Herero and Nama genocide

Chained Herero and Nama prisoners during the genocide.
The white man's burden
Imperialism
Icon imperialism.svg
The empires strike back
Veni, vidi, vici
v - t - e

While the Belgians were suffering from the Congo fallout during the Scramble for Africa, the Germans also managed to sneak in a little bit of genocide in Deutsch-Südwestafrika (modern Namibia in southwestern Africa).

Background

Between 1903 and 1904, the rising German settler population in the area were straining the arid landscape's resources and causing discontent among the native tribes.[1][2] The most significant of these tribes were the Herero, who had managed to get their hands on horses and modern firearms.[1][2] Despite it being uncertain which side initiated combat, the Herero were able to put up a tenacious resistance to the Germans.[1][2] They were, however, inevitably defeated and forced to retreat into the desert. The Nama people would also rise up, with similar results.[1][2]

Genocide

Photo of Lieutenant von Durling at the death camp at Shark Island, German South West Africa (now Namibia).

The "driven into the desert" idea gave the Germans an idea. The German commander ordered his troops to drive every Herero man, woman and child out of their towns and shoot the ones who resisted.[3] Many thousands died of hunger and thirst, and the 13,000-or-so survivors were rounded up into concentration camps to be beaten and worked to death.[4] It is estimated that about 80% of the Herero and Nama population were exterminated.[2][5]

Aftermath

German Soldiers packing the skulls of executed Namibian aborigines at Shark Island Concentration Camp, circa 1903.

In a chilling foreshadow of the Holocaust, the Germans leveraged skull measurements to justify calling the Africans Untermenschen ("subhuman"), and experimented on some of the survivors.[2][6]

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Erichsen, Casper. "German-Herero conflict of 1904–07". Britannica. Retrieved May 1, 2025.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5
  3. ↑ "Germany moves to atone for 'forgotten genocide' in Namibia". The Guardian. December 25, 2016. Retrieved May 1, 2025.
  4. ↑ "The forgotten genocide". The Guardian. January 31, 2010. Retrieved May 1, 2025.
  5. ↑ Norimitsu, Onishi (December 29, 2016). "Germany Grapples With Its African Genocide". The New York Times. Retrieved May 1, 2025.
  6. ↑ Gross, Daniel A. (October 28, 2015). "A Brutal Genocide in Colonial Africa Finally Gets its Deserved Recognition". Smithsonian Magazine. Retrieved May 1, 2025.
This article is issued from Rationalwiki. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.