Herero and Nama genocide

The Herero and Nama genocide, also called the Namibian genocide, was the destruction of the Herero and Nama peoples of German South West Africa, now Namibia, by the forces of the German Empire between 1904 and 1908. It followed uprisings against colonial rule. An estimated 40,000 to 80,000 Herero, about 80 per cent of their population, and some 10,000 Nama, about half of theirs, died in battle, in the desert and in concentration camps. Germany officially acknowledged it as genocide in 2015.

Germany claimed the territory in 1884, during the Scramble for Africa, but its presence remained thin until settlers began arriving in numbers in the mid-1890s. Governor Theodor Leutwein played African communities against one another through protection treaties and confiscated land and cattle from those who resisted. A rinderpest epidemic destroyed most Herero cattle, pushing many into debt or wage labour. The Herero also suffered under a colonial justice system in which settlers who killed or assaulted Africans went largely unpunished, while Africans faced harsh penalties.

On 12 January 1904, while many German troops were away in the south, Herero fighters under Samuel Maharero rose against colonial rule. They plundered farms and killed between about 123 and 160 Germans, mostly settlers and traders, while generally sparing women, children, missionaries and non-Germans. Settlers responded with summary executions and lynchings. Berlin sent reinforcements and replaced Leutwein as military commander with General Lothar von Trotha, who arrived in June 1904 and refused offers of surrender.

Maharero gathered around 60,000 people with their cattle at the Waterberg plateau. On 11 August 1904 German forces attacked, and most of the Herero broke out to the south-east into the arid Omaheke. German troops pursued them, guarded or poisoned waterholes, and killed many of those they caught, men, women and children alike. Most of those who fled are thought to have died in the desert, many of thirst. On 2 October Trotha issued an order declaring that every Herero found within the German borders would be shot; historians debate whether he meant to kill them all or to drive them out of the colony. Amid criticism in Germany, the Kaiser withdrew the order in December 1904.

In September 1904 most of the Nama, led by Hendrik Witbooi, who had earlier fought on the German side, rose in turn and waged a guerrilla war that lasted until 1908. Witbooi was killed in 1905. Surviving Herero, and later Nama, were held in concentration camps at Windhoek, Okahandja, Swakopmund, Lüderitz and elsewhere. Prisoners, mostly women and children, were forced to work on roads, railways and harbours amid hunger, disease and abuse. Around half of them died. Skulls of some of the dead were sent to Germany for racial studies. The camps were closed in January 1908.

Herero land was confiscated, and laws passed in 1907 barred them from owning land or cattle and required them to carry numbered identity tags. Census figures from the early 1910s counted roughly 15,000 Herero and 10,000 Nama. After South Africa occupied the colony in 1915, a 1918 British report documented the killings.

Since the 2000s historians in Germany have debated its relationship to the Holocaust: some point to similar ideas and methods, while others argue that a direct link oversimplifies German history and obscures parallels with other colonial regimes. In 2021 Germany agreed to provide 1.1 billion euros in development aid to Namibia while declining legal responsibility. Most Herero and Nama organisations rejected the deal, saying they had been excluded from the talks.

Our 1900 and 1914 maps show German South West Africa, and the 1920 map shows the territory under South African control.