The Kaiser’s Holocaust... Colonial Roots of Naziism
-by Toon Janssen,
DWT Amsterdam Correspondent
“The most just war of all wars is the one against primitive man. Although always being accompanied by the most terrible kind of violence. American against Indian; African Boer against Zulu; New Zealander against Maori. In all these wars the victor eventually laid the foundation for the greatness of the mighty nations. It is and remains of inestimable importance that America, Australia and Africa are taken out of the hands of the red, brown and black owners so that these continents can become the definitive inheritance of the dominant races of the world.”
-Theodore Roosevelt (1889), The Winning of the West
On March 25, 1647 the Dutch VOC-ship de Haerlem, on return from Batavia in the Dutch East Indies, ran aground at the southernmost point of Africa, during a storm raging the icy waters of Table Bay. On that day indigenous Khoi came into contact with Dutchmen for the first time. About sixty shipwrecked people built a small fortress of clay and wood, and then camped at the Cape for almost a year. They remained until they got rescued by another Dutch East India Company (VOC) ship.
They brought home favorable reports, about an immense country, about agricultural possibilities and barter with the natives, cattle in exchange for tobacco and beads. Those messages were decisive for VOC, the largest private trading company in the world those days. The first public limited company with freely tradable shares could use a serious halfway supply station for the lucrative Far East. The company had acquired a monopoly on overseas exchange between the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands and the area east of Cape of Good Hope. Especially for spices like cloves and nutmeg, which were worth their weight in gold.
In 1652 Johan van Riebeeck (1619-1677), Dutch surgeon and merchant for the company, succeeded in establishing a definite supply depot. It was protected by fortresses designed according to updated strategic insights. The area became the core of the later Cape Colony. With the help of only 90 settlers he threw himself into raising cattle and creating production gardens, to supply the steadily growing number of ships. That way Johan van Riebeeck gradually managed to oversee a sustained, systematic effort to establish an impressive range of useful plants in the novel Cape Peninsula conditions, in the process changing the natural environment forever. Some of these, including grapes, apples, citrus, cereals, ground nuts and potatoes, had an important and lasting influence on the societies and economies of the region.
The Cape area however, was originally inhabited by two indigenous peoples, the Khoi and San. Historically and ethnically they both belonged to the Khoisan-language family, characterized by a large number of clicking sounds with the tongue. Khoi were nomadic pastoralists, who the colonists called Hottentotten. The Nguni cows they raised were very popular, because they were resistant to diseases and available in abundance. The Khoi lost out to the land-hungry settlers, who liked to cultivate their extensive grasslands when setting up farms. And on these farms they used the natives as slaves. Two bloody wars between the Dutch and Khoi-clans were the result. Due to governor Johan Bax van Herenthals in particular, Hottentotten numbers shrank considerably in the short 1676-78 period he ruled. Pandemic diseases like smallpox and measles, certainly contributed to this.
The hunter-gatherer San, called Bushmen or Bosjesmannen in Afrikaan language, became displaced and uprooted from their own culture as well. They also used the Khoisan tone-language, and their ancestors were among the oldest inhabitants of the continent. But that did not stop the white settlers from depriving them of their tribal land, with sacred places and water sources. They were expelled to the Kalahari-desert area and other remote arid corners of southern Africa, including parts of modern-day Namibia.
After van Riebeeck the colonial area gradually expanded. As first settlers the Dutch claimed rights older than those of newcomers after them, such as the British. Most of them had the Old-Dutch Beggars blood running through their veins, and followed the Calvinist or Reformed faith of their 17th century ancestors. Hard work, discipline and frugality were of paramount importance and key to success. However, many moved away from the Cape as the years passed. They wanted to get away from VOC tyranny and power, away from their tax system and obligation to deliver goods, and away from their export monopoly. They moved forward into new territories offering new possibilities.
The early settlers however, did not come exclusively from the Dutch Republic. They also came from neighboring European countries. To a lesser extent Germans as well as French Huguenots were involved. It all depended on where the recruitment took place, on who showed up there and who was needed overseas. When VOC made Dutch language mandatory, Afrikaans evolved into the language of the ones who pioneered, the African Boer and their descendants.
These Boer pioneers swarmed out with ox carts in a Grote Trek, searching for grassy meadows and land to develop. In doing so they kept pushing the boundaries. With enslaved Khoi and San in their wake. They had no problem subjugating other local native populations they met on their way. Like Bantu tribes in the interior or Khoisan groups in the northwest. They ended up in slavery on their extensive farms, disconnected from their tribal bond and living area, uprooted and displaced.
Early colonial Vrijburghers, in European countries recruited agricultural laborers and craftsmen, who continued to live at the Cape once the mandatory 5 year service for VOC expired, also tried their luck elsewhere. They first migrated into Het Groene Veld, nearby on the other side of Liesbeek River, where VOC allowed them to own land. At a later stage many moved on into the wild, to alleviate their hunger for land ownership, to set up republics.
There were also many people of color among the fortune seekers. Due to the labor shortage many slaves had been brought from Madagascar, India and Indonesia. Later on they mixed with both settlers and natives, like Boer and Vrijburgers also using Afrikaans as their language. It gradually evolved into a kind of Old-Dutch mixed with loanwords from other European and tribal languages.
Still others of mixed descent, Afrikaan Orlam and Basters, proved sensitive to the new opportunities that were there for the taking. Due to mixed decent from white settlers and women from native tribes, they were slightly better off in the colonial hierarchy. They were very eager to settle down elsewhere, into areas where they could own a farm with a mansion on acquired property.
As already described above, the southern African playground increasingly developed into a stage of nascent ‘state’ formation. Confrontations between expanding white, semi-white and black empires were inevitable and numerous, with control over land, resources, cattle and strategic positions at stake. What started as indefinite spheres of influence, gradually developed into a frontier society where survival of the fittest ruled, especially during the 19th century. In it the colonial and indigenous groups fought both each other and the enormous Bantu and Xhosa kingdoms in the interior. It resulted, among other things, in increasingly precise but arbitrarily defined boundaries of self-declared territories for settlers, mainly Boer and British. It also resulted in massive population movements of tribal groups. The hunter-gatherer San lost out and were almost completely destroyed by nomadic-pastoralist Ndbele Bantu, headed by king Mzilikazi. The fate of Khoi was only slightly ‘better’, being forced to move on further northwest into desolate areas.
Towards the end of the 18th century three brothers with about 300 followers departed in a prophetic journey to ‘The Promised Land’. These Orlam, descendants of Boer and specifically Nama-Khoi, who therefore spoke the Nama-variant of the Khoisan mother tongue, managed to find grazing grounds for their livestock in northern Namakwaland, far away from the Cape colony but not too far from what is modern-day Namibia. They had superior weapons, which they mainly used to fight competing Herero tribes. These were also pastoralists but nomadic, good prey for Nama-Khoi to steal cows and goats from.
Shortly after 1850, at the request of then leader Jonker Afrikaner, the Orlam moved away from Namakwaland to settle further west towards the coast, near what is now the city of Windhoek. In order to better defend themselves against Herero or attack them, a coalition with related Nama-Khoi was concluded, leading to several wars. The plundered cattle were resold for weapons and ammunition. Jonker Afrikaner had a large church built in Windhoek, with room for more than 500 people and led by missionaries from a Protestant Rhenish Missionary Society. He also had roads built and collected tolls to manage his colonial trade from his ’homeland.’ Due to his military superiority and strategic insights he managed to dominate a considerable territory, until his death in 1861.
In the 1870s, another population group settled a little further south in the same area, the Basters. As mentioned before, also descendants from Afrikaners and native tribes. In the ‘ancient’ Cape Colony society many were assimilated into the white community as staff, supervisors or servants. Although in Old- Dutch the term was a condescending designation, they gradually were accorded a certain prestige. They passed for Afrikaners and spoke Afrikaans. Most were Calvinist and were convinced that ‘man proposes and the Lord disposes.’ They used prayers and church chants which were identical to the 17th century Dutch ones. They also managed to appropriate large areas of land, and succeeded in founding Roboboth town, not far from Windhoek. The Free Republic Roboboth was claimed there for a long time, until Namibian independence put an end to it, on July 29, 1989. The constitution drawn ‘in the good old days’ still applies in their territory. Their flag was and still is the German one.
Meanwhile, important geopolitical developments took place, in a completely different setting but in the same period. A new player had clearly emerged on the international stage that the colonial countries had to take more into account: Germany. The world had to be divided again. German Emperor Wilhelm II seriously felt deprived in terms of colonial possessions and power. By building his own proud fleet he would secure ‘ein Platz an der Sonne fur die Ubermenschen’, an equal place on the international stage for ‘Supermen.’ Southern Africa seemed to him suitable training ground for acquiring more ‘Lebensraum’, more life space. It was exactly that belief that, not many years later, also justified the occupation of other European countries by Nazi Germany.
In 1884 German chancellor Otto von Bismarck proclaimed the Berlin Colonial Conference. The 15 most important European powers, as well as the US and the Ottoman Empire, participated. The goal was to achieve a balance of power in the ‘scramble for Africa.’ However, no African head of state was invited. On the contrary, they worked roughly with a ruler and pencil, numb, right through homelands of approximately 1,100 peoples. The conference declared southwest Africa to be German. Soon after signing the treaty Ernst Goring, father of Nazi son Herman who Adolf Hitler not too much later appointed as Reich Marshal, came ashore at Whale Bay. He was given the task of putting an end to the infighting between Herero and Khoi. To this end he made them sign a ‘protection treaty of their own free will,’ with which they declared themselves subject to German authority.
Herero clan leader Samuel Maharero signed the treaty, that way submitting to the oppressor. Hendrik Witbooi however, a direct cousin of Jonker Afrikaner and third Nama Witbooi-clan leader, refused. Goring, on his turn, managed to set Maharero up against Witbooi even more than already was the case. Bloody tribal confrontations followed, that would last for years. Goring was assured of Baster support because they provided helpful services to the Germans, for which they were rewarded with preservation of their land and livestock. Hendrik however, who had already defeated German troops three times, foresaw deep misery for all indigenous groups around: ‘eventually they will want to destroy us all, both Herero and Nama.’ He understood he better make peace with Herero tribesmen. In 1893 he drew up a treaty, that granted passage for his Hottentotten troops through their pasture lands. On October 29, 1905 however, he was shot from his horse near Vaalgras-hamlet, aged 81, in the inhospitable Karas Mountains, by Germans.
Encouraged by US President Theodore Roosevelt’s words from Winning of the West, Wilhelm II appointed General Lothar von Trotha as commander. He had already gained experience in brutally suppressing colonial uprisings. ‘His Emperor’s favorite’ had already made a reputation as ‘most bloodthirsty beast in the German army.’ He was therefore ordered in 1904 to definitively suppress the Herero and Nama uprisings in German South West Africa. Von Trotha worked expeditiously. The Witbooi Nama lost their land and cattle, and were banned from ‘German territory’ or became ‘employed’ by Germans. Herero tribesmen fared even worse. Since they had attacked settlements of German settlers they lost all their rights, even their right to exist. Their wells were poisoned and they were driven into the wilderness. The German contempt for the ‘inferior races’ became openly and shamelessly noticeable: ‘After all, we are fighting savages. Never should we allow the blacks to triumph. Our dear Lord designed laws of nature so that the strongest dominate. The weakest and the useless will perish.’ Thousands of Herero fighters died in the Battle of Waterberg (1904) through bullets, bombs and grenades under von Trotha’s command. However, even after that, there were still quite a few of them left.
It became increasingly clear that natives were being locked up on ‘reservations,’ only to be left there to their fate. There were five in total in German South West Africa. The concentration camp off the coast on Shark Island was notorious. The ‘forced laborers’ were taken there without a trace. However, it did not stop at slave labor alone. For to this day the bay seabed is strewn with bones, skulls and rusted chains. ‘Death Island’ became known as Namibia’s large-scale death camp and blueprint for what the Nazis would later perpetrate in the Holocaust during World War II.
In order to finally get the Herero under complete ‘control’ the commander ordered the infamous ‘Vernichtungsbefehl,’ the order to destroy: ‘Any Herero found within German borders, with or without guns, with or without cattle, will be shot.’ This ‘license’ led in just a short number of years to 75% of 80,000 Herero tribesmen being massacred, with only about 15,000 left by 1908. Von Trotha made it clear to Nama that a similar fate could befall them. They were ‘troublesome’ in his mind. These clans had already halved in numbers to just 10,000, while the fate of related Damara was unknown.
The reign of terror took place by a small population of only around 4,000 German colonists. Die Heimat, the fatherland, reserved at the time no less than 585 million Marks for the intended costs. That’s how much ‘cleaning up’ the colony was worth to them. General von Trotha was highly decorated with orders and Iron Crosses, as ‘merit for services.’ In Windhoek a 5 meter high bronze horseman statue was erected in his honor.
In 2013 however, when Namibia gained independence, things changed. Under pressure of the population the statue was removed from its pedestal. It didn’t come as a surprise that a Hendrik Witbooi statue was placed instead, right in front of the Parliament Building. And in addition his image appeared on various banknotes. Hendrik had become symbol of resistance, known as first Namibian to bring Namibian peoples together.
While the indifference in Europe about the mass murders was poignant, the one-liner Teddy Roosevelt marked down in The Winning of the West (1889) was definitely typical: ‘The most just war of all wars is the war against primitive man.’ His exciting saga is, admittedly, about the early settlement of the US from around 1769-1776, when Tennessee and Kentucky were by far the real Far West, but has been very relevant for its racist view. German Emperor Wilhelm II felt strengthened by it.
For several reasons, the Namibian Genocide disappeared from view. It wasn’t until the Whitetaker Report in 1958, that the United Nations declared that Namibia had been the first crime scene of 20th century genocide. There was little response at the time though. It was not until 2002 Herero descendants finally demanded German recognition and claimed reparations. But despite German government in 2004 stating official regret for the murders, reparations failed to materialize.
It wasn't until 2020, that 10 million euros were offered, ‘to heal wounds.’ On his turn however, then Namibian President Hage Geingob interpreted this as ‘unacceptable and an insult.’ But only one more year later great progress was made: Germany finally acknowledged and promised to pay one billion, in aid projects.
