18. The German General Who Carried Out the 20th Century’s First Genocide
In the 1880s, Germany established a colony in South West Africa – today’s Namibia – that was home to African pastoralists such as the Nama people, numbering about 20,000, and the Herero, a grouping of about 75,000 cattle herders. The German colonists ruled with a heavy hand and deliberate brutality that stood out even amidst the brutal norms of European colonization. As the German commander in charge of subduing the region put it in 1888: “only uncompromising brutality will lead to victory“. The African natives’ livestock and best lands were confiscated and given to German settlers, and the Africans themselves were frequently seized and used as de facto slaves.
Germans vs. Africans
Racial discrimination was rife, and most German settlers viewed the natives as a source of cheap labor, while others simply called for their extermination. The Africans’ resentment was further exacerbated by the frequent rape of native women and girls by settlers – a crime that the German authorities rarely addressed, let alone punished. Unsurprisingly, such abuses alienated the natives. When the Herero and Nama learned that the Germans planned to further divide their lands and herd them into reservations, they rose up in rebellion. In January 1904, they launched a surprise attack that killed about 125 Germans. In response, the Germans sent an expeditionary force of about 14,000 soldiers, led by General Lothar von Trotha. His planned solution was genocide.