The First 20th Century Genocide

Almost 50 years before the Jewish Holocaust in World War II, another holocaust, equally tragic and devastating, took place in Nambia in the early 1900s.

In 1904, German colonizers in Nambia attempted to wipe out the Herero people who were fighting for their land. In order to defeat the Herero, German General von Trotha issued an extermination order.

Any Herero found inside the German frontier, with or without a gun or without cattle, will be shot. I will no longer accept women and children. I will drive them back to their people or I will let them be shot at. Such are my words to the Herero people.

In a fascinating essay for Al Jazeera, Hamilton Wende, author and journalist based in Johannesburg, outlines this first holocaust in an essay called "Our Auschwitz, our Dachau."

Wende notes that some estimates say that over 65,000 Herero were killed.

In May 2021, the German government acknowledged what happened in Namibia was genocide and agreed to pay the Namibian government 1.1 billion euros in aid over the next 30 years.

Thanks to Bram Hubbel for sharing the link. I plan on adding this essay when we study 20th-century genocides.