Genocide of the Herero and Nama

The genocide of the Herero and Nama in the west African country of Namibia, perpetrated by Germany during the Second Reich, is largely unknown. Germany had colonial control of an area known as German Southwest Africa in a desire to expand access to agricultural production for Germany’s rapidly-growing population. Between 1904 and 1907, German military forces committed genocide against that country’s indigenous populations to gain control over the land The German government ordered the murder of the indigenous Herero and Nama people through battle, forced starvation, forced dehydration, sexual violence, life-threatening medical experiments, and incarceration in concentration camps. These actions became the blueprint for Germany’s strategies to exterminate Jews and other targeted populations during the Holocaust of World War II, 1933-1945. While record-keeping from the period makes it difficult to quantify the total loss of life, it is estimated that 80% of the Herero people and 50% of the Nama people perished over the three-year genocide.

Namibia’s current government and civil society organizations have called for reparations for stolen land and economic disenfranchisement to be made by Germany and descendants of German settlers, efforts that include bringing legal cases to U.S. courts. On April 28, 2021, Germany formally recognized the genocide and announced that it will pay Namibia over $1.3 billion in reconstruction and development aid. While this is a positive step, activists and Herero cultural leaders rejected the deal. They have called for Germany to make collective reparations to descendants of victims, rather than development aid, and to return the stolen land that now belongs to German communities. There is also dissension between Herero and Nama descendants’ organizations and the Namibian government regarding the rightful representation of the descendants’ voices in the negotiations with the German government. 

Click here to download and read our one-page summary on the genocide of the Herero and Nama.

To learn more about the genocide and efforts for reparations and justice, see the resources listed below.

Namibia The World Factbook 2021. Washington, DC: Central Intelligence Agency, 2021. https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/

Book: History and Analysis

Olusoga, David and Casper W. Erichson. The Kaiser’s Holocaust: Germany’s Forgotten Genocide and the Colonial Roots of Nazism, Faber and Faber, 2011.

Sarkin, Jeremy. Colonial Genocide and Reparations Claims in the 21^st Century: The Socio-Legal Context of Claims Under International Law by the Herero Against Germany for Genocide in Namibia, 1904-1908, Praeger Security International, 2009.

Sarkin, Jeremy. Germany’s Genocide of the Herero: Kaiser Wilhelm II, His General, His Settlers, His Soldiers, Boydell and Brewer, 2011.

Weiser, Martin. The Herero War- The First Genocide of the 20^th Century? GRIN Verlag, 2008.

U.S. Army Command and General Staff College.  Did Germany’s Actions in the Herero Rebellion Constitute Genocide? CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2014.

Books: Fiction

Kaye, E. J. This Is the Dead Land: A Novel of the Herero.  CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2013.

Kubuitsile, Lauri. The Scattering.  Penguin Random House South Africa, 2016.

Legal Cases

Hereros ex rel. Riruako v. Deutsche Afrika-Linien Gmblt & Co., 232 F. App’x 90 (3d Cir., 2007)

The Hereros v. Deutsche Afrika-Linien GMBLT & Co., No. CIV.A.05-1872(KSH), 2006 WL 182078, at *1 (D.N.J. Jan. 24, 2006)

Herero People’s Reparations Corp. v. Deutsche Bank AG, No. CIV. 01-01868 CKK, 2003 WL 26119014, at *1 (D.D.C. July 31, 2003)

Herero People’s Reparations Corp. v. Deutsche Bank AG, No. 03 CIV. 0991 (RLC), 2006 WL 903197, at *1 (S.D.N.Y. Apr. 5, 2006)

Herero People’s Reparations et al. v. Federal Republic of Germany, 1:01cv0 1987

Herero People’s Reparation Corp. v. Deutsche Bank, A.G., 543 U.S. 987, 125 S. Ct. 508, 160 L. Ed. 2d 371 (2004)

Herero People’s Reparations Corp. v. Deutsche Bank, A.G., 370 F.3d 1192 (D.C. Cir. 2004)

News and Reports

“Republic of Namibia National Assembly Statement on the Genocide Related Issues,” Dr. Saara Kuugongelwa-Amadhila.

“Critical Appraisal of Saara Kuukongelwa-Amadhila Parliamentary Statement on German-Namibian Negotiations,” Dr. Freddy Omo Kustaa.

Letter to the Editor for “A Colonial-Era Wounds Open in Namibia,” Ngondi A. Kamatuka, January 2017.

Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor. Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2015: Namibia.

“Documenting Violence Against Women, Even if It’s Hard to Look,” Aileen Jacobsen, March 2016.

“Drought Hits Namibia’s Poor the Hardest,” Al Jazeera, October 2013.

“Entire Tribe Killed: Germans Exterminate Natives of South West Africa,” The Daily East Oregonian, Amazon Digital Services, 2015.

“Forgotten Genocide: Namibia’s quest for Reparations,” Al Jazeera, August 2015.

“Genocide Negotiations Reopen Colonial Wounds In Namibia,” Al Jazeera, July 2016.

“Germany Grapples With Its African Genocide,” Norimitsu Onishi, New York Times, December 2016.

“Germany is sued in U.S. over early-1900s Namibia slaughter,” Jonathan Stempel, January 2017.

“Herero and Nama groups sue Germany over Namibia Genocide,” World Breaking News, January 2017.

“Namibia Spurns German Reparations,” Al Jazeera, November 2005.

“Namibia Genocide and the Second Reich.”

“Open Letter to the City of Hamburg and the People of Hamburg,” Ngondi A. Kamatuka, et al., January 2017.

“Pressure Grows on Germany in Legal Battle Over Colonial-Era Genocide,” DW, January 2018.

“The Leaders of Ovaherero and Nama Indigenous Peoples Announce the Filing of a Federal Class Action Lawsuit in U.S. Federal Court in New York”

“The Leaders of Ovaherero and Nama Indigenous Peoples Announce the Filing of UN Complaints,” Africavenir, September 2016.

“The Troubling Origins of the Skeletons in a New York Museum,” Daniel A. Gross, The New Yorker, January 2018.

Articles

Anderson, Rachel,  “Redressing Colonial Genocide Under International Law: The Hereros’ Cause of Action Against Germany,” California Law Review, Volume 93, Issue 4, pp. 1155-1190, 2005.

Carlson, Rachel, “Transitional Justice.”

Erickson, Sarah, “Human Rights in Namibia.”

Grofe, Jan, “Shadows of the Past: Chances and Problems for Herero in Claiming Reparations From Multinationals for Past Human Rights Violations,” The University of Western Cape, 2002.

Harring, Sidney L., “German Reparations to the Herero Nation: An Assertion of Herero Nationhood in the Path of Namibian Development,” West Virginia Law Review 393-417, Volume 104, Winter 2002; also in CUNY Academic Works, 2002, at http://academicworks.cuny.edu/cl_pubs/250

Kennedy, Ellen J., “China in Namibia.”

Kennedy, Ellen J., “Climate Change in Namibia.”

Markusen, Randi, “Botswana and a Legacy of Genocide.”

Nagiel, Svetlana Meyerzon, “An Overlooked Gateway to Victim Compensation: How States Can Provide A Forum for Human Rights Claims,” Columbia Journal of Transnational Law, Vol. 46, No. 1, pp. 133, 2007.

Recommended Films

Namibia Genocide and the Second Reich, BBC Bristol, produced and directed by David Olusoga

One Hundred Years of Silence, Turbine Films