Germany waited until 2015 to name its colonial killings in Namibia a genocide
Between 1904 and 1908 the German Empire destroyed most of the Herero and half the Nama people in what is now Namibia: an estimated 40,000 to 80,000 Herero and 10,000 Nama died. Germany formally acknowledged the genocide in 2015, and a later aid deal was criticised for rejecting legal responsibility.
The Herero, cattle herders whose name means possessor of cattle, had moved into the region from the north as early as the twelfth century. Bismarck claimed the territory in 1884 to block British expansion, but German rule stayed thin until settlers arrived in numbers in the mid-1890s. Governor Theodor Leutwein, in office from 1894 to 1904, reduced African independence by playing groups against one another with protection treaties, then seizing land and cattle from any who broke them. A rinderpest epidemic killed most Herero herds, pushing many into debt or migrant labour.
The deepest grievance was a lopsided justice system. When a white person died, several Africans might be executed, while settlers who killed or assaulted Africans went largely unpunished, and employers could legally flog workers. With the colony's northern garrison diverted south, and only 770 German soldiers in the whole territory, the Herero rose on 12 January 1904 under chief Samuel Maharero. Early raids killed between 123 and 160 Germans, mostly farmers and traders; the rebels generally spared women, children and missionaries. Historians still debate whether the rising was long planned or provoked by a local officer, since few sources record the Herero side.
Humiliated, Berlin replaced Leutwein with General Lothar von Trotha, who refused offers of surrender. After defeat at the Battle of Waterberg in August 1904, the Herero fled into the Omaheke Desert, where most died of thirst and hunger or were killed. Trotha ordered all Herero men executed, though women and children died too. When Kaiser Wilhelm II overruled that policy, survivors were confined in concentration camps, where roughly half died from disease, hunger and forced work.
The Nama had fought alongside the Germans at Waterberg but rebelled in September 1904 and resisted until 1908; from April 1905 they were offered surrender and imprisonment instead of execution. Settler newspapers spread invented atrocity stories that stoked revenge, while socialists such as August Bebel condemned the violence in the Reichstag. In 2021 Germany agreed to pay 1.1 billion euros as development aid, without accepting legal liability.
Source: Herero and Nama genocide
