Posted on 12/25/2016 3:08:25 AM PST by Cronos
It has become known as the first genocide of the 20th century: tens of thousands of men, women and children shot, starved, and tortured to death by German troops as they put down rebellious tribes in what is now Namibia. For more than a century the atrocities have been largely forgotten in Europe, and often in much of Africa too.
..In 1884, as European powers scrambled to carve up Africa, Berlin moved to annex a new colony on the south-west coast of the continent. Land was confiscated, livestock plundered and native people subjected to racially motivated violence, rape and murder. In January 1904, the Herero people – also called the Ovaherero – rebelled. More than a hundred German civilians were killed. The smaller Nama tribe joined the uprising the following year.
Colonial rulers responded without mercy. Tens of thousands of Herero were forced into the Kalahari desert, their wells poisoned and food supplies cut. Gen Lothar von Trotha, sent to quell the revolt, ordered his men to shoot “any Herero, with or without a rifle, with or without cattle”
“I do not accept women or children either: drive them back to their people or shoot them,” he told his troops.
..Those who had survived were rounded up and placed in concentration camps, where they were beaten and worked to death in squalid conditions. Half of the total Nama population were also killed, dying in disease-ridden death camps such the infamous site on Shark Island, in the coastal town of Lüderitz. By 1908, only 16,000 remained, historians say.
Germany was forced out of the colony in 1915, but the killings there and in its territories on the east coast of the continent are seen by some historians as important steps towards the Holocaust in Europe during the second world war.
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
I am sure it is a very one sided history.
It might be useful to know what the Germans wrote about this episode, say in 1910.
Africa was far from a peaceful place prior to colonization. Arab slave traders massacred and enslaved millions. Tribal warfare was almost unceasing. Cannibalism was rampant. Witch doctors ruled villages with terror.
Compare the European rule with what they displaced, not some impossible Utopian ideal that does not exist, and never existed.
Compare the European conquest and rule with contemporary alternatives. What happened when the Zulus conquered? When the Arabs conquered? Those are real comparisons.
Yes, that is true. What does it mean? Does it mean Germans were not ruthless enough? Does it mean the British were more humane and efficient?
Does it mean that the expansion of western civilization was a bad idea?
Figuring out what lesson should be learned is the hard part.
No this was not the first genocide of the twentieth century... just over the Limpopo River the British had engaged in the first genocide of the twentieth century against the Boer people during the second Anglo-Boer War after rounding up Boer civilians into concentration camps where more than half of the total Boer child population later died off within the camps circa 1900 - 1901. The Boer people were / are a people that developed on African soil during the 17th cent, but whose ancestors were originally taken out of Northern Europe by the Dutch East India Company as “company servants” during the 1650s. The British engaged in this war in order to conquer the internationally recognized Boer Republics [ which had quantities of gold & diamonds ] that the Boer people north of the Orange River set up after the British recognized their independence with the Sand River Convention of 1852 & the Orange River Convention of 1854. After the war & the genocide against Boer civilians the Boer Republics were conquered & the Boer people were soon stripped of their long standing national identity when they were purposely shoved into the artificial Afrikaner designation that was run by the Cape Dutch centered at Cape Town & Johannesburg. The Boer people still exist - though as a minority of the macro White Afrikaans speaking population.
The Dutch colonializations didn’t earn any prizes.
It is certainly not the first genocide in history.
There are several genocides listed in the bible, by the Jews.
The Mongols under Genghis Khan and his successors killed millions, exterminating many peoples.
The Greeks destroyed Troy. The Romans conquered, enslaved and destroyed many other tribes.
In pre-historical times, there is good evidence that the destruction of a near by tribe was a common form of warfare.
We should not forget the many, many Islamic genocides. The Muslims destroyed many peoples and societies, from the Middle East, North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, and Europe.
It is hard to think of a group that has been more destructive than the Muslims.
“It is hard to think of a group that has been more destructive than the Muslims.”
The Communists? I mean, we’re talking maybe a hundred million here.
Excellent point! How did I miss them?
I was focusing on the far past, and the Communist crimes are mostly since 1900.
We should perhaps include the horrific crimes of the French leftists after their revolution, but they did not call themselves Communists.
Let’s not forget the Aztecs or the raping, pillaging and enslaving of Europe by islam.
Yes. Perhaps we can make the overall point that warfare, rape, pillage, and genocide are the relative “normal” or constant, state of affairs, and that peace and civilization are the abnormal, hard fought for exceptions.
The so called German “genocide” in Namibia occured in response to a revolt in which hundreds of the ruling group were killed. That a severe response resulted is nothing new.
The people who write this nonsense start with the unfounded idiocy that perfection is possible, and compare historical events to an impossible ideal. It is idiocy.
Murder and torture are German trademarks.
We should not forget the many, many Islamic genocides.
And have they ever apologized for anything? No. It’s their religion. It’s what they do.
Europeans do it it’s white guilt. The rest of the world would have done it to the Europeans but didn’t have the wherewithal to do it.
And unless one has lived in sub-Saharan Africa tribalism and its incessant atrocities through history is overlooked. Man is not basically good but sinful from inception and in need of redemption. What a joy to contemplate the Redeemer’s birth today.
I have reached the point of clarity where I no longer care about the past. The world is a violent place full of bad past misdeeds. Everyone culture and society has done them. So what. The question is, do the current people of Germany have a right to their culture, beliefs, language and life? If they do, they should defend it, from the hijrah invaders and their own government if necessary. No past deeds matter anymore. I refuse to apologise for my life.
And unless one has lived in sub-Saharan Africa tribalism and its incessant atrocities through history is overlooked. Man is not basically good but sinful from inception and in need of redemption. What a joy to contemplate the Redeemer’s birth today.
There were two world wars. Millions of German men were killed. Into that vacuum came Russian, British and American troops. The influx changed for ever the makeup of the militaristic German genetic pool.
Germany no longer has the genes to be warlike. It was literally bred out of the race.
Merkel’s invaders will go a long way in killing off the German people and nation if it goes unchecked.
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