By Jonah Sky
A common thought that one gets when they think of the word genocide, is the removal of an entire people or religious group. By definition this is true. But what a lot of people forget is that although it is the removal of people with a certain motive or belief, it also encourages new people with new beliefs. One of the most common genocides was the holocaust during the second world war where Nazi Germany alleviated its lands of those who practiced Judaism, “Jews”. This took place during the Third Reich in the mid 20th century, but a smaller genocide that most are unfamiliar with took place in the early days of the 20th century. Also committed by the Germans, but at this time Germany was represented by The German Empire instead of the Nazis, who ruled most of Europe during the 1940s.
This genocide, also called the first genocide of the 20th century took place in the south African country which is now Namibia. At the time what is now Namibia was inhabited by a few tribes. The Bantu Wombo tribe from the north were simple and were pretty much disconnected from the rest of the country. Then there were the Herero and the Namaqua people who were animal breeders and hunters of the fana rich country. As genocide goes, the people of the German Empire tried to modernized the tribes with their advanced agriculture and turn them into farmers and workers of their own land. The tribes did not take this easily. They disagreed with the Germans laws of ownership, but the Germans had already obtained about ¼ of their land from the tribes in vision of a railway to the country for its development and modernization. Although to the Germans this seemed like a no-brainer; it would actually assist other colonizers access to the country who would later drain the resource rich country in the mid to late 20th century. From the beginning The German Empire's goal was to modernize the Herero and Namaqua tribes by moving them from their own land to a smaller section of it (reservations).
The Herero and Namaqua already coming from the background of workers and slaves were fed up with having to serve a so-called “higher power” in their own land. As historian Horst Drechsler said, “ In German colonial league, in matters of human right and other legal topics, they had the opinion that 7 Africans are the equivalent to one white man”. This gave the white people an easy way to obtain land by ‘law’. From this rapacious mentality came an immense amount of hatred towards them from the tribes. In January, the tribe leader Samuel Maharero led the Herero people to rebel against the Germans, leaving over 150 German soldiers dead. A few months later in May, General Lothar Von Trotha and his army of 14,000 men stormed into the land and slaughtered and forced the tribes to the great desert of Omaheke. There they were either killed by dehydration and starvation or, simply fighting back, they were trapped like a bird in a cage, never reaching true freedom. This was the same fate of the Namaqua people about ten years later.
http://www.ancient-origins.net/history-important-events/herero-and-namaqua-genocide-little-known-first-genocide-second-reich-003828
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KHIJn8iaKE