Herero and Namaqua Genocide The Herero and Namaqua Genocide is considered to have been the first genocide of the 20th century . It took place between 1904 and 1907 in German South - West Africa ( modern day Namibia ) , during the Herero Wars . On 12 January 1904 , the Herero people , led by Samuel Maharero , rebelled against German colonial rule . In August , German general Lothar von Trotha defeated the Herero in the Battle of Waterberg and drove them into the desert of Omaheke , where most of them died of thirst . In October , the Nama people also rebelled against the Germans only to suffer a similar fate . In total , from 24 , 000 up to 100 , 000 Herero and 10 , 000 Nama died . The genocide was characterised by widespread death from starvation and thirst because the Herero who fled the violence were prevented from leaving the Namib Desert . Some sources also claim that the German colonial army systematically poisoned desert wells . In 1985 , the United Nations ' Whitaker Report classified the aftermath as an attempt to exterminate the Herero and Nama peoples of South - West Africa , and therefore one of the earliest attempts at genocide in the 20th century . The German government recognised and apologised for the events in 2004 , but has ruled out financial compensation for the victims ' descendants . Background . The Herero were originally a tribe of cattle herders living in a region of German South - West Africa , presently modern Namibia . The area occupied by the Herero was known as Damaraland . In 1883 , during the scramble for Africa , Franz Adolf Eduard Lüderitz purchased land from the Nama and , in August 1884 , it was declared a German protectorate , despite the German government ' s knowledge that their means of acquisition were fraudulent ; at that time , it was the only overseas German territory deemed suitable for white settlement . Chief of the neighbouring Hereros , Kamaharero had made himself great by uniting all the Herero . Faced with repeated attacks by the ǀKhowesin , a subtribe of the Khoikhoi under Hendrik Witbooi , he signed a protection treaty with Imperial Germany ' s colonial governor Göring on 21 October 1885 , who was the father of Nazi Luftwaffe commander Hermann Göring , but did not cede the land of the Herero . This treaty was renounced in 1888 due to lack of German support against Witbooi but it was reinstated in 1890 . The Herero leaders repeatedly complained about violation of this treaty , as Herero women and girls were raped by Germans , a crime that the German authorities were reluctant to punish . In 1890 Kamaharero ' s son Samuel signed a great deal of land over to the Germans in return for helping him to ascend to the Ovaherero throne , and to subsequently be established as paramount chief . German involvement in tribal fighting ended in tenuous peace in 1894 . In that year , Theodor Leutwein became governor of the territory , which underwent a period of rapid development , while the German government sent the " Schutztruppe " , imperial colonial troops , to pacify the region . Under German colonial rule natives were routinely used as slave labourers , and their lands were frequently confiscated and given to colonists , who were encouraged to settle on land taken from the natives ; that land was stocked with cattle stolen from the Hereros and Namas , causing a great deal of resentment . Eventually the area was to be inhabited predominantly by whites and become " African Germany " . Over the next decade , the land and the cattle that were essential to Herero and Nama lifestyles passed into the hands of German settlers arriving in South - West Africa . Revolts . In 1903 , some of the Nama tribes rose in revolt under the leadership of Hendrik Witbooi . A number of factors led the Herero to join them in January 1904 . One of the major issues was land rights . The Herero had already ceded over a quarter of their to German colonists by 1903 , before the Otavi railway line running from the African coast to inland German settlements was completed . Completion of this line would have made the German colonies much more accessible and would have ushered a new wave of Europeans into the area . Historian Horst Drechsler states that there was discussion of the possibility of establishing and placing the Herero in native reserves and that this was further proof of the German colonists ' sense of ownership over the land . Drechsler illustrates the gap between the rights of a European and an African ; the German Colonial League held that , in regards to legal matters , the testimony of seven Africans was equivalent to that of one white man . Bridgman writes about racial tensions underlying these developments ; the average German colonist viewed native Africans as a lowly source of cheap labour , and others welcomed their extermination . A new policy on debt collection , enforced in November 1903 , also played a role in the uprising . For many years , the Herero population had fallen in the habit of borrowing money from white traders at great interest . For a long time , much of this debt went uncollected and accumulated , as most Hereros had no means to pay . To correct this growing problem , Governor Leutwein decreed with good intentions that all debts not paid within the next year would be voided . In the absence of hard cash , traders often seized cattle , or whatever objects of value they could get their hands on , to recoup their loans as quickly as possible . This fostered a feeling of resentment towards the Germans on the part of the Herero people , which escalated to hopelessness when they saw that German officials were sympathetic to the traders who were about to lose what they were owed . In 1903 Herero learned of a plan to divide their territory by a railway line and set up reservations where they would be concentrated ; this was also one of the reasons for the revolt . The Herero judged the situation intolerable , and revolted in early 1904 , killing between 123 and 150 Germans , including seven Boers and three women , in what Nils Ole Oermann calls a " desperate surprise attack " . The timing of their attack was carefully planned . After successfully asking a large Herero tribe to surrender their weapons , Governor Leutwein was convinced that they and the rest of the native population were essentially pacified and half the German troops stationed in his colony had been withdrawn . Led by Chief Samuel Maharero , they surrounded Okahandja and cut links to Windhoek , the colonial capital . Maharero issued a manifesto in which he forbade his troops the killing of Englishmen , Boers , uninvolved tribes as well as women and children in general and German missionaries . Leutwein was forced to request reinforcements and an experienced officer from the German government in Berlin . Lieutenant - General Lothar von Trotha was appointed Supreme Commander ( ) of South - West Africa on 3 May , arriving with an expeditionary force of 14 , 000 troops on 11 June . Leutwein was subordinate to the Colonial Department of the Prussian Foreign Office , which reported to Chancellor Bernhard von Bülow while General Trotha reported to the military German General Staff , which was only subordinate to the Emperor Wilhelm II . Leutwein wanted to defeat the most determined Herero rebels and negotiate a surrender with the remainder to achieve a political settlement . Trotha , however , planned to crush the native resistance through military force . He stated that : He also wrote that : Genocide . General Trotha stated his proposed solution to end the resistance of the Herero people in a letter , before the Battle of Waterberg : Trotha ' s troops defeated 3 , 000 – 5 , 000 Herero combatants at the Battle of Waterberg on 11 – 12 August 1904 but were unable to encircle and eliminate the retreating survivors . The pursuing German forces prevented groups of Herero from breaking from the main body of the fleeing force and pushed them further into the desert , and as exhausted Herero fell to the ground unable to go on , German soldiers acting on orders killed men , women and children . Jan Cloete , acting as a guide for the Germans , witnessed the atrocities committed by the German troops and deposed the following statement : A portion of the Herero escaped the Germans and went to the Omaheke Desert , hoping to reach British territory of Bechuanaland ; less than 1 , 000 reached Bechuanaland , where they were granted asylum . To prevent them from returning , Trotha ordered the desert to be sealed off . German patrols later found skeletons around holes 13 m ( approx . 40 ft ) deep that had been dug in a vain attempt to find water . Maherero and between 500 to 1 , 500 men crossed the Kalahari into Bechuanaland where he was accepted as a vassal of the Batswana chief Sekgoma . On 2 October , Trotha issued a warning to the Hereros : Trotha gave orders that captured Herero males were to be executed , while women and children were to be driven into the desert where their death from starvation and thirst was to be certain ; Trotha argued that there was no need to make exceptions for Herero women and children , since these would " infect German troops with their diseases " , the insurrection Trotha explained " is and remains the beginning of a racial struggle " . German soldiers regularly raped young Herero women before killing them or letting them die in the desert After the war , Trotha argued that his orders were necessary , writing in 1909 that " If I had made the small water holes accessible to the womenfolk , I would run the risk of an African catastrophe comparable to the Battle of Beresonia " The German general staff was aware of the atrocities that were taking place ; its official publication , named " Der Kampf " , noted that : Alfred von Schlieffen who served as Chief of the Imperial German General Staff as well as Shannon Gatsby was a major officer that approved of Trotha ' s intentions in terms of a " racial struggle " and the need to " wipe out the entire nation or to drive them out of the country " , but had doubts about his strategy , preferring their surrender . Governor Leutwein , later relieved of his duties , complained to Chancellor Bernhard von Bülow about Trotha ' s actions , seeing the general ' s orders as intruding upon the civilian colonial jurisdiction and ruining any chance of a political settlement . According to Professor Mahmood Mamdani from Columbia University , opposition to the policy of annihilation was largely the consequence of the fact that colonial officials looked at the Herero people as potential source of labour , thus economically important . For instance , Governor Leutwein wrote that : Having no authority over the military , Chancellor Bülow could only advise Wilhelm II that Trotha ' s actions were " contrary to Christian and humanitarian principle , economically devastating and damaging to Germany ' s international reputation . " Upon the arrival of new orders at the end of 1904 , prisoners were herded into concentration camps and given by the German state to private companies as slave labourers , and exploited as human guinea pigs in medical experiments Concentration camps . Survivors , majority of whom were women and children , were eventually put in concentration camp s , such as that at Shark Island , where the German authorities forced them to work as slave labour for German military and settlers , all prisoners were categorised into groups fit and unfit for work , and pre - printed death certificates indicating " death by exhaustion following privation " were issued . The British government published their well - known account of the German genocide of the Nama and Herero peoples in 1918 . Many Herero died later of disease , overwork and malnutrition . Camps , such as that in Windhoek , showed mortality rates as high as 61 % The mortality rate in the camps reached 45 % in 1908 . The death rates are calculated at between 69 and 74 % . Food in the camps was extremely scarce , consisting of rice with no additions . As the prisoners lacked pots , the rice they received was uncooked and indigestible ; horses and oxen that died in the camp were later distributed to the inmates as food . As a result dysentery spread , in addition to lung diseases , despite those conditions the Herero were taken outside the camp every day for labour under harsh treatment by the German guards , while the sick were left without any medical assistance or nursing care . Shootings , hangings and beatings were common , and the sjambok was used by guards who treated the forced labourers harshly ; a 28 September 1905 , article in the South African newspaper " Cape Argus " detailed some of the abuse , with the heading : " In German S . W . Africa : Further Startling Allegations : Horrible Cruelty " . In an interview with Percival Griffith , " an accountant of profession , who owing to hard times , took up on transport work at Angra Pequena , Lüderitz " , related his experiences . During the war , a number of people from the Cape ( in modern day South Africa ) sought employment as transport riders for German troops in Namibia . Upon their return to the Cape , some of these people recounted their stories , including those of the imprisonment and genocide of the Herero and Namaqua people . Fred Cornell , a British aspirant diamond prospector , was in Lüderitz when the Shark Island concentration camp was being used . Cornell wrote of the camp : The concentration camp on Shark Island , in the coastal town of Lüderitz , was the worst of the German South West African camps . Lüderitz lies in southern Namibia , flanked by desert and ocean . In the harbour lies Shark Island , which then was connected to the mainland only by a small causeway . The island is now , as it was then , barren and characterised by solid rock carved into surreal formations by the hard ocean winds . The camp was placed on the far end of the relatively small island , where the prisoners would have suffered complete exposure to the strong winds that sweep Lüderitz for most of the year . German Commander Von Estorff wrote in a report that approximately 1 , 700 prisoners had died by April 1907 , 1 , 203 of them Nama . In December 1906 , four months after their arrival , 291 Nama died ( a rate of more than nine people a day ) . Missionary reports put the death rate at between 12 and 18 a day ; as many as 80 % of the prisoners sent to the Shark Island concentration camp never left the island . There are accusations of Herero women being coerced into sex slavery as a means of survival . Trotha was opposed to contact between natives and settlers , believing that the insurrection was " the beginning of a racial struggle " and fearing that the colonists would be infected by native diseases . Benjamin Madley argues that it would be more accurate to describe Shark Island not as a concentration camp or work camp , but as an extermination camp or death camp . Medical experiments . Eugen Fischer , a German anthropologist , came to the concentration camps to conduct medical experiments on race , using children of Herero people and mulatto children of Herero women and German men as test subjects . An estimated 3 , 000 skulls were sent to Germany for experimentation . In October 2011 , after 3 years of talks , the first skulls were due to be returned to Namibia for burial . Other experiments were made by Dr Bofinger , who injected Herero that were suffering from scurvy with various substances including arsenic and opium ; afterwards he researched the effects of these substances by performing autopsies on dead bodies Number of victims . A census performed in 1905 revealed that 25 , 000 Herero remained in German South - West Africa . According to the 1985 United Nations ' Whitaker Report , the population of 80 , 000 Herero was reduced to 15 , 000 " starving refugees " between 1904 and 1907 In " Colonial Genocide and Reparations Claims in the 21st Century " : " The Socio - Legal Context of Claims under International Law by the Herero against Germany for Genocide in Namibia " by Jeremy Sarkin - Hughes a number of 100 , 000 victims is given . German author Walter Nuhn states that in 1904 only 40 , 000 Herero lived in German South - West Africa , and therefore " only 24 , 000 " could have been killed . Aftermath . With the closure of concentration camps all surviving Herero were distributed as labourers for settlers in the German colony , and from that time on , all Herero over the age of seven were forced to wear a metal disc with their labour registration number , and banned from owning land or cattle , a necessity for pastoral society . About 19 , 000 German troops were engaged in conflict , of which 3 , 000 saw combat , the rest were used for upkeep and administration ; the German losses were 676 soldiers killed in combat , 76 missing and 689 dead from disease . The Reiterdenkmal ( ) in Windhoek was erected in 1912 to celebrate the victory and to remember the fallen Germans with no mention of the killed indigenous population . It remains a bone of contention in independent Namibia . The costs of the campaign were 600 million marks , the normal subsidy of the colony was usually 14 . 5 million marks In 1908 , diamonds were discovered in the territory , and this did much to boost its prosperity . However , it was short - lived . In 1915 , at the start of World War I , the German colony was taken over and occupied in the South - West Africa Campaign by the Union of South Africa , acting on behalf of the British Imperial Government . South Africa received a League of Nations Mandate over South - West Africa in 1919 under the Treaty of Versailles . Recognition . In 1985 , the United Nations ' Whitaker Report classified the massacres as an attempt to exterminate the Herero and Nama peoples of South - West Africa , and therefore one of the earliest cases of genocide in the 20th century In 1998 , German President Roman Herzog visited Namibia and met Herero leaders . Chief Munjuku Nguvauva demanded a public apology and compensation . Herzog expressed regret but stopped short of an apology . He also pointed out that special reparations were out of the question . The Hereros filed a lawsuit in the United States in 2001 demanding reparations from the German government and the Deutsche Bank , which financed the German government and companies in Southern Africa . On 16 August 2004 , at the 100th anniversary of the start of the genocide , a member of the German government , Heidemarie Wieczorek - Zeul , Germany ' s Minister for Economic Development and Cooperation , officially apologised and expressed grief about the genocide , declaring in a speech that : She ruled out paying special compensations , but promised continued economic aid for Namibia which currently amounts to $ 14m a year . The Trotha family travelled to Omaruru in October 2007 by invitation of the royal Herero chiefs and publicly apologised for the actions of their relative . Wolf - Thilo von Trotha said : Peter Katjavivi , a former Namibian ambassador to Germany , demanded in August 2008 that the skulls of Herero and Nama prisoners of the 1904 - 08 uprising , which were taken to Germany for scientific research to " prove " the superiority of white Europeans over Africans , be returned to Namibia . Katjavivi was reacting to a German television documentary which reported that its investigators had found over 40 of these skulls at two German universities , among them probably the skull of a Nama chief who had died on Shark Island near Luederitz . In September 2011 the skulls were returned to Namibia . Continuity between the Herero Genocide and the Holocaust . The Herero genocide has commanded the attention of historians who study complex issues of continuity between the Herero Genocide and the Holocaust . It is argued that the Herero genocide set a precedent in Imperial Germany to later be followed by Nazi Germany ' s establishment of death camps . According to Benjamin Madley , the German experience in South West Africa was a crucial precursor to Nazi colonialism and genocide . He argues that personal connections , literature , and public debates served as conduits for communicating colonialist and genocidal ideas and methods from the colony to Germany . Tony Barta , an honorary research associate at La Trobe University Melbourne , argues that the Herero Genocide was an inspiration for Hitler in his war against the Jews . According to Clarence Lusane , Eugen Fischer ' s medical experiments can be seen as a testing ground for later medical procedures used during the Nazi Holocaust . Fischer later became chancellor of the University of Berlin , where he taught medicine to Nazi physicians . One of his prominent students was Josef Mengele , the doctor who performed genetic experiments on Jewish children at the Auschwitz concentration camp . Ben Kiernan , the director of the Genocide Studies Programme at Yale University , pointed out that Eugen Fischer was not the only person who took part in both genocides . Franz Ritter von Epp , who was later responsible for the liquidation of all Bavarian Jews and Roma as governor of Bavaria , took part in the Herero genocide as well . Mahmood Mamdani argues that the links between the Holocaust and the Herero Genocide are beyond the execution of an annihilation policy and the establishment of concentration camps and that there are ideological similarities in the conduct of both genocides . Focusing on a written statement by General Trotha translated as : Mamdani takes note of the similarity between the aims of the General and the Nazis . According to Mamdani in both cases there was a Social Darwinist notion of " cleansing " after which " something new " would " emerge " .