Germany's colonial history in the 21st century: the Herero Uprising of 1904 as reflected in academic research, media perception and public discussion

Germany’s colonial history in the 21st
century: the Herero Uprising of 1904 as
reflected in academic research, media
perception and public discussion
                                                                                   Burkhard Köster

“This bold undertaking shows the reckless energy of the German leadership in the persecution of the
defeated enemy in a glowing light. […] The waterless Omaheke region was to complete what
German arms had begun: the annihilation of the Herero people.i […] The tribunal had come to a end,
the Hereros had ceased to be an independent tribe.ii This was how military historiography of the
Great General Staff in 1906/07 summed up the campaign against the Herero of 1904. This source,
which German colonial history research has often cited over the last 20 years, is intended as proof
that the war of the German colonial troops against the Herero and Nama tribes from 1904 to 1908
was a war of annihilation similar to the future genocide during the Nazi period, quasi a kind of
                                                                                                         1
“prelude”.iii
From the perspective of a military historian, in this context this immediately raises the question of
what contemporaries who did not know about future crimes understood by “annihilation”
(Vernichtung) . Was the warfare of the German colonial forces indeed an antecendent of the
genocide during the Nazi period.iv Or did it “only” reveal the “normalcy” of cruel colonial rule
compared with other colonial powers.v

Before further exploring these questions, I would like to give a short overview of the historical
events. In this context, it must be noted that German colonial history was of short duration compared
to other European states; basically it lasted from 1884 to 1919 and was restricted to a few countries.
The territorial focus was on Africa, Papua New Guinea and Kiaochow. After Germany’s defeat in
the First World War, all the colonies were transferred to the victorious states. So Germany did not go
through a process of de-colonialization like, for instance, the colonial powers of England, France,
Belgium, the Netherlands or Portugal.

In order to understand the dimension of the colonial war in German-Southwest Africa, we have to
look back into the pre-colonial period of Namibia. In the first half of the 19th century, the cattle
breeding Herero had moved their grazing grounds further south due to droughts and thus displaced

some 1,7000 Nama who had lived in the area. This was followed by decades of bloody intra-African
struggles between the Herero and Nama tribes as well as alongside and against Oorlam people.
These were not so much ethnic but power struggles. Under the leadership of Oorlam captain Jonker
Afrikaner a “large-scale tribute system which also included the population of mission stations and
European merchants" evolved.vi It provided the tribes with weapons and changing support for mutual
raids which resulted in severe losses among the Herero. Only after the death of Jonker Afrikaner in
1861, the Herero slowly regained their former strength. It was closely linked to the development of
huge herds of cattle which helped to strengthen the power of individual Herero chiefs. “In the course
of the consolidation and centralization process these chiefs had used the network of the [increasingly
advanced] mission stations in order to transfer land and mining rights to European merchants thus
binding them to themselves.vii There was a lively exchange between the Herero people and the
former Cape colony. The connection was actively maintained not only as far as the preservation of
their power was concerned. The chiefs knew about “European forms of legitimation of power” and
pursued – according to Gesine Krüger – “their own strategies to protect their power - with modern
means of writing and rifle.” From early on, they had attached great value to education e.g. by
sending their children to mission schools.viii

The short German colonial history in today’s Namibia began in 1883. In that year, merchant Franz           2
Adolf Eduard Lüderitz acquired land around the city of Windhoek. One year later, in 1884 following
the recognition by Great Britain, the German Empire established a so-called protectorate of German-
Southwest Africa, which was internationally considered to be of little economic value.ix

In the same year tribal leader Samuel Maharero who would later become the leader of the great
uprising of 1904 felt the need to protest. He made a proclamation in correctly phrased German to the
German Empire in order to protest against sales of land and mines which he had not authorized. In
view of this example I must agree with Gesine Krüger’s conclusion that in 1904 and 1905 ‘no
prehistoric tribes’ declared war to the German colonial power.”x On the contrary, the colonial rulers
faced Herero chiefs who acted cleverly and skillfully. As a consequence of a devastating rinderpest
in southern Africa with death rates of up to 95 percent of the livestock and a plague of locusts,
however, their power began to falter in 1896.xi What made matters worse was that many Herero were
forced to incur debts, sold land and slid into social hardship. The initially good relationship
increasingly suffered under despotic behaviour of new settlers which became obvious in unpunished
crimes like for instance rapes. The Herero felt that their existence within their traditional structures
was increasingly threatened.

The warxii , which had been well prepared by the Herero chiefs, began on 11 January 1904 between
the German colonial rulers in German Southwest Africa and the warriors of the Herero tribe with the
plundering of the town of Okahandja. A total of 8,000 Herero warriors with 4,000 rifles faced 2,000
soldiers and reservists of the Schutztruppe (protection force).xiii By order of Chief Maharero women,
children and missionaries were to be saved. Nevertheless, some 130 settlers, mostly men, died during
the first attacks. Farms and settlements burst into flames. While a small protection force under
Theodor Leutwein, an experienced governor who was willing to compromise, was deployed in the
south of the country, the Herero succeeded in occupying Central Namibia without being able to force
a decision. On 19 May 1904, the Great General Staff in Berlin officially took over the command of
the campaign and Leutwein was forbidden to enter into peace negotiations.xiv Lieutenant General
Lothar von Trotha, the newly appointed commander-in-chief, had already acquired a reputation of a
ruthless colonial warrior in German East Africa and China. After his arrival in the theatre of war
with a reinforcement of 14,000 new troopsxv, he proceeded with merciless cruelty against the
insurgent Herero. It was permitted to shoot identified “rebels“ – as he called them – by order of an
officer without legal proceedings.xvi He soon succeeded in repelling the Herero militarily and forcing
a decisive battle at Waterberg on August 11, 1904. Although controversial from a historian’s
perspective, it is feasible that apart from military aspects Herero had assembled in this place with
                                                                                                         3
their livestock, women and children in order to be able to negotiate peace given their experiences
with Leutwein. The battle of August 11 concluded with a victory of Trotha, albeit not a decisive one.
Most of the Herero were able to escape an envelopment that had been attempted with forces too
weak for this purpose and fled in the direction of the Omaheke Desert. While chasing the Herero
with worn and weakened colonial forces Trotha gave an order which in present understanding
included all attributes of genocide. I quote some extracts: “The Herero are no longer German
subjects. The have murdered and stolen, have cut ears and noses and other body parts off wounded
soldiers and do no longer want to fight because of cowardice. […] The Herero people […] must
leave the country. If they do not do so, I will force them with the Groot Rohr (gun). Within the
German border any Herero with or without a gun, with or without cattle will be shot, I will not
accommodate any more women and children, I will chase them back to their people or have them
shot at.”xvii Although in the original order a restriction to avoid “cruelties against women and
children” was added and that the forces “should keep in mind the good reputation of the German
soldiers”, the situation of the Herero did not change. The only possibility left to them was the route
through Omaheke. This was like a death sentence for most women, children and herds. Only a few
thousand Herero survived the march through the desert. Trotha’s actions were much criticized in
Germany, and Emperor Wilhelm II rescinded the firing order after a few weeks.xviii But the war was

not yet at an end. In subsequent times, a guerrilla war of the Nama tribe broke out because the Nama
were justly afraid of being disarmed and completely subjugated. It was only after von Trotha had
been recalled in 1905 that the Nama were defeated by applying a “mobile task force” strategy and
negotiations. At the same time, so-called "concentration camps” were erected as reception and
detention camps for the Herero and Nama for which the British model was used as an example.xix
When the hostilities were officially terminated in 1908 only 14,000 to 16,000 of the 35,000 to
100,000 Herero who had lived before the war, had survived, in the case of the Nama it was between
9,000 and 13,000 out of some 20,000.xx

In retrospect, we can state that both the Herero and the Nama did fight actively. They – and on this
has been acknowledged by research – “never had been passive victims”xxi and they had adjusted
their military activities flexibly to the course of warfare. In the course of the war, however, they were
inferior to the reinforced German colonial forces in terms of both armament and warfare.

The result was devastating for both peoples. In addition to human losses there were material losses.
The successful war provided the German colonial administration with the opportunity to reorganize
the country and to declare Herero and Nama settlement areas German property. In addition, there
was the prohibition of cattle farming which was a threat to livelihood and a moral burden. The
annihilation of an entire ethnic group was at least tacitly accepted.xxii                                   4

For a long time, the opinion prevailed in Germany that the colonial wars of the German Empire were
a short episode without any long-term consequences for the post-war period. The Second World War
dominated German historiography in general and military history in particular. After all, the Second
World War was and is the symbol of aggressive wars, genocide and Holocaust motivated by racist
ideologies. Those are terms that can provide reasons for searching for historical roots or even
demand such a search. Therefore, it is obvious to look for phenomena which can provide answers.
But did the short phase of a far-away colonial war really have such a lasting influence on the
domestic situation of the German Empire that the “early forms of the total war and the national-
socialist genocide” can be found there?xxiii

For a long time, the German public understood that colonial wars were wars of others, not the
Germans. This was in agreement with a colonial historiography of the 1960s and early 1970s which
saw itself as “European history in Africa and Asia”.xxiv Almost at the same time, two different
schools developed for the first time the concept of continuity from German colonial rule to Nazi rule.
In this context, Susanne Kuß mentions a “first generation of the continuity formation”.xxv One influx
into this research was from the GDR trying to identify earlier patterns of fascism.xxvi The western

side used Hannah Arendt’s theory of totalitarianism in order to classify the German rule in
Southwest Africa as totalitarian antecedent of the Nazi system.xxvii It was already at this point that the
greatest deficiency in the German discussion of continuity, which can be identified to this day – the
lack of comparison - became obvious in two different ways. On the one hand, German colonial
warfare is not integrated into the practice of global colonial warfare in general.xxviii Or to put it more
concisely: Are there any specific German features?

On the other hand, there is largely a lack of comparative approaches comparing different kinds of
warfare in the German colonies. The theory “from Windhoek to Auschwitz", which the Hamburg
Africa historian Jürgen Zimmerer has represented for more than ten years, reveals the selective
approach of the opinion leader in this debate.xxix

But let us take another look back: When decolonialization came to an end worldwide in the mid-
1970sxxx the academic and public debate of German colonial rule took a back seat for almost two
decades.xxxi It was only when Namibia was founded in 1990 that the discussion about German
responsibility for the consequences of the war against the Herero and Nama peoples of 1904 and
1908 evolved and has been conducted controversially to this day. The public interest was triggered
when Herero representatives made claims for moral and financial compensation for the crimes
committed against their ancestors.xxxii Research took up this topic although initially it was restricted     5

to the issue of whether this colonial war was a genocide.xxxiii A positive response to this question
seemed a mandatory prerequisite for successful legal action against the German state and
companies,xxxiv although meanwhile a US court of justice rejected the lawsuit.

In this context, Germany’s colonial past again became of increasing interest to the public in the early
21st century. On the occasion of the centenary of the Herero uprising in 2004, leading German
publications like Spiegel, Die Zeit or national newspapers like FAZ paid increased attention to this
topic.xxxv At the same time, research extended the debate to the issue of whether this was not just a
genocide but even a kind of “antecedent of National Socialism”. Was this, after all, a genocidal war
of annihilation which was a German colonial Sonderweg, a special path? Concluding, I would like to
provide four theses:

Thesis No. 1

The “Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide” of 1948 defines
genocide as “acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial
or religious group.” “Killing members of the group” or “deliberately inflicting on the group
conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part” are possible

indicators. According to this standard, German warfare against the Herero and Nama in 1904 and
1908 was genocide.xxxvi

Thesis No. 2

Genocidal warfare is as old as the history of man.xxxvii Colonial warfare in German Southwest Africa
was not a specific German feature and not a special German path. Rather, it reflects the practice of
colonial warfare which was quite common far into the 20th century but is criminal from today’s point
of view. Compared with other colonial powers, it was the cruel “normalcy” in dealing with the
population. The German ambassador to London informed the Reich Chancellor about the press
evaluation of January 1904 on the British view regarding the dealings with the Herero: For the first
time the Germans, too, were confronted with small wars as the “inevitable extra of any colonial
empire” On January 26, 1904, the Daily Graphic demanded “to ensure peace in the colony it was
necessary to give the rebels a strong beating”.xxxviii

Thesis No. 3

The war against the Herero and Nama was not a war of annihilation as defined by racist and national
socialist ideologies. Rather, general staff officers in the German Empire understood “annihilation” in
a military context as the objective of bringing the opponent’s armed force in a condition where “it is   6
no longer able to continue the war.” There was the idea that “the enemy army represented the
personnel, material and moral force of a state”. Therefore, the defeat of the enemy army meant the
annihilation of the state. The focus was the defeat and not the physical extinction of the enemy
armed force as it is interpreted today.”xxxix Generals like Trotha had been instructed by the Chief of
the General Staff Schlieffen that the decision in battle in terms of annihilation of the enemy army
was to be achieved within the border area and as an envelopment operation, if possible. xl

Thesis No. 4

Despite all efforts of the past decade, there is no concluding evidence for the thesis that the German
colonial war in Southwest Africa with its order of annihilation was a prelude to the Holocaust.xli
Trotha’s firing order was soon revoked after it had been severely criticized in Germany,xlii there was
fierce and controversial debate about his actions in the German Empire.xliii In my opinion, Hans-
Ulrich Wehler justly raises the question regarding the “missing link” between 1904/08 and 1939/41,
which might prove that the antecedents of the national socialist genocide could be found in the
German colonial wars for instance by “analyzing the worldview of several generations of officers.xliv
Colonial racism was not a German but a global phenomenon.xlv

i
   Die Kämpfe der deutschen Truppen in Südwestafrika. Auf Grund amtlichen Materials bearbeitet von der
Kriegsgeschichtlichen Abteilung I des Großen Generalstabes, 2 vols, Berlin 1906/1907, vol. 1, 211.
ii
    ibid, 218.
iii
     e.g.: Jürgen Zimmerer, ‘Krieg, KZ und Völkermord in Südwestafrika – Der erste deutsche Genozid’, in: Völkermord in
Deutsch-Südwestafrika. Der Kolonialkrieg (1904-1908) in Namibia und seine Folgen, edited by Jürgen Zimmerer and
Joachim Zeller, Berlin 2003, 45.
iv
    Most recently on this: Volker Langbehn, Mohammad Salam, ‘Reconfigruing German Colonialism’, in: German
Colonialism. Race, the Holocaust, and Postwar Germany. Ed. by Volker Langbehn and Mohammad Salama, New York
2011, X, XI.
v
    A critical view: Hans-Ulrich Wehler, ‘Transnationale Geschichte – der neue Königsweg historischer Forschung?’, in:
Transnationale Geschichte. Themen, Tendenzen und Theorien, edited by Gunilla Budde, Sebastian Conrad and Oliver
Janz, Göttingen 2006, 164.
vi
    Gesine Krüger, Das Goldene Zeitalter, 20.
vii
     Gesine Krüger, ‘Das Goldene Zeitalter der Viehzüchter. Namibia im 19. Jahrhundert’, in: Zimmerer, Völkermord 22.
viii
      Gesine Krüger, Das Goldene Zeitalter, 22.
ix
     Gesine Krüger, Das Goldene Zeitalter, 17.
x
    Gesine Krüger, Das Goldene Zeitalter, 22.
xi
     Zimmerer, Krieg, KZ und Völkermord, 46..
xii
     There are written documents about arragenments.
xiii
      Susann Kuß, ‘Die deutschen Kolonialkriege in Südwest- und Ostafrika’, in: Kolonialkriege. Militärische Gewalt im
Zeichen des Imperialismus, edited by Thoralf Klein and Frank Schumacher, Hamburg 2006, 217.
xiv
      BArch R 1001/2111, ‘Telegramm an den Kommandanten des Kanonenbootes Habicht’. (Telegram to the commander
of the gunboat Habicht)
xv
     Kuß, Deutsches Militär, 86.
xvi
      Zimmerer, Krieg, KZ und Völkermord, 50.
xvii
      BArch R 1001/2089, Copy of the so-called firing order “Schießbefehl“ of 02 October 1904.
xviii
       On December 8, 1904; Kuß, Deutsches Militär, 94 f; Kuß, Die deutschen Kolonialkriege, 211; Zimmerer, Krieg KZ
und Völkermord, 53.                                                                                                          7
xix
      Zimmerer, Krieg, KZ und Völkermord, 55.
xx
     On the issue of numbers: Kuß, Deutsches Militär, 86-87 and 100; cf. Kuß, Die deutschen Kolonialkriege, 212.
xxi
      Zimmerer, Krieg, KZ und Völkermord, 48. Another argument against being general passive victims is the conduct in
the 19th century, on this see: Gesine Krüger, Das goldene Zeitalter der Viehzüchter. Namibia im 19. Jahrhundert, in: ibid,
S. 25.

xxii
    Wolfgang Maier, ‘Deutsche und Herero: Eine unbeendete Geschichte’, in: Publikationen der
Konrad Adenauerstiftung - Auslandsbüro Namibia of 26 January 2004
(http://www.kas.de/namibia/de/publications/3923/; retrieved 08 July 2011, 10:15)
xxiii
    On fundamental criticism regarding this approach: Wehler, Transnationale Geschichte, 167-169;
cf also Michael Salewski’s review in the FAZ of 31 December 2003, Nr. 303, 9 on Völkermord in
Deutsch-Südwestafrika by Jürgen Zimmerer.
xxiv
      Susanne Kuß, Deutsches Militär auf kolonialen Kriegsschauplätze. Eskalation von Gewalt zu Beginn des 20.
Jahrhunderts, (= Studien zur Koloinalgeschichte, edited by Ulrich van der Heyden et al., vol 3), Berlin 2010, 20. Ms
Kuß provides a short and precise overview of the current state of research on pages 19-31.
xxv
     Kuß, Deutsches Militär, 21.
xxvi
      E.g. Horst Drechsler, Südwestafrika unter deutscher Kolonialherrschaft. Der Kampf der Herero und Nama gegen den
deutschen Imperialismus (1884-1915), Berlin (East), 1966. See also Horst Kühne, Faschistische Kolonialideologie und
Zweiter Weltkrieg, Berlin (East) 1962.
xxvii
       Helmut Bley, Kolonialherrschaft und Sozialstruktur in Deutsch-Südwestafrika 1894-1914, Hamburg 1968, S. 314.
xxviii
       Initial attempts are visible: Kolonialkriege. Militärische Gewalt im Zeichen des Imperialismus, edited by Thoralf
Klein and Frank Schumacher, Hamburg 2006. New and with the recognizable approach of expanding his position: Jürgen
Zimmerer, ‘Nationalsozialismus postkolonial. Plädoyer zur Globalisierung der deutschen Gewaltgeschichte’, in:
Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft, 57. Jg 2009, Heft 6, 529-548. On page 530 Zimmerer denies that the “relationship
between colonialism and national socialism was a revival of the debate of a German Sonderweg;
xxix
      Jürgen Zimmerer, Von Windhuk nach Auschwitz? Beiträge zum Verhältnis von Kolonialismus und Holocaust, (=
Periplus Studien, vol 15, edited by Andreas Eckert et al.), Berlin 2011. On pages 326-347, the volume includes an

identical reprint of the article ‘Kein Sonderweg im „Rassenkrieg“. Der Genozid an den Herero und Nama 1904-08
zwischen deutschen Kontinuitäten und der Globalgeschichte der Massengewalt’, in: Das Deutsche Kaiserreich in der
Kontroverse, edited by Sven Oliver Müller and Cornelius Torp, , 323-340.
xxx
     Thoralf Klein und Frank Schumacher (eds.), Kolonialkriege. Militärische Gewalt im Zeichen des Imperialismus,
Hamburg 2006, 11.
xxxi
      From the few publications during this period: Helga and Ludwig Helbig, Deutsch Südwest. Namibia und die
Deutschen, Weinheim 1983. In addition the review in: DIE ZEIT 19 – May 04 1984 - 15 „Mythos Deutsch Südwest. Wo
die Deutschen den ersten Völkermord begingen“.
xxxii
       Der Spiegel 30/1990, 109-110.
xxxiii
       Kuß, Deutsches Militär, 21.
xxxiv
     SPIEGEL 39/2001, . 146. Welt-online of September 03 2001 (http://www.welt.de/print-
welt/article473593/Herero_Haeuptling_fordert_von_Deutschland_Entschaedigung.html; retrieved
July 08, 2011, 09:30). On the further course: Jürgen Zimmerer, ‘Entschädigung für Herero und
Nama’, in: Blätter für deutsche und internationale Politik 6A/2005, 658-660. A well-balanced legal
assessment: Manfred O. Hinz, Dean of the Faculty of Law of the Univiersity of Namibia in the
Allgemeine Zeitung, the oldes daily newspaper of Namibia on 11 March 2002, :
http://www.az.com.na/politik/deutschland-vor-gericht-in-den-usa-die-hereroklage-i.2461.php;
retrieved 08 July 2011, 10:00).
xxxv
      E.g.: Spiegel-online of 13 August 2004 (http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/0,1518,313043,00.html; 10:14); Welt-
online of 16 August 2004 (http://www.welt.de/print-welt/article334438/Ich_bitte_Sie_um_Vergebung.html) – 07 July
2011, 17:15; (http://www.welt.de/print-welt/article333451/Eins_fataler_Krieg.html)
xxxvi
       In its resolutions of 1998 and 2004 the Federal Government acknowledged the “historical and moral responsibility of
Germany towards the Republic of Namibia“. On this see for instance the Federal government’s response to a minor
interpellation of the parliamentary group DIE LINKE ‘Rückführung der Gebeine von Opfern deutscher
Kolonialverbrechen nach Namibia’ (return of the remains of victims of German colonial crimes to Namibia),
Bundestagsdrucksache 17/6226 of 15 June 2011. On the occasion of the centenary of the suppression of the uprising in
Namibia in August, Federal Minister for Development, Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, apologized for the “genocide”
committed by German soldiers. On this for instance: http://www.politik.de/forum/internationale/84966-us.html; 08 July            8
2011, 10:10. “Crimes against humanity – which differ from war crimes committed against enemy soldiers and civilians
in so far as they first and foremost refer to crimes against the civilian population […] - were first introduced to be able to
grasp and punish the mass murder of Armenians in 1915/1916.” Gerd Hankel, ‘Kriegsverbrechen und die Möglichkeit
ihrer Ahndung’, in: Erster Weltkrieg - Zweiter Weltkrieg - Ein Vergleich. Krieg, Kriegserlebnis, Kriegserfahrung in
Deutschland, edited by Bruno Thoß and Hans-Erich Volkmann, Paderborn, Munich, Vienna, Zurich 2002. , 678.
xxxvii
        E.g.: Bible, Old Testament, Deuternomy (5 Book of Moses), The Book of Joshua, book of Judges.
xxxviii
        BArch R 1001/2111, Bericht der Deutschen Botschaft in London vom 26. Jan. 1904 an den Reichskanzler.
xxxix
       Clausewitz, Vom Kriege, 113. On this see in greater detail Kondylis, Theorie des Krieges, 116-120. I thank Dr.
Gerhard P. Groß for allowing me to take a look into his manuscript on the development of operational thinking. It
contains a historical derivation of the term annihilation (Vernichtung).
xl
    Kuß, Deutsches Militär, 90. Kuß explains from a military historian’s perspective that the objective of von Trotha’s
operational plan was a “battle of annihilation with a ‘major visible result’”.
xli
     This theory is critically question in particular from an extra-German perspective. On this see for instance: S. Kitty
Millet, ‘Caesura, Continuity, and the Myth. The Stakes of Tethering the Holocaust to German Colonial Theory’, in:
German Colonialism, 113-114. [Groß:] To this day, there is talk of the cult of annihilation or the doctrine of annihilation,
and within the scope of the Sonderweg (special path) theory a straight line of development of the German strategy of
annihilation is drawn from the genocidal war of annihilation in Namibia via the Schlieffen plan to the Wehrmacht’s racist
war of annihilation in the Soviet Union during the Second World War.
The fact that the Wehrmacht did not wage its racist war of annihilation against the Soviet Union in accordance with the
ideas of the imperial army is uncontested. The only question is: when did the change from annihilation in terms of
disabling the enemy to unrestricted (entgrenzt) annihilation begin? The general staff certainly did not plan the Schlieffen
plan as racist war of annihilation. Kuß, Deutsches Militär, 26-27.
xlii
     On this: Kuß, Deutsches Militär, 92-96.
xliii
        Michael Salewski, FAZ 31 December 2003, No. 303 / Page 9
xliv
     Wehler, Transnationale Geschichte, 164. Kuß, Deutsches Militär, 31: The argument in favor of a continuity of the
genocidal annihilation intent of the German military, in particular, refers to a similarity of events and concludes with an
identity of positions. Sources, however, do not confirm this.”
xlv
    In view of the research results Jürgen Zimmerer has begun to qualify his position and admits that “ideas and
perceptions from the colonial experiences of other colonial powers and other epochs” influenced the German colonial

power. “Colonial wars of other countries“ were “often not less bloody and with hardly less heavy losses.” Therefore, it
seems ineffectual and artificial to attempt to attribute to the German Empire the “dubious glory of having adopted these
tendencies and systemized them in a previously unknown way.” Jürgen Zimmerer, ‘Kein Sonderweg im „Rassenkrieg“.
Der Genozid an den Herero und Nama 19014-1908 zwischen deutschen Kontinuitäten und der Globalgeschichte der
Massengewalt’, in: Jürgen Zimmerer, Von Winhuk nach Auschwitz. Beiträge zum Verhältnis von Kolonialismus und
Holocaust, (= Periplus Studien, edited by Andreas Eckert et al., vol. 15), S. 346.

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