Talk:Herero and Nama genocide

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)

What is a "RS"? ASchudak (talk) 08:39, 25 July 2022 (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)

Contemporary opposition in Germany

The page does not mention opposition to the genocide while it occured in Germany itself - there is a good academic article covering opposition in the parliament but I don't have it on me at the moment. Eldomtom2 (talk) 17:24, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

If you dig this source out I could try to include it into the page, at least in a short sentence or two on the public reaction. I know that the edict of Throta was sacked early december by Wilhelm, due to political pressure from Bülow and others, but I do not have the sources at hand to document the process. ASchudak (talk) 08:37, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

I cannot find the precise article I remembered, but while looking for it I found The Talk of Genocide, the Rhetoric of Miscegenation: Notes on Debates in the German Reichstag Concerning Southwest Africa, 1904-14 in the book The Imperialist Imagination: German Colonialism and Its Legacy, which discusses the parliamentary debates in detail.--Eldomtom2 (talk) 15:57, 6 August 2022 (UTC)

The San genocide?

The introduction mentions the San as victims for the genocide, but this is not covered in the text nor is there any source given. Are there any reliable sources that confirm that the San were also persecuted like the Herero and Nama? If not, we should remove the reference. If there are sources I am willing to include them into the page, otherwise I will remove that part in around two weeks. ASchudak (talk) 08:33, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

Removed - I found no source that referenced any genocidal treatment of the San by the Germans. The general statement in the article referred to "Herero, Nama and San", and was given seven references. One it known to me, some of the other were available online. I have not read these fully, but as far as my research goes, they cover the Herero and Nama, but there is nothing on the San. If San are mentioned at all, it is their treatment by the immigrating Herero in the century before, and that is not part of this article. So I removed the reference to a "San genocide" and would ask you to offer specific references to the San in reliable sources if you want this in the article. Thanks! ASchudak (talk) 07:45, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

Researching Johannes Kruger I actually found a reference to a "San genocide" committed by Germany: Gordon, Robert J. (2009) "Hiding in Full View: The “Forgotten” Bushman Genocide - https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/gsp/vol4/iss1/4/

That, however, covers the era from 1912 to 1915, so is not part of this article. ASchudak (talk) 12:36, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

Abolition of slavery causing the initial Herero uprising?

The article states that: the partial abolition of slavery in 1905 led to the loss of the slave labor essential to Herero and Nama lifestyles. Previously ruling tribes were reduced to the same status as the other tribes they had previously ruled over and enslaved. This resentment would boil over and lead to the Herero Wars of 1904-1908. But how can the partial abolition of slavery (the meaning of which needs clarification) in 1905 lead to an uprising which began in 1904? Could the Herero time-travel? LastDodo (talk) 15:08, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

The Bridgman source given there does not contain any hint on slavery or its abolition. There was an ongoing if slow process to dissolve slavery, or the local concepts of serfdom that are by all modern views variants of slavery, but I found no hint that it played a substantial role in the Herero revolt. In any case the given year makes this impossible and illogical as an argument. If nobody dissents here - especially the original author of this line - I will remove that paragraph completely next weeek.

For those interested in some further reading on slavery in German Southwest Africa - though mainly concering the northern areas next to Portugese Angloa: https://namibian-studies.com/index.php/JNS/article/download/74/48&sa=U&ved=2ahUKEwjK-N_x0pv5AhUIYPEDHU7zCisQFnoECAkQAg&usg=AOvVaw2uYCOg2G3UaJFSkuxoL_Fy ASchudak (talk) 13:08, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

Rape accusations vs. soldiers

I already brought this up here in 2019, asking for sources. The article said "... German soldiers regularly raped young Herero women before killing them or letting them die in the desert." I removed that passage due to an insufficient source.

The given source is a tertiary, the "Dictionary of Genocide". The actual passage referenced there (p272) says indeed: "... during the course of the 1904 German-perpetrated genocide of the Hereros, German soldiers regularly raped (and gang-raped) young Herero women before either killing them or leaving them do die in the desert of thirst, starvation and wounds. " - so it claims regular mass gang-rapes. As there is no other work on the genocide that supports that claim, I looked for the sources given in the dictionary.

It has no direct references for the statement, but regarding the Herero genocide the dictionary gives us (just) two regular sources in the appendix. The first is a book of Jon Bridgman, "The Revolt of the Hereros" of 1981, the other is an article of Jon Bridgman of 2008, "The genocide of the Hereros". With no other sources, the claim should be based there.

The 1981 book was available online and containes the word "rape" but once, in connection to the Dietrich case that is already covered in the article. There is no other refernence that I found in that book to rapes by soldiers.

The article of 2008 lacks any usage of the word "rape" and has also no content that supports the claim of the dictionary.

It has, however, an appendix, where extracts from the Blue Book are collected - statements collected by the British in 1918 with the explicite goal of showing that Germany is unfit to colonial rule and to justify a Mandate rule.

One of these statements on p43 of the article cites "Johannes Kruger, Chief of the Bushmen" with the following: "Often, and especially at Waterberg, the young Herero women and girls were violated by the German soldiers before being killed. Two of my Hottentots, Jan Wint and David Swartboi ... were invited by the German soldiers to join in violating Herero girls." Johannes Kruger has been acknowledge in 1895 by Leutwein as chieftain and had already claimed rapes by German settlers before 1904 to Volkmann. He was most likely not at Waterberg himself. The reliability of the Blue Book aside, it is kind of questionable that German soldiers invited Hottentots to participate in gang-rapes, or that this happened on a "regular" base even when we believe this single incidence. The Nama went to war with the Germans practically on the same day that Trothas extermination order was declared (if for slightly other reasons), so any such claim to "regular" behaviour is dubious at best.

Just note that the testaments given in the Blue Book contain both accusations of German soldiers killing civilians under the extermination order and many references to sexual exploitation by officials during the containment of females in concentration camps later. There is no other references to rapes in the field.

None of the works covering the genocide apart from the dictionary puts up that claim, so I decided, for now, to remove this particular statement. If you find one, I will not object if you add it again. Comments and critics welcome. ASchudak (talk) 12:31, 25 August 2022 (UTC)