German South-West Africa

German South-West Africa. German South-West Africa (1884-1915), today Namibia, was Germany's first and most important settler colony in Africa, and the scene of the first genocide of the twentieth century. The colony began in 1884 when a Bremen merchant, Adolf Luderitz, acquired land on the coast and Berlin declared a protectorate. German settlers and companies pushed inland, seizing the cattle and the best grazing land of the Herero and Nama peoples, whose herds were the basis of their wealth.

Rising dispossession provoked war. In 1904 the Herero rose under Chief Samuel Maharero, and after initial victories the Germans counterattacked with overwhelming force under General Lothar von Trotha, who issued an extermination order and drove the Herero into the Omaheke desert to die of thirst. The Nama under Hendrik Witbooi then rose in a guerrilla war that lasted until 1908. Between 1904 and 1908 roughly three-quarters of the Herero and half of the Nama people perished; survivors were confined in concentration camps such as Shark Island or forced into labor.

After the wars the colony was rebuilt as a settler state. Diamonds were discovered near Luderitz in 1908, railways linked the interior to the coast, and German immigration grew, with Africans confined to reserves and bound by harsh pass and labor laws. The German period ended in the First World War, when South African forces invaded in 1915 and Germany surrendered the territory.

South-West Africa then passed to South Africa under a League of Nations mandate, beginning seventy-five years of South African rule and apartheid. Namibia finally became independent in 1990. The memory of the genocide remained alive among the Herero and Nama, and in 2021 Germany formally recognized it as genocide and pledged reparations, more than a century after the events.

To read more about this topic:

Wikipedia: German South-West Africa Deutsche Welle: Namibia: A Timeline of Germany's Colonial History Palgrave Macmillan: Colonial Violence in South-West Africa, 1884-1919 University of Goettingen: Deutsch-Suedwestafrika