Germans in SW Africa - the Herero massacre 1904 Forty years before the Nazis imposed their ‘final solution’ on the European Jews, imperial Germany had used similar barbaric methods on the tribal peoples of south-west Africa. Germany had grabbed the south-western African territory in 1884 as its share in the scramble for Africa. (Another part was Tanganyika on the East coast.) The 1904 Herero is considered the worst atrocity upon a single people in colonial history.  German colonial rule in SW Africa was a period of unrelieved brutality against the Herero and Namibian people until 1915 when the British took over. The horrors continued unabated well into the apartheid era under South Africa until independence in 1990. Under German rule, the Hereros were forced to work as labourers for German farms and routinely flogged, lynched or raped. In 1904 the Hereros revolted, killing some 100 Germans, destroyed several farms and drove off with cattle. They however spared missionaries, women and children. Germany prepared for revenge. In the same year it sent General Lothar von Trotha with 10,000 volunteers to crush the revolt by any means. He issued an extermination order: “I, the great general of the Germans, address this letter to the Herero people. Within German borders, every Herero found with or without arms or cattle will be shot. I will not accept any more women or children.” German forces encircled the 80,000 Hereros and shot them indiscriminately. Many died clinging to the poisoned or closed wells. Those who tried to give themselves up were shot or bayoneted. The General wrote in his account of the war: “The death rattles of the dying and their insane screams of fury resound in the sublime silence of infinity.” Some 24,000 Hereros managed to flee through a gap in the netting into the Kalahari desert in the hope of crossing into Botswana. German patrols later found skeletons around holes (25-50 feet deep) dug up in a vain attempt to find water. Survivors, mostly women and children, were coralled in to concentration camps - many of them died from lack of food, shelter or care. The conflict continued until 1907 when some 70,000 Hereros had been slaughtered. Chief Samuel Maherero and 1000 men crossed the Kalahari desert into Bechuanaland. It was in the year of the Herero massacre (1904) that World Congress of the Second Communist International. At this congress, the influential German Socialist Democratic Party (SPD) leader Eduard Bernstein promoted the ‘civilising role of imperialism’. He said: ‘We must get away from the utopian notion of simply abandoning the colonies… Socialists too should acknowledge the need for civilised peoples to act like the guardians of the uncivilised… our economies are based in large measure on the extraction from the colonies of products that the native peoples have no idea how to use.’ Bernstein quoted approvingly from Ferdinand Lassalle of the SPD: ‘People who do not develop may be justifiably subjugated by people who have achieved civilisation.’ Lenin denounced the Second International as ‘the International of the white race’. The Nama tribe of SW Africa also rebelled in 1905-07. Again the Germans went on a massacre and confiscated all land and livestock. In 1915, the First World War was on and the British occupied SW Africa and governed it under martial law until 1921. Thousands of white South Africans joined the German settlers in Namibia. The tribulations of the native peoples continued under the apartheid system. Dutch historian Jan-Bart Gewald of Cologne University has written how the Germans had set up special sex camps for their troops and many children from German fathers were born. Today, most of the Herero people are related to Germans in some way. Europeans simply do not pay out reparations to black people. In 1998, German President Herzog visited Namibia and met Herero leaders. Chief Munjuku Ngunvanva demanded a public apology and compensation. Herzog expressed regret but stopped short of an apology. He also pointed out that reparations were out of the question. Namibia’s ambassador to the EU, a Herero, said: “The Hereros have read that gold taken from the Jews by the Nazis is being restored and the Jews in Israel being compensated. If others are being compensated, then why not us?” References 1. Exterminate all the Brutes, Sven Lindqvist (Granta Books, London 1996) 2. A holocaust yet to be recognised, Brian Denny, Morning Star, London July 1998 3. Black politics – on Saklatvala, Naoroji, Bhownagree (Race & Class, vol34, Oct92)]