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Cash for Genocide?: The Politics of Memory in the Herero Casefor Reparations

David Bargueño

Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Volume 26, Number 3, Winter 2012,pp. 394-424 (Article)

Published by Oxford University Press

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Cash for Genocide? The Politics of Memoryin the Herero Case for Reparations

David BargueñoUniversity of Cape Town

Legal remedies for historical injustices rely upon the politicization of

memory, as current debates about the 1904–1907 genocide of the Herero in

German Southwest Africa (contemporary Namibia) demonstrate. Here the

author shows how claims for financial reparations obscure historical

influences on the Herero community and the Namibian nation-state:

German colonial rule and local actors complicit in it, the intervening period

of South African rule; and the post-independence context. Bringing into a

single conversation historical, ethnographic, media, and legal research, the

author argues that the politics of compensation can distort historical narra-

tives, and, more specifically, undermine opportunities for post-apartheid

Namibia to come to terms with both distant and recent histories of

dispossession.

“It is a poor sort of memory that only works backwards.”—Lewis Carroll1

“The logic of law can never make sense of the illogic of extermination.”—Lawrence L. Langer2

Law and history can serve different masters, as demonstrated by recent attempts tounderstand, remedy, or transcend the violent histories of colonialism and authoritar-ian regimes.3 The neat binaries required of the courtroom—of rights and wrongs,victims versus perpetrators, individual deviance from collective behavior—maycounter the complexities, ambiguities, and complicities found in historical records,archives, and individual memories. Law holds the power and legitimacy to write andrewrite history, but at the high cost of silencing dissenting voices, obscuring muddledpaths of causation, and validating victor’s justice. A pressing quandary may be framedthus: when should law exert dominance over historiography for the sake of transi-tional, historical, or reformative justice? A rich literature on the Nuremberg Trials aswell as on other mass atrocities committed during the bloody twentieth centuryaddresses this issue, but the fraught terrain of colonial Africa remains comparativelyneglected by memory theorists and legal analysts. One notable exception from EastAfrica is the recent lawsuit of the Mau Mau of Kenya against the United Kingdom

doi:10.1093/hgs/dcs053Holocaust and Genocide Studies 26, no. 3 (Winter 2012): 394---424 394

for crimes committed under the aegis of empire.4 The following contributes to theliterature by analyzing one case from southern Africa, the Herero genocide.

On September 9, 2001, representatives of the Herero community firstapproached American courts to sue three multinational businesses and the FederalRepublic of Germany for the genocide committed in the former protectorate ofGerman Southwest Africa—present-day Namibia.5 In the name of recognition, com-pensation, and historical justice, the Herero People’s Reparations Corporation(HPRC) demanded no less than two billion dollars as reparations, meant to “repair”the damages committed by German colonists one century ago. Although the terror-ist attacks on the World Trade Center two days later overshadowed publicity on thecase, the Herero have continued to seek legal redress abroad and, within Namibia,continue to commemorate their fallen ancestors during annual ceremonies. Scholarsin turn have analyzed the genocide and its aftermath by delving into past andpresent forms of international law and Herero identities, excavating genealogies ofthe Herero-German War, and, at times, marshaling an impressive array of researchto lend a sympathetic voice to reparations claims.6 The present study addresses thequestion of what memories may be left out when reparationists focus exclusively onone of myriad colonized subjects in post-apartheid Namibia, and what politics maybe obscured when people turn to international law as a means for coming to termswith a colonial and national trauma.7

Inevitably, the analytical concept of memory politics looms large in thisaccount. Rather than conceptualize history as objective knowledge, or a winners’story far-removed from the present, scholars in several disciplines theorize the crit-ical role that “imagined histories” play in forming individual identities and in creat-ing a contested field of political struggle.8 The rules and cadence of this kind ofhistory, or so-called memory politics, rely less upon archival evidence than theconsent of the historical ‘victims’ or ‘perpetrators,’ tacit agreements among groupsbenefitting from one or another version of the past. This is where public interna-tional law, human rights, and genocide studies enter the equation, as evidenced bythe Herero call for financial reparations in international news media, Americancourtrooms, and academic fora.

The first section integrates legal claims into a broader, historiographical reviewof media coverage of and scholarship on the Herero genocide. A parallel, equallynuanced discussion of the topic can be found in German-language sources, but thepresent article focuses on information presented in the sole official language ofNamibia, which is English. The second section argues that the reparations cam-paign, as one form of memory politics, obscures key elements of Herero andNamibian history, including the careers of many actors complicit during Germancolonial rule, the period of South African trusteeship, and post-independence poli-tics. Financial reparations may, contrary to explicit intentions, undermine opportuni-ties for both the Herero and Namibia as a whole to come to terms with distant and

Cash for Genocide? The Politics of Memory in the Herero Case for Reparations 395

recent histories. By balancing several local and supranational perspectives, the over-arching goal here is neither to provide a comprehensive account of any body of liter-ature, country, or people, nor to defend any form of imperialism or genocidedenial. The argument is twofold: first, distinct forms and legacies of colonialismmust be understood before and if they may ever be repaired; and, second, the ten-dency to shoehorn competing memories into any monolithic framework can resur-rect the same stereotypes, injustices, and social divisions that reigned in the past.Just as evidence must be weighed carefully, so too must the costs of legal remediesbe balanced against perceived benefits.

Arguments for ReparationsThis section analyzes the three most persuasive arguments for reparations for theHerero genocide commonly encountered in genocide studies, Namibian and inter-national history, and international law. The most common position begins byexplaining how the German colonial administration committed genocide. Second,legal historians and lawyers argue that the customary international law of the earlytwentieth century, in addition to bilateral and multilateral treaties of that period,forbade mass killings such as that of the Herero community, a violation for whichGermany should now be held accountable. Third, historians cast light on the paral-lels and linkages between the Holocaust and the Herero genocide, and thencompare the successes of Jewish claims with the failures of the Herero. Often thelatter are explained by racism and the fact that “the Jews are White; we are Black.”9

These three arguments rely on more nuanced evidence than can be summarizedhere, so the purpose remains merely to introduce and complicate the premises.

An impressive array of scholarship proves that Germany sanctioned the delib-erate and systematic destruction of the Herero ethnic group in the first genocide ofthe twentieth century.10 Indeed, this work trumps any doubts about genocidalintent primarily by quoting the German commander, Lothar von Trotha, whopledged to “destroy the rebellious tribes by shedding torrents of blood and torrentsof money.”11 After the Herero violently resisted settler appropriation of their land,von Trotha reacted with an unambiguous extermination order (Vernichtungsbefehl),which was also translated into the Herero language and read aloud to the victims.To evaluate the outcomes of his order, historians have mined Namibian andGerman archives, collected oral histories, and dedicated a great deal of research todebating figures, but most now confirm that no fewer than eighty percent of theHerero—approximately 65,000 out of 80,000 people—perished.12 Men, women,and children died from direct execution by the German Schutztruppe (colonialarmy), dehydration after deportation to the Kalahari Desert, or forced labor andstarvation in concentration camps.13 Works of historical fiction, popular non-fiction,video documentaries, and newspapers and magazines have retold the horrors invivid detail.14

396 Holocaust and Genocide Studies

Accordingly, a consensus bridges academic and public discourses. In lieu ofother terms, such as the “Herero-German War” or the “Herero Rebellion,” the“Herero Genocide” has been widely accepted as the normative term for the historicalevents that transpired between 1904 and 1907. Many anthologies in genocide studiesdedicate at least one chapter to the events, which were renamed the “HereroHolocaust” in one sociological work on reparations.15 On multiple occasions thecurrent paramount chief of the Herero, Kuaima Riruako, has said “What happened toour people… as a result of General von Trotha’s extermination order was a brutal actof genocide.”16 The von Trotha family itself apologized in 2007 to the Herero for theirforefather’s extermination order and the ensuing genocide.17 Three years earlier,Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, Germany’s minister for economic cooperation and devel-opment, publicly apologized to the Herero on behalf of all Germans, an act that eli-cited some consternation within Germany. At the commemoration ceremony for thegenocide’s hundredth anniversary, Wieczorek-Zeul acknowledged that “the atrocitiescommitted at that time would today be termed a genocide.… We Germans accept ourhistorical and moral responsibility and the guilt incurred by Germans at that time.”18

As the German government has pointed out, however, multiple problemsarise in using the term “genocide” as a legal characterization.19 One is that theconcept did not exist as a legal category until 1948, when the United Nations

Generalleutnant Lothar von Trotha in front of a formation of Witboi (allied) soldiers in Okahandja,1904. Some may have been Herero, some Khosa or of other ethnicities. Courtesy of the NationalArchives of Namibia.


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passed the Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime ofGenocide. Using the term risks historical anachronism; as Allan D. Cooper observes,“if such an application were permitted, there would be no end to the potential claimsthat could be made to remedy each genocide in history.”20 Another problem is a ten-dency to reduce complex historical actors to stereotypes of good and evil, or “wickedcolonialists” and “noble savages.”21 In the most comprehensive history of Namibia todate, the curator of the African Collection at the British Museum, Marion Wallace,writes: “The political importance, and sensitivity, of defining Namibia’s genocidehas… perhaps had a detrimental effect on the spirit of historical inquiry and the onthe ways in which historical narratives have been framed.”22 Among others, the lateBrigitte Lau, a historian and national archivist of Namibia, leveled this critique—andquestioned the precise number of deaths—as early as 1990. On the eve of Namibia’sindependence that same year, Lau argued that an ironic Eurocentrism characterizedthe scholarship on the Herero genocide and that the voices of Africans had beeneclipsed by sensational German statements.23 Since then, her more provocative argu-ments have gained notoriety since they are sometimes cited by people many perceiveas genocide denialists.24 She claimed, for instance, that von Trotha’s order did notentail extermination per se, that histories of atrocities relied on evidence from Britishpropaganda, and that “there is absolutely no evidence… that the Herero perished orwere used on a large scale as ‘slave laborers.’ ”25 Myriad historians have painstakinglycountered each claim, and some have suggested that Lau made these arguments inpart to redirect the fascination with German colonialism to what she considered themore destructive colonialism of South Africa.26 Yet her first point retains its rele-vance: scholars and activists alike must be wary of excising African agency from thediscourse on genocide and reparations.

Another problem is that genocide has yet to translate well in American court-rooms, as demonstrated by the failures of recent litigation.27 In 2001, the HPRCpursued financial reparations in American courts under the provision of the AlienTorts Claims Statute (of 1789), which grants jurisdiction to U.S. federal courts over“any civil action by an alien for a tort only, committed in violation of the law of nationsor a treaty of the United States.”28 Although part of the Judiciary Act of 1789, theAlien Torts Claims Statute had served as the basis of jurisdiction in only two courtsbetween that year and 1980, at which point the U.S. Court of Appeals for the SecondCircuit re-conceptualized the act in Filártiga v. Peña-Irala. Whereas the InternationalCourt of Justice (ICJ) in the Hague addresses only genocide questions raised betweenstate parties, the Alien Torts Statute has now opened the door for a private corporation,the HPRC, to sue for $600 million in damages, or about $10,000 for every individualkilled in the Herero genocide.29 With help from some of the same American lawyerswho won financial damages for Jewish organizations from private German companiesin American courts, the HPRC filed suit in the Superior Court of the District ofColumbia. Deutsche Bank was accused of being the principal financier of the colonial


government; the Woermann Line was accused of benefitting from slave labor andrunning its own concentration camps. The crimes against humanity case against theTerex Corporation was withdrawn, however, because the latter had been under differ-ent management at the time of the genocide.30 The framing of the lawsuit reflectedthe widespread perception that private corporations, fearing negative publicity, may bemore willing to pay, and from deeper pockets, than nation-states.

In fact, after the charges against Terex were dropped, the HPRC included theFederal Republic of Germany as a defendant, seeking an additional two billion dollarsin damages. However, Germany asserted its right to reject American jurisdiction, andthe plaintiffs voluntarily dropped their claim against it. Both of the businesses alsosought to have the charges dismissed, arguing that they were not subject to the juris-diction of a local court because they did not conduct business in the District ofColumbia. The judge, in turn, dismissed the cases, partly because federal courtscannot recognize a non-statutory basis for prosecuting violations of international law.Since the Deutsche Bank contended that their American office was based inNew York, the Herero then filed another case in the U.S. District Court for theSouthern District of New York. As an explanation for their persistence in targetingGerman businesses, the Herero claim that the “interests of Imperial Germany and ofthe commercial interests were indistinguishable.”31 This introduces larger questionsabout the complicity of private actors in state crimes. At the time of writing, however,the HPRC have stopped pursuing their claims in American courts.

Here it is important to take a step back and unpack the meanings of interna-tional law in the Herero suit. In their court papers, the complainant conflated his-torical and present functions of international law, describing the Herero “as a tribeof racial, social, cultural, and political distinctiveness… entitled to the protection ofinternational law.” On the one hand, advocates claim that contemporary norms ofinternational human rights law may be applied retrospectively, at least under certainconditions outlined in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, theUniversal Declaration of Human Rights, and the Genocide Convention.32 Acrossthese treaties, customary international law remains key: “if a crime was criminalizedunder customary law before [any of these treaties] came into effect, it is not limitedby the retrospective nature of the operation of the treaty.” Accordingly, to deter-mine the status of customary international law at the fin de siècle, advocates oftenturn to the 1899 and 1907 Hague Conventions on the Laws and Customs of War byLand. These conventions prohibited killing or torturing prisoners of war, or takingenemy property; similar provisions appear in the Geneva Convention for theAmelioration of the Condition of the Wounded in Armies in the Field (1864). Onthe other hand, these protections applied only to signatories, which did not includethe Herero. Rather than being read literally, therefore, these and other treaties aretreated as evidence of a universal moral code or as customary international law. Asone advocate explains, “unless Germany seeks to argue… that there was… one set


of rules for European nations conducting wars with each other and a completely dif-ferent set for those same nations conducting ‘colonial’ wars, or even more bluntlyput, wars against ‘ethnic peoples,’ it is in an untenable moral position.”33 However,numerous political theorists, historians, and legal scholars have argued that this wasprecisely the case: the “universal” codes of the early twentieth century were meantto apply only to the “West.”34

Proving the merits of retroactive application has drawn the focus of much of thelegal scholarship on Herero reparations. For instance, the “third-party beneficiary doc-trine” has been cited to argue that the Hague and Geneva Conventions protected theHerero nation, even though no Herero leader ever subscribed to either agreement.Bilateral and multilateral protection treaties with African and European nations areconsidered proof of the Herero nation’s recognition as a subject of international law,and that “they possessed rights normally reserved for states under international law.”By extension, “their consent [to international law] should be presumed” because “theydid not actively oppose the conferral of third-party beneficiary status.”35 Apart fromthe Hague Convention, authors have often turned to the Berlin West AfricaConference of 1884 and the Anti-Slavery Conference of 1890 in Brussels, both ofwhich provide antecedents for modern humanitarian and human rights law.36 TheBerlin West Africa Convention bound Europeans “to watch over the preservation ofthe native tribes, and to care for the improvement of the conditions of their moral andmaterial well-being, and to help in suppressing slavery, and especially the SlaveTrade.”37 Similar protections resurfaced in the 1890 Anti-Slavery Convention, whichemphasized the common goal of Europeans “to improve the moral and material con-ditions of existence of the native races.”38 Others trace this rhetoric back to 1815,when the Vienna Declaration denounced slavery as “repugnant to the principles ofhumanity and universal morality” and encouraged greater protection of minorities.39

When read together, these and other laws create a trans-historical, if questionable,picture of European intentions vis-à-vis human rights.

To hold Germany responsible for reparations, advocates for the Herero mustalso clarify the issue of state succession. A pressing question is whether or not the sov-ereign present-day state of Germany is the successor of Kaiser Wilhelm II’s Germany,that is, whether the present administration may be held responsible for crimes com-mitted under the colonial government. This is a crucial part of the reparations puzzle,in light of the fact that international law absolves successor states from responsibilityfor international crimes committed by their predecessors.40 A cursory review ofGerman history reveals the magnitude of the challenge: the first German Reich wascreated in 1871; after the First World War it was followed by the Weimar Republic;from the ruins of which arose Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich; which was then divided intothe German Democratic Republic and the Federal Republic of Germany after WorldWar II; which were finally reunified in the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) in1990. In spite of these historical transitions, the widely accepted legal position is that


no German state succession has occurred since 1871, and that the 1990 reunificationconstituted a restoration of complete sovereignty. In other words, each German gov-ernment is considered the inheritor of the obligations of its predecessor. The argu-ment is based upon a reading of both the German Basic Law of 1949 and courtdecisions in the FRG in the 1950s, which acknowledged that the latter “was not thesuccessor of, but rather identical with, the still existing organ-less German Reich.”41

Outside Germany, this interpretation has been widely supported: in 1952 a Swisscourt refused to terminate the Reich’s international obligations from 1905; theSupreme Court of the Netherlands also confirmed that the FRG was “the continua-tion under law of the former German Reich.”42

Such reasoning has comprehensive implications, as Germany and otherEuropean states may be considered liable for crimes committed under the bannersof empire. The argument against accepting responsibility has been made by formerGerman President Roman Herzog, who contextualized the Herero case in terms ofthe standard practices of colonial domination, rather than the lofty rhetoric of“native welfare” and “civilizing missions.”

In addition to strictly legal arguments, advocates of financial reparations oftenargue by analogy, both inside and outside the courtroom.43 Two rhetorical questionsregularly surface: how do colonial genocides differ from modern genocides? And, howdo the Herero differ from other cases? By invoking a wide array of historical examples,advocates for Herero reparations argue that “a genocide is a genocide,” irrespective ofthe legal norms and technicalities.44 Parallels are made to the Korean “comfortwomen,” forced into prostitution by the Japanese army during World War II.45 AHerero leader, Mburumba Kerina, claimed, “Hey, that’s my grandmother—a comfortwoman.… If the Japanese could pay for that, the Germans could [too].”46 Anotherscholar frames Herero claims in terms of the $1.2 billion paid to Americans ofJapanese descent for their imprisonment and loss of property during World War II.47

Of course, the Holocaust provides the most popular analogy. In 2001, Chief Riruakosaid, “the Germans paid for spilled Jewish blood. Compensate us, too. It’s time to healthe wound.”48 One article further explains: “the Herero nation is asking for reparationsfrom roughly the same position as the State of Israel. Although a ‘tribe’ is not a ‘state,’modern tribes represent their people in world forums.”49

The teleological line from the Herero to the Nazi genocide has become its owncontested subfield in Namibian, German, and international histories, often called the‘Windhoek to Auschwitz thesis.’50 In The Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendtargued that colonies were “breeding grounds of race thinking and… sites of ubiquitousmassacre,” and that European imperialism in southern Africa planted the seeds ofNational Socialism.51 Chief Riruako reiterated her claim: “What Hitler did to theJewish people was something that originated in German colonization of Namibia. TheHolocaust started with us here.”52 The connection is made explicit in the court papers:“The Federal Republic of Germany… in a brutal alliance with German multi-national


corporations, relentlessly pursued the enslavement and the genocidal destruction ofthe Herero Tribe.… Foreshadowing with chilling precision the irredeemable horror ofthe European Holocaust only decades later, the Defendant formed a German com-mercial enterprise which cold-bloodedly employed explicitly sanctioned extermination,the destruction of tribal culture and social organization.”53

Critics draw upon a variety of arguments to challenge the depiction of theHerero genocide as a pre-history of or dress rehearsal for the Nazi Holocaust. One ofthe lines of reasoning they question is to treat the Holocaust as “new wine in oldbottles,” or as the product of four centuries of White rule in which “the annihilation ofthe racially inferior entered into the cultural and ideological patterns of thinking ofWestern civilization.”54 Finding Nazis throughout history glosses over fundamental dif-ferences in forms of domination. For instance, Jews, Sinti and Roma, the mentally ill,the handicapped, and homosexuals had once been considered part of the society overwhich the Nazis later assumed control, whereas there had never been a similar sociopo-litical integration of the Herero and German people in German Southwest Africa.55

Diverse “victims of the Holocaust” were killed more because of their basic identitythan because of any threat they posed to German rule, while the Herero were per-ceived as a danger to German settlers, who coveted their land and cattle.

Relying on a narrower historical lens, however, is equally dangerous: treatingthe Herero genocide as part and parcel of a German Sonderweg, or unique path tomodernity, ignores the transnational dimensions of violence. This fact brings usback to President Herzog’s emphasis on the colonial context, and the claim that theHerero suffered a fate familiar to other colonial subjects. Similarly to resistance

Postcard representing men with whips, probably ox wagon drivers, identified as Herero and RehobothBastards, in yard of unidentified fort, year unknown. Courtesy of the National Archives of Namibia.


movements against the British and French empires, the Herero took up armsagainst the German colonists, unlike the Jews in Germany.

Even if we recognize some merit in these criticisms, archival evidence doessubstantiate the argument that the colonial genocide served as a “link to the crimesof the National Socialists,” and an “important source of ideas” for the Nazi war.56

Recent historical literature has focused on characters common to both the Hereroand Nazi genocides, such as the anthropologist Eugen Fischer. Before serving asthe director of Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology in Berlin, Fischer con-ducted an influential series of studies on Namibia’s “Rehoboth Bastards,” a groupdescended from unions between Boer (Afrikaner) settlers and Black Africans.Based on his experiments, he concluded that racial intermixing always resulted inoffspring intellectually and socially inferior to “the superior race.”57 Hitler readFischer’s works while writing Mein Kampf, and evidence shows that Fischer’sresearch in Southwest Africa served as the primary basis for the subsequent policyof forced sterilization in Nazi Germany. Although several scholars who draw theseparallels point out that “nothing that the Herero say in any way dismisses or dimin-ishes the unique crimes that Germany committed against Jews,” clearly their goal isto lessen the historical distance between the Holocaust and the Herero genocide.58

In a private interview, the attorney who represents the Herero in court, PhilipMusolino, said he considers the Herero reparations claim “winnable” because thecrimes committed were “relatively circumscribed, egregious, and provable,” andbecause “the existence of an actual extermination order makes the case more prose-cutable.”59 Nonetheless, the foregoing has shown how the language and analoguesof the Herero genocide remain open to debate and contestation, even as the histori-cal events remain “egregious” and “provable.”

Reparations and the Vagaries of MemoryIt is time now to turn to a more sustained treatment of historical complicity, apart-heid South Africa, and the status of the Herero in present-day Namibia. The argu-ments presented above usually ignore or footnote these three issues because theymultiply the potential targets for financial reparations and, by extension, reveal thechallenges of understanding or “repairing” the past through litigation.60 Put simply,complicity—in the form of direct participation, material contributions, and indiffer-ence—has the potential to explode the parameters of responsibility for any geno-cide.61 A series of questions here demonstrates the uneasy relationship between anuanced historical narrative, memory politics, and legal claims.

First, why did the Herero sue only three German corporations? Neglected isany mention of British corporations, traders, and arms smugglers, as well as Africansoldiers from the Cape Colony and missionaries from several countries, all of whomplayed key roles in German colonialism and in the Herero genocide. Second, whydoes South Africa not owe financial reparations? Does the German “extermination


order” outweigh the damages caused by legacies of land dispossession and racialinequality under South Africa? Germany colonized Southwest Africa for twenty-oneyears, South Africa for seventy-five.62 Any balance sheet comparing forms of coloni-alism may be inherently flawed, but a cursory review reveals that the Hereroepisode must also be framed in terms of South African rule.63 Finally the status ofthe Herero community in Namibia’s present economic and political landscaperemains an ignored issue. Inequalities in economic resources between White andBlack Namibians continue to strain the country’s socio-political fabric, a problemfor which advocates see reparations as one solution. Yet the national governmentdisagrees and, until recently, has been reluctant to publicly support the Herero,which brings to the fore accusations of ethnic discrimination by the Oshiwambo-dominated ruling party. By exploring each of these variables, this section shows howsources other than the German “extermination order” shaped history and memory.

Well known to historians but oddly neglected by attorneys is the significant roleof British traders, companies, and smugglers in the colonial economy of GermanSouthwest Africa.64 Time and again the Reichstag (German Parliament) pleadedunsuccessfully with German businesses to invest in the colony, and the three corpora-tions recently accused of genocide each filed for bankruptcy at one time or another asa result of accepting the patriotic call. Meanwhile, between 1892 and 1914—before,during, and after the Herero genocide—British companies were most often depictedin the German press as the primary villains and beneficiaries of German colonialism.Before the Reichstag a colonial enthusiast moaned, “it is an oppressive feeling… thatthree-fourths of the country [i.e., German South-West Africa] has been more or lesswithdrawn by these wretched [British] concessions from the possibility of Germancolonization.” In particular, the profitable successes of the South-West AfricaCompany and its sister companies “were never above suspicion in Germany becauseof their assumed connections with British financial interests.”65 Though overempha-sized, these suspicions had merit. The South-West Africa Company boasted a Britishboard of directors, made agreements with the diamond magnate Cecil Rhodes, andowned so many mining and trade subsidiaries that, as one historian notes, “almost allthe economic interests of the protectorate had fallen into their hands.” Under con-tract with the German government, this company had even acquired a monopoly overall the supplies sent to German troops from the Cape Colony during the Herero gen-ocide: one director found it “difficult to define where the…Company ended and theGerman Government commenced.” Yet in no account of the Herero genocide doesthe Southwest Africa Company or its contemporary successor, Gold Fields of SouthAfrica, Ltd., figure as a party responsible for paying reparations or (still more prob-lematic), occupy an appropriate place in transnational colonial history.

Similarly neglected is the role of Africans from the Cape Colony, who wereheavily recruited by Germany during the Herero genocide.66 After violence eruptedin 1904, Germany could no longer draw upon the same indigenous labor pool for


railway projects, transportation, and military support. At the same time, an economicrecession in the Cape created a supply of unemployed African workers with valuableexperience from the South African War (or Second Boer War, 1899–1902), in whichthey had supported both the British Empire and the Afrikaans-speaking Dutch set-tlers by performing labor for the military, on the docks, in railway construction, andin other forms of transport. To exploit this opportunity, Germany began recruitmentin the Cape in 1904, and Cape Town remained a key collection point for thousandsof Black African workers and soldiers during the course of the genocide. Many ofthose recruited chose to fight in German Southwest Africa as an escape from themining industry’s underground working conditions and intimidation by the “Tshakaguards,” or Zulu mine police. Still more significant, the financial benefits seemedlucrative: German authorities paid soldiers and railway workers almost double thesalary of miners in the Transvaal. Of course, these workers were not oblivious to thenature of their work. In 1905, a medical officer in East London, South Africa, com-mented: “while they were awaiting examination in the yard of the court house, theother natives standing by were chaffing them, saying they were going to fight for theGermans. They appear to have perfectly understood where they were going.”67

A Xhosa soldier from the Eastern Cape, J. Motte, wrote home: “I am in the war inGerman West.… It is very heavy, the [Herero] are stubborn very much.” Germany’srecruitment of these soldiers, coupled with the increased trade through theSouth-West Africa Company, helped reverse the recession in the British colony. Asone journalist noted, “It is common knowledge that Cape Town, if it had not been forGerman Southwest Africa, would have been in a very bad financial position for a longwhile past.”68 In any case, today the complicity of the Cape and the direct role ofmixed-race and Xhosa soldiers are excised from the Herero case, which focusesinstead on erecting a dichotomy between (White) German settlers and (Black)Herero autochthones.

The same cannot be said of the Rhenish Missionary Society, whose mission-aries appear not only as complicit protagonists. In court papers, missionaries aredescribed as “agents for the German commercial enterprise” and “as agents of theGerman colonial administration.”69 Their marked immunity from charges of geno-cide, however, stems from a legacy that includes not only missionary collusion with,but also criticism of the German colonial government. Consistent with the mission-ary legacy across the continent, individual missionaries, often at grave personal risk,denounced the cruelty and vindictiveness of the colonial administration, preservedthe Herero language and culture, supported local resistance, and educated the nextgeneration of leaders.70 As several historians have noted, the Rhenish MissionarySociety occupied a precarious position in the colony, where most settlers consideredit as much a problem as malaria or locusts. Although the settlers had alwaysdoubted the value of a “civilizing mission,” missionaries became the targets of evengreater suspicion during the genocide. One settler complained: “These beasts [the


Herero] are supported by the mission.… The mission has the impudence to standby the side of the coloured mob.… Thousands and millions of marks of Germanmoney are wasted each year on mission activities.”71

To counter this popular charge, the missionaries increasingly rallied to thegovernment during and after the genocide. After the initial rebellion, for example,one missionary provided a theological rationalization for its brutal suppression:“As the Lord had to punish Israel, he had to make the natives in German SouthwestAfrica feel his arm in order to make them realize that they were walking on thewrong path.” Even after witnessing the terrible mortality in concentration camps,the Rhenish Missionary Society continued to volunteer as translators, educators, andmediators between the government and those Herero who had escaped to thedesert. It remains unclear how many Herero civilians and rebels died as a conse-quence of the connivance of the missionaries, who, even as they professed humani-tarianism, also played a role in the colonial project.

In addition to the corporations, soldiers, and missionaries, the rule of apart-heid South Africa must also be examined to understand memory of the genocide,the tensions between ethnic communities, and why claims for Herero reparationshave surfaced at this historical moment. Regrettably, much of the literature on rep-arations leapfrogs from the genocide to post-liberation politics in Namibia—from1908 to the 1990s—with the spotlight moving from German oppression to currenttensions between the ruling party and the Herero community. Perhaps a footnoteor two point out that Southwest Africa was the continent’s last colony, under thejurisdiction not of a European power but of South Africa. Never mind that interna-tional law—first the League of Nations, then the United Nations—authorized SouthAfrican administration of Namibia, at least until the “sacred trust of civilization” wasrevoked in 1971.72 In the literature on the genocide, leaving out South Africa’shuman rights violations is justified by the fact that “the history of South Africa’sharsh and violent occupation until Namibian independence is common knowl-edge.”73 The South African regime never issued any extermination order, nor didany spontaneous genocide occur. Unquestioned, however, is how the 1904–1907genocide has been used in international relations and regional politics, and that theHerero community is widely perceived by fellow Namibians to have colluded with,if not directly benefited from, apartheid South Africa.

Indeed, Britain and South Africa unearthed, and then attempted to suppress,the history of the Herero genocide. At the onset of the First World War, SouthAfrican forces under British command invaded German Southwest Africa anddefeated the German army. From at least 1915, British colonial officials gatheredmaterials to undermine Germany’s claims to its African colonies. Drawing upon tes-timonies from German archives, as well as interviews with surviving Namibians, the1918 Report on the Natives of South-West Africa and Their Treatment by Germany(the so-called Blue Book) emphasized the horrors of German colonialism and called


into question Germany’s right to retain colonies after the war.74 The VersaillesTreaty declared Germany unfit to do so; but as a territory “inhabited by people notyet able to stand by themselves under the strenuous conditions of the modernworld,” Namibia fell under the jurisdiction of South Africa as a ‘Class C’ Mandate(all former German colonial possessions, including several islands).75 Most historiansstress the continuities: Herero lands were still reserved for White settlement, theHerero forcefully resettled on marginal “Native Territories.”76

Meanwhile, the Blue Book soured relations between Afrikaans-speakers andGerman settlers: the latter “were ready… to cooperate in the building of theSouthwest,” but “could not do so until the stigma… of the Blue Book… had beenremoved from their name.” Therefore, in 1925, the book was suppressed: copies“were no longer made available to the public, were removed from the libraries, andwere destroyed,” and throughout the Empire surviving copies were transferred tothe Foreign Office.77 In short, the cohesion of the White community trumped thememory of genocide under the previous administration.

Much to the chagrin of White Namibians and the South African administra-tion, talk of the genocide re-emerged in the wake of the Second World War. Fromthe ashes of the League of Nations, the United Nations re-sanctioned South Africanoversight of Southwest Africa. But the apartheid regime wanted more, and sought toincorporate Namibia as a fifth province. The Reverend Michael Scott galvanizedpolitical opposition among the Herero, bringing to the fore not only the African ante-cedent to the Holocaust, but also the continuation of injustice against the Hererounder South African rule. He lived in townships, gathered oral testimony from survi-vors, and published denunciations of the recent rulers: “In the 1914 war, lured byBritish promises that native lands would be returned, the desert remnant [of theHerero] trekked back. But in 1918 they met not the British as the Mandatory Power,but the South Africans, who never for a moment considered giving them back theirtribal lands.”78 The land question continued to rally opposition, particularly in twonewly established liberation parties, the South West African National Union(SWANU), dominated by the Herero; and the South West African People’sOrganization (SWAPO), dominated by the more numerous Oshiwambo.79

For both parties, the Herero genocide served as a rhetorical pillar for anti-colonial propaganda. Between 1966 and 1989, violence escalated in the SouthAfrican Border War, to the point that at least one hundred thousand civilians andguerillas perished at the hands of the South African military (twenty thousand ofthe latter were killed).80 The high casualties suggested comparisons between SouthAfrican and German colonialism, and the Herero rebellion against Germany cameto represent the seeds of a longstanding modern nationalist struggle. Perhapsthe best examples appeared in the words of Peter Katjavivi, who now serves in theNational Assembly as a presidential advisor, and who formerly served as theNamibian ambassador to Germany. Well-versed in history and with the Blue Book


in hand, in 1988 Katjavivi likened the attacks of the South African forces to thoseperpetrated by von Trotha. He argued that each colonial government in Namibiacould be understood in a single continuum, and that the South Africans were con-tinuing the work begun by the Germans.81 Galvanized by this literature and alignedwith the anti-apartheid movement in the Netherlands, SWANU activists tried unsuc-cessfully to file a genocide case against West Germany as early as 1980.

This early attempt at adjudication was subsequently overshadowed by moremulti-ethnic stories of resistance. After South Africa’s clampdown on political dissi-dents in the 1970s and 1980s, many of the most articulate either fled into exile orjoined the People’s Liberation Army of Namibia (PLAN), the military wing of theliberation movement.82 To lessen domestic tensions with settlers and other ethnic-ities, those Herero who remained tended to play down the genocide. For instance,when asked by a German about this history, Chief Klemens Kapuuo, the leader ofthe Herero in the seventies, responded:

You know this is actually nonsense. Both of us [i.e., the Oshiwambo and the Herero]are martial people, the very best here in South West Africa. At that time we foughteach other, you have been the strong one. Sure, lots of us died on the run through thedesert—but what is that supposed to mean? We should avoid digging in old graves,because that will never create a future. Take a look on my Herero. At their annual cele-bration they wear old German uniforms and decorate themselves with military ranks[that are directly rooted from German terminology, for example] ‘Leutnanti,’

Governor Theodor Gotthilf Leutwein, seated, in civilian attire, toasts Nama chief Kaptein HenrikWitbooi (opposite, with head garb) and the latter’s son (to Witbooi’s right), 1896. Courtesy of theNational Archives of Namibia.


‘Oberleutnnanti,’ ‘Hoppmann,’ ‘Majora.’ In a fundamental manner, we have a deeprespect for the Germans.83

Although the source and accuracy of this quote is unclear at best, and theinterviewer—Claus Nordbruch—is notorious for his extreme-right views, theHerero adaptation of uniforms and military ranks does point to complications inthe Herero narrative on the genocide. Only a few months after the South Africanforces defeated the Germans in July 1915, the Herero set up a countrywide parami-litary system modeled after the German forces, in which young men who had beencaptured by the Germans, had worn military camouflage during the war, or hadinternalized the military hierarchies, assumed the names and titles of formerGerman officers, sent each other handwritten messages in German, and producedmilitary passes, pay books, and instructions also in German. An extensive hierarchyof oturupa (troop) regiments developed across the country, and these regiments stillconverge every year during the last weekend of August to celebrate Herero Day,among the most significant of Namibian commemorative rituals, sometimes referredto as Otjisandu or “Red Flag Day.”84 August 23 marks the formal return in 1923 ofthe remains of the former Herero chief, Samuel Maharero, from Botswana toOkahandja, a small town in central Namibia where he had resided in pre-colonialand colonial days, and where the first shots of the Herero-German War erupted. Atthis event, the oturupa march in regiments, ride horses in formation, and visit thegraves of their ancestors while wearing stylized military uniforms—“entangledobjects”—that integrate South African and British military symbols, but in whichGerman-style breeches are particularly important.85 The Herero women wear floor-length ‘long dresses’ (ohorokweva onde) with horn-like headscarves (otjikaiva orotjituku) meant to evoke the gracefulness of cattle, an outfit often described as“anachronistic” in the warm Namibian climate, but which were adapted from theVictorian styles of the missionaries in the early twentieth century.86

Several historians have described the regiments, clothing, and rituals as critical tothe restructuring and reorganization of Herero community after the genocide, anobservation reinforced by one hundred open-ended, informal conversations during the2011 Herero Day.87 Voluntary participants—randomly selected across class, gender,age, and region—consistently described events and clothing by drawing upon one ofthree Otjiherero words, namely: okuzemburuka (“to remember”); okunyanda (“toplay”); or ombazu-yOvaherero (“Herero tradition”).88 Although the genocide had beenassimilated into Otjiherero (otjitiro otjindjandja tjOvaherero, literally “the mass deathof Hereros”), for the centenary commemoration in 2004, only one-third of the inter-viewees in 2011 mentioned or used the phrase (or derivatives or English), and no morethan ten said anything about reparations. During one single, prolonged interview, twoolder women showed me a shirt produced seven years earlier for the centenary, depict-ing a well-known picture of starved Herero prisoners “rescued” by Germans from the


desert, with a slogan starting with the sentence jamana ovandu (“he killed thepeople”), and a caption (in English) “pursued to near extinction.” The back read:“1904–1908 / 65,000 / Ovaherero / killed.” Still, in the larger context of militaryaccoutrements, troupe formations, and “long dresses,” the T-shirts and talk of repara-tions seemed to be only two of many expressions of Herero identity.

In comparison, more recent memories of apartheid and current struggles tofind employment resurfaced in virtually every conversation, a theme mirrored in thescholarship on reparations. The prominence of land ownership questions in the rep-arations debate, coupled with Namibia’s high Gini coefficient as one of the leastequitable countries in the world, suggests that the repercussions of apartheid arefelt more acutely today than those of German colonialism—by the Herero as well aswider Namibian society.89 The current Herero Chief, Kuaima Riruako, hasrequested “a mini-Marshall plan,” saying “we want reparations to buy land and giveit to people who need it.”90 Advocates have toed the line by calling for “reparations”but seem to have in mind land schemes. One American law professor argues,“German reparations would allow the Herero, still a cattle-herding people, torepurchase a substantial portion of their ‘stolen’ lands and return their cattle to theirtraditional range.”91 At independence in 1990, Whites (5 percent of the population)controlled over three-quarters of the fertile land; today Namibians of Germandescent own about one-third of the big farms, and Whites in general own morethan 50 percent of the fertile land. Contrary to what the statistics may imply,however, the national government has not ignored land reform. Rather, theAgricultural Land Reform Act of 1995 encouraged land redistribution on a “willingbuyer-willing seller” model, entitling the government to preferential rights for landpurchases.92 Moreover, a Land Reform Advisory Commission designated 192 farms,all owned by German and South African absentee landlords, for mandatory transferof ownership.93 Nevertheless, at his inauguration in March 2004, current PresidentHifikepunye Lucas Pohamba warned that Namibia could face “a revolution” if moreWhite farmers did not agree to sell land, and that the country could become“ungovernable.”94 The spectre of other “ungovernable spaces”—and “forced farmremovals” in neighboring Zimbabwe—is invoked to encourage more rapid transfer.

Noteworthy, although neglected in the original court papers filed by theHerero people’s Reparations Corporation, is the possibility that a case for financialreparations against South Africa—and local actors complicit under the apartheidadministration—may be stronger than one against Germany.95 As early as 1971, theInternational Court of Justice declared South Africa’s continued presence inNamibia a violation of international law and ruled that commercial enterprisesinvolved in Namibia might be liable for prosecution by future governments.96

Accordingly, the Herero—in partnership with other groups—could sue South Africafor damages caused by its illegal occupation. Democratic regimes have been heldlegally responsible for crimes committed by non-democratic predecessors, so


democratic South Africa, itself a victim of apartheid, might not be immune.Furthermore, the Herero could sue American corporations that continued tooperate in Namibia after 1971. Even U.S. President Richard M. Nixon accepted theICJ decision, and notified the business community that the American governmentno longer sanctioned trade with Namibia and would not defend corporations infuture suits. Despite Nixon’s warning, a number of American companies continuedto operate in occupied Namibia, their cumulative profit amounting to over threebillion dollars between 1982 and 1990.97 But just as a lawsuit against South Africa isunlikely given current economic and political ties, so are American corporationsunlikely targets. Though “companies may be the only tortfeasors still available toprovide any compensation,” they still invest in Namibia and are partners in a size-able number of government contracts.98 For the moment, then, injustices commit-ted during South Africa’s illegal and violent occupation seem to be off the docket.

At the same time, tensions between the Herero and SWAPO account in part forNamibian government reluctance to support reparations. During the national cam-paign for land reform the Herero have claimed that their unique marginalization hasnot been treated with “sufficient urgency” due to ethnic favoritism within the govern-ment. This claim, of course, manifests its own historical genealogy. During the libera-tion struggle, Herero Chief Clemens Kapuuo sought to overturn the internationalcommunity’s recognition of and financial support for SWAPO as the sole representativeof “the Namibian people.”99 SWAPO openly denounced Kapuuo and his supporters;Kapuuo’s stance gave rise to “the attitude of some of the SWAPO leadership… thatthese groups did not participate in SWAPO’s armed struggle and thus do not deserveto be rewarded in any way.”100 The sentiment is conditioned by the fact that beforepursuing reparations for the genocide, current Herero chief Riruako led one of theprimary opposition parties in Namibia, the Democratic Turnhalle Alliance (DTA),which had once offered an alternative to the armed struggle of SWAPO.

During the 1980s, South Africa actively supported this coalition party, whichgrew out of the so-called Turnhalle Constitutional Convention that the apartheidadministration initiated in order to offer multi-party democracy as a substitute for polit-ical independence.101 Although widely perceived as “collaborators” with South Africa,in 1990 the inter-racial DTA competed in the first elections against SWAPO, won 29percent of the vote, and got Riruako elected to the National Assembly.102 And yet in2003 Riruako accused the DTA of failing to serve Herero interests and resigned fromthe National Assembly to become president of a splinter group called the NationalUnity Democratic Organization (NUDO). One year later, he was elected as a NUDOrepresentative in the National Assembly, a position he still holds at the time of writing.In spite of his campaigns for reparations, the legitimacy of Riruako’s leadership—firstappointed as Herero chief under apartheid, and nominated as NUDO’s presidentialcandidate three years ago—continues to divide the Herero community itself, let aloneSWAPO and the DTA. These politics have to be overcome if the reparations campaign


is not to reveal a “divided front,” exposing contested claims to the past, present, andfuture of the Herero community and the nation as a whole.

Instead, advocates for Herero reparations, while glossing over the historical ten-sions with SWAPO, cite a litany of postcolonial abuses to show how “the currentNamibian government has played a mean and petty politics of domination againstother Namibian peoples.”103 Many of the Herero believe the ruling party has “soughtto marginalize” them.104 The most basic charge is that the ruling party, knowing “whobutters their bread,” refuses to antagonize Germany because of its foreign aid. Manyperceive a “special post-colonial relationship” for the implementation of Namibiandomestic policies such as the expropriation of land. Sometimes Germany facilitates andnegotiates agreements with the indigenous German farmers; at times it directly com-pensates farmers for their land at market value. Indeed, Germany pays for nearly halfof the country’s development budget, and German military advisors and technicianscontinue to train the Namibian Defense Force. Time and again, the Herero claim theyhave not benefitted from this aid, and worse, that SWAPO has diverted over $500million in German aid money for the benefit exclusively of the Owambo people. Notsurprisingly, the government has countered such claims, arguing that “we cannot justsay we want money for the Herero. Not only the Hereros suffered the consequencesof war. All Namibians suffered and the best would be to help all Namibians by provid-ing roads and schools.”105 Roughly two dozen informal interviews with Otjihererospeakers in a township outside the town of Okahandja, locally known as “California,”reiterated the common experience of exploitation and disenfranchisement underGerman and South African rule. Nevertheless, relations between Germany andSWAPO continue to be described in academic and popular scholarship in tones ofcomplicity, and some authors speak of a “cover-up” of the genocide.

Another ideological reason for SWAPO’s reluctance to support the Hereroclaim is that a successful case could serve as a precedent for demanding reparationsfrom the current government. It must be said that the most pressing issues inNamibia pertain not to present relations with Germany, but to atrocities sweptunder the rug during and after the liberation struggle.106 Although reparations forthe Herero genocide may have garnered international publicity because of the newinterest in the Holocaust and imperialism, financial reparations for those detainedby SWAPO “has [nearly] monopolized human rights discussion in post-independent[sic] Namibia,” with some ex-detainees demanding full confessions from high-ranking government ministers, and families calling for restitution for those whonever returned from “SWAPO dungeons.”107 During the so-called “spy drama” ofthe 1980s almost one thousand party members, some of whom were Herero, werearrested, detained, tortured in covered pits, and forced to confess to having been“sent by South Africa.”108 Shortly after independence, the government permittedthe International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to conduct an investigationinto those declared “missing.” Although the Namibian public supported the


investigation, the ICRC could not address the issue of accountability, instead merelycompiling information provided by the governments of South Africa, Namibia,Angola, Zambia, and Botswana. After the ICRC’s inconclusive investigation,Namibia’s government announced that “national reconciliation” had been accom-plished, and rejected further “analysis of the past.”109

Thus, the ruling party’s refusal to support Herero memory politics must beunderstood as part and parcel of a broader policy of post-conflict, conflict resolution.When in 1995 South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission offered to holdhearings in Namibia, SWAPO rejected the offer because these would “not contrib-ute to our own efforts to bring about genuine reconciliation and to continue devis-ing ways and means of healing wounds.”110 Later, when an opposition politician andformer detainee requested the release of an official list of 2,100 missing people sothat formal death certificates could be issued, the National Assembly stifled themotion, perpetuating a so-called “wall of silence” around the struggle for nationalindependence. In turn, foreign and domestic critics of this approach to transitionaljustice have been rebuked, sometimes by the “father of the nation,” former presi-dent Sam Nujoma, as “unpatriotic” or “racist,” or for perpetuating “false history.”111

These attacks stem from frustrations with an incomplete reconciliation at thenational and local levels.112 After all, the government, private individuals, andnonprofit organizations have worked together and separately to pursue various pathstoward “memory decolonization” or the “Namibianization” of public history, whichentails changing street names, removing and erecting monuments, and constructingnew museums.113 One such endeavor—“Heroes Day,” celebrated on August 26 tomark the initial military engagement between liberation fighters and South Africanforces in 1966—rotates each year to different sites of resistance across the country;incorporates a wide cross-section of public officials, cultural traditions, and interna-tional guests (Ghanaian President Mills in 2011); and celebrates all those whofought for the country’s freedom. In 2011, however, the weekend celebrations ofHeroes’ Day conflicted with those of Herero Day and a regional Trade Fair, thuspitting a sub-national, ethnically-based commemoration in direct competition with anational holiday and commercial opportunities. In a sense, tension between nationaland sectarian historical narratives and interests mirrors the reparations debate as yetanother distinctive manifestation of memory politics.

Final RemarksBy numerous benchmarks Namibia is a “free,” multiparty, parliamentary democracy.Local, regional, and national elections are held with virtually no political violence; thejudiciary is considered independent and protective of human rights; corruption is so lowand sustainable development so vigorous that the country is considered among the bestgoverned in southern Africa.114 Against this background, the Herero reparations casemay be better understood in terms of the country’s distinct histories of colonialism,


decolonization, and national reconciliation. At the same time, the court cases must beunderstood in relation to memory politics and the emergence of a new internationalmorality since the end of the Cold War.115 Not only does the Herero pursuit offinancial restitution offer a remedy for historical injustice, but old German human rightsviolations offer a foundation for Herero identity-building in the post-colony. Asthe same time, many scholars and activists have kept alive the belief that historicalinjustice—even of vast dimensions—may be remedied today with the right tonic.

Still neglected in the literature on transitional justice in Africa are provocativequestions on how memory politics can serve narrow sectarian ends, compromisenational policies of reconciliation, or undermine national sovereignty by inviting theinterference of foreign countries and experts.116 Those interested in sustaining post-conflict justice may make a lasting contribution by shedding light on complicity andneglected narratives in the domestic context, as well as the normative assumptionsbehind any solution. This article is offered as one step in this direction.

David Bargueño is a foreign affairs officer at the U.S. Department of State. However, thisarticle was written, submitted, and accepted for publication while he was a 2011/12 Yale FoxFellow at the University of Cape Town. Thus, the views expressed here are not necessarilythose of the State Department, the Agency for International Development, or any otheroffice of the U.S. government. The information presented here reflects the author’s personalresearch, experiences, and ideas. He would like to thank Robert Harms, Ratna Kapur, MikeMcGovern, and Matthew Kustenbauder for their valuable feedback.

Notes1. Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass (London: Penguin, 1998), cited in SabineHöhn, “International Justice and Reconciliation in Namibia: The ICC Submission and PublicMemory,” African Affairs 109 (436) (2010): 471–88.

2. Cited in Mark Osiel, Making Sense of Mass Atrocity (Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 2009), vi.

3. Recent, and arguably the most thorough, engagements with these issues appear in two works:Rhoda E. Howard-Hassmann with Anthony P. Lombardo, Reparations to Africa (Philadelphia:University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008); and John Torpey, Making Whole What Has BeenSmashed: On Reparations Politics (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006).

4. Four elderly veterans of Kenya’s anti-colonial Mau Mau rebellion are still demanding apol-ogies and reparations in British courts for the physical and sexual abuse, as well as castration,they suffered under British officers during the 1950s. See Caroline Elkins, ImperialReckoning, The Untold Story of Britain’s Gulag in Kenya (New York: Henry Holt, 2005);BBC News, “Mau Mau Torture Files Were Guilty Secret” (May 9, 2011), available at www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13336343 (accessed August 14, 2002). Ten leaders of the Bunyoro are stillseeking $2.4 billion in Ugandan courts for crimes British colonial officers committed in thelate 1800s. See Bamuturaki Musinguzi, “Bunyoro Kingdom to Take the Queen of England toCourt,” East African (August 7, 2011), available at http://allafrica.com/stories/201108080962.html (accessed August 14, 2012).


5. A recent analysis of the court cases may be found in Malte Jaguttis, “Paths to a Hearing ofthe Herero Case under International Law: Beyond the Patterns of Colonial Self-Description,”in The Division of the Earth: Tableaux on the Legal Synopsis of the Berlin Africa Conference(Cologne: Buchhandlung Walter König, 2011); and Jeremy Sarkin, Colonial Genocide andReparations Claims in the Twenty-First Century: The Socio-Legal Context of Claims underInternational Law by the Herero against Germany for Genocide in Namibia of 1904–1908(Westport, CT: Praeger Security International, 2008).

6. Many scholars remain skeptical of reparations claims, precisely because of the politics involved.The political scientist Henning Melber has written extensively on this. See for example “‘Wenever spoke about reparations.’ German-Namibian Relationships: Suppression or Reconciliation,”in Jürgen Zimmerer and Joachim Zeller, eds. Genocide in German South-West Africa: TheColonial War of 1904–1908 and Its Aftermath (Monmouth, Australia: Merlin Press, 2008). At theOpen Book Festival event for The Kaiser’s Holocaust: Germany’s Forgotten Genocide and theColonial Roots of Nazism (London: Faber and Faber, 2010), co-author (with David Olusoga)Casper W. Erichsen said he was “unsure” if he would feel comfortable with the book being usedas evidence in the Herero court case (Cape Town, South Africa, September 23, 2011).

7. In these respects, the work builds on the impressive research of sociologist ReinhartKössler, who has produced a number of relevant works as coordinator of the project“Reconciliation and Social Conflict in the Aftermath of Large-Scale Violence in SouthernAfrica: The Cases of Angola and Namibia.” See for example André du Pisani, ReinhartKössler, and William A. Lindeke, eds., The Long Aftermath of War: Reconciliation andTransition in Namibia (Freiburg: Arnold-Bergsträsser-Institut, 2010). For a more criticalapproach to the Herero Case, see Henning Melber, “Debattenbeitrag/Debate. How to Cometo Terms with the Past: Re-Visiting the German Colonial Genocide in Namibia,” AfrikaSpectrum 40, no. 1 (2005): 139–48.

8. The words of William Faulkner come to mind: “The past is never dead. It is not even past.”Requiem for a Nun (New York: Random House, 1950), Act 2, Scene 1. On the historical litera-ture, see Manfred Berg and Bernd Schaefer, Historical Justice in International Perspective(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009); Elazar Barkan, The Guilt of Nations:Restitution and Negotiating Historical Injustices (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press,2000); and Martha Minow, Between Vengeance and Forgiveness: Facing History after Genocideand Mass Violence (Boston: Beacon Press, 1998). Also see Phanuel Kaapama, “Memory Politics:The Reiterdenkmal and the De-Colonisation of the Mind,” The Namibian, August 8, 2008. Theinvention, reinvention, and employment of historical “traditions” has its own pedigree; seeMahmood Mamdani, Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of LateColonialism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996); and Eric Hobsbawm and TerenceRanger, eds., The Invention of Tradition (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992).

9. Howard-Hassmann, Reparations to Africa, 101.

10. Allan D. Cooper, “Reparations for the Herero Genocide: Defining the Limits ofInternational Litigation,” African Affairs 106, no. 422 (2007): 113.

11. See Horst Drechsler, ‘Let Us Die Fighting’: The Struggle of the Herero and Namaagainst German Imperialism, 1884–1915 (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1966), 161.

12. The two formative studies are Helmut Bley, South-West Africa under German Rule, 1894–1914 (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1971); and Horst Drechsler, ‘Let Us Die


Fighting.’ See also Jan-Bart Gewald, “Imperial Germany and the Herero of Southern Africa:Genocide and the Quest for Recompense,” in Genocide, War Crimes, and the West, ed. AdamJones (London: Zed Books, 2004). Perhaps the most thorough history of Namibia may be foundin Marion Wallace, A History of Namibia: From the Beginning to 1990 (London: Hurst, 2011).

13. Casper W. Erichsen has explored concentration camps in the greatest depth: ‘What theElders Used to Say’: Namibian Perspectives on the Last Decade of German Colonial Rule(Windhoek: Namibia Institute for Democracy and the Namibian-German Foundation, 2008).

14. For fiction, see André Brink, The Other Side of Silence (London: Secker & Warburg,2002). Noteworthy video documentaries include Halfdan Muurholm (dir.), 100 Years ofSilence (New York: Filmakers Library, 2006); and David Olusoga (dir.), Namibia: Genocideand the Second Reich (London: BBC, 2005).

15. Isabel V. Hull, “Military Culture and the Production of ‘Final Solutions’ in the Colonies:The Example of Wilhelmian Germany,” in The Specter of Genocide: Mass Murder inHistorical Perspective, ed. Robert Gellately and Ben Kiernan (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 2003).

16. Uazuva Kaumbi, “Namibia Official Support for the Herero Reparation Struggle,” NewAfrican, December 2006.

17. BBC News, “German Family’s Namibia Apology,” October 7, 2007.

18. Max Hamata, “Germany Apologizes for Colonial-Era Genocide of Namibia’s HereroPeople,” Associated Press, August 16, 2004; Brigette Weidlich, “Germany Admits ‘Genocide’in Namibia, but Says No to Reparations,” Agence France-Presse, August 14, 2004.

19. Often quoted to evince the German government’s position are the words of RomanHerzog, who served as Bundespräsident of Germany from 1994 to 1999. In every publicexchange on the Herero case, he emphasized the brutality of all European colonialism;during a 1998 visit to Namibia, Herzog said, “no international legislation existed at the timeunder which ethnic minorities could get reparations.” John Grobler, “The Tribe GermanyWants to Forget,” Electronic Mail & Guardian, March 13, 1998.

20. Cooper, “Reparations for the Herero Genocide,” 118; Cooper argued that “all otherethnic groups in Namibia also experienced some form of genocide… during the colonialera,” and that “some Namibians have even claimed that their ethnic group was the target ofgenocide by Hereros before German colonization!” See also Ernst Ahrens, “As for the Sanand Damara Genocide Mr. Matjila,” The Namibian, March 12, 2004.

21. See Makau Mutua, “Savages, Victims, and Saviors: The Metaphor of Human Rights,”Harvard International Law Review 42, no. 1 (2001): 201–202.

22. Marion Wallace with John Kinahan, A History of Namibia (Sunnyside, South Africa:Jacana Media, 2011), 181.

23. Brigitte Lau, “Uncertain Certainties: The Herero-German War of 1904,” Mibagus2 (1989): 4–8.

24. “On the electronic website of Traditionsverband Ehemaliger Schutz und Überseetruppen,an organization that seeks to preserve and glorify the memory of Germany’s colonial armies,Lau’s article is predictably acclaimed”; Gewald, “Imperial Germany and the Herero ofSouthern Africa,” 66.


25. Lau, “Uncertain Certainties,” 5.

26. The most thorough discussion of the numbers debate appears in Tilman Dedering, “TheGerman-Herero War of 1904: Revisionism of Genocide or Imaginary Historiography?”Journal of Southern African Studies 19, no. 1 (1993): 80–88.

27. The door has opened wider for prosecuting human rights and genocide violations in theUnited States. See Jeremy Sarkin, “Reparation for Past Wrongs: Using Domestic Courtsaround the World, Especially the United States, to Pursue African Human Rights Claims,”International Journal of Legal Information 32, no. 2 (2004): 426–60.

28. See Jeremy Sarkin, “The Coming of Age of Claims for Reparations for Human RightsViolations Committed in the South,” Sur—International Human Rights Journal 1, no. 1(2004): 67–125.

29. On August 22, 1999, “Dr. Kuaima Riruako, the self-appointed paramount chief and king ofall the Herero, proclaimed that the ‘Herero nation’ as a whole had decided to approach theInternational Court of Justice (ICJ) in the Hague in order to lay a charge of genocide against theGerman state, calling for reparations for the slaughter and other atrocities inflicted upon theHerero.” The spokesperson of the World Court responded that only sovereign nations fell underits jurisdiction. See Gewald, “Imperial Germany and the Herero of Southern Africa,” 72. This isalso the only source to mention, however vaguely, that the Herero People’s ReparationsCorporation was created “with the support of Afro-American organizations.”

30. Cooper, “Reparations for the Herero Genocide,” 120.

31. Herero People’s Reparations Corporation v. Deutsche Bank, 370 F.3d 1192, 361 U.S.App. D.C. 468 (USA), 34.

32. Article 15 (1) of the ICCPR states: “Nothing in this article shall prejudice the trial andpunishment of any person for any act or omission which, at the time when it was committed,was criminal according to the general principles of law recognized by the community ofnations.” Article 11 (2) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights also stipulates that ret-rospective application of criminal law is not prohibited. The same has been noted for theGenocide Convention. For more on this conversation, and the reparations claim more gener-ally, see Sarkin, Colonial Genocide and Reparations Claims in the Twenty-First Century, 111.

33. Sidney L. Harring, “German Reparations to the Herero Nation: An Assertion of HereroNationhood in the Path of Namibian Development,” West Virginia Law Review 104 (2002):393–417.

34. Martin Koskenniemi, The Gentle Civilizer of Nations: The Rise and Fall of InternationalLaw 1870–1960 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).

35. Rachel Andersson, “Redressing Colonial Genocide under International Law: TheHerero’s Cause of Action against Germany,” California Law Review, 93 (2005): 1178; MelvinAron Eisenberg, “Third-Party Beneficiaries,” 92 COLUM. L. REV. 1358, 1360–61 (1992).Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, May23, 1969, art. 34, 1155 U.N.T.S. 331, avail-able at http://untreaty.un.org/ilc/texts/instruments/english/conventions/1_1_1969.pdf (accessedOctober 3, 2012).

36. The exploration of colonial antecedents of human rights and humanitarianism character-izes ‘Third World Approaches to International Law.’ See, for instance, Antony Anghie,


Imperialism, Sovereignty, and the Making of International Law (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 2005).

37. General Act of the Berlin Conference, February 26, 1885, Art. VI, reprinted in R.J. Gavinand J.A. Betley, The Scramble for Africa: Documents on the Berlin West African Conferenceand Related Subjects, 1884/1885 (Ibadan, Nigeria: Ibadan University Press, 1973), 291.

38. Declaration of the General Act of the Brussels Conference, July 2, 1890. Cited in HenryWellington Wack, The Story of the Congo Free State: Social, Political, and Economic Aspects ofthe Belgian System of Government in Central Africa (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1905).

39. Asbjorn Eide, “The Laws of War and Human Rights—Differences and Convergences,”in Studies and Essays on International Humanitarian Law and Red Cross Principles, ed.Christophe Swinarski (Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff, 1984), 188.

40. Lynn Berat, “Genocide: The Namibian Case against Germany,” Pace International LawReview 5, no. 1 (1993): 193.

41. Wilhelm Karl Geck, “Germany and Contemporary International Law,” TexasInternational Law Journal 9 (1974): 263, 265–66.

42. Berat, “Genocide: The Namibian Case against Germany,” 196.

43. The Herero case is “grounded in the logic of reparations for Jews and other peoples victi-mized by Germans before and in World War II, analogizing the Herero War to German gen-ocide against the Jews and not to other African and Asian colonial wars”; Harring, “GermanReparations to the Herero Nation,” 403.

44. Harring, “German Reparations to the Herero Nation,” 403.

45. Many “comfort women” are alive and personally suing the Japanese government for inju-ries. The Herero women forced into sexual slavery after 1905 are neither alive nor critical topresent claims. See Harring, “German Reparations to the Herero Nation,” 404.

46. Donald J. McNeil, “Its Past on Its Sleeve, Tribe Seeks Bonn’s Apology,” New York Times(May 31, 1998).

47. See Mitchell T. Maki, Harry H. Kitano, and Megan S. Berthold, Achieving theImpossible Dream: How Japanese Americans Obtained Redress (Urbana: University of IllinoisPress, 1999).

48. Cited in Torpey, Making Whole What Has Been Smashed, 141.


50. The debate over the so-called “continuity thesis” merits its own anthology, a historiographi-cal need well-addressed in Volker Langbehn and Mohammad Salama, eds., GermanColonialism: Race, the Holocaust, and Postwar Germany (New York: Columbia University Press,2011). In their introduction Langbehn and Salama explain, “We choose to see both sides of thecoin, with the understanding that any valid argument depends on a substantiated appreciation ofcontent while history remains an inaccessible living dialectic of continuity and discontinuity,”xxiii. Also, see Iain R. Smith & Andreas Stucki, “The Colonial Development of ConcentrationCamps (1868–1902),” Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 39, no. 3 (2011): 417–37;Olusoga and Erichsen, The Kaiser’s Holocaust; and Ben Madley, “From Africa to Auschwitz:


How German South-West Africa Incubated Ideas and Methods Adopted and Developed by theNazis in Eastern Europe,” European History Quarterly 35 (2005): 429–64.

51. Robert Gerwarth and Stephan Malinowski, “Hannah Arendt’s Ghosts: Reflections on theDisputable Path from Windhoek to Auschwitz,” Central European History 42, no. 2 (2009):George Steinmetz, The Devil’s Handwriting: Precoloniality and the German Colonial State inQingdao, Samoa, and Southwest Africa (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), 10–11;Richard H. King and Dane Stone, eds, Hannah Arendt and the Uses of History: Imperialism,Nation, Race, and Genocide (New York: Berghahn Books, 2007); Hannah Arendt, TheOrigins of Totalitarianism (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1974 [1951]).

52. Fred Bridgeland, “Germany’s Genocide Rehearsal,” The Scotsman (September 26, 2001).

53. Herero People’s Reparations Corporation v. Deutsche Bank, 21.

54. Again, this is an oversimplification of a lively debate. See Birthe Kundrus, “From theHerero to the Holocaust: Some Remarks on the Current Debate,” Afrika Spectrum 40, no. 2(2005): 299; idem., “From Genocide to Holocaust? Structural Parallels and DiscursiveContinuities,” Africa Spectrum 40, no. 2 (2005): 309–17; Henning Melber, “Namibia’s Past inthe Present: Colonial Genocide and Liberation Struggle in Commemorative Narratives,”South African Historical Journal, 53 (2005): 91–111.

55. Barry A. Fisher, “No Roads Lead to Rome: The Fate of the Romani People under theNazis and in Post-War Restitution,” Whittier Law Review 20 (1999): 416–520.

56. Jürgen Zimmerer, “War, Concentration Camps, and Genocide in South-West Africa,” inZimmerer and Zeller, 42.

57. The skulls he examined were returned from Germany to Namibia in 2012. See EugenFischer, Die Rehobother Bastards und das Bastardierungsproblem beim Menschen (Jena:Gustav Fischer, 1913); and Casper W. Erichsen, “Skulduggery in Colonial Namibia,” InsightNamibia (August 2011), 39–40.


59. Torpey, Making Whole What Has Been Smashed, 140.

60. Information may also be neglected because historical sources are out of print and notwidely available. Consider Richard A. Voeltz, German Colonialism and the South West AfricaCompany, 1884–1914 (Athens: Ohio University Center for International Studies, 1988).

61. Categories are borrowed from Peter Stoett, “Shades of Complicity: Towards a Typologyof Transnational Crimes against Humanity,” in Genocide, War Crimes, and the West, ed.Adam Jones (London: Zed Books, 2004).

62. Germany ruled South West Africa as a colony from 1884 until 1915, while South Africa‘administered’ the area from 1915 until 1990. Between 1920 and 1971, South Africa ruledSouth-West Africa under the mandate system. Once the “sacred trust of civilization” wasrevoked in 1971, South Africa illegally continued to occupy the territory.

63. See Reginald H. Green et al., Namibia: The Last Colony (Essen: Longman, 1981);Gerhard Totemeyr, Namibia Old and New (New York: C. Hurst, 1978).

64. See Ulrike Lindner, “German Colonialism and the British Neighbor in Africa before1914: Self-Definitions, Lines of Demarcation, and Cooperation,” in Langbehn and Salama,


German Colonialism; Voeltz, German Colonialism and the South West Africa Company; andGifford and Louis, Britain and Germany in Africa.

65. These and subsequent quotations may be found in Voeltz, German Colonialism and theSouth West Africa Company, 54.

66. The best treatment of this topic may be found in William Beinart, “‘Jamani’: CapeWorkers in German South-West Africa, 1904–12,” in Hidden Struggles in Rural South Africa:Politics and Popular Movements in the Transkei & Eastern Cape, 1890–1930, ed. WilliamBeinart and Colin Bundy (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1987).

67. Beinart, “Jamani,” 170.

68. The same journalist also said: “German Southwest Africa has been an excellent customerto the Cape Colony, more especially to the West, and statistics show that an enormousamount of trade has been done in recent years in that territory.” Cited in Beinart, “Jamani,”168–69.

69. Herero People’s Reparations Corporation v. Deutsche Bank, 44.

70. The literature on missionaries in Africa is vast. The most thorough account for Namibiais Nils Ole Oermann, Mission, Church, and State Relations in South West Africa underGerman Rule (1884–1915) (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1999).

71. Oermann, Mission, Church, and State Relations, 102, 103.

72. See Bryan O’Linn, Namibia, The Sacred Trust of Civilization: Ideal and Reality(Windhoek: Gamsberg Macmillan Publishers, 2003); Patricia Hayes, Jeremy Silvester, MarionWallace, and Wolfram Hartman, eds., Namibia under South African Rule: Mobility andContainment, 1915–46 (Windhoek: Out of Africa Publishers, 1998).

73. Sarkin, Colonial Genocide and Reparations Claims in the 21st Century, 188.

74. See Jeremy Silvester and Jan-Bart Gewald, Words Cannot Be Found: German ColonialRule in Namibia. An Annotated Reprint of the 1918 Blue Book (Boston: Brill, 2003); ReinhartKössler, “Sjambok or Cane? Reading the Blue Book,” Journal of Southern African Studies30 (2004): 703–708.

75. See Arno J. Mayer, Politics and Diplomacy of Peacemaking: Containment andCounterrevolution at Versailles, 1918–1919 (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1967).

76. André du Pisani, SWA/Namibia: The Politics of Continuity and Change (Johannesburg:J. Ball, 1985), 213.

77. Jan-Bart Gewald, “Imperial Germany and the Herero of Southern Africa,” 65–66.

78. Freda Troup, In the Face of Fear: Michael Scott’s Challenge to South Africa (London:Faber & Faber, 1950).

79. See Zedekia Ngavirue, Political Parties and Interest Groups in South West Africa(Namibia): A Study of a Plural Society (Basel: P. Schlettwein Publishing, 1996).

80. Gary Baines and Paul Vale, Beyond the Border War: New Perspectives on SouthernAfrica’s Late-Cold War Conflicts (Pretoria: University of South Africa Press, 2007).

81. Peter H. Katjavivi, A History of Resistance in Namibia (London: Zed Books, 1988).


82. The best overviews of the national historiography may be found in Christopher Saunders,“History and the Armed Struggle: From Anti-Colonial Propaganda to ‘Patriotic History’?” inHenning Melber, Transitions in Namibia: Which Changes for Whom? (Uppsala: NordiskaAfrikainstitutet, 2007), 7–12.

83. Cited by Claus Nordbruch in an unpublished speech entitled “Atrocities Committed onthe Herero People during the Suppression of Their Uprising in German South-West Africa,1904–1907: An Analysis of the Latest Accusations against Germany and an Investigation onthe Credibility and Justification of the Demands for ‘Reparation,’” delivered before theEuropean American Culture Council, Sacramento, CA, April 25, 2004). Nordbruch is widelydenounced for his extreme right-wing views of apartheid and the Nazi regime, and he bothserved a prison term and won the “10,000 DM Freedom Prize” from the publicationDeutsche National-Zeitung.

84. Hildi Hendrickson, “Bodies and Flags: The Representation of Herero Identity inColonial Namibia,” in Clothing and Difference: Embodied Identities in Colonial andPost-Colonial Africa, ed. Hildi Hendrickson (Durham: Duke University Press, 1996), 219.

85. Reinhart Kössler, “Entangled History and Politics: Negotiating the Past between Namibiaand Germany,” Journal of Contemporary African Studies 26, no. 3 (2008): 313–39.

86. For more on these markers, see: Larissa Förster, “From ‘General Field Marshal’ to ‘MissGenocide’: The Reworking of Traumatic Experiences among Herero-Speaking Namibians,”Journal of Material Culture 13, no. 2 (2008): 175–94; Anette Hoffmann, “Comparing toMake Explicit: Diasporic Articulations of the Herero Communities in Namibia,” Thamyris/Intersecting 13 (2006), 33–42; Marion Wallace, “‘Making Tradition’: Healing, History, andEthnic Identity among Otjiherero-Speakers in Namibia, ca. 1850–1950,” Journal of SouthernAfrican Studies 29, no. 2 (2003): 355–72. The term “entangled objects” comes from NicholasThomas, Entangled Objects: Exchange, Material Culture, and Colonialism in the Pacific(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991).

87. See also Wolfgang Werner, “‘Playing Soldiers’: The Truppenspieler Movement amongthe Herero of Namibia, 1915 to ca. 1945,” Journal of Southern African Studies 16, no. 3(1990): 476–502.

88. The ethnographic observations are reinforced in Laura E. Bleckmann, “FromRememberin