100th Anniversary: Herero Rebellion January 11, 1904

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Remembering the Herero Rebellion

Namibia on Sunday marked the 100th anniversary of the Herero Rebellion, remembering one of the darkest chapters of Germany's colonial past in what was once German Southwest Africa.

On January 11, 1904, Herero tribal leader Samuel Maharero called for his people to rise up and fight against their German colonial rulers in the southwestern part of Africa that would one day become modern Namibia.

Angered by encroaching German settlers, the dividing of their land by new railroads and the decimation of their herds of cattle, the Herero violently heeded that call and killed 100 German civilians and 13 soldiers in just a few days. However, those deaths would eventually elicit a response from the Germans that many Herero consider tantamount to genocide.

Completely unprepared for the unrest, Governor General Theodor Leutwein was unable to keep the insurrection from quickly spreading throughout the entire colony and after an unsuccessful six-month bush war the government in Berlin ordered 14,000 German soldiers to the region to put down the rebellion. Heading the force was Lieutenant General Lothar von Trotha, a man who already had a infamous reputation from other conflicts.

"You can say the whole thing became more brutal at that point," Larissa Förster, a Namibia expert at the Museum for Ethnology in Cologne, told Deutsche Welle.

No quarter from von Trotha

After a decisive battle for the Germans on August 12, 1904 near the Waterberg, the surviving Herero fled into the Omaheke desert. What happened next still continues to haunt many Herero today. Confronted with the very real possibility of dying in the desert, many hoped to surrender to the Germans and head back to their lands. But on October 2, von Trotha ordered all Herero, armed or unarmed and including women and children, to be shot if they attempted to return.

Although the German Kaiser Wilhelm II and Reichskanzler von Bülow supposedly disagreed with this decision, they apparently also did little to stop von Trotha, who was now determined to exterminate the Herero, from carrying it out.

Those Herero that were not killed where eventually put in camps that many Namibians now compare to Nazi concentration camps. Forced labor, disease and malnutrition took their toll. By 1908, when the camps were emptied, an estimated 50 to 80 percent of the entire Herero population had died.

Like many modern historians, Förster from the museum in Cologne considers the Herero Rebellion the first genocide of the 20th century. "It was clearly a command to eliminate people belonging to a specific ethnic group and only because they were part of this ethnic group," Förster said.

Looking for compensation

The Herero never completely recovered from the conflict and of the around 100,000 that today live in Namibia many live in poverty or work on the farms of white landowners.

In 2001, tribal leaders tried to sue Germany for compensation in U.S. courts, but the claim for $4 billion (3.12 billion) never went very far. They also want reparations from Deutsche Bank, which allegedly profited from the forced labor in the camps.

"The war was a gruesome thing. Much blood flowed and there were many victims on both the German side and the side of the Herero. The German soldiers and settlers stole my land and my dignity and they killed my people. Something like that can never be forgotten," Tjerimo Veseevete, a 75 year-old Herero man who lives not far from the Waterberg near Otumborombonga, told Deutsche Welle.

Germany has expressed its regret over the matter and professes it has a special responsibility is ensuring the future of Namibia, but has so far stopped short of an official apology. And since Berlin is Namibia's single largest source of foreign aid, it also sees no need for specific financial compensation to the Herero.

The Namibian government, which is dominated by the Ovambo people, has shown little interest in backing the Herero claims. The German ambassador and a few regional officials attended the small ceremony marking the rebellion on Sunday in the Namibian capital Windhuk, but no government representatives took part.

Author Peter Wozny
http://www.dw-world.de © Deutsche Welle

http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/1510000/images/_1514856_germanarmy150.jpg

The German army poisoned wells and shot the Herero

http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/1510000/images/_1514856_hanging300.jpg

The Herero people were systematically wiped out

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German Imperialism In S.W. Africa
Almost twenty years of German colonialism in South-West Africa (modern Namibia) generated fierce hostility on the part of the Herero, the main tribe of the region. By 1904, German alienation of native land, the resentment caused by racist attitudes against the native peoples, as well as the catastrophic effects on the native agricultural economy resulting from cattle plague (the rinderpest), created the warlike outburst of the Herero in 1904, a contest that soon saw their former enemy, the Nama, join with them in an unavailing struggle against the superior German arms. The brutal retaliation of the German commander in the field, General von Trotha, gave rise to what has been dubbed by one author as "the first genocide of the twentieth century" as tens of thousands of Herero were wiped out by starvation when pushed into the wilderness of the Kalahari desert

(a)Statement of Hendrik Witbooi (Nama chief) on the German administration
The German himself . . . . . . is just what he described the other nations as ... he makes no requests according to truth and justice and asks no permission of a chief. He introduces laws into the land . . . [which] are entirely impossible, untenable, unbelievable, unbearable, unmerciful and unfeeling.... He personally punishes our people at Windhoek and has already beaten people to death for debt.... it is not just and right to beat people to death for that. . . . . He flogs people in a shameful and cruel manner. We stupid and unintelligent people, for so he thinks us to be, we have never yet punished a human being in such a cruel and improper way for he stretches people on their backs and flogs them on the stomach and even between the legs, be they male or female, so Your Honour can understand that no one can survive such a punishment.

(b)The following letter was written by Samuel Mahahero on 6 March 1904 in reply to a letter of the German Governor Leutwein asking him why he had started the war.

The beginning of the war is not just in this year begun by me, but by the whites, for you know how many Hereros have been killed by white people, especially [by] traders with rifles and [by guards] in prison. And always when I brought the matter to Windhoek, the blood of my people was always valued at no more than a few head of [cattle] . . . . The traders increased the trouble in the way that they of their own accord gave my people credit [i.e., loans]. After they had done this they robbed them, going so far as to take away by force, to repay themselves, two or three head of cattle for a debt of one pound sterling. These are the things which have caused the war in this land.

And now in these days the white people said to us that you who were at peace with us and had love for us were not here, and they began to say to us: the Governor who loved you has gone to a hard war, he is dead and because he is dead you [Hereros] must also die. They went so far as to kill two Hereros of Chief Tjetjo, even Lieutenant N. began to kill my people in the gaol. Ten died and it was said that they died of sickness, but they died by the hands of the labor overseer and by the lash.

Eventually Lieutenant N. began to treat me badly and to look for a reason for killing me, so he said: the people of Kambasembi and Uanja are making war. Then he called me to question me. I answered him truthfully 'No', but he did not believe me. At last he hid soldiers in boxes in the fort. And he sent for me so that when I came he could shoot me. I did not go; I saw his intentions and so I fled. Thereupon Lieutenant N. sent men with rifles to shoot me. Because of these things I became angry and said: 'Now I must kill the white people even if I die. That I should surely die I heard from a white man named X. .................I am the Chief, Samuel Herero.
SOURCE

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More information about this genocide is to be found here:

before the genocide

Africa is almost certainly the birthplace of the human species. From it the earliest people ventured into Asia and then across the long-vanished land bridge to the Americas, or across the Pacific island chains to Australasia. They also spread to the lands north of the Mediterranean Sea. Many thousands of years later their European descendants gained glory and wealth by rediscovering the southern hemisphere, and plundering it. They - we - have often treated it, and its inhabitants, with brutality, indifference and contempt. White Europeans forced black Africans to become slaves. White Europeans deprived black people of their homes and communities and cultures. White Europeans sent their missionaries to change black people's religion to their own. And in the 19th century white Europeans began moving into Africa to occupy the land as well. The land was desirable for itself: it provided new territory, new possessions and new trade, both for individuals and their countries. The land had other values, too: it provided bases for further take-overs and further military threats; and, above all, it contained riches.

from P E A C E P L E D G E U N I O N
link to complete essay:
NAMIBIA 1904

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Very interesting, thanks for posting Walter, I hadn't heard of this tragedy before.

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Thank you for presenting this, Walter. It is distressing, but valuable information.

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100th Anniversary: Herero Rebellion January 11, 1904

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