Country: Namibia

Group: Herero

Data Finalized: 3/24/2020

Team: Rayna Castillo (lead), Sophia Agne, Kimberly Prete

Content Warning: homicide, forced labor, medical experiments.

Approximate Time Period: 1904-1908

The Herero, a Bantu-speaking group in southwestern Africa, were killed and displaced by their German oppressors while living under their colonial rule. Mass killings ordered by German forces to quell local rebellions in 1904 marked the beginnings of the first genocide of the 20th century (Ochab, 2018). Those who were not killed in these massacres were sent to internment camps, following German General Lothar von Trotha’s order: “[Herero] are no longer German subjects…any Herero found within the German borders with or without a gun, with or without cattle, will be shot” (Nielson and Mads, 2017). In the concentration camps, the Herero were forced to participate in cruel medical experiments and brutal forced labor that often turned fatal (Steinmetz, 2018).  These activities led to the death of nearly 80% of the Herero population (Nielson and Mads, 2017). Through concentration camps, forced labor, and general abuse, the Germans deliberately attempted to eliminate an entire ethnic group, which also included religious conversion, seizure of land, and bans on traditional customs (Steinmetz, 2018). The data quality for this instance of genocide would be a 3 because there is a surplus of information from scholarly articles supporting its occurrence.

Sources

  1. Nielson, B., & Mads. (2017). Selective Memory: British Perceptions of the Herero-Nama Genocide. 1904-1908 and 1918. Journal of Southern African Studies, 43(2).
  2. Ochab, E. (2018, May 24). The Herero-Nama Genocide: The Story of a Recognized Crime, Apologies Issued and Silence Ever Since. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/ewelinaochab/2018/05/24/the-herero-nama-genocide-the-story-of-a-recognized-crime-apologies-issued-and-silence-ever-since/#62bec0a06d8c
  3. Steinmetz, George. (2018). The First Genocide of the 20th Century and its Postcolonial Afterlives: Germany and the Namibian Ovaherero. The Journal of the International Institute, 12(2), 1-10