Genocide of the Herero and Nama
The genocide of the Herero and Nama happened during and after the suppression of the Herero and Nama uprisings against the German colonial power in the colony of German South West Africa between 1904 and 1908.
The uprising, fueled by existential fears, began in January 1904 with the attack of the Ovaherero under Samuel Maharero on German facilities and farms. Since the colony's protection force was initially unable to cope with this, the Reich leadership immediately dispatched reinforcements. By about 15,000 men under the command of Lieutenant General Lothar von Trotha , the Herero uprising was suppressed by August 1904.
Most of the Herero then fled to the almost waterless Omaheke desert. Trotha had these cordoned off and refugees chased away from the few watering holes that existed there, so that thousands of Herero, along with their families and herds of cattle, died of thirst. Trotha let them know in the so-called extermination order : “The Herero are no longer German subjects. […] Every Herero within the German border is shot with or without a rifle, with or without cattle, I don't take any more women or children, drive them back to their people or have them shot at. "
The warfare Trothas aimed at the complete destruction of the Herero from ( "I believe that the nation must be destroyed as such"); His approach is considered the first genocide of the 20th century in science . Trotha was supported in this by the Chief of the General Staff Alfred Graf von Schlieffen ("The racial struggle that has flared up can only be concluded by [...] destroying one party") and Kaiser Wilhelm II .
In view of the incidents, the Nama rose in October 1904 under their captains Hendrik Witbooi and Jakob Morenga . Learning from the warfare against the Herero, the Nama avoided an open battle against the German occupation and began a guerrilla war . Demoralized by the death of Witboois, Morengas and other leaders, almost all Nama groups finally submitted to the German submission agreements, so that the war was declared over on March 31, 1907. But that did not end the colonial policy of extermination. Following the fighting, the Herero and Nama were interned in concentration camps, in which almost every second inmate died. Of the Herero people estimated at around 60,000 to 80,000 people around 1904, only 20,000 people were estimated to be living in 1911. The genocide in German South West Africa thus cost the lives of 40,000 to 60,000 Herero and around 10,000 Nama.
The Herero remember the victims annually by the Herero Day and the Witbooi with at Gibeon held Heroes' Day . For decades you have been trying to get official recognition by the United Nations as a victim of genocide. The German government did not comment on the assessment of the event for a long time and in August 2012 rejected any responsibility for genocide. On July 10, 2015, the German Foreign Office referred to the events as genocide for the first time .
prehistory
After a drought from 1830 onwards, the Nama were violently harassed by the Herero nomadic pastoral people who were looking for new pastureland . Using the latter day armed Orlam - Africans under their Kaptein Jonker Afrikaner Nama had been able to secure their tribal lands and moved with their allies to the north. A war of predatory and defensive war that lasted for decades began between the Nama and the Herero. Jonker and his Orlam Africans advanced as far as the central tribal area of the Herero near Okahandja and killed a large number of Herero there in their struggle for extermination around 1850. The end of the advance of the Orlam-Africans and the Nama was sealed in three battles in Otjimbingwe in 1863 and 1864 . There the Herero succeeded with the help of the Swedish adventurer Karl Johan Andersson , who had formed an army from Herero warriors and equipped them with modern firearms and two field guns, to beat their opponents decisively.
After a ten-year break in peace, the nationwide attacks and looting by the Nama began again under their captain Hendrik Witbooi. Even the numerically inferior German protection force stationed in the meantime did not succeed in protecting the Herero and ending the fight of the Nama, which is why the Herero briefly terminated their protection treaties with the Germans in protest . Only when the protection force had been reinforced several times did the commanding major, Theodor Leutwein , succeed in subjugating the Nama in 1894. As a result, a friendship developed between Samuel Maharero, who was made captain of the Ovaherero by the Germans, and Leutwein.
Reasons for the uprising
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There were two reasons that motivated the uprising: on the one hand, the German settlers claimed ever larger parts of the country for themselves, on the other hand, the Herero and Nama suffered from the racist behavior of the settlers and the organs of the colonial administration.
The Herero traditionally earned their livelihood by raising cattle. When a cow plague broke out in 1897 , the Herero herds were severely decimated. The increasing appropriation of the land, especially valuable pastureland, and frauds, through which the German settlers wanted to take possession of the cattle, led to serious losses for the Herero not only in economic, but also in cultural terms.
As a result of the impoverishment that followed, many Herero were forced to take on wage labor on German farms. Herero, who still owned cattle, came into conflict more and more often when they grazed their cattle on land that was now claimed by settlers. This drew the anger of the settlers, who often had the shepherds expelled by force.
Since the legislative period of 1893/1894, the Reichstag had dealt with the land issue of the Herero and Nama in the German “protected area”. In 1897 a territory of 120,000 hectares to be reserved for the Nama was contractually regulated with the assistance of the Rhenish Mission .
In addition to the existence-threatening loss of ever larger grazing areas, it was the racial discrimination against the Herero that triggered the uprising. For example, the lending practice of German merchants, which had been practiced for many years before the ban in 1902, encouraged the discontent of the Herero, with the captains supposed to pay for the debts of their tribal members.
In July 1900, 75 citizens of the southwest African city of Windhoek spoke out against the abolition of corporal punishment in a petition to the colonial department of the Foreign Office with the words: “In the long run, the native has no understanding for mildness and forbearance: he only sees weakness in it and as a result, he becomes presumptuous and cheeky towards the white man, whom he must learn to obey, because he is spiritually and morally so deeply below him. "The victims, often tied naked over a beer barrel, were abused for so long with, among other things, picket sticks and rhinoceros whips, until they sustained serious injuries. The colonial official Wilhelm Vallentin put his impression in the words "A raw, chopped beef steak is nothing against it!".
Other serious crimes were rape and murder, of which the settlers were guilty of Herero. The fact that many of these cases were punished only mildly or not at all further increased tensions.
Herero uprising
Beginning of the uprising
The German protecting power was very keen to prevent the uncontrolled increase in weapons in the country and to reduce the fighting strength of the tribes. However, this met with the determined resistance of those affected, who did not want to be integrated into the German regulatory system in this way.
For example, the colonial administration's counting and registration project with the Bondelswart- Nama in Warmbad in October 1903 turned into a little planned, but nevertheless fierce military conflict, which lasted until the end of the year and only after reinforcement troops from the north of the country were deployed on January 27, 1904 could be ended with a victory for the Germans.
As a result, however, the center of the country was without sufficient military cover, which made it impossible for the administration in Windhoek to respond adequately to the beginnings of the Herero uprising in January 1904 , which began in Okahandja inland.
Immediately before the uprising, the Herero gathered in the Waterberg region , officially because of ongoing inheritance disputes over the death of the important Waterberg Herero captain Kaonjonia Kambazembi (1843-1903), whereby the Germans noticed that the Herero increased their supplies in the last few weeks before the uprising and bought up other things.
On January 11 or around 20, 1904, Samuel Maharero issued the order for an uprising in Osona, with the following resolution as an addition:
“To all the great people of my country. I am Samuel Maharero, chief of the Herero. I have made an order to all my people that they should not lay their hands on the following: Englishmen, bastards, Bergdamara , Nama, Boers. We won't touch any of these. Don't do this! I have sworn an oath that this decision may not be known, not even to the missionaries. "
Jan Bart Gewald doubts the dating of the Maharero letter to January 11th and considers January 20th to be more likely due to the overall context.
Chief Daniel Kariko affirmed that the Herero grand people agreed to spare all German women and children as well as missionaries and their families.
The exemption orders of Maharero and the great people were observed, with a few exceptions, and women and children who were picked up were directed to German settlements. There they were welcome (because only precise) sources of information for the German staff. The German men, however, were killed indiscriminately.
Herero tactics
Around 8,000 Herero were faced with an initially only 2,000-strong protective force. In their planning, however, the insurgents underestimated the ability of the German Reich to move large contingents of troops to Africa in a short time. Once this became clear, the only option for the Herero was to defeat the Germans before further supplies could arrive.
Troop numbers
On January 17, the order to mobilize a marine expeditionary force was issued . This was established from:
- a marine infantry battalion
- a machine gun division
- a medical column
- the provisions and material depot
Their total strength was 30 officers , 648 NCOs and marines and 25 horses .
To strengthen the protection force, 22 officers and 516 men were also deployed. In contrast to the mobilized naval troops, the reinforcements for the protection force consisted of officers of the entire German army who were able to volunteer for service in the protected area. The way in which it was set up was retained as the most appropriate for all subsequent reinforcements and new set-ups.
The Schutztruppe received reinforcements from the colony itself through 1,141 reservists , members of the Landwehr , those obliged to take military action and some volunteers. Furthermore, the local Baster , Witboois and Bethanien-Nama could be persuaded to support.
According to the missionary Johann Jakob Irle, shortly before the war, the Herero people numbered almost 80,000 people and could lead around 5000 to 7000 warriors into the field . The successful defense of all larger stations such as Okahandja and Omaruru and their relieving on their own was therefore of crucial importance for the Germans.
The German governor Theodor Leutwein , who was also the commander of the Schutztruppe until his replacement by Lieutenant General von Trotha in July 1904, was aware of the limited possibilities of his own and the difficulties for the German troops in the almost undeveloped country. Leutwein planned a political solution to the conflict as possible.
Course of the uprising up to the defeat of the Herero
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January 1904
seated from left: Captain von Lettow-Vorbeck , Captain Bayer ,
Colonel Trench (British liaison officer),
Lieutenant General von Trotha;
standing far left: First Lieutenant von Trotha.
Optimistic German reports initially spoke of a local survey of the Herero population. But the above-mentioned order from Samuel Maharero spoke to all Herero leaders. Already on January 12, 1904 they surrounded Okahandja under his command, destroyed the railway bridge near Osona ( Swakopmund – Windhoek railway ) and cut the important telegraph connection to the state capital Windhoek .
Over the next few days, Samuel Maharero tried to include the Baster under Kaptein Hermanus van Wyk and the Nama under Kaptein Witbooi in the fight. For this reason he wrote two letters to Witbooi, but they never reached Witbooi. Van Wyk refused to support Maharero and handed over the letters addressed to Hendrik Witbooi to the Germans.
The Germans speculated whether the Ovambo, who had settled in the far north of South West Africa, had also been asked to intervene in the uprising.
"According to the Finnish missionaries, messengers are said to have brought urgent requests from the Herero captains to the chiefs of their relatives."
But only one tribe north of the Etosha salt pan with around 500 well-armed warriors dared to attack the German Fort Namutoni on January 28th , which only had an emergency crew of seven because the unit there was already heading south to the rebellious Herero was withdrawn. After the trapped Germans had defended themselves without losses and around 60 attackers were dead, the Ovambo withdrew.
The first victims of the war were German settlers. The Herero burned down their farms and mostly killed the men. The warriors benefited from the fact that the main part of the German Schutztruppe and Governor Leutwein were in the south to put down a local uprising of the Bondelzwart . As a result, there were only weak German forces in the combat area.
In addition to attacks on farms, the Herero's first strikes were against depots, railway lines and trading posts. Around 140 Germans and seven Boers were killed. In almost all places, the German women and children were given safe passage to the nearest shelter. Despite the numerical inferiority of the Germans - there were only two replacement companies in the insurrectionary area - they managed to hold the cities and ultimately also the telegraph line.
Strategically important for the Germans in this first phase of the war was an improvised armored train that departed Swakopmund on January 12th under the command of the commandant of the Swakopmund garrison, Lieutenant Theodor Kurt Hartwig von Zülow, Herero repaired the interrupted narrow-gauge railway line to Okahandja. The aim was to break the siege ring around Okahandja. Only this armored train would ensure a rapid shift of troops again. On the evening of January 13, the train reached Waldau, behind Wilhelmstal and 22 kilometers before Okahandja, where the first fighting broke out during the night. In Waldau there was also 500 meters of rail construction material that was used for the first repair work.
The 1879 built SMS Kleiner Kreuzer Habicht , type ship of the same class of gunboats of the Imperial Navy, had been at anchor in Cape Town since January 10th due to its annual maintenance work . On January 12, 1904, a telegram arrived on the Habicht:
“Okahandja besieged. Railroad telegraph break. Please, in accordance with military orders, warship Habicht as quickly as possible. "
The order to leave for Swakopmund, immediately requested by Berlin, arrived on the morning of the 14th at about 11 o'clock; the ship left in the evening of the same day.
Immediately after landing in Swakopmund on January 18, the acting field commandant, District Administrator Viktor Fuchs, submitted a report on board: On January 12, all Herero tribes - with the exception of the Otjimbingu - rose, killed farmers and seized their cattle. Windhoek, Okahandja, and Omaruru were trapped, threatened the Okahandja railway line, and disrupted Karibib and the connection with Swakopmund. Thereupon Leutnant von Zülow withdrew from Swakopmund with all serviceable men - reserves and Landwehr, altogether 60 men - brought his troops in Karibib to 110 men by drawing in all able-bodied men and brought this place, taking with him provisions for three days, to the relief of Okahandja leave. Lieutenant von Zülow's last message was the news of his arrival in Okasise on January 13th. To reinforce Karibib, a 20-strong troop had been sent up under master builder Laubschat. The connection with Karibib is still assured; but the situation there is becoming more threatening every day. The Herero had already shot down several patrols, and the weak crew was barely able to hold the place in case of an attack. There was also no news from the south, there were only rumors that the 2nd Field Company under Captain Victor Franke was marching back to Windhoek. Even with the north, where Captain Kliefoth (killed on December 17, 1905) was stationed with the 4th Company in Outjo, there was no connection whatsoever.
The supreme command of the colony was now taken over by Corvette Captain Hans Gudewill in place of the absent governor. The disembarkation of the landing corps was immediately ordered by two officers, a doctor and 52 men. The leader, Kapitänleutnant Hans Gygas, first officer of the "Habicht", received orders to march to Karibib and to secure this place, to maintain the connection with Swakopmund under all circumstances, but further ventures, if not urgently required, in view of the minority Refrain from strength of the landing corps. The commander of the troops stationed in Karibib, Lieutenant Kuhn, had hastily barricaded the town square. The arrival of the Marine Corps calmed the frightened white population.
How opaque and confusing the situation was due to the difficult communication at the time is shown by the fact that the commandant in Swakopmund still did not know on January 18 that Captain Helmuth Gustav Heinrich Kliefoth with the 4th Company had already been sent on a heliographic order from Windhoek on January 18 January 9th with his 50 men and a gun had withdrawn from Outjo and the light signal stations Etaneno and Okowakuatjivi belonging to Outjo had already been evacuated on the same day as ordered, as their successful defense was not expected. Naturally, on January 18, no more heliographic inquiries from Swakopmund could reach Outjo, and on the same day a detailed telegraphic report of Captain Kliefoth's march in Germany was published.
On January 14th, the post offices of Waldau and Waterberg were destroyed by the Herero. Violence also broke out in Omarasa, north of Waterberg. The Waterberg military post was captured. These battles had no effect on the armored train; he rolled on towards Okahandja. This advance by rail was a first step towards stabilizing the German troops, but they needed supplies for decisive advances. To this end, the second field company under Captain Franke, located furthest north near Gibeon, was given an order to move north. Leutwein handed over the command to Franke for the time of his absence, since he had to put down the Bondelzwaart uprising himself. Franke was able to cover the 380 kilometers to Windhoek, where the Herero's next blow was expected, in five days.
On January 15, Captain Kurt Streitwolf was involved in a battle in Oparakane and reached Lieutenant von Zülow with his armored train Okahandja after the partially destroyed railway track between Waldau and Okahandja had been patched up.
The siege of Gobabis began on January 16 , and a German company from Outjo was ambushed in Okanjande, near present-day Otjiwarongo .
Franke had not stayed long in Windhoek, but had moved to Okahandja, where he, together with the armored train, stopped the Herero and defeated them in a battle in the Kaiser Wilhelm Mountains. Okahandja was back in German hands on January 27th. Marching further north, Franke was also able to relieve the cities of Karibib and the besieged Omaruru on February 4th. Almost all of the Herero's land gains were thus nullified, and the railway line was open again.
The news of the uprising had meanwhile reached Germany. The imperial government ordered the marching of marine infantry units , which were embarked on January 21st with a strength of two sea battalions (500 men). At the same time, a volunteer force made up of members of the army was set up. The funds required for this were approved in the German Reichstag after an in-depth and controversial debate, with the SPD abstaining .
February 1904
On February 12th, Leutwein arrived from the south and took over command. In the meantime, Samuel Maharero had asked Nama captain Hendrik Witbooi for arms help; Maharero's letters did not reach them. The Nama fought on the German side until September 1904. In addition, Maharero had difficulties in feeding and leading his own troops, which included women and children. The negotiations that Leutwein subsequently conducted with Maharero, as it once did with Witbooi, saw Berlin as a sign of the governor's weakness. They also came to no conclusion. But Leutwein now knew where the Herero chief was staying.
For the coming procedure, the combat units of the Germans were divided into three departments:
- Western division under Major Ludwig von Estorff (1859–1943) (2nd and 4th field company, one company of the sea battalion, some guns of different caliber).
Their goal: to pacify the Omaruru district - Main department under Gouverneur Leutwein (one company of the sea battalion, 2 automatic cannons, 500 volunteer troops, which were divided into the 5th, 6th, 7th company and a field battery).
Your goal:
Until the final formation, which was expected after a month at the earliest: Hold Okahandja, uncertainty of the enemy
After the formation: Scout out the main enemy forces and attack - Eastern division under Major Franz Georg von Glasenapp (von Winkler company, Eggers company, two companies of the sea battalion, some guns of different caliber).
Their goal: to pacify the Gobabis district, seal off the eastern border to prevent the Herero from fleeing
The approximately 100-strong western detachment marched from Omaruru towards Otjihanamaparero Mountain and reached him on February 25th. Around 1000 Herero had already holed up around a water hole there. Their position was very well chosen and could hardly be attacked by Germans. Since a frontal attack for Major von Estorff was eliminated, he tried to "roll up" the flanks of the enemy. This only succeeded after parts of the right wing (2nd field company) supported the left (4th field company). After nine hours of fighting, the Germans were able to take possession of the waterhole, and the defeated Herero Association withdrew in the direction of Waterberg. After the fight, the Western Division marched to Okahandja to unite with the Main Division. On March 24th she reached the city and was integrated into Leutwein's department.
The 412 strong eastern division, consisting of mostly inexperienced men, had the task of securing an area the size of Bavaria. On February 14th, the units from Windhoek marched towards the combat area. But they only reached abandoned settlements. The Herero were always one step ahead of them strategically. Finally von Glasenapp decided against the received order to follow the traces of the Tetjo-Herero to the west and not to cordon off the eastern border.
Since the supply depot of the Eastern Department was in Gobabis , the supply routes became longer and longer. In an attempt to take possession of the Tetjo-Herero herds of cattle, a group of scouts was ambushed under von Glasenapp. 70 percent of the patrol (18 men) were killed. Leutwein ordered the department to Okahandja on March 11th so that they could support the main department in the fight against Maharero. The order was later changed again. Now the eastern department was supposed to keep in touch with the Tetjos and follow the original order to seal off the eastern border.
April 1904
A major battle took place on April 9th, when Colonel Leutwein attacked the main Herero force of around 3,000 men at Onganjira and, after eight hours of fighting, broke through their positions at nightfall. Two officers and two men died on the German side, and numerous serious wounds were also recorded. Captain Maximilian Bayer from the High Command of the Schutztruppe also took part in the battle. Two more skirmishes with favorable outcomes for the Germans took place on April 9 at Onganjira and on April 12 at Oviumbo. The Herero then withdrew in the direction of Waterberg. On April 13, Leutwein's troops survived a difficult ten-hour battle near Okatumba and lost two officers and seven horsemen. Nothing is known about the victims on the Herero side. At the end of April, typhoid fever broke out in the Glasenapp column, claiming a high number of victims.
May 1904
On May 3, 1904, after the recall of Colonel Theodor Leutwein as commander-in-chief and restricted to the office of governor, against the protests of leading Schutztruppe officers, Adrian Dietrich Lothar von Trotha was appointed commander-in-chief of German Southwest Africa with the task of the Herero uprising knock down. In 1896 Trotha had already been the commander in charge of the bloody suppression of the Wahehe rebellion in German East Africa. Major Ludwig von Estorff, who later became the commander of the Schutztruppe, wrote, “ Wissmann , who knew him from East Africa, had opposed his appointment, but he was not heard. How is that supposed to be in large circumstances when such a lack of knowledge of human nature is already being revealed at home. "
Battle of the Waterberg and the beginning of the genocide
On August 11 and 12, 1904, Trotha tried to encircle and destroy the assembled Herero in the decisive battle on the Waterberg . This did not succeed, however, and a large number of the defeated Herero fled to the Omaheke desert eastwards with their relatives and cattle, suffering heavy losses . At this point there was a conflict between Governor Leutwein and Trotha. The former wanted to spare the Herero and use them as workers in the further colonization of the country, while Trotha wanted to destroy them. Trotha prevailed and sealed off the Omaheke to prevent a return of the Herero, "because I can neither make deals with the people nor want to without the express instruction of His Majesty the Emperor and King [...]". Major Ludwig von Estorff was instructed to pursue the fugitives with his troops and "[...] to keep driving them away from any watering holes found there [...]".
Von Estorff later reported on this mission: “The Herero now fled ahead of us into the sand field. The terrible spectacle was repeated over and over again. The men had worked with feverish haste to open up wells, but the water was becoming more and more sparse and the watering holes rarer. They fled from one to the other and lost almost all cattle and a great many people. The people shrank to scanty remnants […]. ”The General Staff boasted of this tactic in its 1907 report:“ […] he was chased from waterhole to waterhole like half-hunted game until he finally became a victim of the Nature of one's own land. The waterless Omaheke was supposed to complete what the German weapons had begun: the annihilation of the Herero people. "
Proclamation of the destruction order
On October 2, 1904, General von Trotha issued a proclamation to the Herero people, which later became known as the "extermination order":
“I, the great general of the German soldiers, am sending this letter to the Herero people. The Hereros are no longer German subjects. They murdered and stolen, cut off the ears and noses and other body parts of wounded soldiers, and now out of cowardice they no longer want to fight. I tell the people: Anyone who delivers one of the captains to one of my stations as a prisoner receives 1,000 marks, whoever brings Samuel Maharero receives 5,000 marks. However, the Herero people have to leave the country. If the people do not do this, I will force them to do so with the Groot pipe. Every Herero within the German border is shot with or without a rifle, with or without cattle, I no longer take in women and children, drive them back to their people, or have them shot at. These are my words to the Herero people. The great general of the mighty German Emperor "
The proclamation was supplemented by the addition, which could only be read out to one's own troops:
“This decree is to be communicated to the troops at the roll call with the addition that the troops that catch one of the captains will also receive the appropriate reward and that shooting at women and children is to be understood as being shot over them to get them to force it to run. I firmly believe that this decree will not result in the taking of male prisoners, but will not degenerate into cruelty to women and children. These will run away if they are shot twice over them. The troops will remain aware of the good reputation of the German soldier. "
The wording of this order shows that Trotha wanted to drive out the Herero and shoot the Herero found within German territory. Mass displacement alone would have been brutal, but not genocide. From a letter to the German General Staff dated October 4, 1904, in which Trotha explained his intentions, it becomes clear against the background of the concrete historical situation after the Battle of Waterberg that, in the words of the historian Jürgen Zimmerer , “expulsion and murder were basically congruent ”.
“The only question to me now was how to end the war with the Herero. The views of the governor and some "old Africans" on the one hand and myself on the other are completely different. The former have wanted to negotiate for a long time and describe the Herero nation as a necessary working material for the future use of the land. I have a completely different view. I believe that the nation as such must be destroyed or, if this was not possible through tactical blows, be expelled from the country operationally and through further detailed treatment. By occupying the water points from Grootfontein to Gobabis and by moving the columns briskly, it will be possible to find the small parts of the people flowing back from the west and gradually rub them up. To pursue, capture and destroy the main divisions of the nation with the captains into the sand field (Omaheke) is not possible at the moment. […] Yesterday, before I left, I had the Orlog people who had been arrested in the last few days hanged and chased all the women and children who had come back into the sand field with the proclamation written in Othiherero to the people. […] On the other hand, taking in women and children, both of whom are mostly ill, is an eminent danger for the troops, but it is impossible to care for them. That is why I think it is more correct that the nation perish in itself, and not yet infect our soldiers and impair their water and food. Besides, any kind of leniency on my part would only be seen as weakness by the Herero. You must now go under in the sand field or try to cross the Bechuana line. This uprising is and remains the beginning of a racial struggle that I predicted as early as 1897 in my report to the Chancellor for East Africa. "
The historian Gesine Krüger points out that the claim that Trotha's “extermination order” is to be understood as an element of psychological warfare is refuted by his own statements and orders, insofar as he aimed at the “extermination of the people”. Reinhart Kößler and Henning Melber argue that the express intention of the perpetrators as well as the consequences of their actions, namely, in addition to tens of thousands of deaths, at least the destruction of the social context and the independent livelihood of the Herero and Nama groups concerned, constitute genocide.
Dealing with Fled Herero
During the first pursuit along the Omaheke border, which Trotha ordered on August 13, 1904, all men who were caught were shot immediately, and numerous shootings of women and children are documented. The Herero knew the paths through the Omaheke along the waterholes. However, their capacity was insufficient to take care of the many people and animals on the hasty flight. The Germans also orientated themselves on the course of the dry rivers and the water points and involved the fleeing people in skirmishes. Admittedly, given the geographical and climatic conditions, their contingents could not effectively pursue them. But according to the historian Gesine Krüger, Trotha soon realized that it would be enough to drive the enemy into the sand field in order to "destroy" him through thirst and privation. At the end of August, the Germans again took action against the Herero in order to expel them from the water points at the edge of the sand field. Trotha turned down offers to negotiate from Herero chiefs. A group of 11 great Herero men were shot dead on November 2, 1904 in Ombakala during negotiations by members of the German protection force. Wilhelm Maharero later cited this incident as a reason for not negotiating with the Germans and instead preferring to flee to British territory. After Gesine Krüger's work, Trotha tried to enforce his policy of closing the sandfield as far as possible against returnees by patrolling until he was recalled in November 1905.
A contemporary German account described the process as follows:
“After a short stop in the Otjimbinde area at the end of August, the Hereros continued their flight to the east, following the Eiseb and south-east following the Epukirorivier, only occasionally being used for battle. Only in the western edge of the sand field at Epata and at Otjimanangombe-Ganas did the masses doomed to die of thirst accumulate, abandoned by their captains hurrying ahead. "
On December 8, 1904, Emperor Wilhelm II issued a counter-order that Herero, who had not participated in war and killings, should be shown mercy. One day before Trotha withdrew his "extermination order" on December 12, 1904, he had received express support by telegram from Chancellor von Bülow to use the Herero for forced labor and to set up suitable assembly camps for this purpose. The plan was then implemented while the war in the east continued under the secret order described above.
Africans continued to be arbitrarily shot when accused of fighting the Germans. There were many public hangings, and patrols removed few survivors from the sandfield. The German military strategy made it next to impossible for the Herero to break through the German lines. All they could do was flee eastwards. Together with Samuel Maharero, only about 1500 Herero reached the British protectorate of Bechuanaland after a death march through the Omaheke , where they settled. An unknown number of Herero came through to the north, where they were taken in by the Ovambo. Several hundred Herero reached the British enclave of Walvis Bay , where they were interned and then deported to Cape Town .
At the end of 1905 Friedrich von Lindequist became governor of German South West Africa. He had only accepted the post on the condition that the Schutztruppe would be subordinate to him. With this and with Trotha's replacement and departure on November 19, 1905, the central administration regained its decision-making authority over the entire indigenous policy, with the exception of purely military questions. Lindequist allowed the Rhenish missionaries to set up assembly camps, in which 11,000 people finally turned up. As Chief Kaveriua Hoveka, descendant of Nikanor Hoveka, reported, the decision to go to a camp was not an easy one for the Herero: “Some people were gathered in the camps and others lived in the open veld because they were afraid that the Germans would kill them. In those days people were killed [for example] if they were found in the bush or at the poisoned watering holes. Many people were afraid to go to the colonizers' camps ”. The missionary Philipp Diehl stated that many were afraid they would be killed, but were at the same time ready to “die just to finally have peace”.
The report of the General Staff on the events ended with a quote from the report of a fellow combatant, which had already appeared in a German daily newspaper on November 15, 1905:
“The barricading of the sand field, which was carried out with iron severity for months, completed the work of destruction. [...] The drama took place on the dark stage of the sand field. But when the rainy season came, when the stage gradually lit up and our patrols pushed as far as the border of the Bechuanaland, then the horrific image of the army trains that had died of thirst was revealed to their eyes.
The rattle of the dying and the angry screams of madness [...] they died away in the sublime silence of infinity! "
Revolt of the Nama
The so-called uprising of the Nama (in older literature also “uprising of the Hottentots ”) is not as precisely documented as the uprising of the Herero. That depends, among other things. with the more than economical reporting policy of the responsible commanding Colonel Deimling. An overview with more detailed information is still missing. In fact, some of them were Nama and some Orlam tribes; both have common roots in the Khoi Khoi people .
The Nama uprising began as early as July 1904 when Jakob Morenga, with only 11 followers, began ambushing and disarming German settlers. After a first battle with a detachment of the Schutztruppe on August 30, 1904 (a lieutenant and two soldiers died on the German side, the rest fled), he quickly gained popularity. The uprising only became a serious danger when Hendrik Witbooi terminated his protection treaty with the German Reich and called for a general uprising. Besides Hendrik Witboois and Morenga's people, the tribes of the Fransmann-Nama rose under Captain Simon Kooper , the “Red Nation” under Manasse Noreseb, the “ field shoe wearers ” under Hans Hendrik, the Bondelswart under Johannes Christian and some of the Bethanians under Cornelius Frederiks . Another part of the Bethanians and the tribe of Bersheba did not join the uprising. The Swartboois and Topnaars tribes were disarmed and interned by the Germans before they could join the rebels; their captains Lazarus Swartbooi and Jan Uixamab died under unexplained circumstances in German custody.
Late 1904
On October 3, 1904, immediately after the Herero revolt was put down and one day after the infamous proclamation, the Witbooi, who had previously been allied with the Germans, officially changed sides. On that day, Captain Hendrik Witbooi had given the Germans a letter to the district captain of Gibeon, Henning von Burgsdorff , terminating the existing protection and assistance pact and instead made an official declaration of war.
To this end, he seemed to be encouraged on the one hand by the fact that the forces of the imperial protection force were still tied up with the suppression of the Herero uprising, on the other hand he was more than likely under the influence of the opaque prophet Shepherd Stuurman , who as a supporter of the " Ethiopian Movement ”preached a purely African Christianity without European influences and worked towards a“ war against the whites ”. Burgsdorff was murdered shortly afterwards by a supporter of Witboois.
In a later letter to Governor Leutwein, Hendrik Witbooi justified his decision with the numerous murders and mistreatment of Africans by German settlers. Immediately after this declaration, the rest of the Witboois, around 80 men, who had supported the Germans in the Battle of Waterberg, were disarmed and interned, and later deported to Cameroon and Togo .
Still completely surprised, Leutwein reported on October 8th that the Witboois, on whose loyalty the governor himself had relied, had marched out of Gibeon with hostile intent and had attacked neighboring stations. In addition, reports came in that Morenga continued to gain popularity.
The warfare of the Witbooi and Nama was fundamentally different from that of the Herero. While the Herero were looking for open battle, the Witbooi and Nama operated in the form of a guerrilla tactic from ambush. Around 40 German settlers fell victim to the Nama attacks. As a rule, women and children of the settlers were spared, often even escorted to the next German station. The offer of the Witbooi leader Samuel Isaak to the German commander of the Gibeon station to grant all women and children safe passage to Lüderitz Bay is documented.
Early 1905
The battle of Stamprietfontein on January 1, 1905 between Hendrik Witbooi and the Germans under Major Johann Meister ended in a draw; on January 4, German troops managed to storm this most important fortress of the rebels after a 50-hour battle near Groß-Nabas. A group of Ovambo workers in Etaneno, south of Outjo, was attacked by the Germans. This led to the almost complete standstill of the immigration of Ovambo workers.
Mid-1905
On April 22nd, Trotha called on the Nama to surrender in a “proclamation to the people of the Hottentots”, supplementing his extermination policy, and openly threatened them with the fate of the Herero:
“To the rebellious Hottentots.
The mighty, great German emperor wants to grant the people of the Hottentots grace so that life may be given to those who surrender voluntarily. Only those who murdered whites or ordered them to be murdered at the beginning of the uprising have forfeited their lives according to the law. I make this known to you and also say that the few who do not submit will be the same as the people of the Hereros, who in their delusion also believed that they could deal with the mighty German Kaiser and the great German people successfully have war. I ask you, where are the Hereros people today, where are their chiefs today? Samuel Maharero, who once owned thousands of cattle, ran across the English border, chased like a wild animal, he has become as poor as the poorest of the field heroes and no longer owns anything. The same happened to the other great men, most of whom lost their lives, and to the whole Hereros people, who partly starved and thirsted in the sand, partly killed by German horsemen, partly murdered by the Ovambos. The Hottentot people will fare no differently if they do not voluntarily surrender their weapons. You should come with all your shipyards with a white cloth on a stick and nothing should happen to you. You will get work and board until the end of the war the great German emperor will regulate the situation in the area again. Anyone who believes that grace does not apply to them should emigrate, because wherever they can be seen in German territory they will be shot at until all are destroyed. I set the following reward for extraditing those guilty of murder, dead or alive. For Hendrik Witboi 5000 marks, Cornelius 3000 marks, for the other guides 1000 marks each. "
In the battle of Leukop near the British border, Morenga was defeated on May 19 by the Germans under the command of Captain Franz Siebert. Many insurgents then fled to British territory, but returned one by one.
The battle of Narus on the Kareb River took place from June 15th to 17th. The fight between the united associations of Jakob Morenga, the "Black Napoleon" (the son of a Herero woman and a Nama), and Jan Hendrik against the German troops ended with losses for the Germans. Peace negotiations between the Schutztruppe and Morenga as well as Cornelius Frederiks failed again because the Germans, caused by miscoordination, attacked the insurgents during the armistice.
Jakob Morenga involved the Germans in a skirmish near Wasserfall on July 3rd. The Witbooi captain Zebulon was pursued.
On August 1st, the Nama captain Hendrik Witbooi and his troops occupied the rocky mountains west of Gibeon. On August 5, Abraham Morris attacked the protection forces in Wortel (Nomaos).
Late 1905
Cornelius Frederiks was defeated on September 3rd at the Battle of Ai-Ais. He then pulled the Fish River down to the Orange River and from there into the Great Karas Mountains , where he united with Morenga's troops.
In the Battle of Nubib, on September 13th in the Zaris Mountains , the united Herero and Nama troops fought against the Schutztruppe under Georg Maercker under the command of the Herero leader Andreas . On the same day there was a skirmish between Abraham Morris and the Germans in Guigatsis.
On September 15, a battle between Jakob Morenga and Johannes Christian against the Germans under Friedrich von Erckert took place in Nochas . After this battle, Morenga and Christian moved further south. On their way to the Orange River, they attacked a German supply column in Naruchas, southwest of Kalkfontein-Süd (Karasburg).
On October 6, Morenga and Christian destroyed the German observation post on Jerusalem, south of Heirachabis. From there they moved to the Oranje, where they attacked the Schuitdrift border post on October 10th.
In the battle of Hartebeestmund, near Pelladrift on the Oranje, against Jakob Morenga and Johannes Christian, the Germans suffered losses on October 24th and 25th: three officers each died or were wounded, with the team ranks the losses were 14 dead and 35 wounded.
On October 29, Hendrik Witbooi died fighting near Fahlgras (water point about 60 kilometers west of Koës , today Kleinvaalgras) when he and his men tried to ambush a German transport column. He died 15 minutes after he was shot while riding a horse. A member of his family, Petrus Jod, also fell with him.
The Witboois were so shocked by the death of their captain that they surrendered in early 1906. This left the largest group of rebels out of the fight.
On November 2nd, General von Trotha's "resignation" was granted by the Kaiser, and on November 19th he left the country. He was succeeded by Colonel Berthold von Deimling .
1906
On January 1st, General Helmuth von Moltke succeeded Alfred von Schlieffens as Chief of Staff of the German Army in Berlin .
In March Cornelius and 200 men were caught and wiped out after a month-long chase by a detachment under Captain Richard D. Volkmann . In the second half of the year, the Bondelzwarts were also able to give up. With the exception of the Franzmann captain Simon Kooper, who continued to fight from English territory until the beginning of 1908, the south was subject to this.
From the beginning a broad German public as well as many MPs were against the war for various reasons. On December 13, there was a scandal in the Berlin Reichstag, which had been triggered by the previous deputy of the Supreme Command Colonel von Deimling . Reich Chancellor Bernhard Fürst von Bülow dissolved this by order of the Emperor after the majority of the MPs had refused to approve additional funds for the war in German South West Africa.
In December, with the support of missionaries who were already helping and mediating during the Herero uprising, a peace treaty was agreed with the last Bondelzwarts rebelling in southwestern territory.
1907
The problems of the protection force in fighting the uprising led to a government crisis in Berlin and forced new elections to the Reichstag (so-called Hottentot elections on January 25, 1907).
On March 31, 1907, the official end of the state of war was announced. Morenga continued the guerrilla war until he was killed in a skirmish with units of the British Cappolizei on September 19, 1907 near Eenzamheid.
1908
The remaining Nama rebels under Simon Kooper had long since withdrawn deep into the Kalahari , where they also moved to British territory. Because of the inaccessibility of the desert, they seemed invulnerable there, but repeatedly attacked the surrounding area. Under the commander of the northern Namaland military district, Captain Friedrich von Erckert , a dromedary- mounted desert force of the Schutztruppe was trained from October 1907 , with which a decisive campaign against Kooper during the rainy season (early 1908) was to be carried out. Dromedaries had been used on a trial basis in the Schutztruppe from the beginning, but had only been procured in large numbers from the animal dealer Carl Hagenbeck since the beginning of 1906 . On March 16, 1908, the German protection force under Erckert on the territory of the British Protectorate Bechuanaland was able to lock the rebels under Kooper in their camp and after a battle take the survivors prisoner. Cooper himself had escaped the day before; Drowned fell. After lengthy negotiations, Simon Kooper finally surrendered to the British authorities in February 1909 in return for an assurance of impunity and payment of a low pension.
Another group of rebels under Abraham Rohlfs, a subordinate of Morengas, carried out several attacks on German settlers in December 1908 and then fled to British territory in early 1909. The British police handed the Nama over to the Germans a few months later. Rohlfs and five of his people were hanged, the others were whipped and sentenced to chains. That was the end of the war.
As thanks and recognition for the British support, the South West Africa commemorative coin was awarded 92 times with the “KALAHARI 1907” clasp to soldiers of the “British Bechuanaland Protectorate Police Force” and 13 times to other British citizens without the clasp.
Concentration camp in German South West Africa
Captured Herero and Nama were taken by the Germans to concentration camps set up especially for them. The first of these camps were built in 1904/05 based on the model of the British Boer camps in South Africa. They were initially in Okahandja, Windhoek and Swakopmund; later there were more. Due to constant overcrowding, bad climatic conditions ( shark island ), poor drinking water and an unbalanced diet, diseases such as scurvy , typhoid and dysentery spread quickly in the camps and claimed thousands of lives. Healthy prisoners were used for forced labor in building roads, roads and railways. The conditions were so harsh that not even half of the prisoners survived the hardships. In search of a cure for scurvy, the medical officer Hugo Bofinger injected various substances, including lemon juice, arsenic and opium, into prisoners in search of a cure, and then examined the effects through autopsies after the death of those affected.
Reactions from the German public
Overall, the killing met with massive criticism from the German public. A few days after the arrival of the Trotha proclamation of October 2, 1904 in Berlin - the post for official documents from the sand field took a good six weeks at the time - the Reich government decided that the proclamation should be withdrawn. Nevertheless, it was to take until December until all the authorities and agencies involved, which in many cases did not cooperate very much in the German Empire, finally implemented the decisions that had been made. During the debates in the Reichstag at the time, the general's warfare was denounced by the SPD leader August Bebel, among others : "Any butcher can do this kind of warfare, you don't need to be a general or a senior officer." In the session on December 2nd In 1905 the socialist MP Georg Ledebour read parts of Trotha's “Proclamation” of October 2, 1904 ( see above ) and stated that it amounted to “the annihilation and extermination of the natives”. Trotha, who wanted to see "the nation as such destroyed" or "expelled from the country" at the end of the war (letter to the General Staff of October 4, 1904), was forced to turn back.
Trotha justified himself in the Deutsche Zeitung and indicated his fears of having to experience a defeat like Napoleon's retreat from Moscow in 1812 ( Battle of the Beresina ):
“The tribes of Africa wage war with one another until one of them is devastated. This had to happen here too. It goes without saying that a war in Africa cannot be waged according to the laws of the Geneva Convention . It was very difficult for me to reject women from the Kalahari watering holes. But I was facing a catastrophe for my troops. When I made the smaller existing water points accessible to women, I expected to experience a Berezina in Africa. "
The governor of South West Africa, Theodor Leutwein , with whom Trotha stated that he was in constant contradiction, wrote to the Foreign Office (colonial department) on October 28, 1904: “This proclamation finally prompted me to send the telegram mentioned above, since I am of the opinion that with her the rights of the governor have been encroached upon. "And further:" After all that I have stated above, I would ask the high department not to blame me if one day I received the news of mine Send departure. "Leutwein felt" absolutely superfluous ".
The proclamation became an ordeal between the state administration and the military leadership. Therefore, on November 12, 1904, Leutwein wrote again to the Foreign Office (colonial department):
“But it does not need to become a policy of extermination, not out of love for the natives, but out of love for our cause. Because I consider the annihilation of the natives, especially of such a vigorous tribe as the Herero, to be economically harmful and militarily impracticable. "
The pressure from the public, not least from the Protestant mission churches , increased. On November 23, the General Staff in Berlin came to the conclusion, in the spirit of Leutwein, that Trotha's plan could not be implemented. The Chief of the General Staff of the Army in Berlin, General Alfred von Schlieffen, presented the decision on that day in a letter to Bernhard von Bülow (Reich Chancellor since October 17, 1900) as follows:
“There will be little choice but to try to get the Hereros to surrender. This is made more difficult by the proclamation of General von Trotha, who wants to have every Herero shot. If the Hereros who face our troops are promised their lives by a new proclamation, they will hardly want to trust the new promise. However, it must be tried. "
The next day the Emperor received a letter from the Chancellor that the measures demanded by Trotha were in contradiction to Christian and human principles and that the “complete and systematic extermination of the Herero exceeded everything required by the demands of justice and the restoration of German authority . "In addition, the proclamation contributes to" undermining the German reputation among civilized nations. "
Trotha had to withdraw the proclamation and his order on December 9, 1904, following an express telegraphic counter-order from the General Staff from Berlin. With the exception of the ringleaders, he was instructed to spare the lives of the Herero and not to reject the mediation offered by the evangelical missionaries. With regard to public opinion, the Reich leadership later distanced itself from Trotha. The colonial politician Paul Rohrbach had already stated on October 7, 1904 with a view to the future:
“The Trotha proclamation will harm us for all of the world and will not do the least bit here. The idea that the 'guilty', the chiefs of the Hereros, the murderers of the whites, will ever fall into our hands for punishment, that the whole people with their captains could ever surrender to us at mercy or disfavor, or that we each Herero individually Getting caught in the sand field is absurd. We can do what we want, so we will never get around putting an end to the Herero war on our own at any time and calling the Hereros back up. "
The General Staff Works from 1906 withholds the measures of December 9, 1904, as well as the order from Berlin to continue the war efforts in the east (i.e. in the direction of the Herero's escape). The fact is that the Great General Staff together with the Reich Chancellor announced in separate telegrams on December 11 and 12, 1904, that the “publication of the highest decree in the German press was not currently intended”. The General Staff of 1906 also adhered to these orders, although by that time the events in Germany had long been well known. Trotha immediately replied to the two telegrams from Berlin that he “could no longer prevent publication” in the southwest. On December 14, 1904, he received "in recognition of his work as commander of the protection force for South-West Africa fighting the Herero uprising the royal order of the crown, 1st class with swords on the statutory ribbon."
Leutwein, who under no circumstances wanted to have anything to do with Trotha and saw himself being ignored and booted out by the German government, resigned from his office as governor in 1905.
UK response
After the occupation of the German colony, British authorities prepared a general documentation on the treatment of the indigenous population and the war crimes committed here (including in Chapter XV of the report) by the German Schutztruppe, which, in addition to a detailed text, also contains some instructive photo illustrations. It was published in London in 1918 by the Royal State Publishing House for the purpose of official information in both British chambers of parliament under the title Report on the Natives of South-West Africa and Their Treatment by Germany ").
Just a few years after the genocide in German South West Africa, this documentation gave evidence of the unjustified and criminal treatment of the indigenous civilian population in connection with the uprising and other events. For Germany, the disclosure of those military actions was associated with a considerable loss of reputation in the international context. That is why the Reich Colonial Ministry saw itself prompted to issue a reply with references to British colonial practice with a text that was published in Berlin in 1919 by the Hans-Robert Engelmann publishing house. This justification had the long title: Treatment of the native population in the colonial possessions of Germany and England. A reply to the English Blue Book of August 1918: Report on the natives of South-West Africa and their treatment by Germany.
Genocide and the United Nations
In 1948 the United Nations passed the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide . However, there is no official recognition of the genocide of the Herero and Nama; the Herero and Nama have been trying to gain recognition from the United Nations for decades.
Of particular importance in this context is the 1985 Whitaker Report , which was commissioned in 1983 by the UN Commission on Human Rights for the Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities . The report explicitly cited the Herero massacre as an example of genocide; this sharp formulation was not incorporated into the draft resolution of the sub-commission; rather, the Whitaker report was gratefully acknowledged with the wording that opposing opinions had been expressed on the findings and suggestions of the report.
The genocide and the Federal Republic of Germany
Political attitude of the Federal Republic of Germany
In 1995 Federal Chancellor Helmut Kohl was the first German Chancellor to visit Namibia since 1904. He avoided meeting with delegates from Herero. The German government at the time and the Federal Foreign Ministry regretted what had happened, but did not want to take responsibility for what happened during the German Empire and denied genocide, pointing out that the UN Genocide Convention does not apply retrospectively. She pointed out that hundreds of millions of euros in development aid had been provided to Namibia since 1990 (800 million by 2014). However, this is mainly administered by the sole governing SWAPO of the Ovambo and therefore hardly reaches the Herero, who demand material reparation from Germany especially for their ethnic group .
Herero representatives have argued in the past that according to the fourth Hague Convention of 1899, reprisals against the civilian population of the losers were prohibited even then. According to Arte-TV on August 3, 2004, a Herero spokesman in Berlin demanded that the Germans admit guilt and confess to their colonial past. He referred to the Holocaust memorials and saw his people at a disadvantage, as the battle at Waterberg was nowhere mentioned.
In 2009, not far from the rededicated Bremen anti-colonial monument, a memorial site was inaugurated in memory of the victims of the genocide in Namibia 1904–1908 and the Battle of Waterberg in Nelson Mandela Park . The memorial is made of stones from the Omaheke Desert , where tens of thousands of Herero died of thirst.
Legal claims against the Federal Republic of Germany and others since 2002
In 2002 the Herero leader Kuaima Riruako, party chairman of the National Unity Democratic Organization since 2003 , and 199 individual Herero lawsuits were brought before a US court by US lawyers from the law firm Musolino & Dessel on behalf of the Herero People's Reparations Corporation (HPRC) Submitted $ 2 billion. After the HPRC had already failed in 1999 due to a lack of authorization to apply to the International Court of Justice in The Hague, it hoped to increase the political pressure on the Federal Republic in this way. While the lawsuit before the District Court in Washington, DC against the Federal Republic of Germany, as a state identical to the German Reich under international law , failed because it was able to object to the initiation of proceedings due to its state immunity, the proceedings initiated under the Alien Tort Claims Act against them are suspended Deutsche Bank (legal successor to Disconto-Gesellschaft ), the Terex-Corporation and Deutsche Afrika-Linien (legal successor to Woermann-Linie ) since the German announcement of a reconciliation initiative in 2004.
The legal consideration of the consequences of German colonial rule and the Herero uprising is still in the early stages. In addition to the problems of procedural law, which in particular cause complaints before national courts, there is fundamental uncertainty with regard to the applicable rules of substantive international law . While a part of German international law denies the Herero's current entitlement to claims, primarily with reference to contemporary legal ideas of the European international community, others believe that they can prove the illegality of individual aspects of German colonial rule with recourse to legal theoretical considerations. A final legal clarification could only be brought about by Namibia through an action before the International Court of Justice. The admissibility of such a procedure would, however, also be problematic.
On November 15, 2007, the Namibian Foreign Minister Marco Hausiku wrote to the then German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier , which was based on a Namibian parliamentary motion to support the reparations demanded by the Herero.
Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul's visit to Waterberg in 2004
On August 14, 2004, the then Federal Development Aid Minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul took part in a commemoration of the 100th anniversary in Okakarara am Waterberg, during which scenes of the uprising by members of the Herero were reenacted. The minister was the first official representative of a German government to attend a commemoration ceremony for the events. In a speech she acknowledged Germany's political and moral responsibility for the actions of the German troops at the time, with the words: “The atrocities of that time were what would be called genocide today [...]. We Germans acknowledge our historical-political, moral-ethical responsibility and the guilt that Germans took upon themselves at the time. In the spirit of the common 'our father', I ask you to forgive our guilt. ”However, she ruled out any compensation payments based on this; However, the federal government wants to continue the development aid for Namibia amounting to 11.5 million euros annually.
However, the federal government then distanced itself and announced that Wieczorek-Zeul had spoken as a private person.
Sorry from the Trotha family in 2004
In November 2004, members of the Trotha family met with the chief of the Ovaherero , a group of the Herero people in Namibia, the descendant of the then chief (captain) Samuel Maharero, Ombara Alfons Maharero, in Ginsheim am Rhein to apologize. A joint written declaration was made in which the family “as citizens of today's Germany and as Christians, together with you, our guests from Namibia, in the 'Our Father' asked the Lord for forgiveness”. In October 2007, eleven members of the von Trotha family traveled to Omaruru at the invitation of the Herero chief to publicly apologize for the actions of General von Trotha and to ask for forgiveness.
"We are ashamed of the terrible events that took place in Namibia a century ago."
Return of bones in 2011–2014 and 2018
In 2011 a high-ranking delegation from Namibia visited Germany to receive 20 skulls out of an estimated 3000 skulls in the Berlin Charité for return to Namibia. These skulls had been brought to Germany at the time and could not be buried that way. Members of the Namibian delegation complained both before and during the visit that the federal government at the time was largely ignorant. During the handover celebrations for the skulls, there was a scandal when the only official representative of the federal government present, Minister of State Cornelia Pieper , left the event prematurely and snubbed the Namibian minister. The occasion for them were boos from the audience because of their speech, which was perceived as inadequate. In response to a small inquiry , State Secretary Emily Haber later stated that the “angry mood and the general confrontational attitude of some participants” prompted the Charité security service to lead Pieper out of the hall.
Also in 2011, 14 skulls were identified as Herero skulls at the University of Freiburg ; they were returned to the Republic of Namibia in 2014.
In August 2018 there was another handover of bones as part of a memorial service. Minister of State Michelle Müntefering handed over the bones to the Namibian delegation.
Development since 2015
Demands by representatives of the Herero
In July 2015, representatives of the Herero, led by Vekuii Rukoro , the Paramount Chief of the OvaHerero , traveled to Berlin with the intention of presenting the Federal President with a petition from the alliance “Genocide does not expire” , which prominent German politicians had co-signed. Although the Federal President did not receive the group personally, the document could be handed over to an official in his house. The document called on the Federal President, the Bundestag and the Federal Government:
- to officially recognize the genocide of the OvaHerero and Nama;
- to formally apologize to the descendants of the genocide victims;
- to campaign for the identification and return of all bones of people from Namibia and other former colonies who were deported to Germany;
- to agree to an unconditional and open dialogue on reconciliation measures with the descendants of the genocide victims and with the Namibian government.
The list of demands was to be implemented by October 2, 2015, the 111th anniversary of Trotha's proclamation of the destruction order.
First recognition as genocide
On July 9, 2015, the President of the German Bundestag, Norbert Lammert, described the colonial crimes as genocide in a newspaper article . Anyone who speaks of the genocide of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire in 1915 must also use this term to describe the crimes of the German military against the local population in the former German South West Africa. The historian and genocide researcher Medardus Brehl classified Lammert's statement as an "important signal to the Herero community in Namibia". During a visit to Namibia in early October 2015, Lammert reiterated this position, but at the same time made it clear that this was not an official declaration on behalf of the German government. In the same month the German government recognized the massacres of the Herero and Nama as genocide for the first time in an official document from the Foreign Office, "the war of extermination [...] from 1904 to 1908 [was] a war crime and genocide". However, the federal government restricted: “The UN Genocide Convention cannot be applied retrospectively. Nevertheless, in a historical-political public debate, the definition according to the Genocide Convention can serve as a yardstick for a non-legal assessment of a historical event as genocide. The Federal Government is of the opinion that this historical-political use of the term 'genocide' has no legal consequences. ”Apart from that, after clarification by the Foreign Office, a joint declaration by the governments and parliaments of Germany and Namibia was planned in which the massacre was expressly classified as genocide are designated.
Dialogue for negotiations on preparations for the reappraisal and reconciliation
Regardless of the recognition, important questions remained open for the representatives of the Herero. In addition to recognition as genocide, these are the official apology of the German government, the return of all human remains from German collections and reconciliation measures including the payment of reparations. At the end of the deadline for the implementation of the catalog of claims, Rukoro condemned the inaction of the German government at a press conference on October 1, 2015 at the place where the extermination order was proclaimed. In particular, it was criticized that the German government negotiated exclusively with the Namibian government, but not also with representatives of victims' organizations. In Germany, this aspect was emphasized with a campaign by the alliance “Genocide does not expire” under the title “Not about us without us!”, During which delegates from Herero organizations in Germany held talks and at events from October 12th to 15th participated.
At the end of 2015, special envoys were appointed by Namibia and Germany to deal with the past. Ruprecht Polenz took care of this for Germany , Namibia is represented by Zedekia Ngavirue . A joint declaration of reconciliation was originally supposed to be drawn up by the end of 2016 and confirmed by both parliaments. However, the Herero did not feel involved enough in the process.
At the beginning of July 2016, the position paper of the Namibian government was presented to Polenz on his second visit to Namibia. At the same time he presented the Namibian President with a letter from Federal President Joachim Gauck . In this context, the German ambassador for Namibia, Christian Schlaga , emphasized that direct financial compensation was excluded. Rather, they want to help the ethnic groups within the framework of development projects.
Polenz and Ambassador Schlaga rejected direct negotiations between the Herero and the German government, as demanded by Vekuii Rukoro . On November 24, 2016, there was a meeting between Polenz and Schlaga on the German side and representatives of the OvaHerero (Ovaherero Genocide Foundation) and Nama (Nama Genocide Technical Committee), including the MP Ida Hofmann and the Deputy Minister for Land Reform Bernadus Clinton Swartbooi . Some Herero and Nama representatives left the meeting angrily because of alleged disrespect on the German side, claiming that Polenz had made a comment that one should stop comparing the incidents in Namibia with other genocides because only a small number of Herero and Nama had been killed be. In a statement by the German embassy in Namibia, this representation was put into perspective that Polenz had turned against efforts to compare the genocide in Namibia with other crimes against humanity, especially with the Holocaust .
Trial in New York
At the beginning of January 2017, representatives of Ovaherero and Nama filed a class action lawsuit against the Federal Republic of Germany in New York . They are demanding compensation payments from the federal government. In addition, Ovaherero Paramount Chief Vekuii Rukoro and Nama Gaob Johannes Isaack demand that the rightful representatives of the Ovaherero and Nama peoples be involved in negotiations with the federal government.
After the federal government accepted service in January 2018 and filed a motion to dismiss for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction , the plaintiffs presented a 96-page second version of the application to the court on February 14, 2018. The federal government responded with another 25-page motion to dismiss , submitted on March 13th . The plaintiffs responded to this on April 25, 2018 with a memorandum of law including annexes. The federal government submitted a reply on May 8, and negotiations were held again in New York in May 2018.
The lawsuit was dismissed in early March 2019. An appeal was filed a few days later.
Further development for work-up and reconciliation
In November 2017 reported inter alia. the Namibian Sun and Deutsche Welle , citing the Namibian politician Kazenambo , that on June 27, 2017, the Federal Government, through Ambassador Schlaga, put forward the demand that the genocide should in future be referred to with the English word atrocities (German: atrocities) . The Foreign Office has so far refused to comment on Kazenambo's statements.
In March 2019, six experts under the patronage of the German non-governmental organization European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights pushed ahead with the establishment of a truth commission to come to terms with the genocide.
According to unconfirmed reports, Germany offered Namibia compensation of 10 million euros in August 2020, which Namibian President Hage Geingob, however, allegedly refused, saying that the amount of these compensation payments was “an insult to Namibia”. At least two years earlier, however, the German side had spoken of a billion euro amount as reparation. According to an official statement by Namibia's President Hage Geingob on August 11, 2020, there has been great progress in the negotiations. Specific amounts of money were not mentioned.
The talks were concluded with an agreement in May 2021. According to this, Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier will formally apologize to the National Assembly of Namibia . Reparation is being made in the form of social projects in the historic settlement areas. The successful conclusion of the talks was confirmed by the German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas on May 28, 2021 . "As a gesture of recognition of the immeasurable suffering that was inflicted on the victims," said Maas on behalf of the German government, pledging financial reconstruction and development aid amounting to 1.1 billion euros over 30 years to Namibia and the victims' descendants. It was agreed that the money would not only be used to expand rural infrastructure and agriculture, but also to promote vocational training in the Herero and Nama settlements.
Artistic representations
The uprising and the events in its wake have often become the subject of not only non-fiction and scientific works , but also fiction .
The first works were published during the war itself, for example in 1906 Gustav Frenssen's Peter Moors Fahrt nach Südwest . Shortly after the end of the war, Maximilian Bayer, who was involved in the suppression of the uprising as a general staff officer, described the events from a colonialist perspective in non-fiction books and novels under the pseudonym "Jonk Steffen".
Uwe Timms Morenga from 1978, on the other hand, turned towards a post-colonial representation, but adopts a German perspective, as does Gerhard Seyfried's Herero from 2003. Both books are based as closely as possible on facts. In 2015, the long shadow was published , a thriller by Bernhard Jaumann , which addresses both the uprising and the return of the skulls stored in Germany to Namibia in the years 2011 to 2014.
In 1976/77 the German television series “ Omaruru ” took on the colonial era in Namibia, and the uprising was also discussed in this context. The German three-part Morenga from 1985, a film adaptation of the novel by Uwe Timm, targets the genocide more directly .
In Windhoek, in front of the Alte Feste and at the second location of the equestrian memorial, an official memorial has been commemorating the genocide since March 2014.
Movies
- "Unter Herrenmenschen", Arte , Germany 2018, first broadcast on January 7, 2020. ( Information on the documentation )
See also
literature
- Rachel J. Anderson: Redressing Colonial Genocide Under International Law: The Hereros' Cause of Action Against Germany. In: California Law Review. Volume 93, No. 1155, 2005; ssrn.com (PDF).
- Helmut Bley: Colonial rule and social structure in German South West Africa 1894–1914 (= Hamburg contributions to contemporary history. Volume 5). Leibniz, Hamburg 1968, DNB 456136592 .
- Medardus Brehl: Destruction of the Herero. Discourses of violence in German colonial literature (common goods: law, politics and economics). Fink, Paderborn 2007, ISBN 3-7705-4460-9 .
- Medardus Brehl: The genocide of the Herero 1904 and its contemporary legitimation. In: Micha Brumlik ; Irmtrud Wojak: Genocide and War Crimes in the First Half of the 20th Century. Campus, Frankfurt 2004, ISBN 3-593-37282-7 , pp. 77-98.
- Horst Drechsler : Uprisings in South West Africa. The struggle of the Herero and Nama from 1904 to 1907 against German colonial rule. Dietz, Berlin (GDR) 1984, ISBN 3-320-00417-4 .
- Andreas E. Eckl: "It's a bad country here". On the historiography of a controversial colonial war. Diary entries from the Herero War in German South West Africa 1904 by Georg Hillebrecht and Franz Ritter von Epp. Köppe, Cologne 2005, ISBN 3-89645-361-0 .
- Steffen Eicker: The German-Herero war and international law: the liability of the Federal Republic of Germany under international law for the actions of the German Empire against the Herero in German South West Africa in 1904 and their enforcement before a national court. (Diss. University of Marburg) Lang, Frankfurt am Main 2009, ISBN 978-3-631-58378-4 .
- Jan Bart Gewald: Herero Heroes. A Socio-Political History of the Herero of Namibia 1890–1923. Ohio University Press, Athens 1999.
- Christof Hamann (Ed.): Africa - Culture and Violence. Background and topicality of the colonial war in German South West Africa. Its reception in literature, science and popular culture (1904–2004). Institute for Church and Society, Iserlohn 2005, ISBN 3-931845-87-7 .
- Matthias Häußler: On the asymmetry of tribal and state warfare in imperial wars: The logic of the warfare of the Herero in pre- and early colonial times. In: Tanja Bührer / Christian Stachelbeck / Dierk Walter (eds.): Imperial Wars from 1500 to today. Structures, actors, learning processes. Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn et al. 2011, ISBN 978-3-506-77337-1 , pp. 177-195.
- Matthias Häussler: The genocide against the Herero. War, emotion and extreme violence in German South West Africa. Velbrück, Weilerswist 2018, ISBN 978-3-95832-164-9 .
- Patrick O. Heinemann: The German genocides against the Herero and Nama: Limits of legal processing In: The state . Volume 55, 4/2016, pp. 461-487, doi: 10.3790 / staa.55.4.461 (Duncker & Humblot eJournals).
- Daniel Karch: Unlimited violence in the colonial periphery. The colonial wars in "German South West Africa" and the "Sioux Wars" in the North American Plains , Stuttgart (Steiner) 2019. ISBN 978-3-515-12438-6 . ISBN 978-3-515-12436-2 .
- Jörn Axel Kämmerer ; Jörg Föh: International law as an instrument of reparation? A critical consideration using the example of the Herero uprising. In: Archives of International Law . Volume 42, 2004, pp. 294-328.
- Reinhard Kößler, Henning Melber : Genocide and Remembrance. The genocide of the Herero and Nama in German South West Africa 1904–1908. In: Micha Brumlik , Irmtrud Wojak: Genocide and war crimes in the first half of the 20th century. Campus, Frankfurt 2004, ISBN 3-593-37282-7 , pp. 37-76.
- Gesine Krüger: Overcoming the War and Awareness of History. Reality, interpretation and processing of the German colonial war in Namibia 1904 to 1907. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1999, ISBN 3-525-35796-6 , urn : nbn: de: bvb: 12-bsb00052478-9 .
- Susanne Kuß : German military in colonial theaters of war. Escalation of violence at the beginning of the 20th century. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-603-1 .
- Toubab Pippa: The wickedness in the heart of the people. Hendrik Witbooi and the black and white history of Namibia. Grüne Kraft, Löhrbach 2003, ISBN 3-922708-31-5 .
- Jörg Wassink: On the trail of the German genocide in South West Africa: The Herero / Nam uprising in German colonial literature. A literary historical analysis. Meidenbauer, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-89975-484-0 .
- Jürgen Zimmerer , Joachim Zeller (ed.): Genocide in German South West Africa. The colonial war (1904–1908) in Namibia and its consequences. Links, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-86153-303-0 .
- Jakob Zollmann: Colonial rule and its limits. The Colonial Police in German South West Africa 1894–1915 (= Critical Studies in History . Volume 191). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2010, ISBN 978-3-525-37018-6 .
- Volker Ullrich : "... to avenge German blood". During the first large-scale deployment of German troops in sub-Saharan Africa, 1,500 soldiers were killed. Germany's first war of annihilation followed the Herero uprising. In: The time . January 14, 1994, No. 3/1994.
Web links
- Christiane Bürger: German colonial history in court. About the problematic way of dealing with the genocide of the Ovaherero and Nama. In: zeitgeschichte-online.de, August 26, 2018.
- The war against the Herero 1904–1907. Historical pictures and documents from the Federal Archives
- Felix Weber, Antje Märke: The Herero Uprising 1904 - From the perspective of the soldier and colonial writer Paul Leutwein. (No longer available online.) In: bundesarchiv.de. Federal Archives, archived from the original on September 14, 2011 (historical images and documents of the Federal Archives).
- Uwe Gregorius: Resistance of the Nama. in the LeMO of the German Historical Museum , November 2, 2004.
- EHL Gorges: Report on the natives of South-west Africa and their treatment by Germany / prepared in the Administrator's Office, Windhuk, South-west Africa, January 1918. London, HMSO 1918, online at ufdc.ufl.edu
- Namibia - Germany: a divided history. Resistance, violence, memory. Exhibition in the Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum and the German Historical Museum, 2004/2005. (No longer available online.) In: museenkoeln.de. Archived from the original on August 4, 2016 .
- Extract from a BBC documentary about the Herero genocide ( YouTube , 7:57 min.)
- Carsten Dippel: Herero and Nama genocide. What complicity does the Evangelical Church have? In: deutschlandfunk.de. Deutschlandfunk , January 18, 2017 . Audio. (MP3; 6.8 MB; 7:15 min.) (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on February 1, 2017 ; accessed on September 1, 2018 (series day by day. From religion and society ).
Individual evidence
- ↑ Jan-Bart Gewald: The Great General of the Kaiser. In: Botswana Notes and Records. Volume 26 (1994), pp. 67-76, here: p. 74, JSTOR 40959182 .
- ^ Letter to Chief of Staff Count von Schlieffen, October 5, 1904. In: Michael Behnen: Sources on German foreign policy in the age of imperialism 1890-1911. Darmstadt 1977, p. 292.
- ↑ Jürgen Zimmerer, Joachim Zeller (ed.): Genocide in German South West Africa. The colonial war (1904–1908) in Namibia and its consequences. Links, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-86153-303-0 .
- ^ Tilman Dedering: The German-Herero War of 1904: Revisionism of Genocide or Imaginary Historiography? In: Journal of Southern African Studies. Volume 19, No. 1, 1993, p. 80.
- ↑ Dominik J. Schaller: “I believe that the nation as such must be destroyed”: Colonial war and genocide in “German South West Africa” 1904–1907. In: Journal of genocide research. Volume 6, 2004, Issue 3, ISSN 1462-3528 , pp. 395-430, here: p. 385, doi: 10.1080 / 1462352042000265864 .
- ↑ Reinhart Kößler, Henning Melber : Genocide and Remembrance. The genocide of the Herero and Nama in German South West Africa 1904–1908. In: Irmtrud Wojak , Susanne Meinl (ed.): Genocide. Genocide and war crimes in the first half of the 20th century (= yearbook on the history and effects of the Holocaust. Vol. 8). Campus, Frankfurt am Main 2004, pp. 37–76.
- ↑ a b Medardus Brehl: "These blacks deserve death before God and people" The genocide of the Herero in 1904 and its contemporary legitimation. In: Irmtrud Wojak, Susanne Meinl (ed.): Genocide. Genocide and war crimes in the first half of the 20th century (= yearbook on the history and effects of the Holocaust. Vol. 8). Campus, Frankfurt am Main 2004, pp. 77–97.
- ↑ George Steinmetz : From the "indigenous policy" to the extermination strategy: German South West Africa, 1904. In: Periphery: Journal for Politics and Economics in the Third World . Volume 97–98, Vol. 25, 2005, pp. 195–227, here: p. 195 ( PDF; 418 kB; November 7, 2016, accessed on May 27, 2019 ).
- ↑ Rachel J. Anderson: Redressing Colonial Genocide Under International Law: The Hereros' Cause of Action Against Germany. In: California Law Review. Volume 93, No. 1155, 2005, papers.ssrn.com (PDF; 2.1 MB).
- ↑ Jörg Wassink: On the trail of the German genocide in South West Africa. The Herero / Nam uprising in German colonial literature. A literary historical analysis. Meidenbauer, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-89975-484-0 .
- ↑ Mihran Dabag, Horst founder, Uwe-Karsten Ketelsen: Colonialism, colonial discourse and genocide. Fink, Paderborn / Munich 2004, ISBN 3-7705-4070-0 .
- ↑ a b c d e Dominik J. Schaller: “I believe that the nation as such must be destroyed”: Colonial war and genocide in “German South West Africa” 1904–1907. In: Journal of genocide research. Volume 6, 2004, Issue 3, ISSN 1462-3528 , pp. 395-430, here: p. 398, doi: 10.1080 / 1462352042000265864 .
- ↑ Florian Fischer Nenad Cupic: The continuity of the genocide . Aphorism.
- ↑ Dominik J. Schaller: “I believe that the nation as such must be destroyed”: Colonial war and genocide in “German South West Africa” 1904–1907. In: Journal of genocide research. Volume 6, 2004, Issue 3, ISSN 1462-3528 , pp. 395-430, here: p. 422 note 19, doi: 10.1080 / 1462352042000265864 .
- ↑ Isabel V. Hull: Absolute Destruction. Military Culture and the Practices of War in Imperial Germany . Cornell University Press, Ithaka NY 2004, ISBN 0-8014-4258-3 , pp. 7, 88 .
- ↑ Torben Jorgensen, Eric Markusen: The Genocide of the Hereros. In: Israel W. Charny (Ed.): Encyclopedia of Genocide. Volume 1, 1999, p. 288.
- ^ Samuel Totten, Paul Robert Bartrop , Steven L. Jacobs: Genocide of Herero People. In: Dictionary of Genocide: A – L. 2008.
- ↑ Jon Bridgman, Leslie J. Worley: Genocide of the Hereros. In: Samuel Totten, William S. Parsons: A Century of Genocide: Critical Essays and Eyewitness Accounts. 2008, ISBN 0-415-99084-X , p. 25.
- ↑ Walter Nuhn : Storm over Southwest. The Herero uprising of 1904 - a dark chapter in Namibia's German colonial past. Bernard & Graefe, Bonn 1989, ISBN 3-7637-6273-6 .
- ↑ a b Federal Government: Germany did not commit genocide against Herero and Nama . In the detailed answers to a small question (PDF) it says, “If the term [genocide] is used as a term under international law, [...] applies [...] that the Convention of December 9, 1948 on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide cannot be applied retrospectively. The Federal Government does not assess historical events using international law provisions that were [... not yet] in force. "
- ↑ Cf. Bettina Vestring: Colonial Crimes in German South West Africa: "Every Herero is shot". (Report on the occasion of a motion by the left parliamentary group in the Bundestag).
- ^ German colonial crimes: Federal government calls Herero massacre "genocide" for the first time. In: Spiegel Online , July 10, 2015.
- ^ Horst founder: Christian mission and German imperialism. A political history of their relations during the German colonial period (1884–1914) with a special focus on Africa and China. Schöningh, Paderborn 1982, ISBN 3-506-77464-6 , p. 116.
- ^ Heinrich Vedder : The old South West Africa. South West Africa's history up to Maharero's death in 1890. Berlin 1934 (reprint: SWA Scientific Society, Windhoek 1985).
- ↑ a b c d Volker Ullrich: "... to avenge German blood". In: The time. January 14, 1994.
- ↑ Martin Schröder: Corporal punishment and the right to punishment in the German protected areas of Black Africa . In: Horst founder (Hrsg.): Europe - Übersee historical studies . tape 6 . Lit, Münster 1997, p. 105 .
- ↑ The Tamer's Whip . In: Der Spiegel . No. 3 , 2004 ( online ).
- ^ Jan Bart Gewald: Herero heroes, a socio-political history of the Herero of Namibia, 1890-1923. Currey, Oxford 1999, ISBN 0-85255-754-X , pp. 141 ff.
- ↑ The Marine Expeditionary Force in South West Africa during the Herero Uprising. Ed. By the Admiralty Staff of the Navy. ES Mittler & Sohn, Berlin 1905, p. 1 f.
- ↑ The Marine Expeditionary Force in South West Africa during the Herero Uprising. Ed. By the Admiralty Staff of the Navy. ES Mittler & Sohn, Berlin 1905, Annex 1, p. 97.
- ^ Alfred Cramer : History of the Infantry Regiment Prince Friedrich of the Netherlands (2nd Westphalian) No. 15. Verlag R. Eisenschmid, publishing house for military science, Berlin 1910.
- ↑ The fighting of the German troops in South West Africa: The campaign against the Hereros. Volume I., ES Mittler & Sohn, Berlin 1906, p. 15 f.
- ^ Theodor Leutwein: Eleven years governor in German South West Africa. ES Mittler & Sohn, Berlin 1906, p. 11.
- ^ Theodor Leutwein: Eleven years governor in German South West Africa. ES Mittler & Sohn, Berlin 1906, p. 521 f.
- ↑ Christopher Clark : Prussia. Rise and fall. 1600-1947. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt , Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-421-05392-3 , p. 690.
- ↑ Maximilian Bayer : With the headquarters in South West Africa. Weicher, Berlin 1909, DNB 579153509 , p. 269.
- ↑ E. Th. Förster: Das Ovambovolk. In: From rock to sea / The wide world. 23rd year, May 1904 (weekly edition). Scherl, Stuttgart 1904.
- ↑ Dominik J. Schaller: “I believe that the nation as such must be destroyed”: Colonial war and genocide in “German South West Africa” 1904–1907. In: Journal of genocide research. Volume 6, 2004, Issue 3, ISSN 1462-3528 , pp. 395-430, here: p. 397, doi: 10.1080 / 1462352042000265864 .
- ^ The fighting of the German troops in German South West Africa. Volume 1, p. 207, quoted from: Reinhart Kößler; Henning Melber: Genocide and Remembrance. The genocide of the Herero and Nama in German South West Africa 1904–1908. In: Irmtrud Wojak, Susanne Meinl (ed.): Genocide. Genocide and war crimes in the first half of the 20th century (= yearbook on the history and effects of the Holocaust. Vol. 8). Campus, Frankfurt am Main 2004, p. 49.
- ↑ Gun.
- ^ Federal Archives Potsdam, files of the Reichskolonialamt, RKA, 10.01 2089, p. 23, handwritten copy of the proclamation to the Herero people and the additional order to the Imperial Protection Force, October 2, 1904. See the use of telegraphy in the war against Africans ( PDF; 1.4 MB), p. 195.
- ↑ Jürgen Zimmerer: Population economics, racial state and genocide in German South West Africa . In: Wolfgang Benz (Ed.): Prejudice and Genocide. Ideological premises of genocide. Böhlau, Vienna 2010, p. 16.
- ↑ Quoted from: Horst Drechsler: Uprising in South West Africa. The struggle of the Herero and Nama from 1904 to 1907 against German colonial rule . Dietz, Berlin 1984, pp. 86, 87.
- ↑ Gesine Krüger: Overcoming the War and Historical Consciousness. Reality, interpretation and processing of the German colonial war in Namibia 1904 to 1907. Göttingen 1999, ISBN 3-525-35796-6 , p. 64.
- ↑ Reinhart Kößler, Henning Melber: Genocide and Remembrance. The genocide of the Herero and Nama in German South West Africa 1904–1908 . In: Irmtrud Wojak, Susanne Meinl (ed.): Genocide. Genocide and war crimes in the first half of the 20th century (= yearbook on the history and effects of the Holocaust. Vol. 8). Campus, Frankfurt am Main 2004, p. 47.
- ↑ Gesine Krüger: Overcoming the War and Historical Consciousness. Reality, interpretation and processing of the German colonial war in Namibia 1904 to 1907. Göttingen 1999, ISBN 3-525-35796-6 , p. 51.
- ↑ Gesine Krüger: Overcoming the War and Historical Consciousness. Reality, interpretation and processing of the German colonial war in Namibia 1904 to 1907. Göttingen 1999, ISBN 3-525-35796-6 , p. 51 f.
- ↑ a b c Gesine Krüger: Coping with the war and historical awareness. Reality, interpretation and processing of the German colonial war in Namibia 1904 to 1907. Göttingen 1999, ISBN 3-525-35796-6 , p. 53.
- ↑ Horst Drechsler: South West Africa under German colonial rule. Akademie, Berlin 1984, pp. 161-163.
- ^ Friedrich Freiherr von Dincklage-Campe: German riders in the southwest . Berlin 1909, p. 14.
- ^ Marion Wallace: History of Namibia. From the beginning until 1990. Translated from the English by Sabine Lang. Edited by Basler Afrika Bibliographien. Brandes & Apsel, Basel 2015, ISBN 978-3-95558-063-6 , p. 268 (original title: A history of Namibia ).
- ^ Andreas H. Bühler: The Nama uprising against German colonial rule in Namibia from 1904–1913. IKO, Berlin 2003, p. 133.
- ↑ Jürgen Zimmerer: German rule over Africans. State claim to power and reality in colonial Namibia. Lit, Münster 2004, ISBN 3-8258-7473-7 , p. 56; Mark Cocker: Rivers of Blood, Rivers of Gold. Europe's Conquest of Indigenous Peoples. Pimlico, London 1999, ISBN 0-7126-6576-5 , p. 339.
- ^ Marion Wallace: History of Namibia. From the beginning to 1990. Basler Afrika Bibliographien, Basel 2015, p. 268 f.
- ^ Marion Wallace: History of Namibia. From the beginning to 1990. Basler Afrika Bibliographien, Basel 2015, p. 269.
- ↑ Quoted from: Henning Melber: Der Waterberg. In: Jürgen Zimmerer (Ed.): No place in the sun. Places of remembrance of German colonial history. Campus, Frankfurt / Main 2013, p. 475.
- ↑ Jürgen Zimmerer, Joachim Zeller (ed.): Genocide in German South West Africa. The colonial war (1904–1908) in Namibia and its consequences. Links, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-86153-303-0 , p. 54.
- ↑ Proclamation of General v.Trotha to the people of the Hottentots from 22 April 1905; reprinted in The Battles of the German Troops in South West Africa. Prepared by War History Department I of the Great General Staff. Volume two: The Hottentot War. Mittler and Son, Berlin 1907.
- ^ Gordon McGregor: German Medals, British Soldiers and the Kalahari Desert. ISBN 978-99916-40-74-7 (Namibia) - ISBN 978-3-936858-89-1 (Germany).
- ↑ Dominik J. Schaller: “I believe that the nation as such must be destroyed”: Colonial war and genocide in “German South West Africa” 1904–1907. In: Journal of genocide research. Volume 6, 2004, Issue 3, ISSN 1462-3528 , pp. 395-430, here: pp. 399-400, doi: 10.1080 / 1462352042000265864 .
- ↑ Casper Erichsen, David Olusoga: The Kaiser's Holocaust: Germany's Forgotten Genocide and the Colonial Roots of Nazism . Faber and Faber, London 2010, ISBN 978-0-571-26948-8 , pp. 225 ( preview in Google Book Search).
- ↑ Winkler, Heinrich August: History of the West. From the beginnings in antiquity to the 20th century. Beck, Munich 2009, p. 1043.
- ^ Negotiations of the German Reichstag, 129th session of January 30, 1905, p. 4104 .
- ^ Negotiations of the German Reichstag, 5th session on December 2, 1905 ( Digitale-sammlungen.de ).
- ^ Walter Rahn: Sanitary service of the protection force for South West Africa during the uprisings 1904–1907 and the Kalahari expedition 1908. op. Cit., P. 83, deviating from Gerhard Pool: Samuel Maharero. op.cit., p. 293.
- ↑ RKA 2089, Bl. 21-22, Leutwein to the Foreign Office, October 28, 1904.
- ↑ RKA 2089, Bl. 98–99, Leutwein to the Foreign Office, November 12, 1904.
- ↑ RKA 2089, p. 3ff., Schlieffen to the Reich Chancellor, November 23, 1904.
- ↑ RKA 2089, Bl. 8-11, Bülow to Wilhelm II., November 24, 1904.
- ↑ Paul Rohrbach: From Southwest Africa's difficult days. Thalacker, Berlin 1907.
- ^ Witwatersrand University : bibliographic evidence from Historical Papers Research Archive, University of the Witwatersrand. In: hpra-atom.wits.ac.za (English).
- ^ Bibliographical evidence from Johann Wolfgang Goethe University Frankfurt, Electronic Documents University Library.
- ↑ Les Herero, un peuple de la Namibie victime de genocide perpétré par les allemands, demandent réparation (French)
- ↑ UN Whitaker Report on Genocide, 1985, paragraphs 14 to 24 (Engl.)
- ↑ Foreign Office: Namibia: Political Relations.
- ↑ Thilo Thielke: Massacre in South West Africa How the Hereros fight for reparation. In: Der Spiegel , June 25, 2008.
- ^ FAZ on Sunday. No. 33.
- ↑ Jörn A. Kämmerer, Jörg Föh: International law as an instrument of reparation? A critical consideration using the example of the Herero uprising. In: Archives of International Law . Volume 42, 2004, pp. 294-328.
- ↑ M. Jaguttis: Colonial injustice in international law of the present. In: Henning Melber (Ed.): Genozid und Gedenken. Frankfurt am Main 2005, pp. 121-140.
- ^ Stefan Fischer: Herero application in Germany. In: Allgemeine Zeitung . November 26, 2007, accessed November 1, 2008.
- ↑ Speech by Federal Minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul at the commemoration of the Herero uprisings on August 14, 2004 in Okakarara ( memento of July 11, 2015 in the Internet Archive ). In: windhuk.diplo.de. German Embassy Windhoek, accessed on August 31, 2018.
- ↑ Dominik Baur: Germany's first genocide. "The rattle of the dying died away in the sublime silence". In: Der Spiegel , August 13, 2004.
- ^ Wieczorek-Zeul in Namibia. Germany apologizes for colonial crimes , Spiegel Online, August 15, 2004.
- ↑ Manuscript of Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul's speech on August 14, 2004 , ag-friedensforschung.de, accessed on December 11, 2017.
- ↑ Processing yes, compensation no. Deutsche Welle, accessed on August 28, 2018.
- ↑ Reconciliation after 100 years . ( Memento of November 8, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) trotha.de, accessed on February 1, 2017.
- ↑ German apology for the Herero massacre. In: derstandard.at. April 25, 2008, accessed February 1, 2017.
- ↑ sueddeutsche.de - Commemoration of the Herero genocide ( Memento of December 13, 2007 in the Internet Archive ).
- ↑ Elena Beis: The Denied Genocide. In: The daily newspaper. September 29, 2011.
- ↑ Compensation "was not an issue". In: Allgemeine Zeitung, Windhoek. December 2, 2011.
- ^ Scandal at the handover of the Namibian skull. In: nzz.ch, accessed on October 5, 2011.
- ↑ Returning Skulls from Namibia - Public Relations and Relationship Management . In: uni-freiburg.de, accessed on June 22, 2014.
- ↑ Germany returns bones to Namibia. In: Zeit Online . August 29, 2018, accessed on August 31, 2018 (source: dpa, KNA, js).
- ^ Forgotten genocide: Namibia's quest for reparations . In: aljazeera.com. Al Jazeera English, accessed October 14, 2015.
- ↑ a b Appell / Petition 2015. In: genocide-namibia.net, accessed on October 14, 2015.
- ↑ President of the Bundestag Lammert calls the massacre of Herero genocide. In: Zeit.de . July 8, 2015, accessed October 15, 2015.
- ↑ Genocide researcher on colonial history. Why "sorry" is so difficult. In: tagesschau.de, accessed on July 10, 2015.
- ↑ Is Germany moving closer to paying reparations for Namibian genoicide? In: dw.com. October 8, 2015, accessed October 15, 2015.
- ↑ a b Government is committed to genocide. In: tagesschau.de. July 10, 2015, accessed July 10, 2015.
- ↑ Steven Geyer: Herero Massacre: Sorry, yes - but no compensation. In: Frankfurter Rundschau. July 13, 2016.
- ↑ July 18, 2016 - The Federal Government's answer to a “Small Parliamentary Question” by the “Die Linke” parliamentary group of July 6, 2016 ( memo of November 15, 2017 in the Internet Archive ). In: windhuk.diplo.de. German Embassy Windhoek, accessed on December 11, 2017.
- ↑ Genocide of the Herero: Germany officially apologizes to Namibia , Spiegel Online, July 13, 2016.
- ^ Namibian groups up the ante in reparations claim against Germany. In: southernafrican.news, accessed October 15, 2015.
- ↑ October 12-14, 2015 - "Not about us without us!" Events with OvaHerero guests in Berlin. In: genocide-namibia.net, accessed on October 15, 2015.
- ↑ Allgemeine Zeitung. April 29, 2016.
- ↑ Geingob receives Gauck's letter. In: Allgemeine Zeitung. 7th July 2016.
- ^ German special envoy for the German-Namibian government negotiations in Namibia ( Memento from July 9, 2016 in the Internet Archive ). In: windhuk.diplo.de. German Embassy Windhoek, accessed on December 11, 2017.
- ↑ Ambassador Schlaga welcomes two members of the Ovaherero for a friendly exchange of ideas . ( Memento from July 9, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) German Embassy Windhoek, windhuk.diplo.de, accessed on September 1, 2018.
- ↑ Genocide meeting ends in chaos. In: Namibian. November 25, 2016.
- ↑ Genocide meeting is ugly. In: New Era. November 25, 2016.
- ^ Scandal at the German embassy / genocide dialogue: Holocaust comparison causes chaos - hostage-taking denied. In: Allgemeine Zeitung. November 28, 2016.
- ↑ Press Declaration: Meeting of the German Special Envoy, Mr. Ruprecht Polenz, with the Chairperson of the “Nama Genocide Technical Committee”, the honorable Mrs. Ida Hoffmann. (No longer available online.) In: windhuk.diplo.de. Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany Windhoek, November 25, 2016, archived from the original on November 29, 2016 ; accessed on September 1, 2018 (English, press release from the German Embassy Windhoek).
- ↑ Because of genocide: Herero and Nama are suing Germany. (No longer available online.) In: tagesschau.de. Archived from the original on January 6, 2017 ; accessed on January 6, 2017 .
- ↑ Amendeded Class Action Complaint. (PDF) In: theongi.org. February 14, 2018, accessed April 26, 2018 .
- ^ New York Southern District Court: Rukoro et al v. Federal Republic of Germany. In: pacermonitor.com. Retrieved May 23, 2018 .
- ^ Debate in Namibia, not an issue in Germany. In: Deutsche Welle. May 8, 2018. Retrieved May 23, 2018 .
- ^ Lawsuit Against Germany Over Namibian Genocice is Dismissed in New York. EWN, March 7, 2019 (English).
- ↑ Rukoro files genocide notice of appeal. New Era, March 15, 2019 (English).
- ↑ Namibia has made a fool of itself - KK ( Memento of November 10, 2017 in the Internet Archive ). In: Namibian Sun . November 10, 2017. Retrieved December 11, 2017.
- ^ Daniel Pelz: Genocide in Namibia: Is Germany moving? , Deutsche Welle of November 14, 2017.
- ↑ Namibia advised to establish truth commission on genocide. Namibia Press Agency , March 26, 2019.
- ↑ Namibia advised to establish truth commission on genocide. Lela, March 27, 2019
- ↑ Time for adequate reparations. TAZ, August 12, 2020.
- ↑ MR HE Hage G. Geingob briefing by Amb Zed Ngavirue on Genocide, Apology and Reparations. The Presidency, August 11, 2020.
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↑ The reconciliation agreement with Namibia initialed ( memento of May 17, 2021 in the Internet Archive ). In: Deutschlandfunk . May 15, 2021.
Germany recognizes crimes against Herero and Nama as genocide. In: Deutschlandfunk . May 28, 2021, accessed May 28, 2021 . - ↑ Foreign Minister Maas on the conclusion of the negotiations with Namibia. Federal Foreign Office, press release, May 28, 2021.
- ↑ Germany officially recognized colonial-era Namibia genocide. BBC, May 28, 2021.
- ↑ Germany acknowledges 1904-08 massacres as genocide. The Namibian May 28, 2021.
- ↑ a b Herero and Nama: Germany recognizes colonial crimes in Africa as genocide. In: Der Spiegel. Retrieved May 28, 2021 .
- ↑ Notice of Removal of Equestrian Statue Monument as National Monument from National Heritage Register. National Heritage Council of Namibia, July 31, 2014, No. 274.