'A certain rigorous treatment of all parts of the nation': the annihilation of the Herero in German South West Africa, 1904 (original) (raw)
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This chapter examines the Herero and Nama war, the genocidal German campaign in Namibia, and the war's aftermath in the colony. Special attention is paid to the conflict between the former colonial governor Theodor Leutwein and the General who took over the colony during the genocidal war, and who directed the genocidal military campaign, Lothar von Trotha.
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Horst Drechsler made a revolutionary move when he explored the “Report on the Natives of South-West Africa and Their Treatment by Germany” a.k.a. Blue Book, written by the South African invaders of German South West Africa. The East German historian, whose book “Südwestafrika unter deutscher Kolonialherrschaft: der Kampf der Herero und Nama gegen den deutschen Imperialismus (1884–1915)“ meant a paradigmatic change in the research of German colonial history, since the socialist scholar was the first who declared that the German rule in South West Africa was a form of colonial guilt.
The military campaign in German Southwest Africa, 1904–1907 and the genocide of the Herero and Nama
This article examines the military campaign to suppress the Herero and Nama Revolts in German Southwest Africa from 1904 to 1907. These operations led to genocide in both cases. Rather than focusing on ideology (racism) as the main causal factor, this article analyzes the genocide as the result of a conventional European-style military campaign whose tenets and propensity to go to extremes developed out of Imperial Germany's military culture. After analyzing the four phases of the military campaign, the article goes on to delineate the characteristic features of German military culture that led to mass killing.
2014
This thesis investigates the British response to the Herero and Nama genocide, committed in German South-West Africa, now Namibia in 1904-07. The records of the British Foreign Office will be used to assess Britain's response to the atrocities. This thesis will determine how much the British authorities knew about the events at the time, the effects of the war on the British colonies in South Africa, the ways in which the British helped the Germans, why they helped the Germans and why there was no intervention. The theory of realism will be applied to explain why the British authorities acted the way they did, whilst using Hyam's interaction model to demonstrate how decisions were made in the British Empire. This thesis demonstrates that the British Foreign Office co-operated with Germany for its own self interest and was indifferent to the suffering of the Herero and Nama as realpolitik dictated Britain's response to the events.
Herero genocide in the twentieth century: Politics and memory
BRILL eBooks, 2003
Between 1904 and 1908 imperial Germany pitrsued an active policy of genocide in German South West Africa, present-day Namibia. This chapter analyses the manner in which, during the course of the twentieth Century, numerous people in varying contexts have sought to use the genocide perpetrated upon the Herero to further their own ends. It charts the manner in which an historical event has come to be deployed for varying and, at times, contradictory interests by German social democrats and English imperialists through to anti-Apartheid activists and postcolonial tribalists. It has been used to strengthen arguments that range from colonial policies through to claims that cal l for ethnic autonomy and compensation.
Genocide Matters - Negotiating a Namibian-German Past in the Present
2017
German colonial warfare in then South West Africa between 1904 and 1908 meets the definition of genocide. In this article, the nature and consequences of the war for the mainly affected communities of the Ovaherero and Nama are summarized, followed by the history and meaning of the notion of genocide. But the genocide in the German colony became only since the mid-1960s a matter of scholarly interest. The research results initially remained largely ignored and without major repercussions until the turn of the century. The discourse on genocide and its introduction into a wider German public is presented, leading to developments finally resulting in the official admission of the genocide by the German government in 2015. The subsequent bilateral Namibian-German negotiations over how to come to terms with this shared history are critically assessed. The conclusion seeks to position the efforts of a scholarly engagement with Germany's colonial past in its relevance for today.
From “Native Policy” to Exterminationism: German Southwest Africa, 1904, in Comparative Perspective
Department of Sociology Ucla, 2005
I, the great General of the German soldiers, send this letter to the Herero people. The Herero are no longer German subjects. .. . The Herero nation must … leave the country. If they do not leave, I will force them out with the Groot Rohr (cannon). Every Herero, armed or unarmed … will be shot dead within the German borders. I will no longer accept women and children, but will force them back to their people or shoot at them. These are my words to the Herero people. The great General of the powerful German Emperor (Proclamation by General Lothar von Trotha to the Herero people, October 2, 1904) 1 "Alte Feste" and Equestrian statue, Windhoek (2004) Black rain in a dry country (view from inside the Alte Feste) 1 Bundesarchiv (BArch) Berlin, Reichskolonialamt (RKA, R1001), Vol. 2089, p. 7 recto. I will use the word "Herero" when directly quoting texts that use that term and when referring to the object of (pre)colonial ethnographic discourse; the German colonizers usually referred to their subjects as "the Herero" (die Herero) or "the Hereros" (die Hereros), although the term "Damaras" was used by Europeans to refer to central Namibian Ovaherero until well into the 19 th century. The name "Ovaherero" is closer to the linguistic register of the peoples in question. Its disadvantage is similar to the more common "Herero" in that it lumps together Ovambanderu with the Ovaherero groups located historically and today around Okahandja and Omaruru. The former did not (and do not) necessarily consider themselves to be part of a uniform "Herero" nation. It should also be noted that the English-language press in Namibia today uses the term "Herero," and that it is used by Ovaherero themselves in some English-language contexts. Nonetheless, Ovaherero is the correct ethnic designation.
From destruction to extermination Genocidal escalation in Germanys war against the Herero 1904
In this treatment of the war between the Ovaherero and the German Empire during 1904 the hitherto accepted notion of a genocidal strategy, planned and executed by the Germans right from the beginning of the war until its bitter end is refuted as teleological. New positions in genocide studies and the insertion of hitherto ignored and new material challenge this by now conventional wisdom. The war and its gradually escalating violence are argued to be the result of the total failure of German strategy. A 'genocidal war of pacification', rather than a genocide ensued.