Lothar von Trotha

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Lothar von Trotha.

Adrian Dietrich Lothar von Trotha (July 3, 1848 – March 31, 1920) was a German military commander noted for his method of waging war during the Herero Wars in South-West Africa.

Born in Magdeburg, the state capital of the province of Saxony, von Trotha joined the Prussian army in 1865 and fought in the Austro-Prussian and Franco-Prussian wars, for which he was awarded the Iron Cross 2nd class. He found time to marry Bertha Neumann on 15 October 1872 and continued to climb the promotion ladder in the Prussian military machine.

In 1894, he was appointed Commander of the colonial force in German East Africa and was highly successful in brutally suppressing uprisings there and in the Boxer Rebellion while temporarily posted to Qing Dynasty China as Brigade Commander of the East Asian Expedition Corps. It was not therefore a surprise when he was appointed Commander in Chief of German South West Africa on 3 May 1904 and directed to crush the native Herero rebellion. von Trotha arrived in South West Africa on 11 June 1904, when the war against the Herero had been raging for five months. The German command up to that time had not had much success against the Herero guerrilla tactics. Initially, he too suffered losses.

In October 1904, General von Trotha devised a new battle plan to end the uprisings. At the Battle of Waterburg, he issued orders to encircle the Herero on three sides so that the only escape route was into the waterless Omaheke-Steppe, a western arm of the Kalahari Desert. The Herero fled into the desert and von Trotha ordered his troops to poison water holes, erect guard posts along a 150 mile line and shoot on sight any Herero, be they man, woman or child, who attempted to escape. Hence, in the desert was where the Herero were forced to remain, with many dying of thirst. To make things absolutely clear about his attitude to the Herero, von Trotha then issued the Vernichtungsbefehl, or extermination order: "Within the German borders, every Herero, whether 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 shots to be fired at them."

His tactics were in marked distinction to that of the Herero leaders, who were, in the main, careful to ensure that only German soldiers were attacked.^[1]

As soon as news of von Trotha's actions reached Germany, there was a public outcry which led Imperial Chancellor Bernhard von Bülow to ask Kaiser Wilhelm II to remove von Trotha from his command.[1] This was too late to help the Herero though, as the few survivors had been herded into camps and used as labour for German businesses, where many died of overwork, malnutrition or disease. Prior to the uprisings, there were estimated to be 80,000 Herero. In the 1911 census, 15,000 were found.

von Trotha's troops also routed the Nama. On April 22 1905 he sent a message to Nama, suggesting they surrender, and mentioning the fate of the Herero. 'The Nama who chooses not to surrender and lets himself be seen in the German area will be shot, until all are exterminated. Those who, at the start of the rebellion, committed murder against whites or have commanded that whites be murdered have, by law, forfeited their lives. As for the few not defeated, it will fare with them as it fared with the Herero, who in their blindness also believed that they could make successful war against the powerful German Emperor and the great German people. I ask you, where are the Herero today?'

Approximately 10,000 Nama died during the fighting, the remaining 9,000 were confined in concentration camps. [[2]

On 19 November 1905 von Trotha returned to Germany and was appointed as general of the infantry in 1910. He married for a second time on 19 May 1912 (to Lucy Goldstein Brinkmann) and died on 31 March 1920 in Bonn.

[edit] Von Trotha's legacy

The actions of von Trotha have been called "the first genocide of the 20th century" and some historians draw a direct lineage between von Trotha's plan for the extermination of the Herero and the holocaust sponsored by the government of Nazi Germany.[3] Indeed, on 16 August 2004, the German government under Gerhard Schröder officially apologized for the atrocities. "We Germans accept our historic and moral responsibility and the guilt incurred by Germans at that time," said Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, Germany's development aid minister. In addition, she admitted the massacres were equivalent to genocide. The two countries have generally had a good relationship since, and Germany has tailored generous packages for the people of Namibia.

[edit] References

^ cf. Drechsler, Horst: Let Us Die Fighting: The Struggle of the Herero and Nama Against German Imperialism, 1884-1915 (London: Zed Press, 1980), 150.