#history
Annihilation of the Black People – A precursor to the Nazi Concentration Camps.
In 1870, only around 10% of the African landmass was under formal European control.
By 1914, however , except Abyssinia (present day Ethiopia), Liberia and the Dervish state (parts of present day Somalia), rest of Africa (about 90%) was under the control of France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Great Britain, Portugal and Belgium. Subsequent historians have termed this as “Scramble for Africa” or the “Partition of Africa”.
In the late 19th century, the central eastern parts of South West Africa (present day Namibia) was inhabited by a group of cattle herders called Hereros. South of the Herero territory lived a pastoral tribe called the Namas. In 1883, a German merchant called Franz Adolf Eduard Lüderitz purchased a stretch of the coast of Angra Paquina bay from the local tribal chief using fraudulent terms. The German imperial state used Lüderitz’s pact to convert the land into imperial Germany’s first colony – German South West Africa.
Faced with repeated attacks from the Nama tribes, the Herero chief Maharero, in 1885, signed a protection treaty with the Imperial German colonial governor Heinrich Ernst Göring (father of infamous Nazi commander Hermann Göring) . The treaty didn’t cede any property to the Germans. The Herero remained in an uneasy relationship with the Germans as their women were repeatedly taken away by the German men who were rarely punished by the imperial colonial government.
In 1890, Maharero’s son Samuel entered into a new treaty with the colonial government in which he handed over large tracts of land in return of being recognised as the supreme ruler of all the Herero clans.
By 1894, through the involvement of German troops a tenuous peace among the different ethnic groups was established. The next decade saw oppression of the local tribes by the European colonialists. The indigenous people were used as slave labour, their land and cattle confiscated and taken over by their colonial rulers.
Finally in 1903, the Nama tribe broke out in revolt. Soon, their long time rivals the Herero joined them. It turned into a full fledged rebellion in January, 1904. On Jan 12th, Herero tribes killed more than a 100 German men in a surprise attack. They spared the women and children.
The retribution was swift and deadly.
Led by general Lothar von Trotha, the German forces defeated the Herero in August at the battle of Waterberg and pushed them into the Omaheke desert.
In November, the Nama met a similar fate. Surrounded by German forces, the vanquished perished out of starvation and dehydration in the desert. Later day excavations revealed wells dug up to 13 metres deep in the sand in desperation for water. German forces also poisoned existing wells to make matters worse.
For the remainder of the tribes, more horror was to come. Thousands and thousands of the defeated Herero and Nama were imprisoned in concentration camps, many of them women and children, where they died of inhospitable living conditions, disease, exhaustion and abuse. Food provided consisted only of rice. As the prisoners didn’t have pans or pots, quality of cooked rice was unhygienic and indigestible. Often dead cattle and horses were given to prisoners to partake as food.
Despite this, everyday, those who were classified as “fit to work” were taken out for hard labour. Shootings, hangings, beatings and torture was common. Sick and destitute were denied medicine. It is estimated that anywhere between 24,000 and 1,00,000 Hereros, 12,000 Namas and an unknown number of San (a tribe of bushmen) perished in this genocide.
Hundreds died every day. Their bodies were taken by cartloads and buried in shallow graves on the beach. In high tides, the bodies would be exposed when sharks consumed them. During the bitter winter, they were denied any warm clothing. The prisoners were experimented upon and their illnesses and recovery from the same documented for research.
Many of the atrocities committed on the Herero, Nama and San would form the guideline for Nazi concentration camps some decades later. Skulls were taken back to Germany in large nos. – either as souvenirs of victory, evidence of white racist supremacy or for medical experimentation.
In 1985, United Nations recognized the atrocities as one of the first attempts at organised genocide in the 20th century.
In 2001, the Herero filed a lawsuit in the USA against Deutsche Bank (which financed the German government & companies in southern Africa), demanding compensation.
In 2004, the German government for the first time formally recognised the event and issued a formal apology while ruling out financial compensation. In 2015, Germany officially accepted the incidents as “genocide” but still refused financial repatriation.
In 2018, the last batch of skulls and remains of the victims were taken back to Namibia.
The extermination of the Namibian tribes remains one of the most shameful episodes of human history.
Yet, because it was carried out against the black man, tribes whom modern society called “uncivilised”, it has been reduced as a mere footnote in modern human history.
( copied)
photo:
severed head of a Herero concentration camp prisoner, classified as “Hottentotte 7”, preserved as a trophy.
