Herero and Namaqua Genocide

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You have new messages (last change).
Please help improve this article or section by expanding it.
Further information might be found on the talk page or at requests for expansion.
This article has been tagged since January 2007.
German troops in combat with the Herero in a painting by Richard Knötel.
German troops in combat with the Herero in a painting by Richard Knötel.
Surviving Herero after the escape through the arid desert of Omaheke.
Surviving Herero after the 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. On January 12th, 1904, the Herero people under Samuel Maharero rose in rebellion against the 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, some 65,000 Herero (80 percent of the total Herero population), and 10,000 Nama (50 percent of the total Nama population) perished. Characteristic of the genocide was death by starvation and the poisoning of wells for the Herero and Nama population that was 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, declaring in 2004 that: "We Germans accept our historic and moral responsibility." [1]

Contents

[edit] Before the genocide

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

The Herero tribe 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 sort of peace was worked out in 1894. In that year Theodor Leutwein became Governor of the territory and it entered a period of rapid development, while Prussia sent the Schutztruppe imperial troops to crush any rebellion.[2]

White settlers were encouraged to settle on land taken from the natives, which caused a great deal of discontent. German colonial rule in the area 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.

In 1903 some of the Nama Tribes rose in revolt under the leadership of Hendrik Witbooi, and about 60 German settlers were killed [2]. Khoikhoi and Herero joined the Namas months later. More troops were sent from Germany to re-establish colonial rule but only succeeded in dispersing the rebels led by Chief Samuel Maharero.

In 1904 the Hereros revolted, led by Chief Samuel Maharero, and killed about 120 Germans, including women and children, destroying their farms. General Lothar von Trotha was dispatched in October 1904 with a force of 14,000 soldiers to resolve the crisis. He issued an appeal to the Hereros:

Lothar von Trotha.
Lothar von Trotha.
“ The Herero are no longer German subjects. They have murdered and plundered. .., The Herero nation must leave the country. If it will not do so I shall compel it by force. Inside German territory every Herero tribesman, armed or unarmed, with or without cattle, will be shot. No women and children will be allowed in the territory: they will be driven back to their people or fired at. These are the last words to the Herero nation from me, the great General of the mighty German Emperor.[3] ”

General Lothar von Trotha's orders to kill every male Herero and drive the women and children into the desert were lifted in 1904 by the Kaiser, 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 labour to German businesses, where many died of overwork and malnutrition.

[edit] The genocide

German forces met the 3000-5000 Herero combatants at the Battle of Waterberg and defeated them decisively. 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) dug up in a vain attempt to find water. Maherero and 1000 men crossed the Kalahari into Bechuanaland.

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.

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 both Boer Wars. German authorities attributed to each Herero a number and meticulously recorded every death of a Herero, whether in camps or due to forced labor, and including, unusually enough, the name of each dead person. German enterprises were able to rent Herero people for manpower, and death of workers was permitted, and reported to the German authorities. Forced labor, disease and malnutrition killed an estimated 50 to 80 percent of the entire Herero population by 1908, when the camps were closed. This extermination thus qualifies as genocide.

It took until 1908 to fully re-establish German authority over the territory by which time some 100,000 Africans had been killed. At the height the campaign some 19,000 German Troops were involved. According to the 1985 United Nations Whitaker Report, some 65,000 Herero (80 percent of the total Herero population), and 10,000 Nama (50 percent of the total Nama population) were killed between 1904 and 1907. Other estimates give a total of 100,000 killed.

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 overtaken 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

Larissa Förster, a Namibia expert at the Museum for Ethnology in Cologne considers (like many modern historians) the Herero massacre the first genocide of the 20th century : "It was clearly a command to eliminate people belonging to a specific ethnic group and only because they were part of this ethnic group." [4]. It has also been linked to later events in Nazi Germany.[5] Historical revisionists prefer the terms "Herero Wars" while acknowledging massacres. They deem the evidence insufficient to call it a genocide and reject comparisons to Auschwitz as sensationalism.

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 the 100th anniversary on August 16, 2004, Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, Germany's development aid minister officially apologized for the first time and expressed grief about the genocide committed by Germans, declaring that "We Germans accept our historic and moral responsibility and the guilt incurred by Germans at that time". In addition, she admitted the massacres were equivalent to genocide, without explicitly mentioning the concentration camps and slavery that took place, which are well documented by the Germans themselves. Furthermore, she ruled out paying a special compensation but pointed out that the German government is continuing to pay a yearly sum of 11.5 million Euros as development aid for Namibia.

The Hereros have filed a law suit in the USA in 2001, demanding reparations to the German government and to the Deutsche Bank, which financed the German government and companies in Southern Africa [6][3]

[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. ^ Germany admits Namibia genocide, BBC News, August 14, 2004
  2. ^ a b A bloody history: Namibia's colonisation, BBC News, August 29, 2001
  3. ^ a b Germany regrets Namibia 'genocide', BBC News, January 12, 2004
  4. ^ "Remembering the Herero Rebellion", in Deutsche Welle, January 11, 2004
  5. ^ "Imperialism and Genocide in Namibia", in Socialist Action, April, 1999
  6. ^ German bank accused of genocide, BBC News, 25 September, 2001

[edit] Bibliography and documentaries

  • 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] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../h/e/r/Herero_and_Namaqua_Genocide_1fc4.html"