Talk:Herero and Nama genocide

Dubious Source

Source #82 is rather dubious. It tries to draw a connection between Hermann Goering and the Herero and Namaqua Genocide simply because his father was the colonial governor 15 years before the rebellion took place, and because he stood next to Franz Ritter von Epp at a Nazi Party Rally one time. Von Epp's own involvement in genocidal activities in German Southwest Africa is just assumed because he was a company commander during the rebellion, there is no proof given at all. Also, his involvement in the Holocaust is dubious as well, he was simply a figurehead with absolutely no power at all by 1936, the Holocaust is understood to have started in 1941, well after his position was powerless. He even campaigned for the release of more than 4000 concentration camp inmates, notably successful in the case of Erwein von Aretin.

--74.59.112.163 (talk) 22:44, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

Also dubious is the selective use of sources, source #31 clearly states that v. Trotha's proclamation about indiscriminately shooting Hereros was quickly rescinded, but this article makes no mention of it. Also, the supposedly sourced statements from this book appear nowhere in the actual source, especially the ones about a supposed racial struggle.

--74.59.112.163 (talk) 23:10, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

Seems your objections are not in dispute, nor that one dares to debate them. 105.12.1.207 (talk) 19:11, 16 July 2019 (UTC)

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to one external link on Herero and Namaqua Genocide. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add {{cbignore}} after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add {{nobots|deny=InternetArchiveBot}} to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:

• Added archive https://web.archive.org/20050225073749/http://www.dw-world.de:80/dw/article/0,1564,1084266,00.html to http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,1564,1084266,00.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

• If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
• If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—^{cyberbot II}_{Talk to my owner:Online} 09:24, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

Namaqua vs Nama usage

I find "Nama" to be a more colloquial term than "Namaqua". The latter is an archaic term, thus I suggest we chance the title. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dumbassman (talk • contribs) 15:22, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia Primary School invitation

Hi everybody. On behalf of the teams behind the Wikipedia Primary School research project, I would like to announce that this article was selected a while ago to be reviewed by an external expert. Notes and remarks written by the external expert are available on this page under a CC-BY-SA license, so that you can read them, discuss them and then decide if and how to use them. We'd like to thank Leoneor Faber-Jonker for his work and for his helpful notes. Please sign up here to let us know you're collaborating. Thanks a lot for your support! -- Anthere (talk) 11:37, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

To facilitate the editing process, I copied Leonor notes below.

Quality of the Summary

Is the summary of the article a complete, thorough, and concise introduction to the topic? How do you think the summary could be improved? Which meaningful data are missing? Is there something that you find too much detailed for a general overview of the topic?

Missing:
Y An important element missing from the summary is that many, if not most, victims of the genocide died in concentration camps throughout the colony. Suggested alteration in the third paragraph: ‘The first phase of the genocide was characterized by (….) forces. Once defeated, thousands of Herero and Nama were imprisoned in concentration camps, where the majority died of disease, abuse, and exhaustion.’ (Gewald, Colonization, genocide and resurgence pp 167, 209, Olusoga, Namibia: genocide and the second reich).

Too detailed:
Y Too detailed for a general overview (third paragraph): ‘Some sources also claim that the German colonial army systematically poisoned desert water wells’ (more likely incidental, thin evidence).

Further suggestions for improvement:
Y Possibly better to change ‘It is considered to have been the first genocide of the 20th century’ in the first paragraph into ‘It is considered as one of the first genocides of the 20th century’ because the Whitaker report (fourth paragraph) speaks of ‘one of the earliest attempts at genocide in the 20th century.
Y The date 12 January in the second paragraph is best left out, since Samuel Maharero only intervened after the first attack. Suggested alteration: ‘In January 1904…’
Y Since Herero leader Samuel Maharero is mentioned in this summary, maybe Nama captain Hendrik Witbooi should also be mentioned in the second paragraph: he was the leader of the Nama rebels.
Y Third paragraph ‘ (…) and an estimated 10,000 Nama died’.
Too many footnotes follow the statements ‘It is considered to have been the first genocide of the 20th century’ (first paragraph) and ‘In total, between 24,000 and 100,000 and 10,000 Nama died (third paragraph)
See ‘5. References’.

Structure and style of the article

Is the article properly presenting the topic for a general public? Does the article provide a complete and easy-to-navigate structure? Which paragraph would you add, unify or split into different parts? Please provide a list of suggestions. Is the article well written and understandable at a high school level?

Presentation of topic and structure:
Generally, the topic is well presented for a general public. The background of the genocide could be presented more clearly by adding an extra header referring to German colonial policy in German South-West Africa (a divide-and-rule policy based on protection treaties, characterized by disregard and abuse of Herero and Nama) preceding the revolts, following the first two paragraphs. (‘The Herero (…) white settlement’).
There is an inconsistency in the spelling of the plural of Herero, it is sometimes spelled as Hereros. I should always be spelled ‘Herero’ without the –s.

Y The paragraph 2.2 Medical experiments implies that this was an integral part of the genocide. However, while medical experimentation on living prisoners was rare (the evidence is thin), experimentation with dead body parts of the prisoners was rife. Renaming the paragraph would be a solution.

Y 3.1 Recognition could be split into 3.1 Recognition and 3.2. Repatriation. The repatriation of Namibian skulls from Berlin to Namibia is in my view significant enough to merit its own header. The information should also be expanded (see 3. Content below).

Paragraphs:

• Under 1. Background: add 1.1. German colonial policy
• Unify ‘Under German colonial rule … resentment’ and ‘Over the next decade…South-West Africa’ under 1. Background.
• Under 1.1. Revolts: unify revised (see ‘content’) first sentence with 6th paragraph.
• Under 2.1. Concentration camps: unify ‘Many Herero … malnutrition’ with ‘Food in the (…) nursing care.’ and ‘Shootings (…) were common’. Start a new paragraph from ‘A 28 September 1905 article (etc.)’.
• Under 2.1. Concentration camps: bring forward ‘During the war (…) Herero and Namaqua people’. This should be the first sentence of the paragraph which now start with ‘A 28 September 1905 article (etc.) because it describes a general circumstance followed by two examples: an observation by Percival Griffith and by Fred Cornell.
• Y 2.2. Medical experiments needs to be revised. Suggested new header: 2.2. Medical experiments and scientific racism.
• Y Under 3. Aftermath, add 3.2 Repatriation (a section discussing the return of Namibian skulls from Germany).
• 3. Y Aftermath: Start a new paragraph with ‘In 1915, at the start World War I (etc.)’

Writing style:
The article is well written although some information is given twice. Under 1.1 Revolts, the fifth paragraph repeats the information given above: ‘In 1903 the Herero learned of (…) reasons for the revolt.’ This paragraph can be left out.
The article contains a lot of citations under 2. Genocide and 2.1 Concentration camps. Although the information given is correct, it seems to be included to ‘prove’ that the genocide was in fact a genocide. For a general article, it therefore contains quite a lot of detailed (graphic) information.

Content

Is the article comprehensive of major facts related to the topic? Is the article adequately placing the subject in context? What does it miss? Please provide a list of topics you think should be included in the article (suggestions must be related to bibliography). Do you find that some arguments are not meaningful or representative of the topic for a general public. What should be deleted? Please explain why.

1. Background

Add:

• Y First paragraph: the Nama were pastoralists and traders living to the South of the Herero (Olusoga & Erichsen, The Kaiser’s Holocaust, 22).
• The Germans managed to get a foothold in the area thanks to internal strife and rivalry. Under the first Reichskommissar they established themselves in the area by signing protection treaties with various local leaders. They used the Nama threat to coax Herero chiefs into signing treaties (Karlheinz Graudenz and Hanns-Michael Schindler, Die deutschen Kolonien (1988): 58/ Conrad, Deutsche Kolonialgeschichte: 29).
• Herero soon found out protection treaties were worthless as Germans were unable and unwilling to stand up against Hendrik Witbooi and many Germans were violent and abusive. Rape of black women was common, a crime that the German authorities were reluctant to punish. These abuses were justified by the conviction shared by the majority of the German settlers (and soldiers) of belonging to a superior race (Benjamin Madley, ‘Patterns of frontier genocide 1803-1910’, Journal of Genocide Research 6 (2004) 183- 184).
• It must be made clear that the Germans made a series of treaties with Herero and Nama, rather than one treaty with Kamaherero, Leutwein consciously used a divide and rule strategy. (Zimmerer and Zeller, Genocide in German South-West Africa: 26).
• Herero had little choice but to sign the treaties because Herero society became fragmented and impoverished in the first decades of colonial rule. Political unity in Herero society unraveled after Samuel Maharero illegitimately took the place of his father, and Rinderpest reaching Namibia in 1896 dealt another heavy blow. Prof. dr. Jan-Bart Gewald argues that Herero society had lost its independence and ‘became dependent on the good will of the colonial state for its very existence’ (Gewald, colonization, genocide and resurgence 194, 199, 200-201).

Delete:

• Y ‘Eventually the area was to be inhabited predominantly by German settlers and become African Germany’. Gives the impression that this actually happened rather than it being an ideal.

Y Under image: Nama king Hendrik Witbooi should be Nama captain Hendrik Witbooi.

1.1 Revolts

Add:

• (first lines): In January 1904 Herero finally revolted, initially only in Okahandja. (unify with ‘The Herero judged... desperate surprise attack.’). The brutal response of the Germans ensured that the uprising spiraled into a full-scale war. (Olusoga and Erichsen, The Kaiser’s holocaust 129).
• Paragraph between 7th and 8th paragraph ‘(...) German missionaries’ and ‘Leutwein was (...): Exagerrated reports of the initial attacks on white settlers provoked outright war fever in Germany (Madley, ‘Patterns of frontier genocide 1803-1910’, 185). The German press constructed an image of the Herero as a fearsome barbarian, a dangerous enemy that did not actually exist in reality (Olusoga, BBC documentary and Olusoga and Erichsen, The Kaiser’s Holocaust, 130). In the jingoistic atmosphere that developed, settlers did not have faith in Leutwein’s attempt to solve matters through negotiation with Maharero and demanded military action. (Gewald, ‘Colonization, genocide and resurgence’, 205). )This prompted Kaiser Wilhelm to send in Lothar von Trotha).
• Von Trotha had forged a reputation for ruthlessness as a commander in German East Africa and had been in charge of a unit attacking Chinese villages in the aftermath of the Boxer Rebellion in 1901 (Olusoga and Erichsen, The Kaiser’s Holocaust, 138).

Delete:

• ‘In 1903, some of the Nama tribes rose in revolt (...) January 1904’. The Herero attacks in Okahandja were isolated from Witbooi’s attacks, in fact Witbooi and the Herero were still enemies at this point.
• In 1903 the Herero (...) revolt): already said elsewhere.
• ‘The timing of the attack was carefully planned (...) in his colony’ This wrongfully gives the impression of a coordinated, nationwide attack. Maherero only became involved after the initial attacks.
• ‘Leutwein was forced to request (...) in Berlin.’ Leutwein did not request an experienced officer himself. He was an advocate of a diplomatic rather than a military solution.

2. Genocide

Add:

• Beginning of the paragraph: By the time Von Trotha arrived in the colony in June, the vast majority of the Herero, some 50,000, had united under the leadership of Samuel Maharero. Together with tens of thousands of cattle they had congregated around the Waterberg plateau while the Herero leaders were considering their options. (Olusoga and Erichsen, The Kaiser’s Holocaust, 141).
• 5th paragraph: ‘(...) issued a warning to the Herero which became known as the Vernichtungsbefehl (Gewald, ‘Colonization, genocide and resurgence, 206-207.) (since this is how almost all literature relevant to the topic refers to the order like this, it seems important to include).
• 6th paragraph: ‘Benjamin Madley has argued that frustration on the part of the Germans played an important part in this course of action. The German troops suffered from disease and had to deal with an inhospitable terrain, lack of water, and an opponent who, when fighting did occur, used guerrilla tactics. (Madley, ‘Patterns of frontier genocide’, 185) Added to this was fear of the enemy, fueled by findings of dead mutilated soldiers on the battlefield. (Gerhardus Pool, Die Herero-opstand 1904-1907, 161, Faber-Jonker).
• 9th paragraph. Suggested alteration: replace ‘Upon the arrival of the new orders at the end of 1904, prisoners were herded into concentration camps’ with ‘In December 1904 the Vernichtungsbefehl was lifted again, but this only meant the start of the last and most destructive phase of the genocide as prisoners were rounded up and put into concentration camps were they were used as slave labourers.’ As mentioned above the majority of the victims lost their lives in the camps rather than on the battlefield. This should be emphasized.
• I miss a final paragraph on Nama involvement in the war: ‘At Waterberg, some Nama had fought on the side of the Germans. Soon afterwards however, captain Hendrik Witbooi decided that war with the Germans was inevitable. He commence hostilities in September 1904, attacking isolated farms and villages. (Cooper, ‘Reparations for the Herero genocide’, 114/ Olusoga and Erichsen, Kaiser’s Holocaust, 176). What followed was a guerrilla war that continued for years, even after Witbooi was fatally wounded and died on 29 October 1905. (Zimmerer and Zeller, Genocide in South-West Africa, 147).

Delete:

• ‘fewer than 1,000 reached Bechuanaland, where they were granted asylum’ (4th paragraph) double information with final sentence of this paragraph.
• ‘After the war (...) Battle of Beresonia’ in the 6th paragraph. This information seems a bit obscure to include in an article for a general public. It is also information with an agenda, to demonstrate the preconceived nature of the genocide. This is subject of debate.
• Final sentence: ‘(...) or exploited as human guinea pigs in medical experiments’. See feedback under 2. Structure and style of the article.

2.1 Concentration camps

Alter: caption of second photo: I believe these are Nama rather than Herero prisoners of war.

Add:

• Dysentery, scurvy, and lung diseases were common. Scurvy was a very common disease in the camps. (‘Erichsen, ‘The angel of death...’, 50.)

Delete:

• First paragraph: ‘The British government (...) in 1918’ This is not relevant information for this paragraph.
• Second paragraph: ‘Estimates of (...) 74%’ These estimates are really vague and impossible to make for camps generally: at Shark Island the vast majority died, but in other camps the living conditions were better.
• 9th paragraph: ‘Trotha was (...) native diseases’, this does not refer to the concentration camps: they were established after Von Trotha had left the country.

2.2. Medical experiments

Alter:

• title, see 2. Structure and style of the article.
• 4th paragraph: replace ‘The last (...) in 2014’ by ‘More human remains were repatriated to Namibia in 2013 and 2014.
• ‘An estimated 300 skulls’ to ‘hundreds of skulls’. The source for 300 is a newspaper, and it seems quite random. I believe the estimate is on the low side.

Add:

• In 1913, Eugen Fischer’s ‘Die Rehobother Bastards und das Bastardierungsproblem beim Menschen’ legitimitated in science what was already ‘widely construed to be common knowledge’: the existence of the moral, cultural, and physical hierarchy in races’.(Krautwurst, ‘The joy of looking’, 178) In this study he set out to demonstrate the dangers of miscegenation using the Namibian Rehobother Basters, a people of Afrikaner/ Khoisan descent as an example. (maybe the reference to Eugen Fischer should be left out altogether).
• On at least one occasion in 1903 Lieutenant Zürn, stationed in Okahandja, ordered his men to dig up Herero skulls, probably as ‘an easy source of additional income’. There was a worldwide trade in human remains at the time and anthropological collectors would have been eager to buy such skulls. (Olusoga and Erichsen, The Kaiser’s Holocaust, 127-128/ Faber-Jonker 34) In 1905, Ludwig Conradt, a German trader and confidential of Samuel Maharero, would name the ‘desecration of the graves in Okahandja’ as ‘one of the main reasons why the Herero had risen up’. (Olusoga and Erichsen, The Kaiser’s Holocaust, 128). Zürn brought home an Herero skull, which he donated two years later to anthropologist Felix von Luschan. He also provided the latter with contacts in German South-West Africa to help him ‘secure a larger collection of Herero skulls for scientific investigation’. (Zimmerman, Adventures in the skin trade, 174).
• On the request of anthropological collectors in Germany, medical doctors in the concentration camps embarked on a more systematic collecting. (Zimmerman, Adventures in the skin trade, 175-176). Unify with ‘An estimated 300 skulls..’.
• On request of anthropologist and anatomist Paul Bartels preserved heads of Nama and Herero prisoners were also sent from the concentration camps to Pathological Institute in Berlin. Bartels and his doctoral students used the heads for race research, comparing their facial tissue and muscular structure with that of ‘whites’. (Schnalke, ‘’Normale’ Wissenschaft’ in Stoecker, Schnalke, Winkelmann 171)

Delete:

• 1st paragraph: ‘Eugen Fischer (...) test subjects’. This is incorrect!
• 3th paragraph ‘for burial’. They were not buried, but are kept in storage facilities of the Independence Memorial Museum.

2.3 Number of victims

I’m surprised by numbers mentioned in the first sentence (25,000 Herero remaining in GSWA in 1905) because the 1911 census recorded only 15,130 Herero remaining in the colony.

Add:

• Of the estimated 80,000 Herero who lived in German South-West Africa before the war, only 15,130 were recorded in the 1911 census. (Cooper, ‘Reparations for the Herero genocide, 114).
• The Nama population went down from an estimated 20,000 before the war, to an estimated 13,000 after the war. Of the estimated 2,400 Nama who had been imprisoned in concentration camps, only 248 remained alive in 1909. (Olusoga and Erichsen, The Kaiser’s Holocaust, 229).

3. Aftermath

Add:

• First paragraph: ‘With the closure of the camps in January 1908, all surviving Herero (etc.)’ (Olusoga and Erichsen, The Kaiser’s Holocaust, 230).
• Nama were kept imprisoned longer, because they were considered both inferior labourers and a threat. The survivors of Shark Island concentration camp were kept imprisoned until 1912. (Olusoga and Erichsen, TheKaiser’s Holocaust, 234-235).
• The Reiterdenkmal was finally removed from its plinth in December 2013. (Ed., 'Reiterdenkmal disappears overnight', Namibian Sun (26 December 2013)). The Independence Memorial Museum and a new statue commemorating both the genocide and Namibian independence were put in its place. Ed., 'Genocide victims get statue', Namibian Sun (16 September 2013).
• I miss a paragraph on the Blue Book, now mentioned under 2.1. Concentration camps. Suggested addition: ‘Immediately after taking over the territory, the British government commissioned a detailed report of the colonial crimes committed in German South-West Africa, the so called Blue Book. In 1928, after Namibia had become a South African mandate, it was banned and destroyed in the interest of white unity. (Gewald and Silvester, Words cannot be found, 2003).

Delete:

• ‘From that time (...) registration number’. This is not the case, prisoners from the concentration camps who were put to work as slave labourers wore such metal tags during the war.

3.1. Recognition

Add:

• Third paragraph: ‘All legal cases were finally dismissed in 2007. (Cooper, ‘Reparations for the Herero genocide, 115).
• Final paragraph: In September 2011 20 skulls from the collection of Charité University Hospital were returned to Namibia. Another repatriation of Namibian human remains from Germany followed in 2013.

3.2. Media

Add:

• The South African artist William Kentridge (on Wikipedia) made the installation ‘Black Box/ Chambre Noir’ (2005) about the Herero and Namaqua genocide.

3.3. Continuity between the Herero Genocide and the Holocaust
Add:

• Robert Gerwarth and Stephan Malinowski have pointed out that the First World War is absent in the continuity thesis. They argue that the Nazi war of annihilation constituted a break rather than a contination of the colonial tradition because it was preceded by a war in which new dimensions of destruction were reached, followed by experiences of defeat, revolution, and civil war. (Gerwarth and Malinowski, ‘Der Holocaust als “Kolonialer Genozid”?’, 439.

Delete:

• Third paragraph: ‘Eugen Fischer was not the only person who took part in both genocides’. This is incorrect. He did not commit any atrocities in German South-West Africa.

International and local dimension

Is the article neutral (it presents general and acknowledged views fairly and without bias)? Is the article representative of the international dimension and consolidated research about the topic? If applicable, does the article feature examples from all over the world (no localisms)? Please draft a list of what is missing with related references.

See also 2. Structure and style of the article. The article is slightly biased. Only very recently the Germans have acknowledged that what happened in German South-West Africa was in fact a genocide, the article, probably made before this official acknowledgement, seems to have an underlying agenda of wanting to prove that it was a genocide. This is evident in the number of detailed (graphic) quotations under 2. Genocide and 2.1. Concentration camps.

The article under 2. Genocide also suggests that the genocide was preconceived. However, this is subject of debate. It will be more balanced when the following information is deleted in this paragraph:

• ‘After the war (...) Battle of Beresonia’ in the 6th paragraph. This information seems a bit obscure to include in an article for a general public. It is also information with an agenda, to demonstrate the preconceived nature of the genocide. This is subject of debate.

And the following added:

• 6th paragraph: ‘Benjamin Madley has argued that frustration on the part of the Germans played an important part in this course of action. The German troops suffered from disease and had to deal with an inhospitable terrain, lack of water, and an opponent who, when fighting did occur, used guerrilla tactics. (Madley, ‘Patterns of frontier genocide’, 185) Added to this was fear of the enemy, fueled by findings of dead mutilated soldiers on the battlefield. (Gerhardus Pool, Die Herero-opstand 1904-1907, 161, Faber-Jonker).

Under 3.3. Continuity between the Herero Genocide and the Holocaust only arguments supporting the continuity thesis are given. The paragraph would be improved by including the following information:

• Robert Gerwarth and Stephan Malinowski have pointed out that the First World War is absent in the continuity thesis. They argue that the Nazi war of annihilation constituted a break rather than a contination of the colonial tradition because it was preceded by a war in which new dimensions of destruction were reached, followed by experiences of defeat, revolution, and civil war. (Gerwarth and Malinowski, ‘Der Holocaust als “Kolonialer Genozid”?’, 439.

References (essential to allow the articles to be improved)

Is the list of publications comprehensive and updated? Does it list the fundamental monographs and papers? Please provide primary/generic and secondary/original resources which need to be included and suggest the list of publications which should be removed.

Under 8. Further reading/ 9. External links add:

• http://www.darkmatter101.org/site/2013/11/18/these-skulls-are-not-enough-the-repatriation-of-namibianhuman-remains-from-berlin-to-windhoek-in-2011/

Add:

• Conrad, Sebastian, Deutsche Kolonialgeschichte (München: C. H. Beck, 2008).
• Cooper, Allan D., ‘Reparations for the Herero genocide: defining the limits of international litigation’, African Affairs 106:422 (2006) 113-126.
• Erichsen, Casper W., “The angel of death has descended violently among them”. Concentration camps and prisoners-of-war in Namibia, 1904-1908 (Leiden: African Studies Centre Research Report 79, 2005).
• Faber-Jonker, Leonor, ‘‘More than just an object’. A material analysis of the return and retention of Namibian skulls from Germany’, Research master thesis, University of Utrecht (21 August 2015).
• Förster, Larissa, Dag Henrichsen and Michael Bollig, Namibia – Deutschland. Eine geteilte Geschichte. Widerstand – Gewalt – Erinnerung (Köln: Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum für Völkerkunde/ Wolfratshausen: Edition Minerva, 2004).
• Gerwarth, Robert and Stephan Malinowski, ‘Der Holocaust als “kolonialer Genozid”? Europäische Kolonialgewalt und nationalsozialistischer Vernichtungskrieg’, Geschichte und Gesellschaft 33:3 (2007) 439-466.
• Gewald, Jan-Bart and Jeremy Silvester, Words cannot be found. German colonial rule in Namibia. An annotated reprint of the 1918 Blue Book (Leiden: Brill, 2003).
• Krautwurst, Udo, ‘The joy of looking: early German anthropology, photography and audience formation’ in: Anette Hoffmann (ed.), What we see. Reconsidering an anthropometrical collection from Southern Africa: images, voices, and versioning (Basel: Basler Afrika Bibliographien, 2009) 148-181.
• Leutwein, Theodor, Elf Jahre Gouverneur in Deutsch-Südwestafrika (Berlin: E.S. Mittler & Sohn, 1908).
• Madley, Benjamin, ‘Patterns of frontier genocide 1803-1910’, Journal of Genocide Research 6:2 (2004) 167-192.
• Olusoga, David and Casper W. Erichsen, The Kaiser’s Holocaust. Germany’s forgotten genocide and the colonial roots of Nazism (London: Faber and Faber, 2010).
• Pool, Gerardus, Die Herero-opstand 1904-1907 (Cape Town: Hollandsch Afrikaansche Uitgevers Maatschappij, 1979).
• Stoecker, Holger, Thomas Schnalke and Andreas Winkelmann (ed.), Sammeln, erforschen, zurückgeben? Menschliche Gebeine aus der Kolonialzeit in akademischen und musealen Sammlungen (Berlin: Ch. Links Verlag, 2013)
• Zeller, Joachim, ‘“Wie Vieh wurden hunderte zu Tode getrieben und wie Vieh begraben”. Fotodokumente aus dem deutschen Konzentrationslager in Swakopmund/ Namibia 1904-1908’, Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft 49:3 (2001) 226-243.
• Zimmerer, Jürgen and Joachim Zeller, Genocide in German South-West Africa. The colonial war of 1904-1908 and its aftermath (Monmouth: Merlin Press, 2008).
• Zimmerer, Jürgen, ‘Annihilation in Africa: the “race war” in German Southwest Africa (1904-1908) and its significance for a global history of genocide’, GHI Bulletin 37 (2005) 51-57.

Remove:

• References: 5, 7, 10-13, 18, 23, 24, 27, 38, 39, 44, 45, 49, 50, 51, 55, 83.

Checked. But not too keen removing references... Anthere (talk)

• Bibliography:

Y ** Clark, Christopher, Iron Kingdom (2006). Book discusses Prussia between 1600-1947, less relevant. Y ** Bridgman, ‘The revolt of the Hereros’ (1981) dated. Y ** Remove 1x: Hull, Absolute destruction (2006), included twice.

Requested move 17 April 2016

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Moved  — Amakuru (talk) 20:40, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

---

Herero and Namaqua Genocide → Herero and Namaqua genocide – Not a proper name, so lowercase genocide. Like most other genocides, the term is descriptive. Very few sources use the term "Herero and Namaqua genocide", either caps or not, until after Wikipedia started using it. Most of the capitalized appearances that one finds are citations of a title by that name, in title case, so not evidence that the term would be treated as a proper name. The bigram "Namaque genocide" is too rare to appear in the Google's n-gram stats, but "Herero genocide" does appear, only in lowercase: [1]. Dicklyon (talk) 03:16, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

• Support as nom. Dicklyon (talk) 03:16, 17 April 2016 (UTC)
• Support Although the debate itself is ongoing, the current usage is predominantly in lowercase. --Pgallert (talk) 09:49, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

---

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

British historial propaganda

Should it be pointed out that pro-british historians seek to make the britishs invasions and killings of natives look nice and noble so that black people think the british are the lesser evil? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.40.219.139 (talk) 01:46, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

If you have a reputable source, feel free. I doubt there is one and weasel words must be avoided. 204.102.226.251 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 23:10, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

Call for review of sourcing of the lede

Lede's need not have citations present, if all material in the lede is present in, and sourced in the main body of the article. Here, in this article's lede, one sees the oddest of approaches to demonstrating an article's content is verifiable:

• Most of the lede has no inline citations appearing, but
• Two sentences have ten citatons between them.

Moreover, some of those ten are poor, in that they are to books, but list no page numbers. Please, regular editors here, make the lede as good as the article as a whole—the lede should summarise the main body, and its approach to sourcing should be consistent, and encyclopedic. That is, (a) all of the lede content's factual sentences should have 1-2 inline citations, representative of the sources appearing in the main body, or (b) no inline citations should appear at all, with all lede content clearly tied to sentences in the main body, where the inline citations sourcing the summary sentences can easily be seen.

Please, remove the redundant citations for these two sentences, add page numbers as needed, and do not permit the lede to be in far worse condition (as it is now) than the the rest of the article. Cheers. A fan of this article, 73.210.155.96 (talk) 07:15, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Herero and Namaqua genocide. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20120224022131/http://faculty.unlv.edu/anderson/publications/hererogenocide.html to http://faculty.unlv.edu/anderson/publications/hererogenocide.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

• If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
• If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 22:35, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

Secondary source on "regular rapes"?

The article states that "German soldiers regularly raped young Herero women", giving just a tertiary source (the "Dictionary of Genocide" by Totten et al), which in turn just states this in its entry on mass-rapes without referring to any source. If that has been "regular" with the army for rapes and gang-rapes I am sure there will be other sources to back up tis statement. I came up empty, though. For example: the claim of repeated (and ignored) reports by Herero officials on rapes by German settlers leading to the conflict is well covered. As this claim makes a major difference on the character of the campaign I suggest it is either better sourced or removed. ASchudak (talk) 12:17, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

• Surviving Herero.jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 10:08, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Khoikhoi instead of Hottentot

My impression is that Hottentot is an antiquated and racially offensive term: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hottentot_(racial_term). Can we replace it with Khoi, Khoikhoi or Khoisan when not providing direct quotations?

I'm not completely against it. However, the only place where the term is used is a section that describes a distant past, when what we today call Khoikhoi or Khoisan, had no other English name except Hottentot. --Pgallert (talk) 18:22, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

@Pgallert I see the word "Hottentot" used quite often in reliable sources in genocide studies scholarship such as the "Century of Genocide" edited by Samuel Totten et. al. In some of the testimonies about the Herero genocide/massacre in that book, some of the Herero survivors themselves used the word "Hottentot". If it has racist connotations, I certainly support its change. I am not opposed to using substitutes such as Khoikhoi or Khoekhoe. My only concern is the term is used in the scholarship itself. Changing a term used in scholarship might potentially misrepresent scholarship, especially if substitute terms like "Khoikhoi", "Khoekhoe" and "Hottentot" do not always mean the same thing, in every context. HollerithPunchCard (talk) 14:00, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

There was no genocide

Article in german:

https://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/voelkermord-an-den-hereros-in-deutsch-suedwestafrika-a-1098649.html

80.131.51.193 (talk) 21:28, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

That article presents the fringe view of some Germans in Namibia. For as long as the scientific mainstream and major political actors (in Germany and Namibia) reject it, there shouldn't not be too much space devoted to this point of view. Determining what really happened is not the task of Wikipedians.

Having said that, the article indeed is unbalanced because (a) it does not even mention the controversy around the classification as genocide, and (b) several sections of it are fringe views more extreme than the one the Spiegel article above supports. For instance, the link to the Third Reich is dubious at best, the concentration camps had nothing to do with von Trotha's order and housed more Damara/Nama people than Hereros, and there is no indication that an extermination of the Nama(qua) was ever planned. --Pgallert (talk) 18:22, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

Bülow a RS?

The sentence in this article: "However, Wilhelm denied, together with reichskanzler von Bülow, von Trotha's request to quickly quell the rebellion." The source given is an article in a journal Denkwürdigkeiten whose author is listed as one Prince Bernhard von Bülow, who served as the Chancellor of Germany between 1900-1909. I have no objections to the article giving Bülow's views on the subject, which is fine, but the manner that this being used here, presenting Bülow's views as no different from that of a historian writing in the present is a bit problematic. When the subject of the genocide became public in 1906, it did cause some controversy. Bülow as a chancellor had a vested interest in shifting the blame away from himself and onto others, meaning his statements needed to be taken with a grain of salt. Maybe he did refuse Trotha's request to "quickly quell the rebellion", but I rather see this sourced to a historian writing after the fact rather than to one of the leaders at the time. Moreover, this statement has shows some ignorance of the German system of government worked at the time. The military were responsible to the Kaiser as a head of state, not to the Chancellor as a head of government. The way this system was set up, the military leaders were co-equals of the chancellors with both being responsible to the emperor. The description of Imperial Germany as a constitutional monarchy is correct in the sense the Reich was a monarchy with a constitution, but it is rather facile as it makes sound like the system in Imperial Germany was a copy of the British system with the military taking orders from the prime minister.

German chancellors in the Imperial period had a somewhat tenuous control over the military, who had a marked tendency to see themselves as responsible as only to the Emperor and to by-pass the Chancellor as much as possible. Even Bismarck was prevented from attending military meetings under the grounds that he was a "mere civilian" and it was beneath the "Great General Staff" to tell the Chancellor anything, much less take orders from him. This is not the place to discuss the Sonderweg debate, but the claim made by proponents of the Sonderweg such as Hans-Ulrich Wehler that Imperial Germany had a mismatch between a highly modernized society and economy ruled over by a reactionary, "feudal" elite of Junkers whose minds were lost in the past is by no means as preposterous and absurd as some people like to claim. Wilhelm II had a basically medieval understanding of his position as "Supreme Warlord", seeing what he rather possessively called "my army" and "my navy" as being very much as his feudal retainers bound to him by oaths of personal loyalty. Officers in both the army and navy took their oaths of loyalty in the Imperial period not to the German state, but rather to the monarch, which was meant to reinforce the point that they served the monarch personally instead of serving the state. The same pattern reasserted in 1934 when German officers took their oaths of loyalty to Hitler himself, swearing to serve and obey him onto death, not the German state. And nor this is uniquely German. In Italy from 1861 to 1946 officers in all three services took their oaths to loyalty to the king, not to the Italian state. There is a quite a bit of evidence suggesting that in World War Two the majority of the Italian officers saw themselves as fighting for King Victor Emmanuel III rather than Mussolini. And likewise, this system of blind personal loyalty to the monarch with no concern about morality seemed to lead to atrocities as the same Italian officers who valued their loyalty to the king so much committed all sorts of atrocities in Libya and Ethiopia. By way of contrast, officers in France both then and now took their oaths of loyalty to the French state, not to the president, which is meant to reinforce the point that that they serve the French state and are not personally loyal to the president. Presidents come and go, but their loyalty is supposed to be towards the republic. In contrast to the very personalistic and essentially feudal system in Imperial Germany, French officers were supposed to have a more abstract, depersonalized loyalty to France itself, not to any one individual. The same with the United States, where officers take their oaths to the American state, not to the president. If you read the oath American officers take, it says that they will be loyal to the "constitution of the United States of America" and the values it represents. American officers are loyal to the president, but this loyalty is not unconditional and has a moral component injected into it as American officers are supposed to uphold the "values" of the American constitution such as democracy.

In contrast, the oaths of loyalty in Germany during both the Imperial and Nazi periods say their officers are be unconditionally loyal to the Kaiser/Fuhrer and are to obey all of their commands. There is a path of continuity here; the Nazi oath of 1934 is almost a carbon copy of the Imperial oath with only the word Fuhrer inserted in place of the Emperor and King. There is no mention of morality or ethics in either oath. In both oaths, orders are to obeyed regardless if there are morally good or morally bad. So under the oaths in both the Imperial and Nazi periods, if an order were to come down for a genocide, the right and proper thing for an officer to do would be to obey the orders and start exterminating people. Troth was a brutal man with a record of gruesome atrocities in both China and Namibia, but this article should not try to blame him alone. There were other officers serving under Trotha. In many ways, Trotha and those seem under him were very much products of Prussian militarism with the emphasis on blind obedience to those who hold power and that what really matters is that you win, not morality.

During the campaign, Trotha sent his dispatches not to Bülow, but rather directly to Wilhelm II, the self-proclaimed "Supreme Warlord". This reflects the idea widely held within the German military and assiduously promoted by the Kaiser himself that the officer corps served the Emperor, not the German state. For Trotha, like practically all other German officers in this period, the idea of taking orders from the Chancellor would have have been beneath him. This idea of Bülow having the power to order Trotha to do anything is a bit dubious. The best biography of Bülow is entitled The Chancellor as a Courtier, which precisely sums up the nature of Bülow's power. Bülow operated very much as a sycophantic courtier who was sucking up to his master and singing his praises. This is not to say that Bülow did not have ideas of his own, but that to turn his ideas into policy required him to do a great deal of sucking up to his master. Bülow was the type of man who was willing to do and say anything if he felt it would give him power. It is quite possible that Bülow literally slept his way up to the top. Bülow was appointed Chancellor mostly because he had a powerful patron in the form of Prince Philip von Eulenburg, who was the best friend of Wilhelm II and recommended that the Emperor appoint Bülow Chancellor. Eulenburg has been variously described as gay or bisexual. The truth of the matter is sort of spectrum of sexuality with heterosexuality at one end and homosexuality at the other and bisexuality in the middle. In this spectrum, Eulenburg was much closer to the gay side of things. Eulenburg was married with 8 children and he did have affairs with women, but he definitely had a preference for affairs with men. He had more affairs with men, and his relationships with men seemed to be intense and closer than those with women. So calling him a bisexual, while technically correct, misses the fact he had a definite preference for sex with men. There was a period in Bülow's life when he was inseparable from Eulenburg, spending almost all of his time with him and there is a barely veiled homoeroticism to their letters. It seems likely that Bülow slept with Eulenburg to gain his patronage, knowing that Eulenburg had a great deal of behind-the-scenes power as the best friend of Wilhelm II, which goes to show one how far Bülow was willing to go to advance his career. Bülow was not a man of principle and certainly not one who would oppose his master head-on. Whatever may have been his true feelings about the policies towards the Hereo and the Namaqua, Bülow would fall into line if the Kaiser was really set on a course.

Finally, this statement is a bit dubious even on its merits. It suggests that Trotha wanted to apply maximum violence to end the Hereo rebellion as quickly as possible, but both Bülow and Wilhelm II were opposed, presumably out of concern with the lives of the Hereo. The implication is that Trotha was a rouge officer who committed genocide over the objections of both the Kaiser and the chancellor, which is a very apologistic statement. Ideas of white supremacy were widely accepted in Europe at the time with most people believing the world was divided into a hierarchy of races with whites (especially whites from north-west Europe) on the top and blacks on the bottom. Bülow as already mentioned was not a man of principle with his major concern being how to best advance his career. Bülow sometimes tried to soften the rough edges of the image of Wilhelm II such as omitting the more bloodthirsty lines of the Hunnenrede from the version of the speech released to the press, only for an enraged Kaiser to insist on releasing the full text of the Hunnerede to the press, which damaged his image just as Bülow warned that it would. Most notably, Bülow was more concerned about the image of Wilhelm II, not his policies-he never tried to do anything to stop the atrocities in China, instead just merely tried to stop his master from damaging his image by associating himself too much in the public mind with the massacres. Bülow had a very limited control over the army as already mentioned, but there is no evidence that he even tried to do anything to stop the massacres in either China or Namibia. Wilhelm II, even by the (low) standards of the time, was a vicious racist and was indeed criticized by contemporaries for his statements about black and Asian peoples. Even in a era when the ideas of white supremacy was taken for granted by most white people, there was a feeling that Wilhelm II was going too far. Even Rudyard Kipling, who was scarcely a model of sensitivity when it came to dealing with non-white peoples, felt that the Hunnrede went too far and crossed a line. In 1906, when the Hereo genocide became public, it did cause controversy at the time, and August Bebel, the leader of SPD, criticized the government, saying just because the Hereo were black that did not give the Kaiser the right to wipe them off the face of the earth. Wilhelm really, really liked Houston Stewart Chamberlain, the "Evangelist of Race", the English-born völkisch thinker who often predicated that the new 20th century would witness the "Great Race War" for world domination between the "Aryan race" vs. the blacks, Jews and Asians. It is hard to square the Kaiser's embrace of Chamberlain and his theories with the notion being implied here that he was deeply concerned about the lives of black people. Wilhelm had a long very hate list, despising the British, the French, the Russians, the Poles, the Jews, all Asian peoples of whatever nationality, and the blacks, but there is no doubt that blacks were right up there on the top of his hate list with Jews and the Asians. It is really hard to believe that somebody like him would really care about the lives of the Hereo and the Namaqua. It is striking that how much his bloodthirsty language in 1904 against the Hereo was almost a word for word copy of his statements against the Chinese in 1900. It is noteworthy that Field Marshal von Waldersee, the commander of the expedition to China, took the Hunnenrede as an order to commit atrocities against the Chinese. The book I have cited makes the point, which been obscured by other hands here, that Wilhelm's statements against the Hereo would have been understood as orders to commit atrocities by Trotha and those serving under him.

And furthermore, why would Wilhelm II and Bülow refuse Trotha permission to quickly put the rebellion? An aspect of Imperial German history that is too often ignored around here is the fact that the Reich government did not have the power to levy income taxes and could only levy indirect taxes. To make up the shortfall, the Reich had to ask the Lander (state) governments for financial contributions. Admittedly, the Chancellor was also usually also the minister-president of Prussia, the most largest, most populous and most wealthiest of the lander. That was the case with Bülow who served simultaneously as Chancellor of Germany and the minister-president of Prussia. But even then there was a problem. Prussia had a system of "three-class voting" that allowed the Junkers and other rich people to elect a disproportionate number of the seats in the Landtag while giving the poor the power to elect a far smaller number of the seats in the Landtag. Effectively, the "three-class voting" system in Prussia allowed the rich to dominate politics in that state. And as is usually the case with the rich people, the well-off in Prussia did not like to pay taxes, which leading to a situation in Prussia where the poor paid more taxes than the rich. This quite caused a bit of resentment and helps explain why so poor and working class people in Prussia supported the Social Democrats who wanted to abolish the monarchy and turn Germany into a democracy. A major theme of Imperial Germany was that the powers that be were always very, very afraid of a revolution led by Social Democrats, and every German chancellor in the Imperial era from Bismarck onward sought to find a way to crush the Social Democrats. For Bülow, raising taxes in Prussia would mean either raising the poor and increasing support for the SPD or raising taxes on his fellow aristocrats, who definitely not like that. To put the Hereo rebellion, the Reich government had to pay the costs out of its budget. Given the fact that this war caused financial problems for the Reich government, this statement that Bülow refused Trotha permission to "quickly" put the rebellion goes all logic. Are we really to believe that Bülow really wanted to cause financial problems with the budget just out of concern with the Hereo? This apologistic statement, made even dubious by the fact that Bülow was a scheming man not known for being honest. Germans in the Imperial era called the court system "Byzantinism" because the court was a center was a place of opulence and splendor mixed up with an incredible amount of scheming and plotting, these being the characteristics associated with the courts of the Eastern Roman emperors in the Middle Ages. Bülow as a product of "Byzantinism" was an intriguer and a pathological liar. The court of Wilhelm II tended to favor men like Bülow, and his word cannot be taken at face value.

Finally, a recurring pattern with Wilhelm II was that if he felt insulted, his response was swift and blinding violence. The Kaiser had a habit of smacking his servants on their heads with his field marshal's baton if he felt there were not obeying his orders quickly enough. He seems like a boss from hell, a very bad-tempered, cruel bully who loved to hurt and humiliate other people. I cannot speak for others, but I would not want to work for a man who made his courtiers publicly appear in homoerotic spectacles where they had to dress up as women and otherwise wear ridiculous costumes in order to humiliate them. Wilhelm II's response to the news of the German minister in Beijing had been assassinated was to give orders to raze Beijing to the ground and kill everybody living there (only the fact that the other nations putting down the Boxer Rebellion would not go along with this plan saved Beijing). In 1901, during a Social Democratic demonstration against the Kaiser, somebody threw a pipe against Wilhelm II's carriage, damaging the paintwork slightly. In response, Wilhelm II lost it completely, threatening to bring out "my army" to raze Berlin to the ground and kill everybody living there. It was only after Bülow pointed that razing his capital and killing millions of his fellow Germans was probably not a good idea that the Kaiser backed down from this hysterical statement, which no sensible leader would had ever issued, especially in response to a pipe damaging the paintwork of the imperial carriage. And when he heard in 1904 that the Hereo had rebelled in his colony of German Southwest Africa, the Kaiser again lost it and issued a bunch of his usual bloodthirsty statements. But unlike in 1900 when there were other nations whose armies were marching on Beijing and in 1901 when Bülow was able to point that razing Berlin is a bad idea, there was nobody to object for the sake of the Hereo, who were black and therefore viewed as not entirely human. This statement from Bülow that he and Wilhelm II refused Trotha permission to "quickly" put down the rebellion reads like an exercise in damage control, an attempt to distance himself and his master from the genocide. I would suggest deleting that line because Bülow's own statements meant to protect his reputation cannot be considered a RS. --A.S. Brown (talk) 23:04, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

This has got to be the longest post on talk page I've ever come across on Wiki. First of all, thank you for the effort. I've tried to understand your post (though I did not pore through every word). I take your points that Bülow has no authority over von Troka, and he is not in a position to accept or refuse the latter's request to act against the Hereros. I also take your point that Wilhelm, who has authority over von Troka, is unlikely to refuse the latter's request, because given the objective circumstances and given his personality. Your arguments are coherent. My only concern is that you need reliable sources to support your points. HollerithPunchCard (talk) 14:23, 10 September 2020 (UTC)