Herero and Nama genocide in German South West Africa

Date

1904 to 1908

Category

Social & demographic

Region

German South West Africa (present-day Namibia)

Era

Modern

Significance

In German South West Africa (present-day Namibia), German colonial rule and land seizures provoked an uprising by the Herero people under Samuel Maharero in January 1904, followed by a Nama revolt in 1905.

After German reinforcements routed the Herero at the Battle of Waterberg in August 1904, General Lothar von Trotha issued an extermination order (Vernichtungsbefehl) on 3 October 1904, driving survivors into the Omaheke desert to die of thirst and decreeing that Herero found within the colony be shot. Although the order was formally rescinded weeks later, survivors were confined in concentration camps such as Shark Island, where lethal conditions, forced labour and abuse killed a large proportion of inmates. By 1908 an estimated 40,000 to 80,000 Herero, around 80 percent of their population, and roughly 10,000 Nama had died. Widely regarded by historians as the first genocide of the twentieth century, the atrocities prefigured later state-organised mass killing and remain central to debates over colonial reparations.

Empires active in 1904 to 1908

• Empire of Japan
  1868 CE to 1947 CE
• French Colonial Empire (Second)
  1830 CE to 1962 CE
• German Empire
  1871 CE to 1918 CE
• Russian Empire
  1721 CE to 1917 CE
• British Empire
  1583 CE to 1997 CE
• Qing Dynasty
  1636 CE to 1912 CE

Related social & demographic events

• Influenza pandemic of 1918 to 1920
  1918 to 1920
• The Holocaust and the 'Final Solution'
  1941 to 1945
• Bengal Famine of 1943
  1943 to 1944
• Emancipation of the serfs in Russia
  3 March 1861 (19 February O.S.)
• The Great Irish Famine
  1845 to 1852
• Armenian Genocide
  1915 to 1916 (beginning 24 April 1915)

Essential reading

• Haber-Bosch Process Industrialises Synthetic Nitrogen Fertiliser
  September 1913
• 1931 Central China Floods
  June to August 1931
• The Dust Bowl
  1930 to 1940 (peak 1934 to 1936)
• Cárdenas Nationalises Mexico's Oil
  1938

Further reading

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

The wider story

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

Yuval Noah Harari

Global best-seller on how our species, its populations and societies remade the world.

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