The extermination order
Most of this hub's crimes hid their intent. This one wrote it down and signed it — a German general's order to shoot a whole people, women and children included, out of existence.
Between 1904 and 1908, in what was then German South-West Africa and is now Namibia, Imperial Germany destroyed the Herero and the Nama peoples. Around 80 percent of the Herero and roughly half the Nama were killed — driven into the desert to die of thirst, worked to death in concentration camps, their skulls shipped to Berlin for race science. It is widely called the first genocide of the twentieth century, and in 2021 Germany formally recognized it as genocide. This hub pairs each crime with the doctrine that licensed it; here the crime and the doctrine are the same document — General Lothar von Trotha's written extermination order. This is the spoke of Crimes of Empire where the mask is off.
What this page is about
In January 1904 the Herero rose against German colonial rule in German South-West Africa; the Nama joined later that year. The German response was not suppression but annihilation. After the Battle of Waterberg in August 1904, General Lothar von Trotha issued a written Vernichtungsbefehl — an extermination order — declaring that every Herero found on German land, “with or without a gun,” would be shot, and that women and children would be driven back into the desert. Survivors who did not die of thirst were herded into concentration camps, the most lethal of them Shark Island, where prisoners were worked and starved to death. By 1908, around 80 percent of the Herero and about half the Nama were dead.
This is the case in the hub where the method needs no interpretation. We keep two ledgers on every crime — the act, and the justification that licensed it — and here they are one and the same. Von Trotha did not merely hold the Herero to be less than human; he wrote it into a military order and stated his aim to destroy them “as a nation.” The dead were then treated as raw material for race science: skulls scraped clean by Herero women prisoners and shipped to Germany, where researchers including Eugen Fischer used the colony as a laboratory for the eugenics that would later feed Nazi ideology. Germany recognized the genocide in 2021; the descendants say the deal that came with it is not justice.
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The Extermination Order
Most of this hub's crimes hid their intent. This one wrote it down and signed it — a general's order to shoot a whole people, women and children included, out of existence.
The claim this page defends
Imperial Germany committed the first genocide of the twentieth century against the Herero and Nama of South-West Africa — killing some 80 percent of the Herero and half the Nama through an explicit written extermination order, deliberate death in the desert, and concentration camps — and it did so under a doctrine of racial extermination that its own commander put in writing, making this the hub's clearest case that the crime and its justification can be the very same document.
From uprising to annihilation: 1884 – 2021
- 1884. Germany claims South-West Africa as a colony. Settlers take Herero and Nama land, cattle, and water; colonial law treats the indigenous population as a labor reserve.
- Jan 1904. Facing dispossession, the Herero under Samuel Maharero rise against German rule. The Nama, under Hendrik Witbooi, join the resistance later in the year.
- Aug 1904. At the Battle of Waterberg, von Trotha encircles the Herero and drives the survivors into the Omaheke desert, where wells are sealed or guarded so the fleeing die of thirst.
- Oct 1904. Von Trotha issues the Vernichtungsbefehl — the extermination order — directing that every Herero within German borders be shot, women and children driven away or fired upon.
- 1905–1907. Berlin nominally revokes the shooting order and instead interns survivors in concentration camps. On Shark Island (“Death Island”), prisoners are worked, starved, and frozen to death; skulls of the dead are shipped to Germany for race research.
- By 1908. Around 80 percent of the Herero and about half the Nama are dead. Survivors are dispossessed and forced into labor.
- 2018. After decades of pressure, Germany returns some of the human remains taken for race science to Namibia.
- 2021. Germany formally recognizes the killings as genocide and offers €1.1 billion in development aid over 30 years — while rejecting legal liability and calling the money “grants,” not reparations. Herero and Nama representatives, who say they were sidelined in the talks, reject the deal as inadequate.
The record, claim by claim
Imperial Germany committed genocide against the Herero and Nama — around 80% of the Herero and half the Nama were killed.
FACTBetween 1904 and 1908, German colonial forces destroyed the Herero and Nama peoples of German South-West Africa (now Namibia). Historians estimate that roughly 80 percent of the Herero and about half the Nama died — killed in battle, driven into the Omaheke desert to die of thirst, or worked and starved to death in concentration camps. It is widely described as the first genocide of the twentieth century. This is not a fringe characterization: in 2021 the German government itself formally recognized the killings as genocide.
General von Trotha issued a written extermination order — and stated his aim to annihilate the Herero 'as a nation.'
FACTThis is the hub's method with no interpretation required: the dehumanizing doctrine was not an attitude to be inferred but a signed military order. After Waterberg, General Lothar von Trotha issued the Vernichtungsbefehl — the extermination order — proclaiming that any Herero found within the German colony, armed or not, would be shot, and that women and children would be driven back into the desert. In his own correspondence he was explicit about the goal: the Herero nation, he wrote, had to be destroyed. The order and the statement of intent are quoted from the record, not reconstructed.
“Within the German borders every Herero, with or without a gun, with or without cattle, will be shot. I will no longer accept women and children — I will drive them back to their people or have them fired upon. … I believe that the [Herero] nation as such must be annihilated.”
Survivors were interned in concentration camps — Shark Island the deadliest — where they were worked and starved to death.
FACTWhen Berlin nominally revoked the open-shooting order, it replaced extermination in the field with extermination by internment. Survivors were confined in Konzentrationslager — concentration camps — the most lethal of which was Shark Island (Haifischinsel) off Lüderitz, remembered as 'Death Island.' Prisoners, including women and children, were subjected to forced labor, exposure, starvation, and disease; a large share of those sent there died. The camps are among the earliest of the twentieth century to bear that name and function.
The dead were treated as raw material for race science — skulls shipped to Germany, experiments in the camps.
FACTThe dehumanization did not end at death. In the camps, imprisoned Herero and Nama women were made to scrape the flesh from the skulls of their own dead so the skulls could be shipped to Germany for anthropological 'research' into racial hierarchy. Eugen Fischer — who regarded the Africans as an 'inferior race' — conducted studies in the colony that fed the German eugenics movement; he would go on to teach and influence the next generation of race scientists. The victims were made specimens: proof, to their killers, that they had never been fully human.
The genocide is argued by serious historians to have been a precursor — a 'blueprint' — for the Holocaust.
SOME SMOKEA body of scholarship — most prominently David Olusoga and Casper Erichsen's 'The Kaiser's Holocaust' — argues that the Herero and Nama genocide prefigured the Holocaust: the same vocabulary (Konzentrationslager), the same fusion of state power with race science, and direct human threads, since figures like Eugen Fischer shaped the eugenics that Nazi ideology later adopted (Fischer taught Josef Mengele's milieu, and Hermann Göring's father was the colony's first governor). We grade this SOME SMOKE and attribute it: the continuities are real and documented, but the claim of a direct causal 'blueprint' is debated among historians and we do not present it as proven. It is a serious argument worth taking seriously — not a verdict.
Germany recognized the genocide in 2021 — but offered 'aid,' not reparations, and the descendants rejected the deal.
FACTAfter five years of negotiation, Germany in May 2021 formally acknowledged the killings as genocide and pledged €1.1 billion — but structured it as development aid paid over 30 years, explicitly avoiding the word 'reparations' and rejecting any legal liability. The agreement was negotiated state-to-state; Herero and Nama representatives say they were sidelined from the talks that were ostensibly about their own ancestors, and they rejected the settlement as inadequate — a recognition of the crime that still, they argue, refuses to treat them as full parties to it.
The order, in his words — and what we will and won't claim
- The genocide is not contested. The extermination order, the deaths in the desert, the camps, and the proportions killed are documented, and the perpetrator state itself now calls it genocide. This is one of the most solidly established crimes in the hub.
- The doctrine is quoted, not inferred. Where the Persian famine had no doctrine to quote, this case has a signed one. Von Trotha's order and his “annihilated as a nation” statement come straight from the record; we did not build a motive around the facts.
- The Holocaust link is posed, not proven. The continuities — the camps, the race science, the personal threads to Nazi figures — are real and documented. Whether they amount to a direct causal “blueprint” is a live historical debate. We carry it as an attributed argument (SOME SMOKE), not a settled fact.
- Recognition is not yet justice. Germany's 2021 acknowledgment matters, but the structure of the deal — “aid” not reparations, no legal liability, the descendants sidelined — is itself part of the story, and we report it as the affected communities describe it.
The crime that wrote its own confession
This page belongs in Crimes of Empire as the case that removes any doubt about the hub's method. We argue that every imperial crime came with a justification that cast the victims as less than human. Usually that doctrine has to be reconstructed from statutes, speeches, and the shape of the violence. Here it does not: a German general put it in writing and signed it. The order to shoot a whole people, the desert sealed against the fleeing, the camps, the skulls sent home to be measured — each is the same idea made operational, that the Herero and Nama were not people whose deaths counted. It is also, like the famine, a crime the record tried to lose: called for a century a mere colonial “war,” kept out of the story Europe told about itself, its recognition delayed until 2021 and even now hedged. Between this page and the machinery that decides what we're allowed to remember, the pattern is the same: first the killing, then the forgetting. This is the end of the spectrum the whole hub points toward — not indifference, but intent, written down.
Questions worth taking seriously
Wasn't this a colonial war, not a genocide?
No. A war ends when the other side is beaten. Von Trotha's written order was to shoot every Herero found on German land — including after the fighting was over, including women and children — and to drive the survivors into the desert to die of thirst. That is a plan to destroy a people, not to win a battle. Germany itself formally called it genocide in 2021.
Are you saying this directly caused the Holocaust?
No — we grade that as SOME SMOKE and attribute it. Serious historians (David Olusoga and Casper Erichsen among them) point to real continuities: the vocabulary of the “concentration camp,” the fusion of race science with state power, and personal threads to Nazi figures like the eugenicist Eugen Fischer. But whether that amounts to a direct causal “blueprint” is a live historical debate, so we present it as an argument worth taking seriously, not a proven fact.
Germany apologized and is paying. Isn't the matter settled?
Germany recognized the genocide in 2021 and pledged €1.1 billion — but structured it as development “aid” over 30 years, not reparations, and while rejecting legal liability. Herero and Nama representatives say they were sidelined from the very talks about their own ancestors, and rejected the deal as inadequate. Recognition matters — but the descendants argue it is not yet justice.
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This site aggregates and grades a record that other outlets and primary sources have already put on the record. Every FACT-graded claim above is sourced to court filings, government reports, sworn whistleblower disclosures, published investigative journalism, or named-source statements. The citations are the accountability mechanism; this section is how you get on the record too.
The record
- Herero and Nama genocide — von Trotha's extermination order, death tolls, concentration camps, race science, and the historiographical debate
- South African History Online — the Herero Revolt, 1904–1907
- The Holocaust Explained (Wiener Holocaust Library) — Shark Island concentration camp
- The Times of Israel — the extermination program and the argued template for the Holocaust (Olusoga/Erichsen thesis)
- CNN — Germany formally recognizes the genocide and pledges €1.1bn (2021)
- Al Jazeera — why Herero and Nama descendants reject the settlement
- Black Book Audit — Crimes of Empire (hub)