Germany’s Forgotten Genocide: The Lasting Effects of the German Colonial project in Namibia

Article by Chris Johns. Edited and researched by Rob Russell.

The first night I spent in Namibia was a peculiar experience. After dinner we all sat down to have a beer with the owner of the campsite we were staying at and upon drinking his first beer, the owner raised his arm at a 45 degree angle and with complete conviction and no hint of irony whatsoever, boomed: ‘Heil Hitler!’ These unwelcome thanks of grace to the mass murdering dictator left us all in complete shock, but I was particularly concerned. Normally, sharing a tent with your black best friend does not warrant such concerns, but when you’re in the presence of a racist fascist with three rather large German shepherds at his disposal and a profound disapproval of your choice of company, one does become slightly uneasy. He did not set his dogs on me. And neither did my friend go missing during the night. However, in hindsight (now that I am a bit more informed), this experience represents something deeply unsettling about Namibian society. This is that the incredibly brutal German colonial occupation of Namibia has had a lasting and detrimental effect.

The Holocaust holds a position in German history as the focus point of Germany’s violent past. The sheer scale of the Final Solution consolidated this, yet this attention has diverted interest from a population little known to those in the western world; the Herero and Nama peoples. The German colonial project in Namibia can be characterized as violent, self-serving and genocidal. The war between Germany and the Herero and Nama tribes (beginning in 1904) ended with the extermination of 75 to 80 per cent of the Herero tribe and 50 per cent of the Nama. This conflict is highly significant for another reason; this was not only Germany’s first genocide, but also their first use of concentration camps, including the first death camp the world had ever seen. After the war ended in 1908, the Germans (fairly predictably) embarked on a project of germanising the history of what transpired. The result was that the experiences of the Herero and Nama tribes were distorted and portrayed as the heroic efforts of the German military in the face of hostile and barbaric natives.

While the topic of genocide is always interesting, it is also a rather poignant experience. When I was studying the Herero-Nama genocide these feelings were exaggerated due to the fact that my own trip to Namibia, two years before even hearing about it, revealed nothing in regards to the horrific nature of the German colonial project. This was rather surprising as genocide is always a rather significant phase in any nations’ history, but less surprising when considering the colonial nature of the conflict. All remnants of the genocidal nature of the conflict were in fact, wiped from the face of Namibia; no plaque dedicated to the memory of the victims and the concentration camps used in the conflict were completely dismantled, providing a contrast to those used in the Holocaust. Instead, the genocide was glorified as a great German achievement; what was built from the slave labour of the camps (which includes a government building) still stands as a testament to this and local souvenir shops still sell relics of the German colonial occupation. Perhaps the most shocking is that at the site of one of the largest concentration camps used in the conflict, is a huge statue of General Lothar von Trotha, the German General who issued the extermination order, articulately expressing his instruction that would lead to the near destruction of the Herero people.

As it turns out, other than the historiography that has emerged since Namibia gained independence from South Africa in 1989, the only indication of what took place are the movements of the descendants of the victims, who have been campaigning tirelessly for reparations from the German Government. Their campaign has been somewhat effective. They have managed to convince the German government into admitting what took place was genocide and issue a formal apology to the Herero and Nama people. While this is a huge achievement, other effects of the war have yet to be rectified. The land that was once owned by the black population is still owned by white Germans like the Nazi supporting campsite owners, while the descendants of the victims are still confined to the periphery of the Kalahari Desert. And, instead of a monument dedicated to the victims of the genocide, there is a celebration of the perpetrators. This lack of acknowledgment in the home country of the victims reveals that there is something inherently wrong here and demands the question: why, in the one hundred years that have passed, has no one changed this?

So, as it turns out, it is no wonder why I left Namibia with no knowledge of what happened to the Herero over one hundred years ago, and this epitomises my point. Something so harrowing should be remembered and acknowledged not only on the national scale, but the international scale as well. I am not suggesting that the descendants of the Germans need to give up their land for the crime their ancestors committed. But surely more can be done than what has been offered thus far.

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