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Section I

[1] Harring, S. L. (2005). Herero. In D. L. Shelton (Ed.), Encyclopedia of genocide and crimes against humanity (Vol. 1, pp. 436–438). Macmillan Reference USA. “The Herero were traditional occupants of the temperate high plains of central Namibia. A Bantu people, they had moved south into this region from Angola, arriving about 1750. A series of nineteenth-century wars with the Nama, to the south, destabilized the entire region. Herero chiefs were autonomous, presiding over a decentralized tribal government, with extended families and their cattle herds spread over hundreds of miles. Germany first arrived in Africa in 1884, using the dubious private land claims of a businessman, Adolf Luderitz, as the legal basis for establishing a protectorate over a vast desert hinterland, making South West Africa its first African colony. The first German treaties did not concern the Herero because they lived well-inland from the Atlantic Ocean. Chief Kamaherero negotiated a worthless agreement of protection with the British, who were unwilling to live up to its terms. Germans were everywhere in his country. It is, however, also clear that the Herero did negotiate Schutzvertrags (treaties of protection) in Okahandja and Omaruru in October 1885.” (p. 436)

[2] Hull, Isabel V. (2005). Absolute Destruction: Military Culture and the Practices of War in Imperial Germany. Cornell University Press. “The Herero were seminomadic cattle herders recently organized into chieftaincies. The white settlers coveted their cattle, their potential labor, and their grazing land, which the settlers regarded as “property,” but the Herero interpreted as common land with usufruct rights. The Herero recognized that their power was slipping. A recent cattle plague had diminished their herds; settlers fenced off land, and they and the colonial police and judicial administration treated the Herero with demeaning brutality. These were the main reasons the Herero united in rebellion, apparently after another incident of provocation by a junior military officer.” (p. 8)

[3] Schaller, D. J. (2013). The genocide of the Herero and Nama in German South-West Africa, 1904–1907. In S. Totten & W. S. Parsons (Eds.), Centuries of genocide: Essays and eyewitness accounts (4th ed., pp. 89–114). Routledge. “In the second half of the 19th century, the Herero managed to overthrow the hegemony of the Orlam and became the leading power in Central Namibia. This event caused a remarkable socioeconomic and political change among the Herero: Although the Herero were originally pastoralists, they depended almost solely on huntergathering and horticulture in the first half of the 19th century. But while the Herero fought successful trade wars and secured their position of power in Namibia, they established huge cattle herds and soon came to be known as the outstanding cattle-breeders in SouthWest Africa ” (p. 92-93)

[4] Gewald, J.-B. (2005). Namibia (German South West Africa and South West Africa). In D. L. Shelton (Ed.), Encyclopedia of genocide and crimes against humanity (Vol. 1, pp. 721–725). Macmillan Reference USA. “Prior to the establishment of German South West Africa in 1884, a number of African states and peoples, including the Herero and Ovambo, had established themselves within the territory that would eventually become the Republic of Namibia in 1990. By the early 1840s Oorlam raiders, who had originated on the Cape’s colonial frontier in what is presently South Africa, governed a string of small but highly centralized multiethnic polities in southern and central Namibia. In so doing, they conquered and incorporated the Khoisan-speaking Nama communities that had existed there before. In the late 1860s, as Oorlam hegemony in central and southern Namibia crumbled, disenfranchised Basters (the term used to refer to the descendents of Africans and Europeans) from the Cape Colony trekked into central Namibia and established an independent Trekker republic centered in Rehoboth on the southern fringes of Hereroland. Alarmed by the establishment of this republic, Herero chieftains appealed for the establishment of a British protectorate over central Namibia. In 1876, anxious not to incur any excessive costs, Britain declared a protectorate over the immediate environs of Walvis Bay. The late 1870s and early 1880s saw the reemergence of Nama polities in southern and eastern central Namibia. In southern Namibia, Hendrik Witbooi, the son of the chieftain of Gibeon, claimed to have received a vision from God, which instructed him to trek north with his followers to a promised land. As Witbooi trekked north, he and his followers were ambushed and driven off by Herero. As a result of this attack, Witbooi unleashed an unrelenting guerrilla war on the Herero. At the same time a German entrepreneur, Adolf Luderitz, sought to acquire land rights along the Namibian coast. In early 1884 the imperial German government granted protectorate status to lands acquired by Luderitz by means which it knew to be fraudulent. Shortly thereafter Germany annexed the Namibian coast, with the exception of Walvis Bay, from the Orange River in the south to the Cunene in the north. To fulfill the conditions agreed to at the Berlin conference in 1884, German officials were sent to central Namibia in 1885 to sign protection treaties with Namibian leaders. In the immediate aftermath of an attack by Witbooi forces, Maharero Tjamuaha, the most powerful of the Herero chiefs, agreed to sign a protection treaty with the Germans. Although the treaty proved to be ineffective in terms of protection, and the Herero annulled it and expelled the German officials from their territory in 1888, it proved to be the basis for further German involvement in Namibia.” (p. 721)

[5] Schaller, D. J. (2013). The genocide of the Herero and Nama in German South-West Africa, 1904–1907. In S. Totten & W. S. Parsons (Eds.), Centuries of genocide: Essays and eyewitness accounts (4th ed., pp. 89–114). Routledge. “The economy of the Nama peoples in Southern and Central Namibia relied likewise on cattle, but mainly on trade with farmers from the Cape Colony. Northern Namibia—inhabited by the Ovambo—remained for the most part untouched by the European colonizers. The Ovambo lived in centralized and highly stratified kingdoms that depended economically on agriculture, fishery, and trade with other Ovambo groups in Portuguese Angola (Siiskonen, 1990). At the turn of the century (from the 19th to the 20th), about 80,000 Herero, 20,000 Nama, and up to 450,000 Ovambo lived in SouthWest Africa. Even before the advent of the German colonizers, Namibia had not been an isolated corner of the world: The region had been connected economically and politically to the emerging frontier society of the Cape Colony. Therefore, the Herero and Nama had been in touch with European goods and ideas. The Nama chiefs used modern rifles and wore Western clothes. Missionaries were the most important intermediaries of European culture. Nama chiefs like Hendrik Witbooi converted and lived according to Christian values. Both Herero and Nama practiced intensive animal husbandry and managed to build up impressive herds and accumulate wealth. In a nutshell: The African societies of SouthWest Africa were rather strong and independent and, therefore, not at all ready to give up their self-sustaining economies.” (p. 93)

[6] Walsh, A. C. (2018, October 22). The forgotten genocide: Herero and Nama, 1904, part one. Stop Genocide Now. https://stopgenocidenow.org/2018/10/22/forgotten-genocide-herero-nama-1904-part-1. “Racial science was also used to justify genocidal practices. Skulls of dead prisoners were sent back to German labs for experimentation, used to supposedly “prove” racist ideology of what they perceived as “African inferiority.””

[7] Hull, Isabel V. (2005). Absolute Destruction: Military Culture and the Practices of War in Imperial Germany. Cornell University Press. “From 1894 to 1897 he served in German East Africa as a lieutenant colonel and, briefly, as deputy governor. Years later, Trotha claimed that he had learned the inevitability of “racial war” in East Africa. Yet, his career there was not unlike that of other commanders of the countless punitive expeditions sent out to quell rebellions. Trotha’s troops pursued Sultan Hassan bin Omar (in late 1895) and then engaged in a long expedition into the ill-explored interior of the colony, provoking various battles along the way, ending in the surrender of the Waha’s Sultan Mtau in early 1897.84 Trotha described his methods: The punishment [of villages that had greeted the expedition with poisoned arrows] consisted of sending small units . . . to the villages, which after a short fight are then taken and burnt down. We cannot determine enemy losses, because most [of the dead and wounded] will have been taken with the people as they retreat, and many will probably have died in the flames. This method of conducting war, through burning, was hardly congenial to me at the beginning. But then and now I cannot help but conclude from later conflicts that any kindness in this regard is interpreted by the natives as weakness.” (p. 25-26)

[8] Hull, Isabel V. (2005). Absolute Destruction: Military Culture and the Practices of War in Imperial Germany. Cornell University Press. “Witnesses, whose testimony we will examine momentarily, describe the wholesale shooting of civilians and captured Herero immediately after the battle of Waterberg. We must again ask whether Trotha ordered this. One witness says he did. During the First World War, Trotha’s former African groom in SWA, Manuel Timbu, told British authorities that “when leaving Okahandja [on 9 July 1904], General von Trotha issued orders to his troops that no quarter was to be given to the enemy. No prisoners were to be taken, but all, regardless of age or sex, were to be killed. General v. Trotha said, ‘We must exterminate them, so that we won’t be bothered with rebellions in the future.’”” (p. 46)

[9] Gewald, J.-B. (2005). Namibia (German South West Africa and South West Africa). In D. L. Shelton (Ed.), Encyclopedia of genocide and crimes against humanity (Vol. 1, pp. 721–725). Macmillan Reference USA. “In 1889 German troops landed at Walvis Bay and seized control of the trade routes leading from the coast into the interior. Thus cut off from arms and under continual attack from Witbooi’s forces, the majority of Herero withdrew from central Namibia. In 1890 Tjamuaha died. In the ensuing succession dispute his son, Samuel Maharero, was able to mobilize German support against his Herero rivals, as well as the forces of Witbooi. In 1894 the future German governor, Theodor Leutwein, arrived in the territory. Through a mixed policy of divide and rule, and cooperation with a number of local chiefs at the expense of others, Leutwein was able to expand German control over the territory to the south of the Etosha pan. The rinderpest epidemic and ensuing drought and famine of 1897 and 1898 shattered the pastoral and pastro-forager economies of the indigenous communities of Namibia. Chiefs, who in the past had already sold large tracts of land to European settlers, were forced to sell more of their land and supply a greater number of their subjects as laborers to the new colonial economy.” (p. 721-722)

[10] Gewald, J.-B. (2005). Namibia (German South West Africa and South West Africa). In D. L. Shelton (Ed.), Encyclopedia of genocide and crimes against humanity (Vol. 1, pp. 721–725). Macmillan Reference USA. “In early 1904, following a series of misunderstandings, war broke out. Under the command of General Lothar von Trotha, the German army waged a genocidal war against the Herero. An estimated 80 percent of the Herero died as they were summarily hung or shot, driven to die of thirst in the Omaheke region of the Kalahari desert, or incarcerated in concentration camps. At the same time that a Vernichtungsbefehl (extermination order) against the Herero was issued in October 1904, the Nama chieftains in southern Namibia, under the command of Witbooi, waged war against the Germans. Nama survivors were also driven into concentration camps, deported to Togo and Cameroon, and forced to work as laborers under harsh conditions. An estimated 75 percent of the Nama were killed, and though some Nama leaders continued a guerilla war until 1908, the Nama, too, were defeated. After the war all Nama and Herero above the age of eight had to wear numbered metal tags, were prohibited from owning cattle or land, and were constrained within a web of inhumane labor laws.” (p. 723)

[11] Sarkin, Jeremy (2011). Germany's Genocide of the Herero: Kaiser Wilhelm II, His General, His Settlers, His Soldiers. Melton: James Currey. ISBN 9781847010322. “The colonial authorities employed many methods to acquire land and control in GSWA. Broadly, there were three processes, categorised by time period: between 1884 and 1894 protection treaties and purchases were used; from 1894 to 1904 increasing military and bureaucratic control were employed; and from 1905 to 1915 resistance was obliterated and land was forcibly taken.!? Sometimes, devious means were used t o get landowners to part with more land than they intended. In 1883, land was bought from a local chief, he calculated the area for the sale in miles, assuming the dimensions were measured using the English mile or 1.5 kilometres. Afterwards, the Germans insisted they had agreed to the German mile, which measures 7.4 kilometres.' Another allegation concerns huge amounts of land obtained from Samuel Maherero in the early 1890s in exchange for a salary. The Germans knew the land he traded was not under his control, but under the control of other chiefs whom they did not consult."? Alcohol was often used t o induce sales of land. In fact, there are allegations that Maherero was plied with alcohol before signing land sale documents.” (67-68)

[12] Sarkin, Jeremy (2011). Germany's Genocide of the Herero: Kaiser Wilhelm II, His General, His Settlers, His Soldiers. Melton: James Currey. ISBN 9781847010322. “Strategies to obtain land for settlement and livestock From the 1890s onward, discussions brewed in Germany on how to transfer the land in GSWA to the settlers. In 1890, Paul Rohrbach, previously referred to apropos the link between the Herero genocide and the Holocaust, emphasised this desire for the land and the philosophy prevalent at the time: ‘The decision to colonise in South-West Africa could after all mean nothing else but this, namely, that the native tribes would have to give up their lands on which they  had previously grazed their stock in order that the white man might have the land for the grasing of stock.... By no arguments whatsoever can it be shown that the preservation of any degree of national independence, national property and political organisation by the races of South-west Africa, would be of greater or of an equal advantage for the development of mankind in general or of the German people in particular, than the making of such races serviceable in the enjoyment of their former possessions by the white race.’ Rohrbach's views were neither isolated nor extreme. In fact, he was held in such high regard that he was appointed a member of the commission established to determine compensation for those whites who had suffered damage during the war. Formal policy reflected this desire to get the land.” (p. 66-67)

[13] Sarkin, Jeremy (2011). Germany's Genocide of the Herero: Kaiser Wilhelm II, His General, His Settlers, His Soldiers. Melton: James Currey. ISBN 9781847010322. “On dispatching soldiers to the Boxer Rebellion" at the end of July 1900, Wilhelm told his troops in an impassioned speech: You must know, my men, that you are about to meet a crafty well-armed foe! Meet him and beat him. Give no quarter! Take no prisoners! Kill him when he falls into your hands! Clearly the Kaiser's words implied that no survivors should be left after an attack. Although it had long been held that any order of no quarter' was inhumane and unacceptable, for it was not a permissible method of warfare,"  the Kaiser gave this command. Regarding the specific order to exterminate the Herero, proposals contained in a secret report to the Kaiser about what to do with the Herero were implemented almost exactly. At the very least, this suggests that the General and the Kaiser discussed the report and its contents; otherwise the recommendations could not have been taken up. The language used b y General von Trotha and others in reports clearly shows that Von Trotha had met the Kaiser. It is also clear that Von Trotha regularly gave and received communications from the Kaiser, which either directly ordered the extermination or, at the minimum, gave the General very wide latitude, including the use of illegal means to achieve Germany's goals.” (p. 17-18)

[14] Zimmerer, Jürgen (2005). "Annihilation in Africa: The "Race War" in German Southwest Africa (1904–1908) and its Significance for a Global History of Genocide". Bulletin of the  German Historical Institute (37): 51–57. ISSN 1048-9134. “Beneath a veneer of indirect rule, the country did not noticeably change, but the increasing numbers of white settlers—and this was a German policy in Southwest Africa, which was imagined as a settler colony—steadily exacerbated conflicts between newcomers and the African population. The fact that the settlers exhibited a pronounced “master race” attitude and often deceived their African trading partners did not contribute much to peaceful coexistence. But above all it was an increasing incidence of rape by white settlers—it was almost exclusively single young men who came to the colonies—that embittered the Africans and undermined the Herero’s social and political structure because traditional leaders were unable to protect their people.” (p. 51-52)

[15] Zimmerer, Jürgen (2005). "Annihilation in Africa: The "Race War" in German Southwest Africa (1904–1908) and its Significance for a Global History of Genocide". Bulletin of the  German Historical Institute (37): 51–57. ISSN 1048-9134. “If one is searching for the point at which the decisive step toward genocide was taken, then the appointment of von Trotha must be considered it. When von Trotha first landed on South-West African soil, he perhaps did not know exactly how he would conduct the war tactically, but he certainly knew how it would end: with the destruction of the Herero.” (p. 52)

[16] Walsh, A. C. (2018, October 22). The forgotten genocide: Herero and Nama, 1904, part one. Stop Genocide Now. https://stopgenocidenow.org/2018/10/22/forgotten-genocide-herero-nama-1904-part-1. “A statement by the German military read: “The punishment has come to an end. The Herero had ceased to be an independent tribe.” The 17,000 Herero still alive in the aftermath were rounded up and subjected to forced labor by German forces.”

[17] Schaller, D. J. (2013). The genocide of the Herero and Nama in German South-West Africa, 1904–1907. In S. Totten & W. S. Parsons (Eds.), Centuries of genocide: Essays and eyewitness accounts (4th ed., pp. 89–114). Routledge. “Leutwein’s strategy of divide et impera worked very well and resulted in the Germans becoming more and more powerful in Namibia.” (p. 94)

[18] Sarkin, Jeremy (2011). Germany's Genocide of the Herero: Kaiser Wilhelm II, His General, His Settlers, His Soldiers. Melton: James Currey. ISBN 9781847010322. “The genocide was also committed 'as a reprisal for having the gall to rebel against Herrenolk colonial rule 323 Bridgman notes in this regard that the 'various victories by the Hereros in the months of March and April, glorious as they were at the time, sealed the fate of the tribe for they convinced the military authorities in Berlin that nothing short of total annihilation would be acceptable'.” (p. 96)

[19] Hull, Isabel (2005). "The Military Campaign in German Southwest Africa, 1904–1907". Bulletin of the German Historical Institute(37): 39–49. ISSN 1048-9134. “The military campaign in Southwest Africa in 1904–1907 was the largest and in every respect the costliest undertaken by Imperial Germany before World War I. It began in response to a revolt by the Herero people begun on January 14, 1904. Angered by the taking of their land, the death of their cattle in a series of epidemics, and their treatment at the hands of settlers and colonial officials, the united clans of the Herero rose up to overthrow German rule” (p. 39)

[20] Hull, Isabel (2005). "The Military Campaign in German Southwest Africa, 1904–1907". Bulletin of the German Historical Institute(37): 39–49. ISSN 1048-9134. “The war had four phases. In the first, Governor Colonel Theodor Leutwein led the colonial troops (Schutztruppe) and marine reinforcements in a fairly standard colonial campaign that drove the Herero back from towns and the unfinished but strategic railroad. In April 1904 at Oviumbo, Leutwein succeeded in pushing the Herero out of the colony’s center toward the Waterberg at the edge of the Omaheke desert.” (p. 39)

[21] Hull, Isabel (2005). "The Military Campaign in German Southwest Africa, 1904–1907". Bulletin of the German Historical Institute(37): 39–49. ISSN 1048-9134. “Trotha arrived in June and set about phase two, the attempt to surround the Herero at the Waterberg and defeat them all in a single battle. Trotha poured the ill-trained German reinforcements into the trackless desert, and attacked on August 11. The Herero warriors and the entire Herero people, who were with them, broke through to the southeast, following the dried riverbeds farther into the desert. Trotha ordered the few mobile units he had to pursue the fleeing people, hoping they would turn and give him the opportunity to defeat them in another battle. Instead, harassed and shot at, they struggled farther and farther into the desert, where most of them died of thirst.” (p. 40)

[22] Hull, Isabel (2005). "The Military Campaign in German Southwest Africa, 1904–1907". Bulletin of the German Historical Institute(37): 39–49. ISSN 1048-9134. “In December 1904 a third phase of the war was inaugurated after pressure from the civilian government in Berlin: the internment of Herero who gave themselves up. Collected at first by missionaries, Herero prisoners (men, women, and children) were shipped to prison camps run by the military. Some were then sent on to forced labor camps run by private companies or farmers. A military report in 1908 estimated that 45 percent of Herero prisoners in military custody died there. A fourth phase of the war began after October 1904, this time against the Nama, when they, too, rose in revolt. They conducted a skillful guerilla war that made a pitched battle like Waterberg impossible. But their subsequent internment produced death rates even higher than those of the Herero.” (p. 40)

[23] Hull, Isabel (2005). "The Military Campaign in German Southwest Africa, 1904–1907". Bulletin of the German Historical Institute(37): 39–49. ISSN 1048-9134. “One of the abiding puzzles of the war, however, was that the putative“order” for genocide, Trotha’s proclamation to the Herero of October 2, 1904 came after most of them had already died…I was surprised to discover instead a typical European war in which genocide developed out of standard military practices and assumptions.” (p. 41)

[24] Hull, Isabel (2005). "The Military Campaign in German Southwest Africa, 1904–1907". Bulletin of the German Historical Institute(37): 39–49. ISSN 1048-9134. “That blanket order, together with poor logistics, lack of training, and frustration at lack of success against“mere” Africans, led to a massacre of African stragglers at Waterberg. In an effort to regain discipline, Trotha issued several orders forbidding the killing of women and children, but his ruthless leadership surely encouraged the breaking of taboos. Nevertheless, most Herero died of thirst, not shooting, and it was the act of pursuit itself more than its manner that led to mass death. Trotha’s racism was most evident in his willingness to announce the“disappear[ance]” or deaths of the Herero, ex post facto, as the necessary goal of operations. And later it reinforced his punitive and degrading treatment of the Herero prisoners forced on him by Chancellor Bernhard von Bülow, who wrenched repudiation of the October Proclamation from the Kaiser in December 1904.” (p. 42)

[25] Hull, Isabel V. (2005). Absolute Destruction: Military Culture and the Practices of War in Imperial Germany. Cornell University Press. “German rule was only partly established, in any event. Acquired in April 1884 not as a colony but as a protectorate, German Southwest Africa (now known as Namibia) was 580,000 square kilometers of arid, thornbush-studded landscape. Few colonists were at-tracted to it, and their numbers were dwarfed by two hundred thousand Africans of roughly three main groups: the Ovambo and Herero, who made up about 80 percent of the indigenous population; and the less populous Nama (whom the Germans called “Hottentots” in imitation of their clicking language). The best land was owned by the German Colonial Society of Southwest Africa, which refused to sell to settlers. The colony made no profit. German administration rested on a series of “protective treaties” concluded in the 1890s between Governor Leutwein and the various indigenous peoples. Isolated military stations maintained a German presence in the middle (Hereroland) and the south (Namaland), but not in the north (Ovamboland), where the Germans had barely penetrated. Neither the government nor the private sector was willing to invest much in the unpromising territory. Germans called SWA the “problem child” of its colonies, and now it was in revolt. (p. 8)

[26] Hull, Isabel V. (2005). Absolute Destruction: Military Culture and the Practices of War in Imperial Germany. Cornell University Press. “The prospects for a humane war were not improved by persistent reports of alleged Herero atrocities. Colonial Director Stübel had mentioned these when he first presented the government’s case to the Reichstag. Two weeks later, Captain Gudewill, the commander in charge until Governor Leutwein’s return, telegraphed the “confirmed losses— murdered and mostly mutilated: 44 settlers, women and children; 26 [soldiers] fallen; 50 others dead.” These figures were wrong. The Herero people’s paramount chief, Samuel Maherero, had ordered that only German males be killed. German women and children were gathered up and gradually released to white outposts. German missionaries and all non-Germans, male and female, were also spared. Conrad Rust, no friend of the Herero people, tallied the dead of the first weeks of the revolt at 158, of whom five were women and none children. However, these facts became available to the German newspaper reading public only at the end of March 1904. It is typical of the wartime atmosphere that the military memoir (1906) that reprinted Samuel Maherero’s order simultaneously reveled in stories of alleged Herero cruelty, so that most readers would have discounted the order’s authenticity. Long after everyone knew better, many memoirs—and even the official General Staff account of the campaign—continued to insist that women and children, or simply that “all Germans,” had been brutally murdered. So widespread was this” (p. 10-11)

[27] Hull, Isabel V. (2005). Absolute Destruction: Military Culture and the Practices of War in Imperial Germany. Cornell University Press. “The court-martial of rebel leaders and those guilty of major crimes was a standard feature in the suppression of colonial uprisings. However, the addition of robbery and vandalism meant that a very large percentage of Herero men (and possibly women) would now be subject to summary proceedings. The demand for punishment reflected widespread public opinion in the colony and in Germany. The Berliner Zeitung was typical: “We must make a repeat of this uprising impossible under all circumstances by sharp and ruthless punishment.” Captain Gudewill used the same language: “The utmost punishment of the enemy is necessary as atonement for the countless brutal murders and as guarantee for a peaceful future.” “Exemplary punishment” remained a nonnegotiable, fixed foundation of government policy throughout the war. In his early struggle with the Colonial Department in February over the right to pursue negotiations, Leutwein declared that courts-martial would always follow capitulation. This remained his position. As Leutwein handed over the military reins to his successor, Lt. Gen. Lothar von Trotha, in June 1904, he gave him a proposed proclamation for the surrender of the Herero, which promised that Germany would spare the lives of the innocent, “but those who have killed or robbed whites, or destroyed their property or possessions will receive no mercy; they must appear before a court and be punished for their guilt.” Chancellor Bülow also clung to “exemplary punishment” as imperative to the negotiations he tried (unsuccessfully) to persuade Trotha to conduct in late October 1904. In short, punishment was what moderates demanded. As Adolf Stoecker (Christian Social Party) argued before the Reichstag in December 1904, in a speech opposing Trotha’s later policy of annihilation: “One accomplishes nothing through mere harshness. I believe severe punishment [strenge Bestrafung] is necessary, but when that is accomplished, then the only proper thing is to show the natives, especially the prisoners of war, kindness, so that they will want to become German subjects.”” (p. 18)

[28] Hull, Isabel V. (2005). Absolute Destruction: Military Culture and the Practices of War in Imperial Germany. Cornell University Press. “The naval troops lacked every quality necessary to the colonial soldier. They were indifferent marksmen, unpracticed marchers, and, worst of all, unmounted. These factors and their inexperience combined to produce the greatest disaster of the war, at Owikokorero on 13 March 1904, where seven out of eleven officers and nineteen out of thirty-eight men died. Compounding the problems the Germans encountered when fighting were the even worse burdens of supply and sanitation. The more reinforcements there were the greater their needs in food, water (which of all things was in shortest supply), ammunition, and medical service. Apart from the frail railroad, SWA lacked infrastructure; the Germans had to provide everything themselves. Here they failed utterly. The survivors of Owikokorero and their other mates in the so-called eastern units swiftly fell prey to typhus, which was brought on by undernourishment and contaminated water and aggravated by nonexistent medical care. By mid-April, Leutwein’s troops had been reduced by a third.” (p. 21-22)

[29] Hull, Isabel V. (2005). Absolute Destruction: Military Culture and the Practices of War in Imperial Germany. Cornell University Press. “The official history of the campaign, written by the historical section of the General Staff, subsequently took pains to deny that Trotha had ever intended to encircle the Herero and force them to surrender à la Sedan.” Deimling and staff officer Schwabe loyally tried to uphold this line, but neither they nor the official history could manage to dissemble consistently. Everyone knew that Waterberg was supposed to be a textbook concentric battle ending in complete victory. Trotha wrote later to Schlieffen, “The operations plan I made originally and held fast to was to surround the majority of Herero at the Waterberg and to destroy them with a simultaneous blow, then to build stations to search out and disarm the ones who escaped, and using bounties on the heads of the captains to bring them into my control and punish them with death.” The shock was all the greater because of Trotha’s overconfidence. The commander had telegraphed to the General Staff at the end of July that “I believe I will have a complete success.” He had ordered a huge detention area erected of thorn branches and barbed wire in Okahandja—large enough to imprison eight thousand men, the highest German estimate of the warrior strength of the Herero at the battle of Waterberg. Franke reported Trotha had even ordered one thousand chains from Berlin, for the Herero prisoners he expected to take. For his part, Governor Leutwein had invited the missionaries to meet with Commissioner Rohrbach on 9 and 10 August to decide how to feed, house, and then distribute the prisoners. Private companies had even begun to place bids for prisoner-workers. Instead, after months of expensive and difficult preparations, the Herero had vanished and the war was not over” (p. 42-43)

[30] Hull, Isabel V. (2005). Absolute Destruction: Military Culture and the Practices of War in Imperial Germany. Cornell University Press. “It remains, then, to consider the plan of attack at the Waterberg. It was supposed to be the decisive battle that would end the war, by forcing a negotiated surrender (according to Leutwein) or by “destroying” the enemy militarily (according to Trotha).” (p. 33)

[31] Hull, Isabel V. (2005). Absolute Destruction: Military Culture and the Practices of War in Imperial Germany. Cornell University Press. “Herero clans began indicating from August onward that they were prepared to surrender. Trotha later maintained that he never learned, either from the missionaries or indirectly from the Herero, that a surrender might be possible. Trotha’s denial is probably disingenuous, for even in November when he learned definitely that some Herero leaders wished to capitulate, he refused to treat with them. He later (1909) explained why. If Heyde’s unit had been in the right place, the Herero would not have broken through. If this had been the case, then the possibility of negotiation would have existed, and a regular court would have brought the murderers and ringleaders to the gallows; the weapons and cows would have gone to the government, and the rest of the tribes would have returned to the sunshine of the All-Highest [i.e., His Majesty’s] mercy. As the situation was, however, there could be no question of negotiations on the 12th and 13th [of August], if one did not want to testify to one’s own weakness and embarrassment [Ohnmacht und Verlegenheit]. This would have been immediately clear to the enemy and would have meant a renewal of the war as soon as the band had recovered from the first shock.” To Trotha, then, anything less than a total military victory was evidence of weakness, which, if not rectified, encouraged aggression on the part of one’s enemies, and thus endangered security. (p. 44-45)

[32] Hull, Isabel V. (2005). Absolute Destruction: Military Culture and the Practices of War in Imperial Germany. Cornell University Press. “Let us consider the evidence for the conduct of the troops directly after Waterberg. Despite the preparations for great numbers of prisoners, none in fact were taken at the battle. The unexpected escape of the Herero is the main reason, but indiscriminate shooting massacred stragglers who ought to have become prisoners. Capt. Viktor Franke, who fought with Deimling’s unit at Waterberg, has left us the most candid account, recorded immediately in his diary. He ridiculed the overwrought atmosphere among the German soldiers. “We come across a strong Herero clan [on 12 August] with several hundred cattle, we deploy against it and—shoot a woman dead.” Later that day he noted with disgust: “In the camp Herero woman and child are shot dead; the former requires two shots, the latter one. Vile group.”18 The camp in question was Trotha’s, whose diary entry for that date says he ordered an old Herero woman hanged; he does not mention a child.” (p. 47)

[33] Hull, Isabel V. (2005). Absolute Destruction: Military Culture and the Practices of War in Imperial Germany. Cornell University Press. “Three witnesses described systematic practices (as opposed to isolated atrocities) that occurred directly after the battle of Waterberg. Manuel Timbu, General v. Trotha’s groom, “saw the bleeding bodies of hundreds of men, women and children, old and young, lying along the roads as we passed. . . . I know of no instance in which prisoners were spared.” Another witness was Jan Cloete, a “Bastard” (which in the parlance of SWA meant a member of a recognized and loyal group of Africans of “mixed blood”) from Omaruru who served under Captain Richard in the 4th Field Company (Deimling) at Waterberg. “After the battle, all men, women and children, wounded and unwounded, who fell into the hands of the Germans were killed without mercy. The Germans then pursued the others, and all stragglers on the roadside and in the veld were shot down and bayoneted. The great majority of the Herero men were unarmed and could make no fight.” A third witness, Jan Kubas from Grootfontein, also reported that at Waterberg and immediately afterward “the Germans took no prisoners. They killed thousands and thousands of women and children along the roadsides. . . . I saw this every day; I was with them….Finally, confirmation of the massacres comes from General v. Trotha himself. His chief of staff, Lieutenant Colonel de Beaulieu, reported to the General Staff that directly after Waterberg “the general had forbidden killing women and children, but all armed men who were captured had seen their last hour.” Because killing women and children was one of the strongest taboos operating in modern armies, an order explicitly forbidding it would only be necessary if the taboo had already been massively broken. Trotha’s order therefore attempted to reestablish control—Franke would have said “discipline”— among the troops.”” (p. 49)

[34] Hull, Isabel V. (2005). Absolute Destruction: Military Culture and the Practices of War in Imperial Germany. Cornell University Press. “On 2 October Trotha ordered the prisoners to assemble. The men were hanged. To the women he gave Herero translations of his proclamation, and then they were sent back into the desert. The proclamation read: “I, the great general of the German soldiers, send this letter to the Herero people. Herero are no longer German subjects. They have murdered, stolen, cut off the ears and noses and other body parts from wounded soldiers, and now out of cowardice refuse to fight. I say to the people: anyone delivering a captain to one of my stations as a prisoner will receive one thousand marks; whoever brings in Samuel Maherero will receive five thousand marks. The Herero people must leave this land. If they do not, I will force them to do so by using the great gun [artillery]. Within the German border every male Herero, armed or unarmed, with or without cattle, will be shot to death. I will no longer receive women or children but will drive them back to their people or have them shot at. These are my words to the Herero people.”” (p. 56)

[35] Hull, Isabel V. (2005). Absolute Destruction: Military Culture and the Practices of War in Imperial Germany. Cornell University Press. “The goal of the war is the disappearance of all Herero. This can occur in two ways: by fleeing to British territory, or by dying. All adult men will be killed (this simply ratified ex post facto what was occurring anyway). Women and children will be driven by force back into the desert (where most, having surrendered out of physical desperation anyway, would presumably die of thirst or starvation). In the explanation to German troops, Trotha decreed that his proclamation was indeed an order and that soldiers could collect bounty, but he worried that this manner of warfare could undermine discipline. So he warned that women and children must not be killed directly but simply driven away.” (p. 57)

[36] Hull, Isabel V. (2005). Absolute Destruction: Military Culture and the Practices of War in Imperial Germany. Cornell University Press. “...Trotha explains that he has elevated the ‘tactic’ of destruction to an operative level and adopted this (the destruction of the nation, rather than of its military force) as the goal of the war. Therefore, negotiations are out of the question. Instead, the solution to the war must be military, violent, physical, and total. Even the “complete submission” of the Herero is no longer acceptable to him. They must disappear…Finally, Trotha makes clear that he has received no orders to exterminate. He has arrived at this conclusion on his own, through the force of events, and now seeks All-Highest recognition of the logical necessity of his actions.” (p. 59-60)

[37] Hull, Isabel V. (2005). Absolute Destruction: Military Culture and the Practices of War in Imperial Germany. Cornell University Press. “Imprisonment had two phases: one under Trotha, which coincided with ongoing military sweeps, and another under Governor Lindequist (after December 1905), which until September 1906 operated under almost a truce. But in both phases the mortality rate among prisoners (men, women, and children) was extraordinarily high, raising the question whether annihilation had not merely reappeared under a different mask. And death by imprisonment hit Herero and Nama equally, despite the radical differences in the methods of warfare against each.” (p. 70)

[38] Hull, Isabel V. (2005). Absolute Destruction: Military Culture and the Practices of War in Imperial Germany. Cornell University Press. “By the beginning of April, 4,033 prisoners were alive in German hands, only 25 percent of them adult males; by the beginning of December 1905, when Lindequist’s new system replaced Trotha’s, there were 13,216 prisoners.17 But many more than this must have surrendered or been captured, for the death rates among prisoners were very high. What happened to Herero and Nama prisoners? They arrived, many of them starved and ill from their desert experience, at the collection camps listed in Trotha’s order.18 Occasionally, contemporaries, including the chancellor, referred to these as “concentration camps.”” (p. 73)

[39] Hull, Isabel V. (2005). Absolute Destruction: Military Culture and the Practices of War in Imperial Germany. Cornell University Press. “From the collection camps, prisoners were very quickly shipped by train or wagon to other camps: to labor camps along the Otavi railroad, to prison camps in Windhuk, Swakopmund, and Lüderitzbucht, and sometimes from there still further to private companies or farms, which often ran camps of their own. The ostensible reason was the labor shortage that had held SWA in its grip since even before the uprisings. Imprisoned Herero, working without pay, were supposed to fill this gap. The military had first call on prisoner labor. By the end of March 1905, it had filled its needs and had begun to redirect prisoner labor into the private sector. ” (p. 74)

[40] Hull, Isabel V. (2005). Absolute Destruction: Military Culture and the Practices of War in Imperial Germany. Cornell University Press. “Deportation was the fate of a unit of ninety or so Witbooi soldiers who had fought with the Schutztruppe but were disarmed and interned when news of the Witbooi uprising reached the troops in early October 1904. It appears to have been Governor Leutwein, not Trotha, who suggested deportation: “The natives would understand it better if we shot the 80 [sic] Witboois, than if we fed them at state’s expense. Using them as workers is out of the question because of danger of escape.” There was widespread agreement that deportation was the best way to maintain security. Thereupon, the Witboois, whose numbers had swelled to 118,45 were sent to another German colony, Togo.” (p.79 )

[41] Zimmerer, Jürgen (2005). "Annihilation in Africa: The "Race War" in German Southwest Africa (1904–1908) and its Significance for a Global History of Genocide". Bulletin of the German Historical Institute (37): 51–57. ISSN 1048-9134. “It was characteristic of the war in German Southwest Africa that the German commander Lothar von Trotha understood it as a“race war,” part of a world-historical struggle between “whites” and“blacks” that would end with the complete destruction of the latter. With that sort of ideological zeal, von Trotha arrived in the summer of 1904 to take over from Theodor Leutwein, who was considered too mild. Under von Trotha, a limited war became a war of annihilation and genocide. ” (p. 52)

[42] Sarkin, Jeremy (2011). Germany's Genocide of the Herero: Kaiser Wilhelm II, His General, His Settlers, His Soldiers. Melton: James Currey. ISBN 9781847010322. “The genocide was firstly meant to punish the Herero for impudently rebelling against German colonial rule and for supposedly killing Germans during the uprising at the beginning of 1904. This rebellion, and the inability to deal with it quickly and effectively, dented German prestige at home and abroad. The order for genocide was not only meant to deter any Herero survivors from further insurrection, but also to send a message to all the communities in GSWA and other colonies that rebellion in any form would not be tolerated. Secondly, the genocide was a means to gain occupancy of Herero land and possession of their livestock. For a long time, Germany had desired more land in its favourite colony, as it wanted to expand the settlement of Germans in GSWA. Much was invested there and various measures were taken to persuade German settlers to go there. The intent was to create a new Germany in Africa, which would add prestige and honour to the Fatherland. GSWA was viewed as the most attractive of Germany's colonies, as it was relatively disease-free and there was much arable land and abundant cattle. The climate and living conditions were favourable and compared well with other parts of the Empire. The primary incentive for potential settlers would be the acquisition of farmland.” (p. 7-8)

[43] Sarkin, Jeremy (2011). Germany's Genocide of the Herero: Kaiser Wilhelm II, His General, His Settlers, His Soldiers. Melton: James Currey. ISBN 9781847010322. “A propaganda campaign was launched in Germany at the time justifying what was occurring. This may have been, at least in part, to inspire German volunteers to sign up for the military and travel to GSWA to fight the Herero. Placards were posted i n Berlin and throughout Germany asking for reservists to volunteer t o serve in GSWA at the special colonial rate o f pay." The fact that this occurred i s further recognition that atrocities were being committed.” (p. 13)

[44] Gewald, J.-B. (2005). Namibia (German South West Africa and South West Africa). In D. L. Shelton (Ed.), Encyclopedia of genocide and crimes against humanity (Vol. 1, pp. 721–725). Macmillan Reference USA. “German administrators attempted to establish a single amorphous African working class bereft of, and indeed prohibited from having, an ethnic and cultural identity beyond that deemed acceptable to the colonial state. Lands cleared of African occupants were allocated as ranch lands to German settlers, many of whom had served as soldiers in the Herero and Nama wars. In 1908 diamonds were discovered in southern Namibia, and along with the already established copper and zinc mines in northern Namibia, this led to a blossoming of the Namibian colonial economy. An extreme shortage of labor in the colony due to the wars resulted in the recruitment of a large labor force from the northern territory of Ovamboland. There a rising population, declining hunting and export opportunities, as well as frequent battles with the Portuguese colonial armies in southern Angola, had led to economic hardship and impoverishment.” (p. 723)

[45] Gewald, J.-B. (2005). Namibia (German South West Africa and South West Africa). In D. L. Shelton (Ed.), Encyclopedia of genocide and crimes against humanity (Vol. 1, pp. 721–725). Macmillan Reference USA. “Between 1977 and 1989 the Namibian economy went into decline, and the country’s gross domestic product, an estimated $1 billion, barely covered the annual military expenditure. At the same time the South African economy continued to decline, in part because of international boycotts and sanctions. Social expenditure was equally high; in 1986 an estimated 2,500 white South African soldiers lost their lives—this coupled with continued urban unrest in South Africa served to bring about less and less support for government policies from the white electorate. In 1988 Angolan government forces, supported by Cuban forces and SWAPO guerrillas, were able to turn the tide and inflict a heavy defeat on South African forces at Cuito Cuanavale in southern Angola.” (p. 724)

[46] Schaller, D. J. (2013). The genocide of the Herero and Nama in German South-West Africa, 1904–1907. In S. Totten & W. S. Parsons (Eds.), Centuries of genocide: Essays and eyewitness accounts (4th ed., pp. 89–114). Routledge. “In the second half of the 19th century, the Herero managed to overthrow the hegemony of the Orlam and became the leading power in Central Namibia. This event caused a remarkable socioeconomic and political change among the Herero: Although the Herero were originally pastoralists, they depended almost solely on huntergathering and horticulture in the first half of the 19th century. But while the Herero fought successful trade wars and secured their position of power in Namibia, they established huge cattle herds and soon came to be known as the outstanding cattlebreeders in SouthWest Africa ” (p. 92-93)

[47] Schaller, D. J. (2013). The genocide of the Herero and Nama in German South-West Africa, 1904–1907. In S. Totten & W. S. Parsons (Eds.), Centuries of genocide: Essays and eyewitness accounts (4th ed., pp. 89–114). Routledge. “The economy of the Nama peoples in Southern and Central Namibia relied likewise on cattle, but mainly on trade with farmers from the Cape Colony. Northern Namibia—inhabited by the Ovambo—remained for the most part untouched by the European colonizers. The Ovambo lived in centralized and highly stratified kingdoms that depended economically on agriculture, fishery, and trade with other Ovambo groups in Portuguese Angola (Siiskonen, 1990). At the turn of the century (from the 19th to the 20th), about 80,000 Herero, 20,000 Nama, and up to 450,000 Ovambo lived in SouthWest Africa. Even before the advent of the German colonizers, Namibia had not been an isolated corner of the world: The region had been connected economically and politically to the emerging frontier society of the Cape Colony. Therefore, the Herero and Nama had been in touch with European goods and ideas. The Nama chiefs used modern rifles and wore Western clothes. Missionaries were the most important intermediaries of European culture. Nama chiefs like Hendrik Witbooi converted and lived according to Christian values. Both Herero and Nama practiced intensive animal husbandry and managed to build up impressive herds and accumulate wealth. In a nutshell: The African societies of SouthWest Africa were rather strong and independent and, therefore, not at all ready to give up their self-sustaining economies.” (p. 93)

[48] Schaller, D. J. (2013). The genocide of the Herero and Nama in German South-West Africa, 1904–1907. In S. Totten & W. S. Parsons (Eds.), Centuries of genocide: Essays and eyewitness accounts (4th ed., pp. 89–114). Routledge. “The German conquest of Namibia was rather difficult. Although the Germans welcomed the acquisition of huge territories in Africa, Chancellor Bismarck and his successors were not ready to spend much money for the colonial project. They had hoped that land and concession companies would contribute to the development of colonial infrastructure in the African colonies. However, these hopes were in vain. As a result, colonial authorities did not have many financial or personnel resources at their disposal. They were expected to conquer SouthWest Africa by peaceful and inexpensive means. Nevertheless, hasty colonial officials and soldiers started hostilities against the Herero and Nama and almost lost control over SouthWest Africa more than once.” (p. 93)

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[81] Gewald, J.-B. (1999). Herero heroes: A socio-political history of the Herero of Namibia, 1890–1923. James Currey. “The Ovaherero, the people with whose history this book deals, lived predominantly on the highlands of what is now central Namibia. It is an area characterized by aridity and bounded by deserts; in the east by the Kalahari desert, in the west by the Namib desert, and in the south by these two deserts, where they meet to form the arid reaches of Namaqualand. With an erratic alternating cycle of droughts and rains, and an average rainfall of less than 500 mm, rainfall agriculture was well-nigh impossible on the central Namibian Highlands. Instead the inhabitants of central Namibia were primarily engaged in pastoralism, horticulture and hunter-gathering. Archaecological evidence indicates that by AD 1100 pastoralists, who were probably the Bantu-speaking ancestors of the Herero, had established themselves in the area. These ancestors created a society characterized, as many African pastoralist societies were, by extreme social and political decentralization. During the course of the nineteenth century, as an adaptation to the intrusion of the Cape colonial frontier into the area, a process of political centralization and social transformation took place within Herero society.” (p. 11-12)

[82] Gewald, J.-B. (1999). Herero heroes: A socio-political history of the Herero of Namibia, 1890–1923. James Currey. “A characteristic of pre-colonial Herero societies was their strong decentral-zation, a characteristic which was shared with the pastoralist societies of East Africa. As we have already seen, this strong decentralization surprised observers in the nineteenth century. A common paramount they do not have and they do not appear to have ever been subject to one. Instead they exist divided in a multitude of bigger and smaller tribes of many hundred to thousands of souls. Every tribe is completely independent and stands in equality to the others." Prior to the latter second half of the nineteenth century no centralized leadership, beyond that of a patri-clan head, the Omukuru, who was seen to be the living embodiment of the clan's ancestor, existed amongst Herero groups. Association with a specific patri-clan head was by virtue of his stock wealth, personality, and both his secular and religious ability. This association was tempered by environmental circumstances as well as by the activities of the patri-clan head. If the Omukuru failed to provide either secular or religious services, or if he was seen as having wronged a follower, there was nothing to stop followers from voting with their feet and leaving. Allied to this was the transhumant pastoralism which was necessary for survival. Ozonganda, settlements under the leadership of an Omukuru, were arranged around ecologically advantageous points, and tended to shift with the changing seasons." During the course of the nineteenth century this strong socio-political decentralization changed.” (p. 13)

[83] Gewald, J.-B. (1999). Herero heroes: A socio-political history of the Herero of Namibia, 1890–1923. James Currey. “Following 1864, Herero hunters and traders came to act as middlemen operating between the Ovambo kingdoms and the Cape. The Herero were able to tax the trade routes which led to Ovamboland. It is in this context that new regional trade centres, such as Omaruru and Okahandja, developed. These replaced the old and eclipsed centres of Otjimbingwe and Windhoek, both of which had been major trading entrepôts under the control of the missionaries and the Afrikaners respectively. In essence the frontier had moved north, no longer were the Nama polities the direct middlemen between the Cape and the north. By 1876 the Herero of central Namibia were living in what can only be described as an age of plenty, an age which led a Cape colonial official to comment: Long intercourse with white people has developed singularly few wants amongst them ... More than three-fourths of the Damaras [Herero] are without a single want that the trader can gratify that would compel them to part with a sheep or a goat from a herd of thousands; and the wants of the other fourth are limited to a little powder, and lead, and a little clothing ...However, it would be wrong to infer from this, as some have, that 'the ...social change observed in the whole of Namaland subsequent to the Ooriam migrations/invasions was not paralleled in Hereroland'. Though the influx of European goods was closely controlled and the 'structures of under-development' were not apparent, it must be borne in mind that the Herero chieftaincies, after 1840, were a product of and an adaptation to the impact of the 'Cape' frontier. Indeed all the major Herero chiefs who reigned during the Herero golden age of the 1870s were products of this frontier and its trade. The new chieftaincies were all closely related, not only in kinship terms, but in that they were products of the same shaping force. The skills and contacts acquired through association with the frontier were applied to create and maintain a new form of centralized Herero polity. From being a society characterized by an endless series of loosely linked kinship groups centred around patri-clan heads, Herero society became a society characterized by strongly centralized chieftaincies centred upon specific geographical areas. Herero political structures at the advent of colonization were far from static. Indeed, those which appeared static to observers were in themselves the products of appropriated and inherited structures and systems, which the Herero had transformed to their own ends. The seemingly static nature of Herero socio-political institutions belied a never-ending transformation and appropriation of outside influences. It was a system of flux which carried on into the period in which Imperial Germany sought to colonize Hereroland.” (p. 26-28)

[84] Barnard A. The Nama and others. In: Hunters and Herders of Southern Africa: A Comparative Ethnography of the Khoisan Peoples. Cambridge Studies in Social and Cultural Anthropology. Cambridge University Press; 1992:176-198. “As a distinct people, they probably originated in the northern Cape and later divided into their two large subdivisions, Great Nama and Little Nama (cf. Westphal 1963: 251). The Great Nama settled in the Great Namaqualand area of Namibia prior to European contact. Most of the Little Nama migrated to Namibia in tribal groups during the nineteenth century. ” (p. 176)

[85] Barnard A. The Nama and others. In: Hunters and Herders of Southern Africa: A Comparative Ethnography of the Khoisan Peoples. Cambridge Studies in Social and Cultural Anthropology. Cambridge University Press; 1992:176-198. “The Nama lived a nomadic way of life. Their main protective concern was not over land; it was over their cattle and women. Cattle theft and abduction were the causes of a great many recorded instances of fighting. Partly for this reason and partly because of extensive warfare in the late nineteenth century, the Khoekhoe have sometimes been described as a belligerent people. Yet, in contrast to the Nama of later times, the Cape Khoekhoe of the early historic period had no standing armies, and no military leaders except their hereditary chiefs. They valued not bravery in battle, but hunting prowess and wealth in the form of cattle.” (p. 179)

[86] Barnard A. The Nama and others. In: Hunters and Herders of Southern Africa: A Comparative Ethnography of the Khoisan Peoples. Cambridge Studies in Social and Cultural Anthropology. Cambridge University Press; 1992:176-198. “By the time competent ethnographers arrived on the scene, 'traditional' Nama social structure was largely a memory cult, preserved in the minds of the elderly, but nowhere existent 'on the ground'.” (p. 179)

[87] Barnard A. The Nama and others. In: Hunters and Herders of Southern Africa: A Comparative Ethnography of the Khoisan Peoples. Cambridge Studies in Social and Cultural Anthropology. Cambridge University Press; 1992:176-198. “In Hoernle's time, the 'indigenous tribes' or Great Nama were divided into seven tribes. These were believed to be descended from a group of five brothers. According to one legend, the ancestor of the Gai-//khaun, the senior tribe, was the eldest of these brothers. His younger brothers founded the !Gami- =f= nun, the //Haboben, the !Khara-khoen, and the //Khau- /goan. Another legend says that the //Haboben, who are known to have recognized the authority of the !Gami-f=nun chief during the early nineteenth century (Alexander 1967 [1838]: 187, 197), were an offshoot of the !Gami- =/ = nun. The other two tribes, the //O-gain and the =/ = Aonin, are thought to be offshoots of the Gai-//khaun.” (p. 181)

[88] Barnard A. The Nama and others. In: Hunters and Herders of Southern Africa: A Comparative Ethnography of the Khoisan Peoples. Cambridge Studies in Social and Cultural Anthropology. Cambridge University Press; 1992:176-198. “In many respects, it is all too easy to see Nama society in terms of a pre- 1904 and post 1904 dichotomy. Their tribal organization was torn apart by the War of 1904-7, a conflict which grew from almost simultaneous revolts against German authority by the Nama and by their traditional enemies, the Herero. At the outbreak of the rebellion, in late 1904, there were only some 1,500 able-bodied fighting men on the Nama side, and less than half of them were equipped with up-to-date weapons. By January 1905, the German force in Namaland had been increased from 500 men to some 4,300 men and 2,800 horses (Bridgman 1981: 140). The result was inevitable. Many Nama were killed, their tribes scattered, and the authority of the chiefs reduced, though this was replaced to some extent by an increase in the authority of local leaders and a nominal allegiance to distant chiefs. Indeed, it could be argued that the powerful chiefs of the late nineteenth century were not typical representatives of the Khoekhoe chief ship. The earlier political organization was destroyed, but elements of the ideology which generated it did remain.” (p. 183)

[89] Barnard A. The Nama and others. In: Hunters and Herders of Southern Africa: A Comparative Ethnography of the Khoisan Peoples. Cambridge Studies in Social and Cultural Anthropology. Cambridge University Press; 1992:176-198. “Before the present century, Nama camps usually included between five and thirty huts. The huts were roughly circular or beehive-shaped, and their doors faced the centre of the encampment. As among the Korana, huts were hierarchically arranged; in the case of the Nama, the hut of the chief or highest-ranking camp member was placed in the west, facing east. Families and clans each occupied specific locations within the camp, according to their seniority. Within the clan, a further hierarchy was maintained, with elder brothers and their families and dependents to the right, and younger brothers and their families and dependents to the left. In spite of their nomadic way of life and segmentary inclinations when they were settled, each Nama tribe had its own territory which was claimed by the hereditary chief. At times, an entire tribe would camp in one great circle, but this was rare. Each clan normally had its own kraal elsewhere in the tribe's territory…clan loyalty was 'always stronger than tribal loyalty', and the chief was 'little more than primus inter pares’.  His authority depended on his maintaining links with his far-flung people.” (p. 183-184)

[90] Barnard A. The Nama and others. In: Hunters and Herders of Southern Africa: A Comparative Ethnography of the Khoisan Peoples. Cambridge Studies in Social and Cultural Anthropology. Cambridge University Press; 1992:176-198. “The Nama, who today number about 90,000, are the best known of the Khoekhoe groups. As a distinct people, they probably originated in the northern Cape and later divided into their two large subdivisions, Great Nama and Little Nama. The Great Nama settled in the Great Namaqualand area of Namibia prior to European contact. Most of the Little Nama migrated to Namibia in tribal groups during the nineteenth century.”

Section II

[49] Hull, Isabel (2005). "The Military Campaign in German Southwest Africa, 1904–1907". Bulletin of the German Historical Institute(37): 39–49. ISSN 1048-9134. “The genocide in SWA was in any event not the product of ideology, but of institutional action. It was produced by the military campaign itself, which was organized and conducted according to principles worked out in Europe for European wars. These standard military practices and assumptions were embedded in Imperial German military culture. They were developed in the wars of unification in 1864, 1866, and especially 1870–71. ” (p. 42)

[50] Hull, Isabel (2005). "The Military Campaign in German Southwest Africa, 1904–1907". Bulletin of the German Historical Institute(37): 39–49. ISSN 1048-9134. “This punitive aspect of the German military was significant in determining the lethal conditions in the prison camps. For example, Trotha himself set the original starvation ration, justified by a high colonial administrator“as retaliation for the uprising.” But officers who took over from Trotha after his departure in December 1905 and who set out to ameliorate conditions repeatedly ran up against the principle that enemies of German authority merited exemplary punishment. This was yet another link in the chain of mass death.” (p. 44)

[51] Hull, Isabel V. (2005). Absolute Destruction: Military Culture and the Practices of War in Imperial Germany. Cornell University Press. “Although the Herero were innocent of the charge of wanton killing, their traditional manner of warfare appeared to Germans as cruel and dishonoring. They took no prisoners. They used large knives or clubs (kirris) to kill wounded enemy soldiers. When they lacked bullets, they made their own out of bits of scrap metal and glass, which left jagged, often fatal, wounds. They ritually mutilated enemy corpses, which caused the Germans to surmise (probably incorrectly) that they had tortured the wounded. They stripped the dead of their uniforms and wore these themselves. Herero women hid in the thornbushes and encouraged their menfolk with chants, which German soldiers found chilling and which fed the myth that Herero women participated in killing. The Germans reckoned the Herero, nonetheless, as good fighters. They numbered six to eight thousand warriors and were well armed, with modern rifles. In the first two weeks of the revolt, they dominated all of Hereroland, penning German troops and survivors in the isolated military outposts. But despite their success, the Herero failed to establish strategic superiority. They did not sufficiently appreciate the importance of the feeble railroad as the main supply line for German troops. Their disruption of the telegraph lines was serious but not systematic enough to interrupt communication significantly, and the heliograph (which operated by reflected sunlight) lessened the Germans’ reliance on telegraphy. And they did not consider attacking the capital or other strongholds, which, had they fallen, would have dealt a crushing blow to colonial self-esteem and given encouragement to the many voices in the Reichstag who wanted Germany to abandon the colony.” (p. 11)

[52] Hull, Isabel V. (2005). Absolute Destruction: Military Culture and the Practices of War in Imperial Germany. Cornell University Press. “The problem with a policy of exemplary punishment was that it consisted chiefly of the death penalty. As Leutwein had explained to the Colonial Department in February, “Prisoners of war will all be called before courts-martial, and, if they are found guilty of plundering farms, much less of murdering peaceful inhabitants, they will always receive the death penalty.” Leutwein’s letter was forwarded to the General Staff, and neither it nor the Colonial Department suggested tempering its sweep or vehemence.” (p. 18-19)

[53] Union of South Africa. (1918). Report on the natives of South-West Africa and their treatment by Germany. His Majesty’s Stationery Office. “Jan Cloete (Bastard), of Omaruru, states under oath :— IT was in Omaruru in 1904. I was commandeered by the Germans to act as a guide for them to the Waterberg district, as I knew the country well. ‘I was with the 4th Field Company under Hauptmann Richardt. The commander of the troops was General von Trotha. I was present at Hamakari, near Waterberg when the Hereros were defeated in a battle. After the battle, all men, women and children, wounded and unwounded, who fell into the hands of the Germans were killed without mercy. The Germans then pursued the others, and all stragglers on the roadside and in the veld were shot down and bayoneted. The great majority of the Herero men were unarmed and could make no fight. They were merely trying to get away with their cattle. Some distance beyond Hamakari we camped at a water-hole. While there, a German soldier found a little Herero baby boy about nine months old lying in the bush. The child was crying. He brought it into the camp where I was. The soldiers formed a ring and started throwing the child to one another and catching it as if it were a ball. The child was terrified and hurt and was’crying very much. After a time they got tired of this and one of the soldiers fixed his bayonet on his rifle and said he would catch the baby. The child was tossed into the air towards him and as it fell he caught it and transfixed the body with the bayonet. The child died in a few minutes and the incident was greeted with roars of laughter by the Germans, who seemed to think it was a great joke. ” (p. 64-65)

[54] Union of South Africa. (1918). Report on the natives of South-West Africa and their treatment by Germany. His Majesty’s Stationery Office. “Daniel Kariko (Under-Chief of Omaruru) :— The result of this war is known to everyone. Our people, men, women and children were shot like dogs and wild animals. Our people have dis- appeared now. I see only a few left; their cattle and sheep are gone too, and all our land is owned by the Germans. . . . After the fight at Waterberg we asked for peace; but von Trotha said there would only be | peace when we were all dead, as he intended to exterminate us…” (p. 63)

[55] Union of South Africa. (1918). Report on the natives of South-West Africa and their treatment by Germany. His Majesty’s Stationery Office. “Manuel Timbu (Cape Bastard), at present Court Interpreter in native languages at Omaruru,...On our return journey we again halted at Hamakari. There, ‘near a hut, we saw an old Herero woman of about 50 or 60 years digging in the ground for wild onions. Von Trotha and his staff were present. A soldier named Konig jumped off his horse and shot the woman through the forehead at point blank range. Before he shot her, he said, “ I am going to kill you.” She simply looked up and said, “I thank you.”” (p. 64)

[56] Union of South Africa. (1918). Report on the natives of South-West Africa and their treatment by Germany. His Majesty’s Stationery Office. “Jan Kubas (a Griqua living at Grootfontein), states under oath :— I went with the German troops to Hamakari and beyond. . . . The Germans took no prisoners. They killed thousands and thousands of women and children along the roadsides. They bayoneted them and hit them to death with the butt ends of their guns. Words cannot be found to relate what happened; it was too terrible. They were lying exhausted and harmless along the roads, and as the soldiers passed they simply slaughtered them in cold blood. Mothers holding babies at their breasts, little boys and little girls; old people too old to fight and old grandmothers, none received mercy ; they were killed, all of them, and left to lie and rot on the veld for the vultures and wild animals to eat. They slaughtered until there were no more Hereros left to kill, & saw this every day; I was with them. A few Hereros managed to escape in the bush and wandered about, living on roots and wild fruits. Von Trotha was the German General in charge.” (p. 65)

[57] Union of South Africa. (1918). Report on the natives of South-West Africa and their treatment by Germany. His Majesty’s Stationery Office. “Hendrik Fraser (Bastard), of Keetmanshoop, states under oath :— In March 1905 I was sent from Karibib and accompanied the troops of Hauptmann Kuhne to the Waterberg. I then saw that the Germans no longer took any prisoners. They killed all men, women and children whom they came across. Hereros who were exhausted and were unable to go any further were captured and killed. At one place near Waterberg, in the direction of Gobabis, after the fight at Okokadi, a large number (I should say about 50) men, women and children and little babies fell into the hands of the Germans. They killed all the prisoners, bayoneted them. On one occasion I saw about 25 prisoners placed in a small enclosure of thorn bushes, They were confined in a very small space, and the soldiers cut dry branches and’ piled dry logs all round them—men, women and children and little girls were there—when dry branches had been thickly piled up all round them the soldiers threw branches also on the top of them. The prisoners were: all alive and unwounded, but half starved. Having piled up the branches, lamp oil was sprinkled on the heap and it was set on fire. The prisoners were burnt to a cinder. I saw this personally. The Germans said, ““We should burn all these dogs and baboons in this fashion.” The officers saw this and made no attempt to prevent it.. From that time to the end of the rising the killing and hanging of Hereros was ‘practically a daily occurrence. There was no more fighting. The Hereros were merely fugitives in the bush. All the water-holes on the desert border were poisoned by the Germans before théy returned. ‘The result was that fugitives who came to drink the water either died of poisoning or, if they did not taste the water, they died of thirst.” (p. 66-67)

[58] Hull, Isabel V. (2005). Absolute Destruction: Military Culture and the Practices of War in Imperial Germany. Cornell University Press. “On 31 March 1907, then, the war was over, the inflated Schutztruppe was gradually withdrawn, and government returned, if not to normal, at least to civilian administration. At home, taxpayers had paid 600-million marks to put down the revolts. This was an extraordinary cost, given that the normal yearly subsidy for the colony was only 14.5-million marks.107 Three times the government had spent money illegally, before the Reichstag had appropriated it. Almost 19,000 German troops had gone to SWA, but only 3,000 of them had fought there; the rest were absorbed in the tasks of upkeep and administration.109 Of the troops, 676 had been killed in fighting (752, if one counts the 76 missing), while 689 had died of disease—a typical colonial proportion.110 Against these figures, the loss of African lives is staggering. The census of 1911 listed 19,962 Herero and 13,858 Nama still alive in SWA. Reports indicate 1,275 Herero had escaped safely to British Bechuanaland; at a very generous estimate several thousands may have survived in Ovamboland or as “field Herero” in Hereroland itself. That still leaves approximately 20,000 survivors (allowing for some demographic recovery after 1907). Even if one were to accept the artificially low estimate of an original population of 40,000, offered by those who wish to minimize the catastrophe, this still amounts to a death rate of 50 percent. The more likely and more generally accepted figure of 60–80,000 yields a death rate for the Herero of 66–75 percent. The Nama death rate remains accepted at 50 percent. Because we lack perfect statistics, the exact death rates will never be known. But their magnitude can also be gauged by the observations of knowledgeable contemporaries. Paul Rohrbach had estimated in March 1905 that “probably half the Herero” had died in the desert (with the war only one-third over).” (p. 88-89)

[59] Zimmerer, Jürgen (2005). "Annihilation in Africa: The "Race War" in German Southwest Africa (1904–1908) and its Significance for a Global History of Genocide". Bulletin of the

German Historical Institute (37): 51–57. ISSN 1048-9134. “As a consequence of this ideology of a race war, the German army shot men, women, and children, prisoners of war, and non-combatants; it forced thousands to die of thirst in the Sandveld of the Omaheke or in Southern Namibia during the anti-guerrilla war against the Nama; and it killed hundreds through deliberate neglect in the concentration camps. According to the United Nations Convention on Genocide of 1948, genocide is any act, such as “killing members of the group” or “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part,” “committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such.” I think the German policy to drive the Herero into the desert, to destroy their means of life through anti-guerrilla warfare and in the concentration camps, qualifies as the latter. This makes the Namibian War the first genocide of the twentieth century and the first genocide in German history.” (p. 53)

[60] Sarkin, Jeremy (2011). Germany's Genocide of the Herero: Kaiser Wilhelm II, His General, His Settlers, His Soldiers. Melton: James Currey. ISBN 9781847010322. “who they said they had."It does seem, though, that the abuse and mutilation came mostly from the German forces. Bringing back severed hands and other body parts was a method approved by the field commanders, sanctioned by German officials and uniformly carried out by soldiers under German control a s a way of proving t o their commanders that they had killed in an unpublished manuscript titled "The Germans in Africa, Raphael Lemkin, thought by many to be the author of the word genocide and the impetus behind the Genocide Convention, notes that before the events in GSWAin 1904, mutilations practiced by soldiers against the indigenous population were sanctioned by the German officials, who ordered the soldiers to bring back the ears of those they killed to prove the number killed. ” (p. 10-11)

[61] Sarkin, Jeremy (2011). Germany's Genocide of the Herero: Kaiser Wilhelm II, His General, His Settlers, His Soldiers. Melton: James Currey. ISBN 9781847010322. “The facts indicate that it was the Germans who killed women and children in large numbers during this time in GSWA. When August Bebel, a member of the German Parliament, was told 'unsatisfactorily' that women and children were being killed because the combatants were using them as shields, ” (p. 11)

[62] Harring, S. L. (2005). Herero. In D. L. Shelton (Ed.), Encyclopedia of genocide and crimes against humanity (Vol. 1, pp. 436–438). Macmillan Reference USA.

“The Herero War of 1904 and 1905 killed at least 60,000 of the 80,000 Herero and resulted in the seizure of all their lands and cattle. The central region of South West Africa—now Namibia—was swept clean of black occupants, setting the stage for the creation of a whitedominated agricultural economy that has prevailed since. ” (p. 437) (note: the “since” is before the revolt and shouldn’t be used to imply a literally current, modern state of being)

[63] Harring, S. L. (2005). Herero. In D. L. Shelton (Ed.), Encyclopedia of genocide and crimes against humanity (Vol. 1, pp. 436–438). Macmillan Reference USA. “A few thousand Herero survived both genocide and exile only to face the imposition of apartheid by South Africa, which assumed the British mandate for South West Africa in 1919. Having taken refuge in northern Namibia, Angola, and Botswana, the Herero gradually returned to their traditional lands. Some labored as farmworkers, but others simply occupied unused desert land and rebuilt their herds. Namibian independence, in 1989, set the stage for the assertion of Herero claims for reparations, a legal claim that would have been impossible under apartheid.” (p. 438)

[64] Gewald, J.-B. (2005). Namibia (German South West Africa and South West Africa). In D. L. Shelton (Ed.), Encyclopedia of genocide and crimes against humanity (Vol. 1, pp. 721–725). Macmillan Reference USA. “Throughout the 1920s South Africa sought to strengthen its hold over Namibia, in part through the resettlement of Afrikaner families on newly created farms in central Namibia. African resistance to the continued dominance of German missionaries in their churches led the majority of the Herero and Nama to establish independent Ethiopian churches. Dissatisfaction with the new South African administration meant that organizations such as the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), as well as the Industrial and Commercial Workers

[65] Union of South Africa, were able to quickly and extensively mobilize in the territory. However, airplanes and brute force crushed all serious opposition, such as the Bondelswarts revolt in southern Namibia in 1922, the Rehoboth rebellion in central Namibia in 1924, and the Ukuambi revolt under Ipumbu in northern Namibia in 1935.” (p. 723)

[66] Schaller, D. J. (2013). The genocide of the Herero and Nama in German South-West Africa, 1904–1907. In S. Totten & W. S. Parsons (Eds.), Centuries of genocide: Essays and eyewitness accounts (4th ed., pp. 89–114). Routledge. “The outcome of the German war against the Herero and Nama in SouthWest Africa was disastrous: Up to 60,000 Herero and 10,000 Nama lost their lives. The political and socioeconomic structures of the indigenous societies were laid waste. Their reconstruction took several decades. In Germany, politicians complained about the huge costs of the war in SouthWest Africa: 14,000 German soldiers were necessary to suppress the African resistance. Almost 2,000 of them died, mainly due to epidemics. The military campaign swallowed 585 million Reichsmark. A few politicians condemned the genocidal warfare because of its economic consequences for the colony. Paul Rohrbach (1869–1956), commissioner on settler affairs in SouthWest Africa and one of the most influential intellectuals in Germany at the time, deplored the destruction of indigenous manpower: “South-West Africa with natives was of much more value . . . than without”). But only a minority of German politicians and opinion leaders were afraid that the slaughter of the Africans might damage Germany’s reputation as a leading Kulturnation (nation of culture).” (p. 90)

[67] Schaller, D. J. (2013). The genocide of the Herero and Nama in German South-West Africa, 1904–1907. In S. Totten & W. S. Parsons (Eds.), Centuries of genocide: Essays and eyewitness accounts (4th ed., pp. 89–114). Routledge. “Zürn’s fear was fueled by the fact that Theodor Leutwein, Germany’s Civil Governor of SouthWest Africa, and the bulk of the German colonial army were in the south of the colony to wage war against the Bondelswarts, a small Nama group that had not been ready to accept the Germans’ claim of power. Zürn’s panicked reactions, in turn, led the Herero to believe that the Germans wanted to kill their self-proclaimed paramount-chief Samuel Maharero (1856–1923). Therefore, the outbreak of the war in SouthWest Africa can be understood as a self-fulfilling prophecy. In the first months of the war, about 8,000 Herero faced some 2,000 German soldiers and reservists. The Africans took the initiative, plundered remote farms, killed European settlers, and besieged German villages. German reactions were rather helpless at the beginning. But reinforcements from Europe and the colonial army’s efficient weapons, such as machine guns, soon turned the tide.“” (p. 91)

[68] Schaller, D. J. (2013). The genocide of the Herero and Nama in German South-West Africa, 1904–1907. In S. Totten & W. S. Parsons (Eds.), Centuries of genocide: Essays and eyewitness accounts (4th ed., pp. 89–114). Routledge. “On August 11, 1904, the German general attacked the Herero at Hamakari (Waterberg). The Germans’ military superiority and Lothar von Trotha’s radical methods of warfare resulted in a massacre. Nevertheless, the battle at Hamakari was a failure for the Germans. Most Herero managed to flee from the battle of encirclement and hid in the neighboring Omaheke desert. The paths through the desert to British Bechuanaland were known to the Herero as traditional trade routes” (p. 91)

[69] Schaller, D. J. (2013). The genocide of the Herero and Nama in German South-West Africa, 1904–1907. In S. Totten & W. S. Parsons (Eds.), Centuries of genocide: Essays and eyewitness accounts (4th ed., pp. 89–114). Routledge. “Natural disasters have often facilitated the European penetration of large parts of the world in the age of imperialism. Rinderpest (cattle disease) reached Namibia in 1897. It changed the balance of power in SouthWest Africa dramatically: whereas German settlers managed to vaccinate their herds, the Herero lost approximately 90% of their cattle. Moreover, the Herero, enfeebled through a lack of milk, fell victim to a malaria epidemic. The German missionary Jakob Irle estimated that up to 10,000 Herero died due to malaria. These events led to a far-reaching economic and cultural crisis of Herero society. To secure their livelihood, the Herero had to sell their land to European settlers, traders, and land companies. Furthermore, many Herero were forced into wage labor for the first time ever. Many chiefs encountered difficulty in maintaining their extravagant lifestyles and therefore sold large parts of their communities’ ancestral land at very low prices to German settlers. A large number of Herero were thus transformed from once proud and autonomous pastoralists to weak and dependent proletarians. This significant transformation took place within a few months, yet it turned the hierarchy of power between Africans and Europeans upside down. Whereas the Herero were deprived and suffered from a crisis of collective self-esteem, the European settler community expanded and prospered. Before the outbreak of the war in January 1904, almost 5,000 Germans, English, and Boers inhabited SouthWest Africa. Their new power strengthened their racist arrogance and tempted them into maltreating African workers.” (p. 94)

[70] Walsh, A. C. (2018, October 22). The forgotten genocide: Herero and Nama, 1904, part one. Stop Genocide Now. https://stopgenocidenow.org/2018/10/22/forgotten-genocide-herero-nama-1904-part-1. “One aspect of genocide studies that is continually overlooked is the classification of incidents as “colonial genocides.” This phrase is used to describe the targeted destruction of indigenous groups by European colonial powers during the twenty [sic] century. Simply put, the colonial powers would first seek to destroy the indigenous peoples way of life. They would then impose their European or Westernised lifestyles on the group to complete colonization. The deliberate destruction of the Herero and Nama people is classified as such because it took place during the height of the “Scramble for Africa.” German colonizers wanted to take over the land of what we now call Namibia and saw the Herero and Nama people as an obstacle to this acquisition. In short, the rightful occupants of the land chose to rebel against German colonizers in 1904. The Herero were led by Samuel Maharero, followed shortly thereafter by the Nama and their leader, Hendrik Witbooi. The war between the two lasted four years, but the Herero and Nama stood little chance against the German military. By 1908, roughly 80,000 Herero (80% of their population) and 10,000 Nama (50% of their population) had perished.”

Section III

[71] Walsh, A. C. (2018, October 22). The forgotten genocide: Herero and Nama, 1904, part one. Stop Genocide Now. https://stopgenocidenow.org/2018/10/22/forgotten-genocide-herero-nama-1904-part-1. “When one evaluates the tactics used to essentially wipe out the people in Namibia, it is very difficult to argue that German occupants didn’t commit genocide. Concentration camps were established in Swakopmund, Karibib, Windhoek, Okahandja, Luderitz and perhaps most infamously, Shark Island. While one-third of the people died on the journey to the camps alone, Shark Island gained a reputation for its extreme brutality and harsh living conditions. Disease was rampant, and the Germans attributed the mass death tolls to its spread , covering up the reality of the violence imposed on the Herero and Nama. Methods of starvation, torture, dehydration, rape and death by exhaustion were all utilized in the camps. These camps facilitated condition’s [sic] that would see to the destruction of the Herero and Nama people; they were not just used to quell a rebellion.”

[72] Walsh, A. C. (2018, October 22). The forgotten genocide: Herero and Nama, 1904, part one. Stop Genocide Now. https://stopgenocidenow.org/2018/10/22/forgotten-genocide-herero-nama-1904-part-1. “One aspect of genocide studies that is continually overlooked is the classification of incidents as “colonial genocides.” This phrase is used to describe the targeted destruction of indigenous groups by European colonial powers during the twenty [sic] century. Simply put, the colonial powers would first seek to destroy the indigenous peoples way of life. They would then impose their European or Westernised lifestyles on the group to complete colonization. The deliberate destruction of the Herero and Nama people is classified as such because it took place during the height of the “Scramble for Africa.” German colonizers wanted to take over the land of what we now call Namibia and saw the Herero and Nama people as an obstacle to this acquisition. In short, the rightful occupants of the land chose to rebel against German colonizers in 1904. The Herero were led by Samuel Maharero, followed shortly thereafter by the Nama and their leader, Hendrik Witbooi. The war between the two lasted four years, but the Herero and Nama stood little chance against the German military. By 1908, roughly 80,000 Herero (80% of their population) and 10,000 Nama (50% of their population) had perished.”

[73] Hochschild, A. (2005). King Leopold II and the Congo. In D. L. Shelton (Ed.), Encyclopedia of genocide and crimes against humanity (Vol. 1, pp. 617–621). Macmillan Reference USA. “The European colonization of Africa was one of the greatest and swiftest conquests in human history. In 1870 roughly 80 percent of Africa south of the Sahara Desert was governed by indigenous kings, chiefs, and other rulers. By 1910 nearly this entire huge expanse had become European colonies or land, like South Africa, controlled by white settlers. The bloodiest single episode in Africa’s colonization took place in the center of the continent in the large territory, known as the Congo.” (p. 617)

[74] Hochschild, A. (2005). King Leopold II and the Congo. In D. L. Shelton (Ed.), Encyclopedia of genocide and crimes against humanity (Vol. 1, pp. 617–621). Macmillan Reference USA. “In the early 1890s, however, a larger source of wealth suddenly loomed. The invention of the inflatable bicycle tire, followed soon by that of the automobile tire, triggered an enormous boom in rubber. Throughout the world’s tropics people rushed to establish rubber plantations. But new rubber trees often require fifteen years of growth before they can be tapped. During that window of time those who profited were the people who owned land where rubber grew wild. No one owned more land like this than King Leopold II, for equatorial rain forest, dotted with wild rubber vines, comprised half of his Congo state. The king’s colonial officials quickly set up a brutal but effective system for harvesting wild rubber. A detachment of soldiers would march into an African village and seize the women as hostages. To secure their wives’ release, the men would have to disperse into the rain forest to collect the sap of wild rubber vines. As the vines near a village were often drained dry, the men would sometimes have to walk for days to find areas where they could gather their monthly quota of rubber. As rubber prices soared, so did the quotas. Discipline was harsh; reluctant military conscripts, disobedient porters, and villagers who failed to gather enough rubber all fell victim to the notorious chicotte, a whip made of sun-dried hippopotamus hide with razor-sharp edges. A hundred lashes of the chicotte, a not infrequent punishment, could be fatal. Army officers and colonial officials earned bonuses based on the amount of rubber collected in areas under their control. These were an incentive for ruthless, devastating plunder.” (p. 618-620)

[75] Zimmerer, Jürgen (2005). "Annihilation in Africa: The "Race War" in German Southwest Africa (1904–1908) and its Significance for a Global History of Genocide". Bulletin of the German Historical Institute (37): 51–57. ISSN 1048-9134. “It has been doubted whether there is a road from Windhoek to Auschwitz. I would say that there are many roads to Auschwitz, starting at many places. One of these roads ran by way of the colonies, colonial warfare, and genocide, and I would argue that this road was not the least significant one. The Namibian War is on the one hand the culmination of colonial genocide and on the other hand the first step toward the bureaucratized murder of the Third Reich. Providing this link constitutes the world historical significance of the war in Namibia.” (p. 56)

[76] Sarkin, Jeremy (2011). Germany's Genocide of the Herero: Kaiser Wilhelm II, His General, His Settlers, His Soldiers. Melton: James Currey. ISBN 9781847010322. “This view of the indigenous population is exemplified by the words of Von Trotha on his arrival in GSWA that no war may be conducted humanely against non humans:" Both Kesting' and Jonassohn identify these views a s specific links between GWA and Nazi Germany, citing examples by individuals such as Eugen Fischer and Paul Rohrbach. Jonassohn points out how the writings o f Paul Rohrbach, advocating the extermination or expulsion of the indigenous population to provide space for white settlers, later became part of the Nazi ethos.” (p. 25)

[77] Sarkin, Jeremy (2011). Germany's Genocide of the Herero: Kaiser Wilhelm II, His General, His Settlers, His Soldiers. Melton: James Currey. ISBN 9781847010322. “The links between the Holocaust and the Herero genocide have been the subject of some research, especially in recent years. Some have drawn parallels. The similarities between the two in methodology, philosophy. ideology and personality suggest that the link may not be as complex as had been thought. The connection is not necessarily about the convoluted notions of totalitarianism or fascism, but simply about emulating and refining a race-based ideology of eliminating those perceived to be inferior and impure, improving and augmenting the use of ethnic identification labelling, ethnic branding, slave labour, concentration camps and exterminations. The following extract regarding the Holocaust also pertains to the Herero genocide and elucidates further parallels: To understand a criminal event like the Holocaust it is crucial to distinguish between the intentions, including the ideology and world-view of the human beings who did the killing and the structural conditions under which the murders were perpetuated. Both are crucial to an understanding of the Holocaust or any other genocide. Though the intentions of one group of killers may have been different from another, the possibility, nevertheless, remains that the structural conditions that allowed murderous intentions to be actualized in genocidal behavior were comparable and institutive. Besides the motives of the perpetrators, an etiology of genocide must address those factors that helped the killers to seize power and those that facilitated the implementation of their murderous policies.” (p. 20)

[78] Sarkin, Jeremy (2011). Germany's Genocide of the Herero: Kaiser Wilhelm II, His General, His Settlers, His Soldiers. Melton: James Currey. ISBN 9781847010322. “Evidently, the 'techniques and concepts' used in the Holocaust were originally designed during colonial times to exterminate the Herero during the occupation of GSWA. Stratton argues that the construction of Jews as an inferior race, which was also employed with the Herero, is what allowed the Holocaust to occur. He further shows how the practices o f the colonial times were refined and applied during the Nazi era. So many violations undertaken during the Nazi period were first accomplished in GSWA against the Herero. Practices such as prohibiting marriages between Germans and locals, genetic experimentation, the wearing o f ethnic identity symbols, concentration camps and exterminations all first existed in GSWA and were adopted in Nazi-controlled Europe in the 1930s and 1940s. During the Holocaust the skin and other body parts of those exterminated were collected and used. Similarly, Herero women were forced to clean Herero skulls of their skin and flesh with glass. These were then sent t o the Pathological Institute in Berlin.? The collection of Herero skulls seems t o have taken place from 1905 when Lieutenant Ralf Zürn, the same person who has been blamed for starting the war, was contracted to provide a Herero skull. He was subsequently requested to provide more skulls and there were rumours that thousands more were shipped to Germany." It is also rumoured that Zürn kept a Herero skeleton as a trophy and took it back to Germany upon his return." Other German officials and troops also kept body parts obtained in GSWA. Certainly skulls and corpses harvested from the concentration camps were supplied." Doctors employed by the German forces (Dansauer, Jungels, Mayer and Zollner) also collected Herero body parts and sent them t o Germany…” (p. 21–22)

[79] Sherrer, C. P. (2005). Ethnicity. In D. L. Shelton (Ed.), Encyclopedia of genocide and crimes against humanity (Vol. 1, pp. 306–309). Macmillan Reference USA. “One of the most devastating was committed by the Belgian colonizers in the Congo Free State, the later Belgian Congo, from the 1870s to the 1920s against the indigenous African peoples of the Great Congo Basin (taking 12 to 18 million victims), as well as the smaller but almost total genocide by the German colonialists against the Herero and Nama in Namibia (that time German Southwest Africa) from 1904 to 1907.” (p. 306)

[80] Hochschild, A. (2005). King Leopold II and the Congo. In D. L. Shelton (Ed.), Encyclopedia of genocide and crimes against humanity (Vol. 1, pp. 617–621). Macmillan Reference USA. “Obtaining more precise statistics is difficult, for in 1908 King Leopold ordered the archives of his Congo state burned. But numerous surviving records from the rubber-bearing land in the adjoining French Congo, which closely followed the model of the Leopoldian forced labor system, also suggest a population loss there of around 50 percent. If the estimates from varied sources of a 50 percent toll in King Leopold’s Congo are correct, how many people does this mean? In 1924 the first territory-wide census, when adjusted for undercounting, placed the number of colony inhabitants at some ten million. If that figure is accurate and it represents 50 percent of what the population had been in 1880, this would suggest a loss of 10 million people. Some writers, almost entirely in Belgium, claim that such estimates are exaggerated. But other scholars use even higher numbers. Although neither figure is well-documented, Hannah Arendt’s seminal The Origins of Totalitarianism cites an estimated minimum population loss of 11.5 million, and a Congolese historian writing in 1998, Isidore Ndaywel è Nziem, estimates the loss at roughly 13 million. Humankind will never know even the approximate toll with any certainty, but beyond any doubt what happened in the Congo was one of the great catastrophes of modern times.” (p. 621)