Colonial Genocide: The Herero and Nama War (1904–8) in German South West Africa and Its Significance

Abstract

With these words the German Minister for Development and Economic Cooperation, Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, officially apologized on 14 August 2004 in Omahakari, Namibia for the atrocities committed a century earlier by German imperial troops. Hundred years after the genocidal warfare conducted by the Schutztruppe in German South West Africa, in which the German colonial army deliberately killed thousands of Herero and Nama men, women and children; let even more die of thirst in the Omaheke desert; and murdered thousands more by deliberate neglect in concentration camps, the German government officially acknowledged these crimes. To my knowledge it is the first and only apology by a high-ranking member of the government of a former colonial power referring to genocide for colonial crimes. This acknowledgement of historical guilt and the application of the term genocide³ not only changed the landscape of memory in Germany but can also be considered a landmark event in dealing with genocides in the colonial context.⁴

The war has been known over time by many names. New post-colonial and postindependent perspectives demand that Herero or Nama should be named first, or that we should use the plural ‘wars’ to indicate that both the fighting between Herero and the German army and Nama and the German army are being referred to. I use the singular form in the sense in which one uses the term World War for a series of distinct, yet intrinsically linked conflicts. What is important, however, is that the Eurocentric terms ‘rebellion’, ‘uprising’, ‘insurrection’ or ‘revolt’ are put to rest once and forever. These only perpetuate the colonial perspective. The implicitly made — yet fundamental — assumption behind such a labelling is to criminalize the Africans’ war, since it implies that German colonial rule was legitimate, that the Kaiser was the lawful sovereign against whom the Herero illegitimately rose up. The Herero are put into the position of criminals, of lawbreakers. This might be the colonialist’s perspective at the time and even today, it is however not an unbiased one and it is certainly not that of Herero and Nama. There is plenty of evidence to suggest that Herero and Nama leaders understood the Germans in the early days of colonialism as a partner and ally in their wars and struggles, not, however, as their sovereigns. Terminology shapes perception, and by using terms such as rebellion, the colonial ideology of Europeans as rightful masters of the world is perpetuated. Talking about rebellions and uprisings should therefore be avoided, and the conflict named as what it was: a war and/or a genocide. In most of the literature, the war is seen as lasting from 1904 to 1907. I prefer to use 1908 as the end of the war, because it was then that the concentration camps were dissolved and most prisoners released. Some historians even prefer 1912, when the last Nama returned from their imprisonment in other colonies, at least the few that had survived.