It is not a well-known fact that the first genocide of the 20th century was perpetrated by Germany and almost led to the extinction of two nations of Namibia, the Herero and Namaqua. The consequences of this genocide have been far-reaching, even to date. Not only were about 80% of both ethnicities extinguished, the remaining survivors were completely disenfranchised from their ancestral land and material culture.
The extermination order issued by General von Trotha’s on 2 October 1904 reads as follows:
“I, the great General of the German troops, send this letter to the Herero people.
The Herero people must however leave the land. If the populace does not do this I will force them with the Groot Rohr [Cannon]. Within the German borders every Herero, with or without a gun, with or without cattle, will be shot. I will no longer accept women and children, I will drive them back to their people or I will let them be shot at.
These are my words to the Herero people. The great General of the mighty German Kaiser”
After the Herero, under their leader Samuel Maharero, rebelled and attacked the Germans, killing about 120 to 150 of them, a second extermination order was issued by General von Trotha on 22 April 1905:
‘The Nama who chooses not to surrender and lets himself be seen in the German area will be shot, until all are exterminated. Those who, at the start of the rebellion, committed murder against whites or have commanded that whites be murdered have, by law, forfeited their lives. As for the few not defeated, it will fare with them as it fared with the Herero, who in their blindness also believed that they could make successful war against the powerful German Emperor and the great German people. I ask you, where are the Herero today?’
The horrors of that time are on display in German museums to this day. For the German scientists of the time, these tribes were a secure and safe way to do their anthropological and scientific studies. 300 skulls from prisoners at the concentration camps were sent to Germany for further research and for other German scientists to prove the “superiority of the white race and the inferiority of the black race of Herero”.
Germany is finally acknowledging and working on formalising the remembrance of the genocide and reconciliation with Namibia and the survivors of the two ethnicities through the repatriation of artifacts and remains. Recently, Senator of Hamburg, Dr Carsten Brosda, issued an official apology for the city’s role at a Senate Reception for the Herero and Nama Delegation of the Second Transnational Herero and Nama Congress.
Germany is finally acknowledging and working on formalising the remembrance of the genocide.
Reparations for the Herero and Nama people
The OvaHerero, Mbanderu and Nama Genocide Institute appreciated the apology but is calling for more to be done towards the decolonisation of Hamburg as a form of reparation to the Herero and Nama people. Their demands are for the city of Hamburg to:
1. Make use of Hamburg’s seat in the Bundesrat and your political influence on the German government to bring about full representation of the genocide committed against the OvaHerero and Nama and the inclusion of their self-chosen representatives in the negotiations of an apology and reparations;
2. Extend the coverage of the genocide 1904-08, as well as Hamburg’s entanglement in colonialism, in the city’s school and university curriculum, as well as in Hamburg’s textbooks, in a just and accurate manner, focusing on the marginalised perspectives of the colonised;
3. Establish a permanent exhibition and education centre on Nazi-colonial propaganda, German colonialism and the genocide 1904-1908 in the infamous “Trotha Haus” in the Lettow Vorbeck barracks in Wandsbeck-Jensfield;
4. Rename the two Hamburg streets honouring the criminal profiteer of colonialism and of the OvaHerero and Nama genocide, Aldorf Woermann, in dedication to an OvaHerero and a Nama resistance fighter;
5. Facilitate and take over the costs for the restitution of the OvaHerero and all other African human resources in possession of the UKE Hamburg-Eppendorf and elsewhere in Hamburg;
6. Re-Open the University Department for Post-colonial Studies that has been closed down, including regular scholarships for OvaHerero and Nama students, including cultural exchange of high-school students;
7. Influence the cities churches to critically reflect upon the role in German colonialism and the OvaHerero and Nama genocide in order to counter the colonial message of the shameful commemoration plaque for colonial perpetrators as displayed in St Michaels church by honouring the opponents and victims of Hamburg’s colonialism instead;
8. Erect memorial places for the opponents and victims of Hamburg’s slave trade, the city’s colonial politics and particularly the OvaHerero and Nama genocide in the city centre designed with the full participation of the descendants of the victims;
9. Digitise the about 1 000 photographs from the former “German Southwest Africa” in the Hamburg’s “Volkerkundemuseum” and exchange this information with OvaHerero and Nama institutions, as well as Namibian institutions of higher learning;
10. Digitise the about 1 700 objects from the former “German Southwest Africa”, exchange information about them and offer the objects taken from the OvaHerero and Nama who have lost all their material culture by the genocide 1904-1908 for restitution;
11. Cooperate with the postcolonial states Bremen and Berlin, as well as other federal states, in financing a commemoration and education centre for the cultures and history of the communities of the OvaHerero and Nama, who fell victim to German colonialism and the 1904-1908 genocide in Namibia;
12. Cooperate with the Federal State of Germany in financing excavations on the sites of the concentration camps that were erected both by the German colonial state as well as by private profiteers of the genocide such as Adolf Woermann.
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