As early as the 17th — 18th centuries, individual German principalities attempted to create small colonies in Africa specializing in the slave trade, but they existed for only a few decades and were seized by other European states — in particular, Holland and France. Therefore, at the time of the unification (1871), Germany did not have any overseas possessions.

“Initially, for Prussia, the priority was the struggle for the unification of the German lands, and not the search for new possessions overseas. And Germany was simply late for the colonial division of the world: almost all the territories were divided between other powers - England, France, Holland, Belgium. In addition, Germany had to solve other problems, and there was not enough money for everything. The fleet was in its infancy, and without it it was impossible to control overseas possessions, ”historian and writer Konstantin Zalessky told RT in an interview.

Fight for Africa

Despite the initial skepticism of the central government, German entrepreneurs considered the seizure of colonies promising. And in cases where it did not impose special obligations on official Berlin, the government supported their initiatives.

“Germans left the colonies on a residual basis - less populated, less fertile, with more difficult environmental conditions,” said Academician of the Academy of Political Sciences of the Russian Federation, head of the REU department in an interview with RT. G.V. Plekhanov Andrey Koshkin.

The Society of German Colonization, headed by Karl Peters, began in 1884 to seize land in East Africa (the territory of modern Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi). Hamburg trading company created a colony in Cameroon. The company “Tana” of the brothers Clement and Gustav Dernhart founded the Witu colony in Kenya. Under the German protectorate was Togoland (in our time his lands belong to Togo and Ghana).

In Namibia, in 1883, a tobacco merchant from Bremen, Adolf Luderitz, landed. He bought a strip of coastline 40 miles long and 20 miles deep from local mulattoes, giving up 100 pounds and 250 rifles for all. When the contract was already signed, the merchant explained to his counterparties that the document did not mean English miles (1.8 km), but Prussian (7.5 km). Thus, Lyuderits, for a virtually negligible price, received formal property rights to an area of ​​45 thousand square meters. km (more modern Switzerland).

On April 24, 1884, Lüderitz secured official security guarantees from the German government, turning the land purchased into a German colony. She subsequently received the name of the German South-West Africa and became the property of the government.

“Attitudes toward colonies in Germany changed after Kaiser Wilhelm II came to power in 1888. He saw them not only as a source of raw materials and a sales market, but also as a symbol of prestige, a sign that Germany had become a great power. With him, much more attention was paid to the development of overseas possessions and the development of the ocean fleet, "- said Zaleski.

In order to strengthen its presence in Africa, Berlin entered into difficult negotiations with London, which ended with the signing of the Zanzibar Treaty on July 1, 1890. Rejecting the rights to Vit, Uganda and attempts to influence Zanzibar, Germany gained recognition for its remaining colonies, additional land on the borders with Namibia and the Helgoland archipelago in the North Sea. Supporters of the right-wing parties considered the treaty unprofitable, but it actually operated until the First World War.

Colonial politics

“The colonies, including Namibia, were for the Germans a means of gaining profits, and they squeezed everything they could from their possessions. Although, for example, the British had this process at a higher level, ”said Konstantin Zalessky.

According to Andrei Koshkin, adverse environmental conditions have become a big problem for the Germans in Namibia.

“In southwest Africa, there was an acute shortage of water and high-quality pastures that African pastoralists needed so much. The Germans began to take land from the local population, thus depriving it of their livelihood. Such actions of white settlers were encouraged by the administration. And the benefits of civilization brought by the Germans, like modern communications, could not cut it off, ”Koshkin said.

In 1885, the Herero Namibian people concluded an agreement on protectorate with Germany, which was terminated in 1888 due to the Germans 'violation of their obligations to protect Herero from neighbors' raids, but in 1890 the agreement was restored. Taking advantage of their position, the Germans put more and more pressure on the local population. White settlers seized the land of Africans, drove away their cattle, and treated themselves as slaves. In addition, the Germans regularly raped women and girls of Herero, but the colonial administration did not respond to complaints from local leaders.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, there was talk of bringing new waves of German immigrants to Namibia and about the forced relocation of herero on reservations. In 1903, the colonial authorities announced their intention to forgive the Africans the debts that the German merchants gave them at a fraudulent interest a year later. However, this only led to the fact that German lenders began to seize his property from the local population.

Hererero uprising

In January 1904, the herere under the leadership of the leader Samuel Magarero raised a rebellion against the invaders. In the early days of the conflict, rebels killed about 120 white settlers, including three women and several Boers. The German governor Theodore Leitwein was able to convince one of the Herero clans to lay down arms, but the rest of the rebels pressed Germanic colonial troops and even surrounded the capital of the colony Windhoek. At the same time, Magarero officially forbade his soldiers to kill the Boers, the British, women, children and missionaries. Leitwein requested reinforcements in Berlin.

  • Battle of Windhoek
  • © Wikipedia

Lieutenant General Adrian Dietrich Lothar von Troth was appointed commander-in-chief of the German army in southwestern Africa, who participated in the wars with Austria and France, as well as in suppressing uprisings in Kenya and China. Under his leadership was the expeditionary force of 14 thousand people with artillery and machine guns. The punitive operation was financed by Deutsche Bank and provided with equipment from Wurmann.

Leitwein hoped to persuade the herero to negotiate, but von Troth took an uncompromising stance, saying that the local population understood only brute force. Moreover, the powers of the general were much broader than the governor. The commander reported directly to the general staff, and through him directly to the Kaiser.

Von Troth frankly stated: "I believe that this nation (herero. - RT ) must be destroyed or, if it is tactically impossible, expelled from the country."

To implement this plan, the general proposed to seize all the wells in the Herero lands and gradually destroy their small tribes.

  • Layout of the forces of Herero and the Germans in the Battle of Waterberg
  • © Wikipedia

On August 11, 1904, a German detachment under the leadership of von Troth faced the main forces of Samuel Magarero in the Battle of Waterberg. Against approximately 1.5-2 thousand Germans, the Herero were able to put on various sources from 3.5 to 6 thousand soldiers.

However, the Germans were much better armed - they had 1,625 modern rifles, 30 artillery guns and 14 machine guns. In turn, only part of the rebels had firearms, many went into battle with the traditional kirri clubs. In addition to the warriors, rebel families — old men, women, and children — were in the position of Magarero. The total number of herero in the region reached 25-50 thousand people.

Von Troth planned to surround the rebels, but one of the troops did not have time to close the ring. Having a strong fire advantage, the Germans were able to inflict Herero defeat, but the German command's plan for the total destruction of the enemy was not implemented - part of the Herero fled into the desert. All Africans caught in the vicinity of the battlefield, including women and children, were killed by the German military. And the border with the desert was blocked by patrols and poisoned wells. Only from 500 to 1.5 thousand hererers who were present in the battle area at Waterberg, led by Magarero, were able to cross the desert and find refuge in Bechuanaland. The rest died. True, there were those who did not participate in the battle.

Concentrations, executions and experiments on people

In October, von Trota issued a new order: “Any Herero, found in the German borders with weapons or unarmed, with or without cattle, will be killed. I will not accept either women or children. ”

Von Troth explained his actions by racial struggle and the fact that, in his opinion, the peaceful Herero could infect the Germans with their diseases. Before they killed the Herero girls in the desert, they were raped by German soldiers. The General Staff von Troth’s actions were fully supported, but the civil administration condemned them, arguing that Germany needed Africans as a source of free labor.

Therefore, at the end of 1904, for the survivors of the Herero began to create concentration camps. Those who were completely exhausted were released by issuing pre-written death certificates to them, the rest were forced to do hard labor. According to historians, the death rate in concentration camps ranged from 45 to 74%. Representatives of the Nama people, who also tried to revolt against the German administration in 1904, also soon became prisoners.

  • Representatives of the Herero people who survived the battle with the Germans
  • globallookpress.com
  • © Scherl

Medical experiments were carried out on people kept in concentration camps - they were injected with poisons, then subjected to an autopsy, women were sterilized. Skeletons and tissue samples of the victims were sent as exhibits to German museums. In 1905, only 25 thousand herero remained in Namibia. The total number of people killed during punitive expeditions and tortured in concentration camps, researchers estimate from 65 to 100 thousand people. After the liquidation of the concentration camps, the Herero was forbidden to own land and cattle, they were all used in forced labor and forced to wear metal badges with a personal number.

During the First World War, the forces of the Entente occupied Namibia, and according to the Versailles Treaty, it was ceded to the Union of South Africa. The country gained independence only in 1990. The German government provided the republic with humanitarian aid, but the herero genocide was recognized only in 2004. Berlin has not yet made an official apology to the Africans. In addition, Germany refused to pay compensation to the descendants of the victims, because of which the Africans in 2017 filed a lawsuit in the court of New York.

“The forerunner of Nazism, the herero genocide became the first in the twentieth century. In Namibia, the Germans used concentration camps for the first time in their history. Those who experimented with them on people then taught eugenics in German universities. Southwestern Africa played the role of a social and political laboratory, in which what was then formed into Hitlerism was cultivated, ”Andrei Koshkin concluded.