku Nguvauva demanded a public apology and compensation. Herzog expressed regret but stopped short of an apology. He also pointed out that reparations were out of the question.

On August 16, 2004, the 100th anniversary of the start of the genocide, Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, Germany’s development aid minister, officially apologised for the first time and expressed grief about the genocide committed by Germans, declaring, “We Germans accept our historic and moral responsibility and the guilt incurred by Germans at that time.” In addition, she admitted that the massacres were equivalent to genocide, without explicitly mentioning the concentration camps and slavery that also existed, both of which were well documented by the Germans themselves. Furthermore, she ruled out paying a special compensation, declaring that the German government already paid a yearly sum of €11.5 million as development aid for Namibia.[13]

The Hereros filed a lawsuit in the United States in 2001 demanding reparations from the German government and the Deutsche Bank, which financed the German government and companies in Southern Africa.[14][6]

A short documentary in production, From Herero To Hitler: Planting the Seeds of a Future Genocide, will examine how events in German South-West Africa relate to the actions of Nazi Germany.[15]

The descendants of Lothar von Trotha and the von Trotha family travelled to Omaruru in October 2007 by invitation of the royal Herero chiefs and publicly apologised for his actions. Wolf-Thilo von Trotha said, “We, the von Trotha family, are deeply ashamed of the terrible events that took place 100 years ago. Human rights were grossly abused that time.” [16]

[edit] Fictional representations

One chapter of Thomas Pynchon's novel V. (1963) is about the Herero genocide. A group of characters of Herero descent are also present in his Gravity's Rainbow (1974), which hints more than once at the Herero Massacre.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Levi, Neil; Rothberg, Michael (2003). The Holocaust: Theoretical Readings. Rutgers University Press, 465. ISBN 0813533538. 
  2. ^ “Germany admits Namibia genocide,” BBC News, August 14, 2004
  3. ^ a b “A bloody history: Namibia’s colonisation”, BBC News, August 29, 2001
  4. ^ Clark, p. 604
  5. ^ a b c Clark, p.605
  6. ^ a b “Germany regrets Namibia ‘genocide’”, BBC News, January 12, 2004
  7. ^ a b c Clark, p. 606
  8. ^ Walter Nuhn: Sturm über Südwest. Der Hereroaufstand von 1904. Bernhard & Graefe-Verlag, Koblenz 1989. ISBN 3-76375-852-6.
  9. ^ Mail&Guardian: The tribe Germany wants to forget
  10. ^ Allan D. Cooper (2006-08-31). Reparations for the Herero Genocide: Defining the limits of international litigation (HTML). Oxford Journals African Affairs.
  11. ^ Remembering the Herero Rebellion (HTML). Deutsche Welle (2004-11-01).
  12. ^ Imperialism and Genocide in Namibia (HTML). Socialist Action (04 1999).
  13. ^ Germany admits Namibia genocide (HTML). BBC News (2004-08-14). Retrieved on 2008-04-23.
  14. ^ German bank accused of genocide (HTML). BBC News (2001-09-25).
  15. ^ Rosemarie Reed Productions, LLC - Films for Thought: From Herero to Hitler: Planting the Seeds of a Future Genocide
  16. ^ German family’s Namibia apology (HTML). BBC News (2007-10-07).

[edit] Bibliography and documentaries

  • Clark, Christopher (2006). Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia 1600–1947. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard, 776. ISBN 067402385-4. 
  • Exterminate all the Brutes, Sven Lindqvist, London, 1996.
  • A Forgotten History-Concentration Camps were used by Germans in South West Africa, Casper W. Erichsen, in the Mail and Guardian, Johannesburg, 17 August, 2001.
  • Genocide & The Second Reich, BBC Four, David Olusoga, October 2004
  • German Federal Archives, Imperial Colonial Office, Vol. 2089, 7 (recto)
  • The Herero and Nama Genocides, 1904-1908, J.B. Gewald, in Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity, New York, Macmillan Reference, 2004.
  • Herero Heroes: A Socio-Political History of the Herero of Namibia 1890 - 1923, J.B. Gewald, Oxford, Cape Town, Athens OH, 1999.
  • Let Us Die Fighting: the Struggle of the Herero and Nama against German Imperialism, 1884-1915, Horst Drechsler, London, 1980.
  • The Revolt of the Hereros, Jon M. Bridgman, Perspectives on Southern Africa, Berkeley, University of California, 1981.

[edit] Further reading

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herero_and_Namaqua_Genocide"
Personal tools