Lothar von Trotha and the brutal blueprint for the first genocide of the twentieth century.

History · Published 3 October 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: A veteran of colonial wars in China and East Africa, Lothar von Trotha arrived in German South West Africa in 1904. He implemented a strategy of systematic extermination against the Herero and Nama people, setting a harrowing precedent for mass violence that remains a dark chapter in modern history.

Lothar von Trotha was a career Prussian officer who gained extensive experience in colonial warfare before arriving in German South West Africa in June 1904. Tasked with suppressing an uprising by the Herero people, who were rebelling against land appropriation and debt, he abandoned previous military approaches. Instead, he devised a strategy to encircle the Herero at the Waterberg plateau, forcing them into the waterless Omaheke-Steppe, a section of the Kalahari Desert.

In October 1904, von Trotha formalized his intent with an 'extermination order,' or Vernichtungsbefehl. He explicitly stated that any Herero found within German borders would be executed, regardless of whether they were armed or were women and children. To ensure the desert claimed those who escaped his troops, he ordered water holes to be poisoned and established a 240-kilometre line of guard posts to prevent their return. He later applied similar tactics to the Nama people, threatening them with the same fate as the Herero.

The consequences were catastrophic. Scholars widely classify the resulting mass death as genocide. Before the conflict, the Herero population was estimated at 80,000; by the 1911 census, only 15,000 remained. Approximately 50% of the Nama population also perished. While von Trotha was eventually relieved of his command following public outcry, the survivors were forced into concentration camps where many died from malnutrition, disease, and overwork. Von Trotha himself later defended his actions, asserting that his policy relied on the use of force, terrorism, and brutality.

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