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Topic Summary

Posted by: Schwartze Katze
« on: February 25, 2024, 02:58:43 pm »

Is Germany’s other genocide being forgotten? | The Listening Post
Quote
Germany’s genocide in Namibia early in the 20th century has long been a misremembered episode in colonial history.

Despite efforts to correct the record, many are yet to hear the testimonies of the victimised communities: the Herero and Nama peoples.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrGEMnxyJCw

Comments:

Quote
Al Jazeera is doing humanity a great service by exposing such past horrors.
Quote
Only when lions have historians, will hunters cease being heroes. - African Proverb
Quote
Some wisdom for Africa : Colonizers were wildly successful, dominating much of the world.    Crying about their morals now is like to a brick wall, Africa should find better things to do like not enslaving their own people, which is happening today in Africa
Quote
Much of the non-western world is still psychologically, socially, legally, dietary, diplomatically, re-productively, academically, and linguistically colonized by western culture. The non-western world must decolonize before they can seriously solve any of their other problems.
Quote
This was an intentional genocide by Germany, the other one not so much. Typhus moves through concentration camps quick, especially during war time. Hitler was clearly anti-colonial...
Posted by: antihellenistic
« on: April 24, 2023, 05:50:46 am »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgyOYdxirxk

We need:

https://trueleft.createaforum.com/issues/decolonized-housing-(america-edition)/

https://trueleft.createaforum.com/issues/statue-decolonization/

https://trueleft.createaforum.com/issues/name-decolonization/

And Sadlowski (as well as all other remaining colonialists, including those who own the 70% of farmland) should be exterminated ASAP (preferably as painfully as possible).

Answering Norbert Sadlowski, we don't want every root of Jewish and White history to be judged positively or to be preserved. Even Hitler considers the Whites and Jews themselves a negative creatures you know.
Posted by: 90sRetroFan
« on: April 22, 2023, 11:38:35 pm »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgyOYdxirxk

We need:

https://trueleft.createaforum.com/issues/decolonized-housing-(america-edition)/

https://trueleft.createaforum.com/issues/statue-decolonization/

https://trueleft.createaforum.com/issues/name-decolonization/

And Sadlowski (as well as all other remaining colonialists, including those who own the 70% of farmland) should be exterminated ASAP (preferably as painfully as possible).
Posted by: 90sRetroFan
« on: June 10, 2021, 02:09:20 pm »

https://www.yahoo.com/news/germany-acknowledges-colonial-era-genocide-164238547.html

Quote
As Germany Acknowledges Its Colonial-Era Genocide in Namibia, the Brutal Legacy of Diamond Mining Still Needs a Reckoning
...
Millions of carats in diamonds have been exported from Namibia since 1908. These same sparkling stones have a dirty history tied to German colonial rule. Right now, official statements about Germany’s debt to Namibia do not account for those gemstones at all. The debt Germany owes is construed as limited to the recognized period of genocide—even though the real money that Germans made and controlled in Namibia came after 1908, and the process of making that money implicated many parts of the world in a deadly, brutal colonial process. We cannot really assess what Germany and the world “owe” Namibia until we consider this economic dimension of the past.
...
Germans began settling in Southwest Africa with the conviction that diamonds would turn up there, because of the Namib desert’s proximity to lucrative South African mines. Adolf Lüderitz, the “founder” of the German colony in Namibia, conned indigenous leaders out of their land. But his hunt for diamonds proved fruitless—and, in fact, he died while prospecting.

Lüderitz’s successors hunted clues, spurred on by gemstones that sporadically popped up in the hands of indigenous traders and European missionaries. Backed by major German banks, some Germans sought to colonize stretches of land judged likely to contain diamond mines. Between 1904 and 1907, a dozen spots taken from slaughtered Herero and Nama people—the victims of the recently acknowledged genocide—were identified by engineers as containing “blue ground,” a type of rock that had so far accompanied all diamond finds in South Africa. German Emperor William II viewed documents on this subject around the same time as he backed an infamous “extermination order” from his now-reviled general, Lothar von Trotha. People can view the correspondence today in the Berlin-based archives of the German state.

In 1908, when Germans at last found major reserves of diamonds—in sand dunes, not underground mines—they discovered quantities so massive as to allow for more than a century of continual mining. Insiders confirmed to a consortium of German financiers that billions of dollars’ worth of diamonds (in 1908 terms!) lay buried in the shifting sands of the Namib desert. Germany, owing to its colonial occupation of Namibia, suddenly controlled as much as 30% of the world’s diamond supply. There was major money at stake. And there was a compelling new reason for Germans to continue, and legally endorse, violent acts that left Germans as owners of nearly all Namibian property. Chillingly, the core of the nascent German diamond business, a boomtown oceanside settlement grandiosely named Lüderitz, served as the site for a German concentration camp imprisoning Nama and Herero from 1904 to 1908.

As the German government sought to monetize Namibian diamonds after 1908, they had to assemble a workforce but, owing to the genocide, found few Nama and Herero willing or able to participate. The “solution” was the importation of tens of thousands of additional African workers. The largest such group consisted of Ovambo people, who were indigenous to Southwest Africa but lived in an area to the Namib desert’s north, outside German colonial control. Starting in 1908, many Ovambos traveled to diamond fields hoping they could send their wages home to families devastated by drought and harvest failure. Once arrived, though, the workers met with a nightmare. Living conditions were abysmal, beatings and contractual fraud were rampant, and death rates grew so high as to rival those of the genocide. The diamond industry established under German colonial rule perpetuated a relationship between violence and profits. And Namibian diamonds became “blood” or “conflict” diamonds, before the concept existed.
...
Today, conversations in Germany about Namibia tend to operate within established parameters, concentrating on moral debt to the descendants of the Nama and Herero, the indigenous peoples nearly wiped out between 1904 and 1908, and on the repatriation of Namibian cultural artifacts sitting in German museums. While these emphases are proper, the conversation is incomplete if it doesn’t also include economic history. As with Namibian land—the large majority of which still rests in European hands—ownership of Namibian diamond wealth was effectively seized by Germans before, during and after the genocide. Later, as German rule started to collapse in World War I, control of diamond rights in Namibia was sold to South Africans at prices generous enough to make many millionaires.

It is crucial to remember that, absent German colonial violence, lasting transfers of wealth from Namibia would not have occurred in the way they did. It is also important for global consumers to realize how they and their ancestors might have played an unwitting role in this tragedy.

Though brief in its duration, German colonialism in Namibia proved economically significant—for Germans, for Africans and for global commodity chains connected to the United States. Germany’s official conversation about genocide has made notable progress. But Namibia, and the world, need more.

Which is not to say that Namibians should demand to be paid a monetary sum for the diamonds, which would require messy estimates of how much in today's money would be equivalent to the value of the diamonds back then. Instead, since the profit from the diamond trade was spent on building up Germany, Namibians should demand German citizenship.
Posted by: 90sRetroFan
« on: June 05, 2021, 12:22:50 am »

Good to see Namibia not fooled:

https://us.yahoo.com/news/viewpoint-why-germanys-namibia-genocide-001947186.html

Quote
Why Germany's Namibia genocide apology is not enough

Germany's long-awaited apology for last century's mass killing in Namibia has opened fresh questions about how Europe confronts its colonial past in Africa, argues Namibian analyst Emsie Erastus.
...
The media announcement on Friday was stage craft at its best: a carefully compiled statement seemingly to avoid any legal culpability. It came as the largest faction within the Ovaherero community continue to pursue attempts to sue the German state for the genocide.

The message was intended for a sceptical German audience that, according to multiple studies, has little remembrance of the killings or of the country's past as a powerful colonial force with dominion over modern-day Togo, Namibia, Burundi, and Tanzania.

'Hollow declaration'

In terms of fully acknowledging its colonial past in Namibia, Germany has always been reluctant to do so. This is despite providing development support to successive administrations since Namibia's independence in 1990.
...
Germany made it clear that it is willing to atone for its colonial crimes "without sparing or glossing over them".

But the country also needs to come to terms with the origins of a racialised view of the world, placing Western authorities at the top and Africans at the bottom.

'Patronising aid'

In the colonial era, Africans were regarded as "barbarians" who lacked the abilities to bring about economic and technological change, justifying the intervention of the imperial powers.

This view defined how the West perceived and presented Africa in the past, and the echoes of that view may be found today.

Development aid can still be presented in a patronising way, maintaining an unequal relationship.

If it is being seen as an alternative to reparations, with fewer legal ramifications, it does not dismantle the relationship that allowed the genocide to happen in the first place.

We do not want money. We want justice.
Posted by: guest5
« on: May 29, 2021, 03:47:12 pm »

Germany officially recognizes colonial-era Namibia genocide
Quote
Germany on Friday formally recognized as genocide the crimes committed by its colonial troops at the beginning of the 20th century against the Herero and Nama people in what is now Namibia.

Foreign Minister Heiko Maas (SPD) said in a statement that as a "gesture of recognition of the immeasurable suffering" Germany caused, it would set up a fund amounting to €1.1 billion (US $ 1.34 billion). Affected communities would play a key role in deciding what the funds were used for, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement, while legal claims for compensation would not be deducted from it.

The aim of the negotiations that lasted more than half a decade was "to find a common path to genuine reconciliation in memory of the victims," Maas explained.

The foreign minister said that representative of the Herero and Nama communities were closely involved in negotiations with Namibia lasting more than five years.

Germany began talks with the Namibian government in 2015 on what was termed a "future-oriented reappraisal of German colonial rule.''

Germany's former development minister, Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, offered her country's first apology for the killings on a trip to Namibia in 2004, where she said the country's actions would be seen as genocidal in today's terms.

The declaration is expected to be signed by Maas in the Namibian capital, Windhoek, in early June.

Parliaments in both countries must then ratify the declaration.

President Frank-Walter Steinmeier is then expected to officially apologize for Germany's crimes in front of the Namibian Parliament.

The German Empire was the colonial power in what was then called German South West Africa from 1884 to 1915.

During that time, its military forces brutally put down several rebellions, killing tens of thousands of people.

German General Lothar von Trotha, who was sent to quell a Herero uprising in 1904, was particularly known for his extreme ruthlessness.

Historians generally accept that up to 65,000 of roughly 80,000 Herero people living in the area at the time, and at least 10,000 of the roughly 20,000 Nama people, were killed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqjacCNhgO0
Posted by: 90sRetroFan
« on: March 20, 2021, 05:49:31 am »

OLD CONTENT contd.

Finally:

Quote
During the late 1950s and early 1960s, pressure for global decolonisation and national self-determination began mounting on the African continent; these factors had a radical impact on South West African nationalism. Early nationalist organisations such as the South West African National Union (SWANU) and South West African People's Organisation (SWAPO) made determined attempts to establish indigenous political structures for an independent South West Africa.[38] In 1966, following the ICJ's controversial ruling that it had no legal standing to consider the question of South African rule, SWAPO launched an armed insurgency which escalated into part of a wider regional conflict known as the South African Border War.[39]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_African_Border_War#Internal_opposition_to_South_African_rule

Quote
Modelled after Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing of the African National Congress,[47] the South West African Liberation Army (SWALA) was formed by SWAPO in 1962.
...
In November 1960, Ethiopia and Liberia had formally petitioned the ICJ for a binding judgement, rather than an advisory opinion, on whether South Africa remained fit to govern South West Africa. Both nations made it clear that they considered the implementation of apartheid to be a violation of Pretoria's obligations as a mandatory power.[46]
...
Around March 1962 SWAPO president Sam Nujoma visited the party's refugee camps across Tanzania, describing his recent petitions for South West African independence at the Non-Aligned Movement and the UN. He pointed out that independence was unlikely in the foreseeable future, predicting a "long and bitter struggle".[15] Nujoma personally directed two exiles in Dar es Salaam, Lucas Pohamba and Elia Muatale, to return to South West Africa, infiltrate Ovamboland and send back more potential recruits for SWALA.[15] Over the next few years Pohamba and Muatale successfully recruited hundreds of volunteers from the Ovamboland countryside, most of whom were shipped to Eastern Europe for guerrilla training.[15] Between July 1962 and October 1963 SWAPO negotiated military alliances with other anti-colonial movements, namely in Angola.[5] It also absorbed the separatist Caprivi African National Union (CANU), which was formed to combat South African rule in the Caprivi Strip.[14] Outside the Soviet bloc, Egypt continued training SWALA personnel. By 1964 others were also being sent to Ghana, Algeria, the People's Republic of China, and North Korea for military instruction.[15] In June of that year, SWAPO confirmed that it was irrevocably committed to the course of armed revolution.[5]
...
In September 1965, the first cadre of six SWALA guerrillas, identified simply as "Group 1", departed the Kongwa refugee camp to infiltrate South West Africa.[14][2] Group 1 trekked first into Angola, before crossing the border into the Caprivi Strip.[2] Encouraged by South Africa's apparent failure to detect the initial incursion, larger cadres made their own infiltration attempts in February and March 1966.[5] The second cadre, "Group 2", was led by Leonard Philemon Shuuya,[5] also known by the nom de guerre "Castro" or "Leonard Nangolo".[14] Group 2 apparently become lost in Angola before it was able to cross the border, and the cadre dispersed after an incident in which the guerrillas killed two shopkeepers and a vagrant.[2] Three were arrested by the Portuguese colonial authorities in Angola, working off tips received from local civilians.[2] Another eight, including Shuuya,[5] had been captured between March and May by the South African police, apparently in Kavangoland.[14] Shuuya later resurfaced at Kongwa, claiming to have escaped his captors after his arrest. He helped plan two further incursions: a third SWALA group entered Ovamboland that July, while a fourth was scheduled to follow in September.[5]

On 18 July 1966, the ICJ ruled that it had no authority to decide on the South West African affair. Furthermore, the court found that while Ethiopia and Liberia had locus standi to institute proceedings on the matter, neither had enough vested legal interest in South West Africa to entitle them to a judgement of merits.[55] This ruling was met with great indignation by SWAPO and the OAU.[48] SWAPO officials immediately issued a statement from Dar es Salaam declaring that they now had "no alternative but to rise in arms" and "cross rivers of blood" in their march towards freedom.[15] Upon receiving the news SWALA escalated its insurgency.[48] Its third cadre, which had infiltrated Ovamboland in July, attacked white-owned farms, traditional Ovambo leaders perceived as South African agents, and a border post.[5] The guerrillas set up camp at Omugulugwombashe, one of five potential bases identified by SWALA's initial reconnaissance team as appropriate sites to train future recruits.[5] Here, they drilled up to thirty local volunteers between September 1965 and August 1966.[5] South African intelligence became aware of the camp by mid 1966 and identified its general location.[15] On 26 August 1966, the first major clash of the conflict took place when South African paratroops and paramilitary police units executed Operation Blouwildebees to capture or kill the insurgents.[54] SWALA had dug trenches around Omugulugwombashe for defensive purposes, but was taken by surprise and most of the cadre was quickly overpowered.[54] The South Africans killed two guerrillas, wounded one, and captured eight more.[54] This engagement is widely regarded as the start of what became known in South Africa as the Border War, and according to SWAPO, officially marked the beginning of its revolutionary armed struggle.[15][56]
...
As the war intensified, South Africa's case for annexation in the international community continued to decline, coinciding with an unparalleled wave of sympathy for SWAPO.[41] Despite the ICJ's advisory opinions to the contrary, as well as the dismissal of the case presented by Ethiopia and Liberia, the UN declared that South Africa had failed in its obligations to ensure the moral and material well-being of the indigenous inhabitants of South West Africa, and had thus disavowed its own mandate.[58] The UN thereby assumed that the mandate was terminated, which meant South Africa had no further right to administer the territory, and that henceforth South West Africa would come under the direct responsibility of the General Assembly.[58] The post of United Nations Commissioner for South West Africa was created, as well as an ad hoc council, to recommend practical means for local administration.[58] South Africa maintained it did not recognise the jurisdiction of the UN with regards to the mandate and refused visas to the commissioner or the council.[58] On 12 June 1968, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution which proclaimed that, in accordance with the desires of its people, South West Africa be renamed Namibia.[58] United Nations Security Council Resolution 269, adopted in August 1969, declared South Africa's continued occupation of "Namibia" illegal.[58][59] In recognition of the UN's decision, SWALA was renamed the People's Liberation Army of Namibia.[14]
...
mines were strategically placed along roads to hamper police convoys or throw them into disarray prior to an ambush; guerrillas also laid others along their infiltration routes on the long border with Angola.[61] The proliferation of mines in South West Africa initially resulted in heavy police casualties and would become one of the most defining features of PLAN's war effort for the next two decades.[61]
...
Swelled by thousands of new recruits and an increasingly sophisticated arsenal of heavy weapons, PLAN undertook more direct confrontations with the security forces in 1973.[62] Insurgent activity took the form of ambushes and selective target attacks, particularly in the Caprivi near the Zambian border.[66] On the evening of 26 January 1973 a heavily armed cadre of about 50 PLAN insurgents attacked a police base at Singalamwe, Caprivi with mortars, machine guns, and a single tube, man portable rocket launcher.[59][67] The police were ill-equipped to repel the attack and the base soon caught fire due to the initial rocket bombardment, which incapacitated both the senior officer and his second in command.[67] This marked the beginning of a new phase of the South African Border War in which the scope and intensity of PLAN raids was greatly increased.[54] By the end of 1973, PLAN's insurgency had engulfed six regions: Caprivi, Ovamboland, Kaokoland, and Kavangoland.[54] It had also successfully recruited another 2,400 Ovambo and 600 Caprivian guerrillas.[59] PLAN reports from late 1973 indicate that the militants planned to open up two new fronts in central South West Africa and carry out acts of urban insurrection in Windhoek, Walvis Bay, and other major urban centres.[54]
...
Another significant factor of the physical environment was South West Africa's limited road network. The main arteries for SADF bases on the border were two highways leading west to Ruacana and north to Oshikango, and a third which stretched from Grootfontein through Kavangoland to Rundu.[32] Much of this vital road infrastructure was vulnerable to guerrilla sabotage: innumerable road culverts and bridges were blown up and rebuilt multiple times over the course of the war.[54][103] After their destruction PLAN saboteurs sowed the surrounding area with land mines to catch the South African engineers sent to repair them.[29] One of the most routine tasks for local sector troops was a morning patrol along their assigned stretch of highway to check for mines or overnight sabotage.[29] Despite their efforts it was nearly impossible to guard or patrol the almost limitless number of vulnerable points on the road network, and losses from mines mounted steadily; for instance in 1977 the SADF suffered 16 deaths due to mined roads.[62] Aside from road sabotage, the SADF was also forced to contend with regular ambushes of both military and civilian traffic throughout Ovamboland.[29]
...
South Africa pledged to begin bestowing independence on South West Africa by 1 November 1989.
...
South West Africa formally obtained independence as the Republic of Namibia on 21 March 1990.[175]

Well done Non-Aligned Movement! (Cuba played an especially important role, though not mentioned here because its involvement was more relevant to Angola, which is another story.)

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-Aligned_Movement

This is a good example of multinational anti-colonialist collaboration that should continue to inspire us.
Posted by: 90sRetroFan
« on: March 20, 2021, 05:48:43 am »

OLD CONTENT contd.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shark_Island_Concentration_Camp

Quote
Although there are records of Herero prisoners-of-war being held in Lüderitz Bay as early as 1904, the first references to a camp at Shark Island and the transfer of large numbers of Herero prisoners from Keetmanshoop are in March 1905.[12] From early on, large numbers of Herero died in the camp, with 59 men, 59 women and 73 children reportedly dying by late May 1905.[13] Despite this high initial rate of mortality on the island which, with its cold climate, was unsuitable for habitation, particularly for people used to the dry, arid climate of the veld, the German authorities continued to transfer people from the interior to the island, ostensibly because of a lack of food in the interior, but also because they wished to use the prisoners as labour in constructing a railway connecting Lüderitz with Aus.[14]
...
Word quickly spread among the Herero of the conditions at the camp, with prisoners in other parts of German South West Africa reportedly committing suicide rather than be deported to Lüderitz due to the stories of harsh conditions there in late 1905.[15] The Cape Argus, a South African newspaper, also ran stories describing terrible conditions at the camp in late September 1905. One transport rider who was described as having been employed at the camp in early 1905 was quoted as saying:

The women who are captured and not executed are set to work for the military as prisoners ... saw numbers of them at Angra Pequena (i.e., Lüderitz) put to the hardest work, and so starved that they were nothing but skin and bones [...] They are given hardly anything to eat, and I have very often seen them pick up bits of refuse food thrown away by the transport riders. If they are caught doing so, they are sjamboked (whipped).[16]

August Kuhlmann was one of the first civilians to visit the camp. What he witnessed shocked him as he described in September 1905:

A woman, who was so weak from illness that she could not stand, crawled to some of the other prisoners to beg for water. The overseer fired five shots at her. Two shots hit her: one in the thigh, the other smashing her forearm...in the night she died.[17]

Many cases of **** of prisoners by Germans were reported at the camp.[18] Although some of these cases did result in the perpetrator being successfully punished where a "white champion" took up the victim's cause, the majority of cases went unpunished.[19]

Other factors such as minimal food rations, uncontrolled diseases, and maltreatment led to high mortality rates. Prisoners typically received a handful of uncooked rice. Diseases such as typhoid spread quickly. Prisoners were concentrated in large, unsanitary living quarters with low medical attention. Beating occurred frequently as the German officials often used the sjambok to force prisoners to work.
...
Whilst the Germans initially followed a policy of sending people from the south to concentration camps in the north, and vice versa,[20] meaning that Nama prisoners mostly went to concentration camps around the city of Windhoek, by mid-1906 Germans in Windhoek were becoming increasingly concerned about the presence of so many prisoners in their city. In response to these concerns, in August 1906 the Germans began to transfer Nama prisoners to Shark Island, sending them by cattle-car to Swakopmund and then by sea to Lüderitz.[21] The Nama leader, Samuel Isaak, protested this, saying that their transfer to Lüderitz had not been part of the agreement under which they had surrendered to the Germans, however, the Germans ignored these protests.[21] By late 1906, 2,000 Nama were held prisoner on the island.
...
The prisoners held on Shark Island were used as forced labour throughout the camp's existence.[22] This labour was made available by the German army Etappenkommando for use by private companies throughout the Lüderitz area, working on infrastructure projects such as railway construction, the building of the harbour, and flattening and levelling Shark Island through the use of explosives.[23] This highly dangerous and physical work inevitably led to large-scale sickness and death amongst the prisoners, with one German technician complaining that the 1,600-strong Nama work force had shrunk to a strength of only 30–40 available for work due to 7–8 deaths occurring daily by late 1906.[24] The policy of forced labour officially ended when prisoner-of-war status for the Herero and Nama was revoked on 1 April 1908, although Herero and Nama continued to labour on colonial projects after this.[25]

Quote
According to the Whitaker Report, the population of 80,000 Herero was reduced to 15,000 "starving refugees" between 1904 and 1907.[77]
...
With the closure of concentration camps, all surviving Herero were distributed as labourers for settlers in the German colony. From that time on, all Herero over the age of seven were forced to wear a metal disc with their labour registration number,[38]:12 and banned from owning land or cattle
...
The German losses were 676 soldiers killed in combat, 76 missing, and 689 dead from disease.[27]:88 The Reiterdenkmal (English: Equestrian Monument) in Windhoek was erected in 1912 to celebrate the victory and to remember the fallen Germans with no mention of the killed indigenous population.

(So yes, the Holocaust was real. But its perpetrators were not "Nazis", but colonial era Germans, and its victims were not Jews, but Herero, Nama and other "black" people. But how many people around the world have heard of this compared with the fake Holohoax?)


en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shark_Island_Concentration_Camp

Quote
Although there are records of Herero prisoners-of-war being held in Lüderitz Bay as early as 1904, the first references to a camp at Shark Island and the transfer of large numbers of Herero prisoners from Keetmanshoop are in March 1905.[12] From early on, large numbers of Herero died in the camp, with 59 men, 59 women and 73 children reportedly dying by late May 1905.[13] Despite this high initial rate of mortality on the island which, with its cold climate, was unsuitable for habitation, particularly for people used to the dry, arid climate of the veld, the German authorities continued to transfer people from the interior to the island, ostensibly because of a lack of food in the interior, but also because they wished to use the prisoners as labour in constructing a railway connecting Lüderitz with Aus.[14]
...
Word quickly spread among the Herero of the conditions at the camp, with prisoners in other parts of German South West Africa reportedly committing suicide rather than be deported to Lüderitz due to the stories of harsh conditions there in late 1905.[15] The Cape Argus, a South African newspaper, also ran stories describing terrible conditions at the camp in late September 1905. One transport rider who was described as having been employed at the camp in early 1905 was quoted as saying:

The women who are captured and not executed are set to work for the military as prisoners ... saw numbers of them at Angra Pequena (i.e., Lüderitz) put to the hardest work, and so starved that they were nothing but skin and bones [...] They are given hardly anything to eat, and I have very often seen them pick up bits of refuse food thrown away by the transport riders. If they are caught doing so, they are sjamboked (whipped).[16]

August Kuhlmann was one of the first civilians to visit the camp. What he witnessed shocked him as he described in September 1905:

A woman, who was so weak from illness that she could not stand, crawled to some of the other prisoners to beg for water. The overseer fired five shots at her. Two shots hit her: one in the thigh, the other smashing her forearm...in the night she died.[17]

Many cases of **** of prisoners by Germans were reported at the camp.[18] Although some of these cases did result in the perpetrator being successfully punished where a "white champion" took up the victim's cause, the majority of cases went unpunished.[19]

Other factors such as minimal food rations, uncontrolled diseases, and maltreatment led to high mortality rates. Prisoners typically received a handful of uncooked rice. Diseases such as typhoid spread quickly. Prisoners were concentrated in large, unsanitary living quarters with low medical attention. Beating occurred frequently as the German officials often used the sjambok to force prisoners to work.
...
Whilst the Germans initially followed a policy of sending people from the south to concentration camps in the north, and vice versa,[20] meaning that Nama prisoners mostly went to concentration camps around the city of Windhoek, by mid-1906 Germans in Windhoek were becoming increasingly concerned about the presence of so many prisoners in their city. In response to these concerns, in August 1906 the Germans began to transfer Nama prisoners to Shark Island, sending them by cattle-car to Swakopmund and then by sea to Lüderitz.[21] The Nama leader, Samuel Isaak, protested this, saying that their transfer to Lüderitz had not been part of the agreement under which they had surrendered to the Germans, however, the Germans ignored these protests.[21] By late 1906, 2,000 Nama were held prisoner on the island.
...
The prisoners held on Shark Island were used as forced labour throughout the camp's existence.[22] This labour was made available by the German army Etappenkommando for use by private companies throughout the Lüderitz area, working on infrastructure projects such as railway construction, the building of the harbour, and flattening and levelling Shark Island through the use of explosives.[23] This highly dangerous and physical work inevitably led to large-scale sickness and death amongst the prisoners, with one German technician complaining that the 1,600-strong Nama work force had shrunk to a strength of only 30–40 available for work due to 7–8 deaths occurring daily by late 1906.[24] The policy of forced labour officially ended when prisoner-of-war status for the Herero and Nama was revoked on 1 April 1908, although Herero and Nama continued to labour on colonial projects after this.[25]

Quote
According to the Whitaker Report, the population of 80,000 Herero was reduced to 15,000 "starving refugees" between 1904 and 1907.[77]
...
With the closure of concentration camps, all surviving Herero were distributed as labourers for settlers in the German colony. From that time on, all Herero over the age of seven were forced to wear a metal disc with their labour registration number,[38]:12 and banned from owning land or cattle
...
The German losses were 676 soldiers killed in combat, 76 missing, and 689 dead from disease.[27]:88 The Reiterdenkmal (English: Equestrian Monument) in Windhoek was erected in 1912 to celebrate the victory and to remember the fallen Germans with no mention of the killed indigenous population.

(So yes, the Holocaust was real. But its perpetrators were not "Nazis", but colonial era Germans, and its victims were not Jews, but Herero, Nama and other "black" people. But how many people around the world have heard of this compared with the fake Holohoax?)

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_West_Africa

Quote
In 1915, during South West Africa Campaign of World War I, South Africa captured the German colony. After the war, it was declared a League of Nations Class C Mandate territory under the Treaty of Versailles, with the Union of South Africa responsible for the administration of South West Africa.
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The Prime Minister, Jan Smuts, objected to South West Africa coming under UN control and refused to allow the territory's transition to independence, instead seeking to make it South Africa's fifth province in 1946.[7]

Although this never occurred, in 1949, the South West Africa Affairs Act was amended to give representation in the Parliament of South Africa to whites in South West Africa, which gave them six seats in the House of Assembly and four in the Senate.[8]

This was to the advantage of the National Party, which enjoyed strong support from the predominantly Afrikaner and ethnic German white population in the territory.[9] Between 1950 and 1977, all of South West Africa's parliamentary seats were held by the National Party.[10]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Namibia#South_African_mandate

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South Africa began imposing apartheid, its codified system of racial segregation and discrimination, on South West Africa during the late 1940s.[36] Black South West Africans were subject to pass laws, curfews, and a host of draconian residential regulations that heavily restricted their movement. Development was concentrated in the region of the country immediately adjacent to South Africa, formally denoted as the "Police Zone", where most of the German colonial era settlements and mines were also located. Outside the Police Zone, indigenous peoples were restricted to theoretically self-governing tribal homelands.[37]

NEVER FORGIVE. NEVER FORGET.
Posted by: 90sRetroFan
« on: March 20, 2021, 05:46:14 am »

OLD CONTENT

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_South_West_Africa

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In April 1885, the Deutsche Kolonialgesellschaft für Südwest-Afrika (German Colonial Society for Southwest Africa, known as DKGSWA) was founded with the support of German bankers (Gerson von Bleichröder, Adolph von Hansemann), industrialists (Count Guido Henckel von Donnersmarck) and politicians (Frankfurt mayor Johannes von Miquel). DKGSWA was granted monopoly rights to exploit mineral deposits.[2]
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In May, Heinrich Ernst Göring was appointed Commissioner and established his administration at Otjimbingwe. Then, on 17 April 1886, a law creating the legal system of the colony was passed, creating a dual system with laws for Europeans and different laws for natives.[3]

Over the following years relations between the German settlers and the indigenous peoples continued to worsen. Additionally, the British settlement at Walvis Bay, a coastal enclave within South West Africa, continued to develop, and many small farmers and missionaries moved into the region. A complex web of treaties, agreements, and vendettas increased the unrest. In 1888 the first group of Schutztruppen—colonial protectorate troops—arrived, sent to protect the military base at Otjimbingwe.

In 1890 the colony was declared a German Crown Colony, and more troops were sent.[4] In July of the same year, as part of the Heligoland–Zanzibar Treaty between Britain and Germany, the colony grew in size through the acquisition of the Caprivi Strip in the northeast, promising new trade routes into the interior.[5]

Almost simultaneously, between August and September 1892, the South West Africa Company Ltd (SWAC) was established by the German, British, and Cape Colony governments, aided by financiers to raise the capital required to enlarge mineral exploitation (specifically, the Damaraland concession's copper deposit interests).

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herero_and_Namaqua_genocide

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In 1883, during the scramble for Africa, Franz Adolf Eduard Lüderitz, a German merchant, purchased a stretch of coast near the Angra Pequena bay from the reigning chief. The terms of the purchase were fraudulent, but the German government nonetheless established a protectorate over it.[19] At that time, it was the only overseas German territory deemed suitable for white settlement.[20]
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The Herero leaders repeatedly complained about violation of this treaty, as Herero women and girls were **** by Germans, a crime that the German authorities were reluctant to punish.[22]

In 1890 Maharero's son, Samuel, signed a great deal of land over to the Germans in return for helping him to ascend to the Ovaherero throne, and to subsequently be established as paramount chief.[23] German involvement in ethnic fighting ended in tenuous peace in 1894.[citation needed] In that year, Theodor Leutwein became governor of the territory, which underwent a period of rapid development, while the German government sent the Schutztruppe (imperial colonial troops) to pacify the region.[24]
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Under German colonial rule, natives were routinely used as slave labourers, and their lands were frequently confiscated and given to colonists, who were encouraged to settle on land taken from the natives;
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In 1903, some of the Nama clans rose in revolt under the leadership of Hendrik Witbooi.[24] A number of factors led the Herero to join them in January 1904.

One of the major issues was land rights. The Herero had already ceded over a quarter of their 130,000 square kilometres (50,000 sq mi) to German colonists by 1903,[25]:60 before the Otavi railway line running from the African coast to inland German settlements was completed.[31]:230 Completion of this line would have made the German colonies much more accessible and would have ushered a new wave of Europeans into the area.[32]:133

Historian Horst Drechsler states that there was discussion of the possibility of establishing and placing the Herero in native reserves and that this was further proof of the German colonists' sense of ownership over the land. Drechsler illustrates the gap between the rights of a European and an African; the German Colonial League held that, in regards to legal matters, the testimony of seven Africans was equivalent to that of a colonist.[32]:132, 133 Bridgman writes about racial tensions underlying these developments; the average German colonist viewed native Africans as a lowly source of cheap labour, and others welcomed their extermination.[25]:60

A new policy on debt collection, enforced in November 1903, also played a role in the uprising. For many years, the Herero population had fallen in the habit of borrowing money from colonist traders at extreme interest rates. For a long time, much of this debt went uncollected and accumulated, as most Herero had no means to pay. To correct this growing problem, Governor Leutwein decreed with good intentions that all debts not paid within the next year would be voided.[25]:59 In the absence of hard cash, traders often seized cattle, or whatever objects of value they could get their hands on, to recoup their loans as quickly as possible. This fostered a feeling of resentment towards the Germans on the part of the Herero people, which escalated to hopelessness when they saw that German officials were sympathetic to the traders
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The Herero judged the situation intolerable, and revolted in early 1904, killing between 123 and 150 Germans, including seven Boers and three women,[25]:74 in what Nils Ole Oermann calls a "desperate surprise attack".[34]

The timing of their attack was carefully planned. After successfully asking a large Herero clan to surrender their weapons, Governor Leutwein was convinced that they and the rest of the native population were essentially pacified and so withdrew half of the German troops stationed in his colony.[25]:56 Led by Chief Samuel Maharero, the Herero surrounded Okahandja and cut links[clarification needed] to Windhoek, the colonial capital. Maharero then issued a manifesto in which he forbade his troops to kill any Englishmen, Boers, uninvolved peoples, women and children in general, or German missionaries.[25]:70 The Heroro revolts catalysed a separate revolt and attack on Fort Namutoni in the north of the country a few weeks later by the Ondonga.[35][36]

Leutwein was forced to request reinforcements and an experienced officer from the German government in Berlin.[37]:604 Lieutenant-General Lothar von Trotha was appointed Supreme Commander (German: Oberbefehlshaber) of South West Africa on 3 May 1904, arriving with an expeditionary force of 14,000 troops on 11 June.
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Leutwein wanted to defeat the most determined Herero rebels and negotiate a surrender with the remainder to achieve a political settlement.[37]:605 Trotha, however, planned to crush the native resistance through military force. He stated that:

My intimate knowledge of many central African nations (Bantu and others) has everywhere convinced me of the necessity that the Negro does not respect treaties but only brute force.[19]
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General Trotha stated his proposed solution to end the resistance of the Herero people in a letter, before the Battle of Waterberg:[38]:11

I believe that the nation as such should be annihilated, or, if this was not possible by tactical measures, have to be expelled from the country ... This will be possible if the water-holes from Grootfontein to Gobabis are occupied. The constant movement of our troops will enable us to find the small groups of this nation who have moved backwards and destroy them gradually.

Trotha's troops defeated 3,000–5,000 Herero combatants at the Battle of Waterberg on 11–12 August 1904 but were unable to encircle and annihilate the retreating survivors.[37]:605

The pursuing German forces prevented groups of Herero from breaking from the main body of the fleeing force and pushed them further into the desert. As exhausted Herero fell to the ground, unable to go on, German soldiers acting on orders killed men, women, and children.[39]:22 Jan Cloete, acting as a guide for the Germans, witnessed the atrocities committed by the German troops and deposed the following statement:[32]:157

I was present when the Herero were defeated in a battle in the vicinity of Waterberg. After the battle all men, women, and children who fell into German hands, wounded or otherwise, were mercilessly put to death. Then the Germans set off in pursuit of the rest, and all those found by the wayside and in the sandveld were shot down and bayoneted to death. The mass of the Herero men were unarmed and thus unable to offer resistance. They were just trying to get away with their cattle.

A portion of the Herero escaped the Germans and went to the Omaheke Desert, hoping to reach British territory of Bechuanaland; fewer than 1,000 reached Bechuanaland, where they were granted asylum.[40] To prevent them from returning, Trotha ordered the desert to be sealed off.[41] German patrols later found skeletons around holes 13 metres (43 ft) deep that had been dug in a vain attempt to find water. Some sources also state that the German colonial army systematically poisoned desert water wells.[39][39]:22[42] Maherero and 500–1,500 men crossed the Kalahari into Bechuanaland where he was accepted as a vassal of the Batswana chief Sekgoma.[43]

On 2 October, Trotha issued a warning to the Herero [DE 1]:

I, the great general of the German soldiers, send this letter to the Herero. The Herero are German subjects no longer. They have killed, stolen, cut off the ears and other parts of the body of wounded soldiers, and now are too cowardly to want to fight any longer. I announce to the people that whoever hands me one of the chiefs shall receive 1,000 marks, and 5,000 marks for Samuel Maherero. The Herero nation must now leave the country. If it refuses, I shall compel it to do so with the 'long tube' (cannon). Any Herero found inside the German frontier, with or without a gun or cattle, will be executed. I shall spare neither women nor children. I shall give the order to drive them away and fire on them. Such are my words to the Herero people.[46]
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Trotha gave orders that captured Herero males were to be executed, while women and children were to be driven into the desert where their death from starvation and thirst was to be certain; Trotha argued that there was no need to make exceptions for Herero women and children, since these would "infect German troops with their diseases", the insurrection Trotha explained "is and remains the beginning of a racial struggle".[37]:605 Regardless, German soldiers regularly **** young Herero women before killing them or letting them die in the desert.[47]:272 After the war, Trotha argued that his orders were necessary, writing in 1909 that "If I had made the small water holes accessible to the womenfolk, I would run the risk of an African catastrophe comparable to the Battle of Beresonia."[39]

The German general staff was aware of the atrocities that were taking place; its official publication, named Der Kampf, noted that:

This bold enterprise shows up in the most brilliant light the ruthless energy of the German command in pursuing their beaten enemy. No pains, no sacrifices were spared in eliminating the last remnants of enemy resistance. Like a wounded beast the enemy was tracked down from one water-hole to the next, until finally he became the victim of his own environment. The arid Omaheke [desert] was to complete what the German army had begun: the extermination of the Herero nation.[48][49]

Alfred von Schlieffen (Chief of the Imperial German General Staff) approved of Trotha's intentions in terms of a "racial struggle" and the need to "wipe out the entire nation or to drive them out of the country", but had doubts about his strategy, preferring their surrender.[50]

Governor Leutwein, later relieved of his duties, complained to Chancellor von Bülow about Trotha's actions, seeing the general's orders as intruding upon the civilian colonial jurisdiction and ruining any chance of a political settlement.[37]:606 According to Professor Mahmood Mamdani from Columbia University, opposition to the policy of annihilation was largely the consequence of the fact that colonial officials looked at the Herero people as a potential source of labour, and thus economically important.[38]:12 For instance, Governor Leutwein wrote that:

I do not concur with those fanatics who want to see the Herero destroyed altogether ... I would consider such a move a grave mistake from an economic point of view. We need the Herero as cattle breeders ... and especially as labourers.[19]:169

Having no authority over the military, Chancellor Bülow could only advise Emperor Wilhelm II that Trotha's actions were "contrary to Christian and humanitarian principle, economically devastating and damaging to Germany's international reputation."[37]:606 Upon the arrival of new orders at the end of 1904, prisoners were herded into concentration camps, where they were given to private companies as slave labourers or exploited as human guinea pigs in medical experiments.[8][51]
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Survivors of the massacre, the majority of whom were women and children, were eventually put in places like Shark Island Concentration Camp, where the German authorities forced them to work as slave labour for German military and settlers. All prisoners were categorised into groups fit and unfit for work, and pre-printed death certificates indicating "death by exhaustion following privation" were issued.[54] The British government published their well-known account of the German genocide of the Nama and Herero peoples in 1918.[55]

Many Herero died later of disease, exhaustion, and malnutrition.[56][57] Estimates of the mortality rate at the camps are between 45%[58][59] and 74%.[30]:196–216[58][59]

Food in the camps was extremely scarce, consisting of rice with no additions.[60]:92 As the prisoners lacked pots and the rice they received was uncooked, it was indigestible; horses and oxen that died in the camp were later distributed to the inmates as food.[27]:75 Dysentery and lung diseases were common.[27]:76 Despite those conditions, the Herero were taken outside the camp every day for labour under harsh treatment by the German guards, while the sick were left without any medical assistance or nursing care.[27]:76

Shootings, hangings, beatings, and other harsh treatment of the forced labourers (including use of sjamboks) were common.[27]:76[61] A 28 September 1905 article in the South African newspaper Cape Argus detailed some of the abuse with the heading: "In German S. W. Africa: Further Startling Allegations: Horrible Cruelty". In an interview with Percival Griffith, "an accountant of profession, who owing to hard times, took up on transport work at Angra Pequena, Lüderitz", related his experiences.

There are hundreds of them, mostly women and children and a few old men ... when they fall they are sjamboked by the soldiers in charge of the gang, with full force, until they get up ... On one occasion I saw a woman carrying a child of under a year old slung at her back, and with a heavy sack of grain on her head ... she fell. The corporal sjamboked her for certainly more than four minutes and sjamboked the baby as well ... the woman struggled slowly to her feet, and went on with her load. She did not utter a sound the whole time, but the baby cried very hard.[62]

During the war, a number of people from the Cape (in modern-day South Africa) sought employment as transport riders for German troops in Namibia. Upon their return to the Cape, some of these people recounted their stories, including those of the imprisonment and genocide of the Herero and Nama people. Fred Cornell, a British aspirant diamond prospector, was in Lüderitz when the Shark Island concentration camp was being used. Cornell wrote of the camp:

Cold - for the nights are often bitterly cold there - hunger, thirst, exposure, disease and madness claimed scores of victims every day, and cartloads of their bodies were every day carted over to the back beach, buried in a few inches of sand at low tide, and as the tide came in the bodies went out, food for the sharks.[62][63]
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German Commander Von Estorff wrote in a report that approximately 1700 prisoners (including 1203 Nama) had died by April 1907. In December 1906, four months after their arrival, 291 Nama died (a rate of more than nine people per day). Missionary reports put the death rate at 12–18 per day; as many as 80% of the prisoners sent to Shark Island eventually died there.[62]

There are accusations of Herero women being coerced into sex slavery as a means of survival.[38]:12[65]
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Benjamin Madley argues that although Shark Island is referred to as a concentration camp, it functioned as an extermination camp or death camp.[66][67][68]
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Prisoners were used for medical experiments and their illnesses or their recoveries from them were used for research.[69]

Experiments on live prisoners were performed by Dr. Bofinger, who injected Herero that were suffering from scurvy with various substances including arsenic and opium; afterwards he researched the effects of these substances via autopsy.[18]:225

Experimentation with the dead body parts of the prisoners was rife. Zoologist Leonhard Schultze (1872-1955)[70][better source needed] noted taking "body parts from fresh native corpses" which according to him was a "welcome addition," and he also noted that he could use prisoners for that purpose.[71]