History

The Herero Massacre as Genocide

The Background
In 1903-04, after a decade of forced labor, land dispossession, and indignities large and small, the
Herero and Nama communities revolted against the German colonial government in South West
Africa (now Namibia). The German response was swift and brutal. Between 1904 and 1908, the
Germans killed an estimated 65,000 people, or roughly 80 percent of the population, either through
massacres or in concentration camps in what is now known as the Herero and Nama Genocide.
Herero and Nama leaders tried to draw the world’s attention to what happened to their communities
in the immediate aftermath of the genocide. The British government, after assuming jurisdiction
over South West Africa after World War I, published the first full accounting of the genocide in a
1918 report. However, because of fears about offending the postwar German government, as well as
concerns about whether their own conduct would fall under similar scrutiny, British officials chose
to suppress the report. The South African government, which administered South West Africa from
1919 to 1990, also actively suppressed the memory of the genocide as part of their commitment to
maintaining white-minority rule in southern Africa.
Beginning in the 1980s, representatives of the Herero and Nama communities have sought to bring
the German government to court on charges of genocide. For nearly as long, German officials
denied that a genocide took place in colonial Namibia. They argued that while German soldiers did
commit atrocities against the Herero and Nama, these acts did not rise to the definition of genocide
as set out by the United Nations.
The Assignment
In this paper, you are going to write as if you are a legal historian working on behalf of the Herero
and Nama communities and build a legal case against the German government. You will start by
reading an excerpt from the UN Convention on Genocide (1948), which established the legal
definition of genocide. You will then read a selection of primary source accounts—a letter by the
German general in South West Africa and testimonies by African and mixed-race witnesses to the
British commission. Working with these sources and material from class, you should use the
evidence to prove that the Germans not only intended to kill Herero and Nama fighters, but to
commit genocide against whole communities as well. You should use at least four sources,
including the UN convention.
Your paper must be FOUR PAGES in length and in Word format. It must also be double spaced,
with numbered pages, in 12-point Times New Roman font, and have 1-inch margins. You
do not need to provide full citations for the primary sources included in the prompt. For material
from class, use the following parenthetical format: (Lecture, Date) or (Author, Page). I have included
further reading for the paper, but you are not expected to include it in your paper and you will not
receive additional points for doing so. You do not need a separate bibliography page for this paper.
Your paper is due on Sunday, October 18th by 11.59pm EST via Canvas.

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The Sources

UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide
Article I
The Contracting Parties confirm that genocide, whether committed in time of peace or in time of
war is a crime under international law which they undertake to prevent and to punish.
Article II
In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to
destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical
destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
Article III
The following acts shall be punishable:
(a) Genocide;
(b) Conspiracy to commit genocide;
(c) Direct and public incitement to commit genocide;
(d) Attempt to commit genocide;
(e) Complicity in genocide.
[…]

General Lothar von Trotha’s Order (1904)
The Herero are no longer German subjects… The Herero people will have to leave the country. If
the people refuse I will force them with cannons to do so. Within the German boundaries, every
Herero, with or without firearms, with or without cattle, will be shot. I won’t accommodate women
and children anymore. I shall drive them back to their people or I shall give the order to shoot at
them.
Testimonies to the British Commission on South West Africa (1918)
Daniel Kariko (under-chief of the Omaruru group of the Herero)
The result of this war is known to everyone. Our people, men, women, and children were shot like
dogs and wild animals. Our people have disappeared now. I see only a few left; their cattle and sheep
are gone too, and all our land is own by the Germans. After the fight at Waterberg we asked for
peace; but von Trotha said there would only be peace when we were all dead, as he intended to
exterminate us. I fled to the desert with a few remnants of my stock and managed more dead than
alive to get away far north. I turned to the west and placed myself under the protection of the
Ovambo chief Uejulu, who knew that I was a big man among the Hereros. In 1915 they told me
that the British were in Hereroland, and I hurried down to meet them. I was allowed to return to
Hereroland after 10 years of exile.

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Hosea Mungunda (a Herero headman)
We were crushed and well-nigh exterminated by the Germans in the rising. With the exception of
Samuel Maharero, Mutati, Traugott, Tjetjoo, Hosca and Kaijata (who fled to British territory) all our
big chiefs and leaders died or were killed in the rising, and also the great majority of our people. All
our cattle were lost and all other possessions such as wagons and sheep. At first the Germans took
prisoners, but when General von Trotha took command no prisoners were taken. General von
Trotha said, “No one is to live; men, women and children must all die.” We can’t say how many
were killed.

Manuel Timbu (a mixed-race employee of the German army)
I was sent to Okahandja and appointed groom [someone who cares for horses] to the German
commander, General von Trotha. I had to look after his horses and to do odd jobs at his
headquarters. We followed the retreating Hereros from Okahandja to Waterberg, and from there to
the borders of the Kalahari Desert. When leaving Okahandja, General von Trotha issued orders to
his troops that no quarter was to be given to the enemy. No prisoners were to be taken, but all,
regardless of age or sex, were to be killed. General von Trotha said, “We must exterminate them, so
that we won’t be bothered with rebellions in the future.” As a result of this order the soldiers shot all
natives we came across. It did not matter who they were. Some were peaceful people who had not
gone into rebellion; others, such as old men and old women, had never left their homes; yet these
were all shot. I often saw this done. Once while on the march near Hamakari, beyond the
Waterberg, we came to some water holes. It was winter time and very cold. We came on two very
old Herero women. They had made a small fire and were warming themselves. They had dropped
back from the main body of Hereros owing to exhaustion. Von Trotha and his staff were present. A
German soldier dismounted, walked up to the old women and shot them both as they lay there.
Riding along we got to a vlei [seasonal pond] where we camped. While we were there a Herero woman
came walking up to us from the bush. I was the Herero interpreter. I was told to take the woman to
the General to see if she could give information as to the whereabouts of the enemy. I took her to
General von Trotha; she was quite a young woman and looked tired and hungry. Von Trotha asked
her several questions, but she did not seem inclined to give information. She said her people had all
gone toward the east, but as she was a weak woman she could not keep up with them. Von Trotha
then ordered that she should be taken aside and bayonetted. I took the woman away and a soldier
came up with his bayonet in his hand. He offered it to me and said I had better stab the woman. I
said I would never dream of doing such a thing and asked why the poor woman could not be
allowed to live. The soldier laughed and said, “If you won’t do it, I will show you what a German
soldier can do.” He took the woman aside a few paces and drove the bayonet, through her body. He
then withdrew the bayonet and brought it all dripping with blood and poked it under my nose in a
jeering way saying, “You see, I have done it.” Officer and soldiers were standing around looking on,
but no one interfered to save the woman. Her body was not buried, but like all others they killed,
simply allowed to lie and rot and be eaten by wild animals.”

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Jan Kubas (a mixed-race man living in a town in Hereroland)
I went with the German troops to Hamakari and beyond… The Germans took no prisoners. They
killed thousands and thousands of women and children along the roadsides. They bayoneted them
and hit them to death with the butt ends of their guns. Words cannot be found to relate what
happened; it was too terrible. They were lying exhausted and harmless along the roads, and as the
soldiers passed they simply slaughtered them in cold blood. Mothers holding babies at their breasts,
little boys and little girls; old people too old to fight and old grandmothers, none received mercy;
they were killed, all of them, and left to lie and rot on the veld for the vultures and wild animals to
eat. They slaughtered until there were no more Hereros left to kill. I saw this every day; I was with
them. A few Hereros managed to escape in the bush and wandered about, living on roots and wild
fruits. Von Trotha was the German General in charge.

Hendrik Campbell (a military commander with the Rehoboth Basters, a mixed-race
community allied with the Germans)
At Katjura we had a fight with the Hereros and drove them from their position. After the fight was
over, we discovered eight or nine sick Herero women who had been left behind. Some of them were
blind. Water and food had been left with them. The German soldiers burnt them alive in the hut in
which they were lying. The Bastard [another name for the Rehoboth Basters, who took on the name partly as an
affront to white colonial society] soldiers intervened and tried to prevent this, but when they failed,
Hendrik van Wyk reported the matter to me. I immediately went to the German commander and
complained. He said to me “that does not matter, they might have infected us with some disease.”…

Afterwards at Otjimebende we (the Bastards) captured 70 Hereros. I handed them over to Ober-
Leutenants Volkmann and Zelow [German officers]. I then went on patrol, and returned two days

later, to find the Hereros all lying dead in a kraal [a pen where livestock are kept]. My men reported to
me that they had all been shot and bayoneted by the German soldiers. Shortly afterwards, General
von Trotha and his staff accompanied by two missionaries, visited the camp. He said to me “You
look dissatisfied. Do you already wish to go home?”
“No,” I replied, “the German Government has an agreement with us and I want to have no
misunderstandings on the part of the Bastard Government, otherwise the same may happen to us
weak people as has happened to those lying in the kraal yonder.”
Lieut. Zelow gave answer: “The Hereros also do so.” I said, “but, Lieutenant, as a civilised
people you should give us a