31. B. von Bülow, Denkwürdigkeiten: Band 2 (Berlin: Ullstein, 1930) p. 21; Drechsler, Let Us Die Fighting, p. 155.
32. M. Bayer, Mit Haputquartier in Suedwestafrika (Berlin: Wilhelm Weicher Marine und Kolonialverlag, 1909), p. 161.
33. Adolf Fischer, Menschen und Tiere in Suedwestafrika (Berlin: Safari Verlag, 1914).
34. NAN, Accession 109, ‘Major Stuhlman Diary’.
35. NAN, Accession 569, ‘Memoirs of Pastor Elger’, pp. 38–40.
36. Kriegsgeschichtlichen Abteilung I des Grossen Generalstabes, Die Kaempfe der deutschen Truppen in Suedwestafrika (Berlin: Ernst Siegfried Mittler und Sohn, 1907), pp. 193 and 218.
Notes – 9 ‘Death through Exhaustion’
1. J. Gewald, ‘The Great General of the Kaiser’, Botswana Notes and Records 26 (1994), pp. 67–76; A. Eckl, S’ist ein uebles Land hier (Cologne: Ruediger Koeppe Verlag, 2005); H. Drechsler, Let Us Die Fighting (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1986).
2. Most historians mistakenly refer to this event as taking place on 2 October, as this is the date that appears on von Trotha’s so-called Extermination Order.
3. Gewald, ‘The Great General’, p. 68.
4. Eckl, S’ist ein uebles Land hier, p. 284.
5. Drechsler, Let Us Die Fighting, pp. 160–1; Helmut Bley, Namibia under German Rule (Hamburg: LIT, 1996), p. 164.
6. Ibid.
7. Drechsler, Let Us Die Fighting, p. 157.
8. Ibid., p. 159.
9. ELCN: RMS: V 12 Karibib, 1904.
10. Union of South Africa, Report on the Natives of South-West Africa and Their Treatment by Germany (London: HMSO, 1918), pp. 117–18.
11. J. Silvester and J. Gewald, Words Cannot Be Found: German Colonial Rule in Namibia (Leiden: Brill, 2003), pp. 106–7; BAB, Colonial Department, File 2117, pp. 112–16.
12. Silvester and Gewald, Words Cannot Be Found, pp. 106–7.
13. Bundesarchiv Berlin (BAB), Colonial Department, File 2117, pp. 112–16.
14. Anonymous, Tagebuchblaetter aus Suedwest-Afrika (Berlin: Boll und Pickardt, 1906), pp. 35–6.
15. Drechsler, Let Us Die Fighting, p. 161.
16. Ibid., p. 163.
17. BAB, Colonial Department, File 2089, pp. 7–11.
18. I. Hull, Absolute Destruction (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2005), p. 30.
19. Ibid., p. 65.
20. BAB, Colonial Department, File 2117, p. 59b (insert: pp. 1–57).
21. Ibid.
22. Ibid.
23. ‘Concentration Camps during the Boer War’, Stanford University Library Collection: http://www-sul.stanford.edu/depts/ssrg/africa/boers.html.
24. C.W. Erichsen, ‘The Angel of Death Has Descended Violently among Them’: Concentration Camps and Prisoners-of-War in Namibia, 1904–08 (Leiden: African Studies Centre, 2005), p. 22.
25. Ibid., pp. 24–8.
26. NAN, Accession 569, Memoirs of Pastor Elger.
27. Hull, Absolute Destruction, p. 71.
28. Erichsen ‘The Angel of Death’; J. Zimmerer and J. Zeller (eds), Genocide in German South-West Africa: the Colonial War of 1904–1908 and Its Aftermath (Monmouth: Merlin Press Ltd., 2008); J. Gewald, Herero Heroes (Oxford: James Currey, 1999); Drechsler, Let Us Die Fighting; Hull, Absolute Destruction; J. Gaydish, ‘Fair Treatment is Guaranteed to You: the Swakopmund Prisoner-of-War Camp 1905–1908’, Unpublished conference paper (Windhoek: UNAM, 2000).
29. NAN, Zentralbureau (ZBU) 454, D.IV.l.3, vol. 1, pp. 58–9.
30. The Herero elders in the Swakopmund concentration camp wrote a letter to the Mission Head asking for access to translated books of the Old Testament, especially the Book of Moses. According to the author of the letter, the enslavement of the Israelites had some resonance with the prisoners. Evangelical Lutheran Church Namibia (ELCN), RMS, Missions-berichte 1906, p. 120.
31. ELCN, RMS, Chroniken 31, Swakopmund.
32. J. Zeller, ‘Ombepera I koza – The Cold is Killing Me’, in Zimmerer and Zeller, Genocide in German South-West Africa, pp. 65–83.
33. Erichsen, ‘The Angel of Death’, pp. 48–53.
34. Kommando der Schutztruppen im Reichskolonialamt, Sanitaets-Bericht Ueber die Kaiserliche Schutztruppe fuer suedwestafrika waehrend des Herero und Hottenttotenaufstandes fuer die Zeit vom 1. Januar 1904 bis 31. Maerz 1907. Erster Band, 1. Administrativer Teil. (Berlin: Ernst Siegfried Mittler und Sohn, 1909), pp. 45–50.
35. NAN, ZBU 454, D.IV.l.3, vol. 2, pp. 336–40; NAN, ZBU 454, D.IV.l.3, vol. 1, p. 163; NAN, BKE 224, vol. 2, 74. d. spec. I, pp. 29–31.
36. Erichsen, ‘The Angel of Death’, pp. 22–3.
37. NAN, ZBU 2372, IX. H. vol. 1, pp. 58–61.
38. Cape Archives, GH 23/97, ‘Statement under oath by: Jack Seti, John Culayo and James Tolibadi’, Ministers to Governor, 22 August 1906.
39. See, for example, B. Lau, ‘Uncertain Certainties’, in History and Historiography (Windhoek: Namibian National Archives, 1995).
40. ZBU 454, D.IV.l.3, vol. 1, pp. 58–9.
41. Deaths in the military concentration camp, which was begun early February 1905, until 29 May were 399 prisoners out of 1,100 – 111 of these died in the last two weeks of May. ZBU 454, D.IV.l.3, vol. 1, pp. 58–9.
42. Ibid.
43. Ibid.
44. BAB, Colonial Department, File 2118, p. 157.
45. Ibid., pp. 152–6.
46. ELCN, RMS Correspondence VII 31.1, Swakopmund 1–7, Eich to Vedder, 19 June 1905.
47. NAN, BSW 107, VA/10/6.
Notes – 10 ‘Peace Will Spell Death for Me and My Nation’
1. C. W. Erichsen, ‘The Angel of Death Has Descended Violently among Them’: Concentration Camps and Prisoners-of-War in Namibia, 1904–08 (Leiden: African Studies Centre, 2005); H. Drechsler, Let Us Die Fighting (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1986); Jon M. Bridgeman, The Revolt of the Hereros (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1981); T. Leutwein, Elf Jahre Gouverneur in Deutsch-Suedwestafrika (Berlin: Ernst Siegfried Mittler und Sohn, 1907); W. Nuhn, Feind Ueberall (Bonn: Bernard & Graefe Verlag, 2000); W. Hillebrecht, ‘The Nama and the War in the South’, in J. Zimmerer and J. Zeller (eds), Genocide in German South-West Africa: the Colonial War of 1904–1908 and Its Aftermath (Monmouth: Merlin Press Ltd., 2008), pp. 143–59.
2. Leutwein, Elf Jahre.
3. Drechsler, Let Us Die Fighting, pp. 182–3; Union of South Africa, Report on the Natives of South-West Africa and Their Treatment by Germany (London: HMSO, 1918).
4. NAN, Accession 507, Missionary Berger Memoirs: ‘Drie Jare by Hendrik Witbooi’, pp. 14–15.
5. BAB, Colonial Department, File 2133, pp. 32–4.
6. I. Goldblatt, The History of South West Africa: From the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century (Cape Town: Juta and Co. Ltd, 1971), pp. 147–8.
7. South African News, 31 May 1904.
8. Drechsler, Let Us Die Fighting, p. 143.
9. Ibid., p. 184.
10. ELCN, RMS, Missions-berichte January 1905, pp. 25–31, 39–45.
11. Ibid., pp. 39–45.
12. C. W. Erichsen, What the Elders Used to Say (Windhoek: Namibia Institute for Democracy, 2008), pp. 20–31.
13. Kriegsgeschichtlichen Abteilung I des Grossen Generalstabes, Die Kaempfe der deutschen Truppen in Suedwestafrika: Band 2 (Berlin: Ernst Siegfried Mittler und Sohn, 1907), pp. 17–19.
14. A German solider present at Auob remembers how the Nama taunted them mid-battle. ‘Scorning remarks were shouted at us, like “Are Deutschmanns thirsty? Here is plenty of water.” They displayed filled canteens of water in front of us. Again, one of our officers was severely wounded, shot from behind. Another Lieutenant charged the enemy alone. Four bullets struck him down, dead.’ C. Jitschin, Als Reiter in Suedwest (Breslau: Flemmings Verlag, 1937), pp. 89–90.
15. O. Trautmann, Im Herero und Hottentottenland (Oldenburg: Gerhard Stalling, 1913), p. 121.
16. Jitschin, Als Reiter, p. 130.
17. Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck, Mein Leben (Biberach an der Riss: Koehl
ers, 1957), pp. 87–8.
18. Drechsler, Let Us Die Fighting, p. 187.
19. Cape Times, 29 May 1906.
20. In an official communication to the parents of E. L. Presgrave upon his death at German hands in 1907, he was described in the following manner: ‘Mr. E. L. Presgrave is reported to have acted as “Secretary” and adviser to Marengo, one of the Rebel leaders, and His Majesty’s Government are informed by the German authorities that it has been ascertained that he took part in the fight at Narugas on 11 March and in a patrol fight at Bissiport [aka Pisseport] in April 1905.’ Cape Archives, Correspondence file no. 868, p. 1.
21. Drechsler, Let Us Die Fighting, p. 220 n. 16.
22. Ibid., p. 193.
23. Ibid., p. 187; M. Bayer, Mit Haputquartier in Suedwestafrika (Berlin: Wilhelm Weicher Marine und Kolonialverlag, 1909), p. 225.
24. NAN, BKE 220, B. II. & 4. a. spec. 1, pp. 7–8.
25. Some sources note that Lieutenant Thilo von Trotha was the general’s son. However, Maximilian Bayer, who travelled through most of the operational areas with the general, claims the younger Trotha was a nephew. Bayer, Mit Haputquartier, p. 261; Kriegsgeschichtlichen Abteilung I, pp. 119–20.
26. Nuhn, Feind Ueberall, p. 175.
27. ZBU 465, D. IV. m.3. vol. 1, p 30; BKE 305, G. A. 10/2 ‘Secret Files: Uprising 1904–05’, pp. 77–86; Kriegsgeschichtlichen Abteilung I, pp. 180–83.
28. BKE 305, G. A. 10/2 ‘Secret Files: Uprising 1904–05’, p. 79.
29. NAN, Accession 507, Missionary Berger, p. 37.
30. BKE 305, G. A. 10/2 ‘Secret Files: Uprising 1904–05’, pp. 77–86; Kriegsgeschichtlichen Abteilung I, pp. 180–83.
31 See, for example, von Estorff’s dire assessment of the situation facing the German army. L. von Estorff, ‘Kriegserlebnisse in Suedwestafrika’, Militaer-wochenblatt 3 (1911), p. 95.
32. Nuhn, Feind Ueberall, p. 176.
33. Kriegsgeschichtlichen Abteilung I, p. 185.
Notes – 11 ‘You Yourselves Carry the Blame for Your Misery’
1. NAN, Photo Library: Arrival of Lindequist; Bundesarchiv Koblenz, Kl. Erwerbungen, Nachlass Lindequist, File 275; NAN, Biographies: Lindequist; H. Vedder, Kurze Geschichten aus einem langen Leben (Wuppertal-Barmen: Verlag der Rheinischen Missions-Gesellschaft, 1953), pp. 145–7; ELCN, RMS, Missions-berichte 1906. G. I. Schrank, ‘German South-West Africa: Social and Economic Aspects of Its History, 1884–1915’, unpublished Ph. D. thesis (New York: New York University, 1974), p. 206.
2. S. Shaw, William of Germany (Dublin: Trinity College, 1913).
3. G. I. Schrank, ‘German South-West Africa’, p. 206.
4. NAN, Vedder Quellen, 29A, p. 99.
5. NAN, ZBU 454, D. VI. l.3, vol. 1, pp. 187–8.
6. Vedder, Kurze Geschichten, pp. 145–7; ELCN, RMS, Missions-berichte 1906, pp. 34–6.
7. Ibid.
8. ELCN, RMS, Missions-berichte 1906, pp. 36–7; NAN, Vedder Quellen, 29A, pp. 99–100.
9. ELCN, RMS, Missions-berichte 1906, pp. 36–7; H. Drechsler, Let Us Die Fighting (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1986), pp. 207–10, 227 n. 161.
10. C. W. Erichsen, ‘The Angel of Death Has Decended Violently among Them’: Concentration Camps and Prisoners-of-War in Namibia, 1904–08 (Leiden: African Studies Centre, 2005), pp. 28–44.
11. ELCN, RMS, Missions-berichte 1906, p. 167.
12. NAN, ZBU 2369 Secret Files: Witbooi-Hottentotten, VIII. g. vol. 1, p. 8; ELCN, RMS, Missions-berichte 1906, pp. 67–8.
13. ELCN, RMS, Missions-berichte 1906, pp. 67–8.
14. W. Nuhn, Feind Ueberall (Bonn: Bernard & Graefe Verlag, 2000), p. 179.
15. Kriegsgeschichtlichen Abteilung I des Grossen Generalstabes, Die Kaempfe der deutschen Truppen in Suedwestafrika: Band 2 (Berlin: Ernst Siegfried Mittler und Sohn, 1907), pp. 180–3; NAN, ZBU 2369 Secret Files: Witbooi-Hottentotten, VIII. g. vol. 1, p 44 (old pagination).
16. NAN, ZBU 2369 Secret Files: Witbooi-Hottentotten, VIII. g. vol. 1, pp. 52–5.
17. F. Dincklage-Campe, Deutsche Reiter in Suedwest (Berlin: Deutsches Verlagshaus Bong, 1908), p. 14.
18. Erichsen, ‘The Angel of Death’, pp. 42–51.
19. Windhuker Nachrichten, 22 March 1906.
20. Ibid.
21. G. Pool, Die Herero-Opstand 1904–07 (Cape Town: Hollandsch Afrikaansche Uitgevers Maatschappij, 1979), p. 270.
22. J. Silvester and J. Gewald, Words Cannot Be Found: German Colonial Rule in Namibia (Leiden: Brill, 2003), p. 178.
23. NAN, ZBU 456, D IV. l.3, vol. 5, p. 170.
24. Ibid.
25. L. Schultze, ‘Südwestafrika’, in H. Meyer (ed.), Das Deutsche Kolonialreich, vol. 2 (Leipzig: Verlag des Bibliographischen Instituts, 1914), p. 295.
26. Der Deutsche, 1 August 1906, as cited in Nuhn, Feind Ueberall, p. 266.
Notes – 12 ‘The Island of Death’
1. H. F. B. Walker, A Doctor’s Diary in Damaraland (London: Edward Arnold, 1917), Chapter X, 18 July.
2. C.W. Erichsen, ‘The Angel of Death Has Descended Violently among Them’: Concentration Camps and Prisoners-of-War in Namibia, 1904–08 (Leiden: African Studies Centre, 2005), pp. 65–9.
3. ELCN, RMS, Correspondence VII. 31, Swakopmund 1–7, Eich to Vedder 24 May 1905.
4. Ibid., Eich to Vedder 16 December 1905.
5. H. Vedder, Kurze Geschichten aus einem langen Leben (Wuppertal-Barmen: Verlag der Rheinischen Missions-Gesellschaft, 1953), p. 139.
6. NAN, ZBU 456, D IV. l.3, vol. 5, p. 98.
7. Ibid., p. 106b.
8. Kuhlmann as quoted in I. Hull, Absolute Destruction (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2005), p. 78.
9. Cape Argus, 28 September 1905.
10. Ibid.
11. Erichsen, ‘The Angel of Death’, pp. 88–94.
12. L. Sinclair (ed.), Collins German Dictionary Plus Grammar (Glasgow: HarperCollins Publishers, 2001).
13. See J. Grobler, Mail and Guardian (Johannesburg), 13–19 March 1998.
14. B. Auer, In Suedwestafrika gegen die Hereros (Berlin: Ernst Hofmann & Co., 1911), pp. 189, 208.
15. F. Cornell, The Glamour of Prospecting (New York: F. A. Stokes, 1920).
16. NAN, ZBU 2369, Witbooi Geheimakten, pp. 103–4.
17. There were two missionaries in Lüderitz due to the many prisoners sent there, because these were seen by the mission as souls still in need of saving. Missionary Laaf was the first to arrive, in December 1905, and was later followed by Nyhof.
18. NAN, ZBU 2369, Witbooi Geheimakten, pp. 103–4.
19. Union of South Africa, Report on the Natives of South-West Africa and Their Treatment by Germany (London: HMSO, 1918), Chapter XX, testimony by Samuel Kariko.
20. Cornell, Glamour of Prospecting.
21. NAN, ZBU 2369, Witbooi Geheimakten, pp. 93–6.
22. NAN, HBS 52, 28 November 1906.
23. Ibid., 24 December 1906.
24. NAN, ZBU 2369, Witbooi Geheimakten, p. 116.
25. Ibid., pp. 102–3.
26. Archiv der Vereinten Evangelischen Mission Wuppertal-Barmen, RMG 2.509a, C/h 23a, Bl. 348, letter the Rhenish Mission Society in Barmen, Inspector Spiecker by hand.
27. NAN, ZBU 2396, Witbooi Geheimakten, pp. 96a–96b.
28. Ibid.
29. Ibid., pp. 97–8.
30. Ibid.
31. H. Drechsler, Let Us Die Fighting (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1986), p. 211.
32. NAN, ZBU 2369, Witbooi Geheimakten, ‘Todesinsel’, Bezirksamtman Zülow to Gov. 6/01/07, pp. 120–30.
33. Cape Archives, PMO 227–35/07, British Military Attaché, Col. F. Trench to British Embassy, Berlin, 21 November 1906.
34. Erichsen, ‘The Angel of Death’, p. 155.
35. Ibid.
36. Notably this debate was watched by a contingent from German South-West Africa including Governor Lindequist and Major Bayer, who had come to support the cause. Stenographische Berichte uber die Verhandlungen des deutschen Reichstages, 11. Legislature, II. Session. 1905/1907. Reichstag.
– 140. Sitzung. 13 December 1906, p. 4367.
37. Union of South Africa, Report on the Natives of South-West Africa, Chapter XX.
38. J. Zimmerer and J. Zeller (eds), Genocide in German South-West Africa: the Colonial War of 1904–1908 and Its Aftermath (Monmouth: Merlin Press Ltd., 2008), pp. 76–7.
39. Zürn to Luschan, 25 June 1905. MfV,1B 39, vol. 1 775/05. Quoted in A. Zimmerman, Anthropology and Antihumanism in Imperial Germany (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001), p. 245.
40. C. Fetzer, ‘Rassenanatomische Untersuchungen an 17 Hottenttotenkoepfen’, Zeitschrift fuer Morphologie und Antropologie 16 (1912).
41. Dr Stabsarzt Bofinger, ‘Einige Mitteilungen uber Skorbut’, Deutsche militaerarztliche Zeitschrift 39.15 (1910).
42. ELCN, RMS, V.16, Chronik der Gemeinde Lüderitzbucht, pp. 28–9.
43. BAB, Colonial Department, File 2140, ‘Note for the Reichstag about the Native Prisoners of War on Shark Island’, p. 88.
44. Ibid.
45. NAN, ZBU 2369, Secret Files, p. 113.
46. Ibid., p. 115.
47. BAB, Colonial Department, File 2140, ‘Note for the Reichstag About the Native Prisoners of War on Shark Island’, p. 157.
48. Ludwig von Estorff, Wanderungen und Kaempfe in Suedwestafrika, Ostafrika und Suedafrika 1894–1910 (Windhoek: John Meinert (Pty) Ltd, 1996), p. 134.
49. NAN, ZBU 456, D IV. l.3, vol. 5, p. 135.
50. NAN, ZBU 2369, Witbooi Geheimakten, pp. 152–3.
51. ‘Population statistics in Lüderitz (German) as of end-1906: 836 men, 94 women and 49 children under 15 years.’ NAN, ZBU 154, A. VI. a.3, p. 207. For a further discussion on these figures see Erichsen, ‘The Angel of Death’, pp. 134–45.
52. They had, in a grotesque mirror image of the literal sense of the word, been decimated.
53. NAN, ZBU 2369, Witbooi Geheimakten, p. 153.
Notes – 13 ‘Our New Germany on African Soil’
1. NAN, Photo collection, ref no. 2857; J. Zeller, ‘Symbolic Politics’, in J. Zimmerer and J. Zeller (eds), Genocide in German South-West Africa: the Colonial War of 1904–1908 and Its Aftermath (Monmouth: Merlin Press Ltd., 2008), pp. 231–49; Kolonial-Post, 1937, p. 6 (courtesy of Joachim Zeller); D. J. Walther, Creating Germans Abroad (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2002); J. Gewald, We Thought We Would Be Free (Cologne: Ruediger Koeppe Verlag, 2000).
The Kaiser's Holocaust: Germany's Forgotten Genocide and the Colonial Roots of Nazism Page 43