Lecture Summary: Forgotten Genocide in Namibia by Germany

Introduction

• Nazi concentration camps closed after WWII saw 15 million exterminated.
• Germany came to terms with Holocaust but hides another genocide in Namibia.
• Early 20th-century genocide in Namibia by Kaiser’s Second Reich.

Background

• Namibia, formerly German Southwest Africa, was part of Germany’s colonial empire.
• Genocide led by racial theories inspired by Friedrich Ratzel's Lebensraum.
• Lebensraum: concept of expanding German territory for racial survival.
• Overcrowded German cities and emigration drove the need for expansion.

Colonial Context

• Namibia seen as promising for settlement despite existing African populations.
• Herero people were literate, armed, and connected with the world.
• Tensions due to German settlers' racial supremacy beliefs.

The Herero Uprising

• Governor Theodor Leutwein’s negotiation policy with Herero tribes.
• Settler resentment toward African land ownership and influence.
• Herero people abused without legal recourse, leading to rebellion.
• January 1904: Herero rebellion broke out after governor left for minor revolt.

German Military Response

• Leutwein tried to negotiate but was pressured by German politics for extermination.
• General Lothar von Trotha appointed to crush the rebellion.
• Von Trotha issued Vernichtungsbefehl (extermination order) against Herero.

Battle of Waterberg

• German strategy forced Herero into Kalahari Desert to die of thirst/starvation.
• October 1904: Von Trotha’s explicit genocidal order.

Concentration Camps

• Herero imprisoned in concentration camps, worked and starved to death.
• Camps like Swakopmund were used for slave labor.
• Shark Island became a death camp primarily for Nama people.

Legacy and Forgotten History

• Concentration camps helped implement racial science studies.
• Eugen Fischer's racial theories influenced Nazi ideology.
• Post-WWI, former colonial troops like Franz Ritter von Epp influenced Nazism.
• Namibia’s genocide largely forgotten, overshadowed by later events.

Namibia’s Fight for Recognition and Reparation

• Herero descendants fighting for acknowledgment and compensation.
• Germany’s 2004 apology acknowledged genocide but didn't address full history.
• Issues of land ownership and reparations remain unresolved.

Conclusion

• Connection between Second Reich's actions and Third Reich’s Holocaust.
• German history must address colonial atrocities alongside Nazi crimes.
• Herero and Nama continue to demand rightful recognition and justice.