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m →‎Economic value: Different topic: the reference is to Luderitz, German South West Africa, not Namibia.
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==Economic value==
==Economic value==
One of the primary reasons Germany was attracted to South West Africa was as an area to settle poor German farmers.<ref>Jeremy Sarkin, "Germany's Genocide of the Herero: Kaiser Wilhelm II, His General, His Settlers, His Soldiers", James Currey, UCT Press, 2011, p. 13</ref> However, in 1908 diamonds and other mineral deposits (copper, vanadium, gold, lead, and zinc) were discovered in the area around the [[Namib desert]]. Thus, German South West Africa became economically desirable to both Germany and Great Britain. [[Forced labour]] from Shark Island was used to build the town of [[Lüderitz]] on the adjacent mainland and local railways.
One of the primary reasons Germany was attracted to South West Africa was as an area to settle poor German farmers.<ref>Jeremy Sarkin, "Germany's Genocide of the Herero: Kaiser Wilhelm II, His General, His Settlers, His Soldiers", James Currey, UCT Press, 2011, p. 13</ref> However, in 1908 diamonds and other mineral deposits (copper, vanadium, gold, lead, and zinc) were discovered in the area around the [[Namib desert]]. Thus, German South West Africa became economically desirable to both Germany and Great Britain. [[Forced labour]] from Shark Island was used to build the town of Lüderitz on the adjacent mainland and local railways.


==Arrival at Shark Island==
==Arrival at Shark Island==

Revision as of 15:25, 25 December 2011

For the island, see Shark Island, Namibia.

Shark Island Extermination Camp is regarded as the world's first extermination camp (Vernichtungslager). The site was used by the German colonial empire during the Herero and Namaqua genocide of 1904-1908. Three thousand Herero and Namaqua rebels in the German-Herero conflict of 1904-1908 died there.[1][2][3]

File:Erichsen p.xiv v2.jpg
German South West Africa

Organization of Shark Island Death Camp

File:Erichsen p.71 v2.jpg
Map of Haifisch Insel (Shark Island)

Shark Island is located in Lüderitzbucht (Lüderitz Bay), just off the city of Lüderitz. Very few photographs and maps of Shark Island exist.

Economic value

One of the primary reasons Germany was attracted to South West Africa was as an area to settle poor German farmers.[4] However, in 1908 diamonds and other mineral deposits (copper, vanadium, gold, lead, and zinc) were discovered in the area around the Namib desert. Thus, German South West Africa became economically desirable to both Germany and Great Britain. Forced labour from Shark Island was used to build the town of Lüderitz on the adjacent mainland and local railways.

Arrival at Shark Island

Just as with the extermination and concentration camps during the Third Reich, unsuspecting victims were transported by train or on foot from collection camps or other concentration camps to Shark Island Death Camp. The less lucky (such as those who were sick or starving) were shot before they got to Shark Island.[5]

Conditions at Shark Island

The weather was typically ice-cold gale force winds. The prisoners (men, women and children) usually had no or very few blankets, little food (they were provided with rice but had no prior familiarity with rice, nor did they have the required cooking utensils), families were split apart. Violence from German schutztruppers wielding sjamboks (whips) was common, as was rape.[6][7]

Herero and Nama at Shark Island Death Camp
Lieutenant von Durling with Sjambok at Shark Island
Cover of the 1918 British Blue Book, later censored

In August 1912, before the First World War, a British foreign office official commented:

In view of the cruelty, treachery [and] commercialism by which the German colonial authorities have gradually reduced their natives to the status of cattle (without so much of a flutter being caused among English peace loving philanthropists) the [Portuguese] S. Thome agitation in its later phases against a weak [and] silly nation without resources is the more sickening. These Herreros were butchered by thousands during the war & have been ruthlessly flogged into subservience since.[8]

The Report on the natives of South-West Africa and their treatment by Germany. Administrator's Office, Windhuk [sic], London: His Majesty's Stationery Office, 1918 is known as "The Blue Book". It was removed from sale in 1926 and destroyed.

"A number of eyewitness accounts do exist and some victim accounts are found in the Blue Book, which recorded accounts of the atrocities committed during the Herero war.Since the British produced the Blue Book during World War I reservations about its objectivity remain. However, the sentiments contained in the 1918 Report were already present in a British report of 1909, which stated:

"The great aim of German policy in German South West Africa, as regards the native, is to reduce him to a state of serfdom, and, where he resists, to destroy him altogether. The native, to the German, is a baboon and nothing more. The war against the Hereros, conducted by General Von Trotha, was one of extermination; hundreds -- men, women and children -- were driven into desert country, where death from thirst was their end; whose [sic] left over are now in great locations near Windhuk [sic] where they eke out a miserable existence; labour is forced upon them and naturally is unwillingly performed.[9]

"The Blue Book was the first investigation into the genocide. As Rhoda Howard-Hassmann points out, 'Germany committed genocide in South-West Africa with an impunity broken only by a British inquiry after the former country's defeat in World War I. So keen were the German settlers to suppress evidence of the genocide that they attempted to have the Blue Book banned as post-war British propaganda. The all-white legislative assembly adopted a motion to destroy all copies of it. Its distribution was prohibited and library copies were removed and destroyed. In the rest of the British Empire, the Blue Book was also removed from libraries and sent to the Foreign Office.'" [10]

Medical experimentation

The skulls of prisoners were harvested to be used as part of the medical experimentation program to prove that the indigenous peoples of German South West Africa were of an inferior race. These skulls were studied by such people as Eugen Fischer (see Rehoboth bastards), F. Birkner and H. von Eggeling [11], and Dr. Bofinger.

Skull of Shark Island Prisoner Used for Medical Experimentation (child)
Shark Island Schütztruppen Loading Skulls

Major personages and propaganda

The objective of the policy of German South West Africa Governor Theodor von Leutwein was not to destroy the indigenous populations (Herero, Nama, Damara) in order to seize their land to encourage settlement of German farmers; nor was it to seize or kill the cattle. Leutwein's objective was not genocide, and he was wise enough to realize that the indigenous population could be used as a labor supply. However, such Flavian tactics left Leutwein open to attack at home, with a public who wanted the instant gratification of a decisive defeat of the indigenous peoples of German South West Africa. (This was the same problem Fabius Maximus had with the Roman public, who wanted him to quickly defeat Hannibal.) As a consequence, Leutwein was pushed aside by Kaiser Wilhelm II and replaced by Lothar von Trotha, already known for his brutality in China as well as German East Africa. The result was the genocide of the indigenous population, the economic ruin of German South West Africa, and the eventual loss of the German colonial empire. [12][13]

As a consequence of this failed, brutal policy, Trotha was forced to leave German South West Africa and replaced by Friedrich von Lindequist, who completed the genocide with the use of extermination camps and concentration camps. In order for this policy to be acceptable at home, propaganda was employed. The claim was made that the 'barbaric' indigenous population wished to murder defenseless women and children. In fact, only four German women were killed, and one German child.

Bridging the Second and Third Reichs in German South West Africa

There was at least one German citizen who visited German South West Africa during the period between 1904 and 1908, as well as working closely with the Nazi Party in Germany (straddling the Second Reich and Third Reich): Eugen Fischer, director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics (KWI-A). Fischer also worked closely for many years with his old friend Baron Ottmar von Verschuer, who was his successor at the KWI-A. It is indisputable that Eugen Fischer was fully apprised of the activities of the Nazis.[14][15][16][17][18]

Paul Rohrbach was the Settlements Commissioner in GSWA. Concerned with miscegenation, he is quoted as follows:

"In order to secure the peaceful White settlement against the bad, culturally inept and predatory native tribe, it is possible that its actual eradication may become necessary under certain conditions."[19]

Independent of what was happening in German South West Africa, in 1918 the Germans had invaded the Ukraine while people like Symon Petliura were also trying to establish an independent Ukraine. Rohrbach worked with Field Marshal Hermann von Eichhorn, commander of the German forces in the Ukraine, to install General Pavel Petrovitch Skoropadski as "Hetmann" of the Ukraine.[20]

During the Third Reich, German colonists from German East Africa were moved into Polish land "annexed" in 1939, displacing Poles (the indigenous population), Jews and Gypsies. This new settlement area was called the Reichsgau Wartheland; as the people in Poland and the Ukraine were considered inferior, they could thus be exterminated and replaced with Germans from the former African colonies and other places.

"... Hitler, Darré, and other Nazi ideologues played down overseas colonialism and concentrated instead on contiguous German settlements in Eastern Europe and especially Ukraine where the Aryan 'soldier-peasant' tilled the soil with a weapon at his side, ready to defend the farm from the 'Asian hordes.' As for the Ukrainians whom the Nazis pejoratively branded 'Negroes,' Hitler remarked that the Germans would supply them 'with scarves, glass beads and everything that colonial people like.'"[21]

Also active both in Deutsch-Südwestafrika and in Nazi Germany were two members of a well-known family: Heinrich Ernst Göring and Hermann Göring.

Franz Ritter von Epp also straddled both the Second Reich and the Third Reich. He served as a company commander in the German colony Deutsch-Südwestafrika, where he took part in the bloody Herero and Namaqua Genocide.[22] Von Epp also served as the NSDAP's head of its Military-Political Office from 1928 to 1945, and later as leader of the German Colonial Society, an organization devoted to regaining Germany's lost colonies.

Ernst Heinrich Göring
Friedrich von Lindequist
File:Paul Rohrbach.jpg
Paul Rohrbach

Since several later NSDAP leaders were either active in, or informed about, the camp's operation, it has been described as an important predecessor of later Nazi extermination camps during the holocaust.[23]

Several other notable members of the NSDAP received their initial education repressing people in German colonies[24], including:

Franz Ritter von Epp Reichsstatthalter of Bavaria,
member of GSWA schutztruppen
Heinrich Ernst Göring
Hermann Göring		 Heinrich worked in German Southwest Africa,
Hermann was a well known member of the NSDAP
Hans Grimm Originated the slogan Lebensraum while in GSWA in 1910
A sympathizer who influenced the NSDAP since 1923, and
held many of the same beliefs[25]
Eduard von Liebert member NSDAP,
governor German South West Africa
Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck joined NSDAP in 1928,
German South West Africa
German Kamerun and
German East Africa, with General von Trotha
Friedrich von Lindequist member NSDAP,
governor German South West Africa
Karl Peters member NSDAP in 1933,
founder of German East Africa,
(praised by Kaiser Wilhelm II and Hitler)
Wilhelm Röemann member NSDAP, in German South West Africa
(under General von Trotha)
Paul Rohrbach Settlement commissioner in GSWA[26]

Rohrbach tried to establish an independent Ukraine in 1918[27]
Rohrbach was associated with the Reichsgau Wartheland during the Third Reich

Heinrich Schneem member NSDAP, governor German East Africa,
president Deutsche Kolonialgesellschaft (DKG),
president Deutsche weltwirtschaftliche gessellschaft
Theodore Seitz governor of German Kamerun,
governor German South West Africa,

president Deutsche Kolonialgesellschaft (DKG)

The bridge between the the Second Reich and the Third Reich was through Germany's African colonial empire! See German Ost (East).

A summary of concentration camps in German South West Africa

In the table below, Extermination camps are highlighted in light red; Concentration camps are highlighted in blue, Collection or Work camps are unmarked.

Name[28][29] Est. deaths[30] Notes
Bondelslokation
Karibib
Keetmanshoop
Lüdertiz
Okahandja Four subcamps or kraals: [31]
#1: Young children;
#2: Prisoners of War;
#3: Sick and dying;
#4: Police camp (mostly Damara)
Okomitombe
Omaruru
Omburo
Otjihaenena
Otjozongombe
Shark Island 3,000 (In Lüderitzbucht, 121.2% for Nama, 30% for Herero)
Swakopmund 74%
Windhoek 50.4% There were two lager (camps) at Windhoek.

One should bear in mind that the above table of concentration camps, extermination camps and collection or work camps did not exhaust all the other places where indigenous people were interned.

"There were numerous smaller and lesser concentration camps in the colony. Some pertained to private businesses such as the Woermann company and others to government related projects such as railway construction, which saw several thousands of Herero 'accommodated' in 'Railway Concentration Labour Camps'." [32]

"Hereros working in Swakopmund had been rounded up and interned on two Woermann line ‘steamers’ anchored off the coastal town’s shores."[33]

Firma Lenz used slave labor to build railway embankments.[34]

The Arthur Koppel Company constructed the Otavi railroad.[35]

Etappenkommando in charge of supplies of prisoners to companies, private persons, etc., as well as any other materials. Concentration camps implies poor sanitation and a population density that would imply disease.[36]

Prisoners were used as slave laborers in mines and railways, for use by the military or settlers.[37][38][39][40][41] [42]

Recognition and remembrance

The Herero and Namaqua genocide has been recognised by the United Nations and by the German Federal Republic. At the 100th anniversary of the camp's foundation, German Minister for Economic Development and Cooperation Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul commemorated the dead on-site and apologised for the camp on behalf of Germany.[43][44]

See also

Sources of information

Horst Drechsler, "Let Us Die Fighting: The Struggle of the Herero and Nama against German Imperialism (1884-1915)", Akademie-Verlag Berlin, 1986 (3rd Ed.)

This was a pioneering work, and remains a major source of information about German South West Africa. Unfortunately, the book does not provide any photographs.

Casper W. Erichsen, "The angel of death has descended violently among them: Concentration camps and prisoners-of-war in Namibia, 1904-08", University of Leiden African Studies Centre, Leiden, 2005.

This book should be considered a major source of information on German South West Africa. It contains many photographs and several rare maps, including a great deal of information about the Shark Island Extermination Camp and the other extermination camps and collection centers.

Jan-Bart Gewald, "Herero Heroes: A Socio-Political History of the Herero of Namibia 1890-1923", James Currey, Oxford, 1999.

This book has a great many photographs and maps.

Jeremy Sarkin, "Germany's Genocide of the Herero: Kaiser Wilhelm II, His General, His Settlers, His Soldiers", James Currey, UCT Press, 2011.

This book contains several photographs and maps. The book focuses on the extermination order issued by Kaiser Wilhelm II to Lothar von Trotha, as well as several other extermination orders issued by Kaiser Wilhelm II. It also contains extermination orders issued by Lothar von Trotha,[45] and the misleading proclamation made by Trotha's successor, Governor Friedrich von Lindequist, asking the Herero and Nama to turn themselves in to facilities that were actually concentration camps, including Omburo and Otjihaemena.

"Report on the natives of South-West Africa and their treatment by Germany." Administrator's Office, Windhuk [sic], London: His Majesty's Stationery Office, 1918. (Blue Book)

Originally available "At any bookstore or through H. M. Stationery Office [His Majesty's Stationery Office]", until 1926, when it was removed from the public and destroyed. There are many revisionists of history who claim that this book is biased. However:

"A number of eyewitness accounts do exist and some victim accounts are found in the Blue Book, which recorded accounts of the atrocities committed during the Herero war.Since the British produced the Blue Book during World War I reservations about its objectivity remain. However, the sentiments contained in the 1918 Report were already present in a British report of 1909, which stated:

"The great aim of German policy in German South West Africa, as regards the native, is to reduce him to a state of serfdom, and, where he resists, to destroy him altogether. The native, to the German, is a baboon and nothing more. The war against the Hereros, conducted by General Von Trotha, was one of extermination; hundreds -- men, women and children -- were driven into desert country, where death from thirst was their end; whose [sic] left over are now in great locations near Windhuk [sic] where they eke out a miserable existence; labour is forced upon them and naturally is unwillingly performed.[46]

In August 1912 [pre-dates World War I], another British foreign office official commented:

"In view of the cruelty, treachery [and] commercialism by which the German colonial authorities have gradually reduced their natives to the status of cattle (without so much of a flutter being caused among English peace loving philanthropists) the [Portuguese] S. Thome agitation in its later phases against a weak [and] silly nation without resources is the more sickening. These Herreros were butchered by thousands during the war & have been ruthlessly flogged into subservience since."[47]

Brigitte Lau, "History and Historiography: 4 essays in reprint", Discourse/MSORP, Windhoek, May, 1995

Both Erichsen and Sarkin refer to Brigitte Lau as a denialist. Nevertheless, in essay III, between pages 50 and 51 of her work, nine photographs with captions including "prisoner of war camps, in Windhoek and Luderitz", are published. Lau was a research officer at the National Archives of Namibia, and in 1991 was appointed Head of the National Archives of Namibia.

References

  1. ^ While one of the first known uses of the concentration camp was in Cuba during the Spanish-American War in 1896 (by General Valeriano "Butcher" Weyler, followed by the British during the Second Boer War, Shark Island was the first "camp" created with the explicit purpose of extermination, rather than being solely for containment. Since the extermination at Shark Island was restricted to specific peoples, it was the first recorded effort to exterminate a race or a people; thus constituting genocide or ethnic cleansing.
  2. ^ Aline Helg, "Our Rightful Share: The Afro-Cubal Struggle for Equality, 1886-1912", The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 1995, pp. 85-86
  3. ^ Willard B. Gatewood, Jr., "Smoked Yankees and the Struggle for Empire: Letters from Negro Soldiers 1898-1902", University of Arkansas Press, Fayetteville, 1987, p. 239
  4. ^ Jeremy Sarkin, "Germany's Genocide of the Herero: Kaiser Wilhelm II, His General, His Settlers, His Soldiers", James Currey, UCT Press, 2011, p. 13
  5. ^ Casper Erichsen, "The angel of death has descended violently among them: Concentration camps and prisoners-of-war in Namibia, 1904-1908," African Studies Centre, Leiden, 2005
  6. ^ It has been reported that the sjamboks tore off pieces of flesh. See photographs of Maria in Plate 4 (facing p. 174) and Auma, Plate 5 (facing p. 175), in the British Blue Book of 1918. This punishment was so common in German Kamerun that the country was referred to as "the 25 Country" because 25 strokes with the sjambok could kill the victim.
  7. ^ Beatings with the sjambok and other forms of abuse were common. See the testimony of Joseph Witbooi, quoted from the British Blue Book, in Casper W. Erichsen, "The angel of death has descended violently among them: Concentration camps and prisoners-of-war in Namibia, 1904-08", African Studies Centre Research Report 79/2005, p. 121-122
  8. ^ Report by Captain H. S. P. Simon, 'Report on German South West Africa', 6 April 1909, FO 367-236, quoted in Louis, W. M. R. (1967) 'Great Britain and German expansion in Africa 1984-1919'. In P. Gifford and W. M. R. Louis (Eds.), "Britain and Germany in Africa: Imperial rivalty and colonial rule." Yale University Press, New Haven, pp. 3-46, 38.
  9. ^ This reference pre-dates World War I, and therefore should not be influenced by war purposes. Report by Captain H. S. P. Simon, 'Report on German South West Africa', 6 April 1909, FO 367-236, quoted in Louis, W. M. R. (1967) 'Great Britain and German expansion in Africa 1984-1919'. In P. Gifford and W. M. R. Louis (Eds.), "Britain and Germany in Africa: Imperial rivalty and colonial rule." Yale University Press, New Haven, pp. 3-46, 33-34.
  10. ^ Casper W. Erichsen, "The angel of death has descended violently among them: Concentration camps and prisoners-of-war in Namibia, 1904-08", University of Leiden African Studies Centre, Leiden, 2005, pp. 111-112
  11. ^ Christian Fetzer, "Rassenanatomische Untersuchungen an 17 Hottentotten Kopfen", Zeitschrift fur Morphologie und Anthropologie 16 (1913-1914), pp. 95-156.
  12. ^ Jeremy Sarkin, "Germany's Genocide of the Herero: Kaiser Wilhelm II, His General, His Settlers, His Soldiers", James Currey, 2011
  13. ^ Casper Erichsen, "The angel of death has descended violently among them," African Studies Center, University of Leiden, Netherlands, 2003
  14. ^ Hans-Walter Schmuhl, "The Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics, 1927-1945" Springer, 2003, pp. 336-337: "At the end of his colonial policy conclusions, Fischer designed a system of apartheid for German Southwest Africa, long before such a system was introduced in South Africa: the Ovambo and Herero were to be deployed as agricultural laborers, the Hottentots as herders. The "Bastards of Rehoboth," in contrast, were assigned an important function as a privileged intermediate class, "as native craftsmen and manual laborers [...], as policemen, i.e minor officers, foremen, and leaders of the entire supply lines and vehicle pool of the government, troops and private persons, in part as small farmers in their bastard country, to which everyone returns after serving their time." Despite his paternalistic attitude toward the "little nation of bastards," Fischer regarded the Rehoboths from the perspective of the colonial masters:

    So they will be granted just that degree of protection which they need as a race inferior to us, in order to endure, no more and only as long as they are useful to us -- otherwise free competition, i.e. in my opinion, here downfall!

    This last comment by Fischer reads like a retrospective justification of the war of extermination the German colonial troops had led against the rebellious Herero and Nama from 1904 to 1908. Fischer had profited from this genocide directly, for he apparently brought skulls and skeletons of "Hottentots" with him from Southwest Africa, which may have come from the internment camps on Shark Island, where people died like flies. The skeleton of the Nama leader Cornelius Frederiks (1907) also supposedly came into Fischer's collection in this way."

  15. ^ Hans-Walter Schmuhl, "The Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics, 1927-1945" Springer, 2003, p. 253: "In July 1940 -- by this time Fischer had coordinated his plans for reorganizing the institute with Baron Ottmar von Verschuer -- the departing director expressed himself more clearly to Telschow:

    In repetition of earlier conversations, Prof. Eugen Fischer designated prof. von Verschuer in Frankfort as a suitable successor. [...]

  16. ^ Hans-Walter Schmuhl, "The Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics, 1927-1945" Springer, 2003, p. 279: "In July 1942 Verschuer reported to the race biologist Wolfgang Lehmann of Strasborg, a member of the "Dahlem circle": "I will take almost all of my staff from here, first of all[Heinrich] Schade and [Hans] Grebe, later [Josef] Mengele [...]"
  17. ^ Hans-Walter Schmuhl, "The Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics, 1927-1945" Springer, 2003, p. 284: "Verschuer [...] filled the ranks of assistants with Hans Grebe, Siegfried Liebau, Hans Ritter, and Karin Magnussen [...]"
  18. ^ Hans-Walter Schmuhl, "The Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics, 1927-1945" Springer, 2003, pp. 379-381. In her interrogation by the Bremen Denazification Commission on May 25, 1949, Karin Magnussen testified that she worked closely with Dr. Josef Mengele and that Prof. von Verschuer worked closely with both Magnussen and Mengele.
  19. ^ Jeremy Sarkin, "Germany's Genocide of the Herero: Kaiser Wilhelm II, His General, His Settlers, His Soldiers", James Currey, 2011, p. 102
  20. ^ See Hans-Joachim Torke and John-Paul Himka, "German-Ukrainian Relations in Historical Perspective", Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies Press, Edmonton, 1994 (review).
  21. ^ See Jonathan Petropoulos, John K. Roth, "Gray zones: ambiguity and compromise in the Holocaust and its aftermath", Berghahn Books, 2006, pp. 187-188
  22. ^ Genocide and Gross Human Rights Violations google book review, author: Kurt Jonassohn, Karin Solveig Björnson, publisher: Transaction Publishers
  23. ^ Benjamin Madley, "From Africa to Auschwitz: How German South West Africa Incubated Ideas and Methods Adopted and Developed by the Nazis in Eastern Europe", European History Quarterly 2005 35, pp. 430-432
  24. ^ http://techcrunch.com/2007/12/06/wikipedia-sued-for-nazi-sympathies/; see also Katina Schubert, Lutz Heilmann
  25. ^ Eric Ames, Marcia Klotz, and Lora Wildenthal (Eds), “Race, Gender, and Sexuality in German Southwest Africa: Hans Grimm’s Südafrikanische Novellen.” Germany’s Colonial Pasts. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, 2005, pp. 63-75.
  26. ^ Examples of views by individuals such as Paul Rohrbach and Eugen Fischer that were specific links between GSWA and Nazi Germany are given in Jeremy Sarkin, "Germany's Genocide of the Herero: Kaiser Wilhelm II, His General, His Settlers, His Soldiers", James Currey, 2011, p. 25. "Jonassohn points out how the writings of Paul Rohrbach, advocating the extermination or expulsion of the indigenous population to provide space for white settlers, later became part of the Nazi ethos. To confirm the link between the two eras Jonassohn also refers to Eugen Fischer, who conducted human experiments in GSWA and later Nazi Germany."
  27. ^ President of the German-Ukrainian Society during WWI; see Ihor Kamenetsky, "Hitler's Occupation of the Ukraine: A Study in Totalitarian Imperialism", Hailer Publishing, 2006
  28. ^ Casper Erichsen, "The angel of death has descended violently among them: Concentration camps and prisoners-of-war in Namibia, 1904-1908," African Studies Centre, Leiden, 2005, p. 23
  29. ^ Jeremy Silver, Casper Erichsen, "Luderitz's Forgotten Concentration Camp", at [1]
  30. ^ "The other annual average death rates (for the period Oct. 1904 to Mar. 1907) were as follows: Okahandja, 37.2%; Windhuk, 50.4%; Swakopmund, 74%; Shark Island in Lüderitzbucht, 121.2% for Nama, 30% for Herero. Traugott Tjienda, headsman of the Herero at Tsumbe and foreman of a large group of prisoners at the Otavi lines for two years, testified years later to a death rate of 28% (148 dead of 528 laborers) in his unit, Union of South Africa, 'Report on the Natives', 101." In this excerpt, "BA-Berlin" means Bundesarchiv (Berlin-Lichterfelde); "Lüderitzbucht" means Lüderitz Bay; Tsumbe was a copper mine; Otavi was the railroad that the inmates of Shark Island were forced to build. See "Absolute Destruction: Military, Culture And the Practices of War in Imperial Germany", Isabel V. Hull, Cornell University Press, 2006; see footnote #64, pp. 81-82, 'Sterblichkeit in den Kriegsgefangenlargern,' Nr. KA II.1181, copy of undated report compiled by the Schutztruppe Command, read in Col. Dept. 24 M. 1908, BA-Berlin, R 1001. Nr. 2040, pp. 161-62.
  31. ^ A kraal is typically reserved for animals
  32. ^ Casper Erichsen, "The angel of death has descended violently among them: Concentration camps and prisoners-of-war in Namibia, 1904-1908," African Studies Centre, Leiden, 2005, p. 49
  33. ^ Casper Erichsen, "The angel of death has descended violently among them: Concentration camps and prisoners-of-war in Namibia, 1904-1908," African Studies Centre, Leiden, 2005, p. 23
  34. ^ Casper Erichsen, "The angel of death has descended violently among them: Concentration camps and prisoners-of-war in Namibia, 1904-1908," African Studies Centre, Leiden, 2005, pp. 59, 111
  35. ^ Casper Erichsen, "The angel of death has descended violently among them: Concentration camps and prisoners-of-war in Namibia, 1904-1908," African Studies Centre, Leiden, 2005, p. 76
  36. ^ Casper Erichsen, "The angel of death has descended violently among them: Concentration camps and prisoners-of-war in Namibia, 1904-1908," African Studies Centre, Leiden, 2005, p. 113
  37. ^ Casper Erichsen, "The angel of death has descended violently among them: Concentration camps and prisoners-of-war in Namibia, 1904-1908," African Studies Centre, Leiden, 2005, p. 43
  38. ^ “The loads … are out of all proportion to their strength. I have often seen women and children dropping down, especially when engaged on this work, and also when carrying very heavy bags of grain, weighing from 100 to 160lbs.” Casper Erichsen, "The angel of death has descended violently among them: Concentration camps and prisoners-of-war in Namibia, 1904-1908," African Studies Centre, Leiden, 2005, p. 58
  39. ^ “The unfortunate [POW] women are daily compelled to carry heavy iron for construction work, also big stacks of compressed fodder. I have often noticed cases where women have fallen under the load and have been made to go on by being thrashed and kicked by the soldiers and conductors. The rations supplied to the women are insufficient and they are made to cook the food themselves. They are always hungry, and we, labourers from the Cape Colony, have frequently thrown food into their camp. The women in many cases are not properly clothed. It is a common thing to see women going about in public almost naked. Have also noticed that … old women are also made to work and are constantly kicked and thrashed by soldiers. This treatment is meted out in the presence of the German officers, and I have never noticed any officers interfering.” Casper Erichsen, "The angel of death has descended violently among them: Concentration camps and prisoners-of-war in Namibia, 1904-1908," African Studies Centre, Leiden, 2005, pp. 60-61
  40. ^ “I have seen women and children with my own eyes at Angra Pequena, dying of starvation and overwork, nothing but skin and bone, getting flogged every time they fell under the heavy loads. I have seen them picking up bits of bread and refuse food thrown away outside our tents (…) … most of the prisoners, who compose the working gangs at Angra Pequena, are sent up from Swakopmund. There are hundreds of them, mostly women and children and a few old men… When they fall they are sjamboked by the soldier in charge of the gang, with his full force, until they get up. Across the face was the favourite place for the sjamboking and I have often seen the blood flowing down the faces of the women and children and from their bodies, from the cuts of the weapon. (…) The women had to carry the corpses and dig the hole into which they were placed. They had no burial ceremony of any kind … The corpse would be wrapped in a blanket and carried on a rough stretcher … I have never heard one cry, even when their flesh was being cut to pieces with the sjambok. All feeling seemed to have gone out of them (…)” Casper Erichsen, "The angel of death has descended violently among them: Concentration camps and prisoners-of-war in Namibia, 1904-1908," African Studies Centre, Leiden, 2005, p. 78
  41. ^ “I left Cape Town during the year 1906, and signed on with the Protectorate troops in South West Africa. I arrived at Lüderitzbrucht, and after staying there a few minutes I perceived nearly 500 native women lying on the beach, all bearing indications of being slowly starved to death. Every morning and towards evening four women carried a stretcher containing about four or five corpses, and they had also to dig the graves and bury them. I then started to trek to Kubub and Aus, and on the road I discovered bodies of native women lying between stones and devoured by birds of prey. Some bore signs of having been beaten to death … If a prisoner were found outside the Herero prisoners’ camp, he would be brought before the Lieutenant and flogged with a sjambok. Fifty lashes were generally imposed. The manner in which the flogging was carried out was the most cruel imaginable … .pieces of flesh would fly from the victim’s body into the air …” Casper Erichsen, "The angel of death has descended violently among them: Concentration camps and prisoners-of-war in Namibia, 1904-1908," African Studies Centre, Leiden, 2005, p. 80
  42. ^ “Forcing women to pull carts as if they were animals was in tune with the treatment generally meted out to Herero prisoners in Lüderitz as elsewhere in the colony. Missionary Vedder in Swakopmund noted that overall, prisoners were regarded no better than animals. He said: ‘Like cattle hundreds were driven to their death and like cattle they were buried.’” Casper Erichsen, "The angel of death has descended violently among them: Concentration camps and prisoners-of-war in Namibia, 1904-1908," African Studies Centre, Leiden, 2005, p 84
  43. ^ “Germany admits Namibia genocide,” BBC News, August 14, 2004
  44. ^ “Namibia - Genocide and the second Reich”
  45. ^ The proclamation issued by General Lothar von Trotha on 2 October 1904. In that document he decreed:

    The Herero people will have to leave the country. Otherwise I shall force them to do so by means of guns. Within the German boundaries, every Herero, whether found armed or unarmed, with or without cattle, will be shot. I shall not accept any more women or children. I shall drive them back to their people otherwise I shall order them to be shot.
    Signed: the Great General of the Mighty Kaiser, von Trotha

    "Some scholars, such as Brigitte Lau, have denied the existence of the order itself. In 1989, she noted that no original copy of the order in German existed. However, Berat argues correctly that subsequent references to the order in German colonial documents confirms the veracity of it. Besides, the original order has been located and now resides in the Botswana National Archives. [...] Much of the Blue Book, as Wellington points out, consists of translations of German sources. The veracity of these records has not been questioned, neither have the translations been critised as inaccurate." pp. 110, 111, 30-31, Sarkin.

  46. ^ This reference pre-dates World War I, and therefore should not be influenced by war purposes. Report by Captain H. S. P. Simon, 'Report on German South West Africa', 6 April 1909, FO 367-236, quoted in Louis, W. M. R. (1967) 'Great Britain and German expansion in Africa 1984-1919'. In P. Gifford and W. M. R. Louis (Eds.), "Britain and Germany in Africa: Imperial rivalty and colonial rule." Yale University Press, New Haven, pp. 3-46, 33-34.
  47. ^ Report by Captain H. S. P. Simon, 'Report on German South West Africa', 6 April 1909, FO 367-236, quoted in Louis, W. M. R. (1967) 'Great Britain and German expansion in Africa 1984-1919'. In P. Gifford and W. M. R. Louis (Eds.), "Britain and Germany in Africa: Imperial rivalty and colonial rule." Yale University Press, New Haven, pp. 3-46, 38.
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