Germany's Black Holocaust: 1890-1945

by Carr, Firpo

  Beginning in 1868, German settlers, missionaries, and soldiers colonized Nambia’s coast. Germany annexed the land in 1884, and named it … South West Africa.[3]

  Although it has a certain smoothness on paper, European occupation of Africa was anything but peaceful. Whites regularly and unabashedly mistreated Blacks. The Europeans were even insouciant about it.

  Though history books are virtually silent on the matter, it is becoming increasingly apparent that, not only the Germans, but the French, the British, and the Americans (as will be demonstrated later in the book), also routinely abused or harassed Africans in the latter part of the 19th century.

  The late Dr. Robert W. Kesting, formerly an archivist at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, noted that decades later, African Americans were ill-treated by the Nazis, based on the maltreatment of Africans by European colonists during the late 1800s.

  A recent (relatively speaking) newspaper article goes into more detail as to Dr. Kesting’s thoughts on this remarkable subject that has received little, if any, press ink:

  [Kesting] has found “fewer than a hundred” where African-Americans specifically seemed targeted for victimization by nazis because of their skin color. [He] says that this apparent persecution of African-Americans is reflective of an historical bias against what he says is rooted in the German colonization of the African continent a century ago. He points out that other European colonizers, namely the French and British, were guilty of the same prejudicial treatment of blacks in Africa in the latter part of the 19th Century, turning tribes against each other in schemes designed to benefit the colonizers.[**]

  But it is Kesting’s contention that German bias was turned up one level against black-skinned persons. He says German bias is notable because it has become something of an historical pattern. [He] says that there is no question that black persons were targeted for discriminatory treatment as nazis were coming to power in Germany in the 1930s.[4]

  Indeed, colonial Germany set “an historical pattern” of racism and discrimination against dark-skinned people in Africa, and the African Diaspora, that some feel continues, unfortunately, down to this very day.

  Yes, as Dr. Kesting contended, “German bias was turned up one level against black-skinned persons.”

  But, back then, the Herero were having none of it. They would eventually revolt. Little did they know, though, that they would play a major role in the indescribable horrors of infamous German concentration camps, again, right there in the Motherland, Africa.

  Germans from the Fatherland would shamelessly perpetrate these horrors and cruelties. But, as mentioned, before that would happen, an attempted revolution would erupt with a vengeance.

  Blacks Revolt!

  The cattle-raising Herero rebelled against their colonial masters when these began to infringe upon their land, which, if such encroachment continued, would effectively leave them destitute.

  They eventually migrated south to make a living and in so doing essentially avoided the Germans in this out-of-the-way place. Involuntary displacement had already begun.

  The Herero and Damara (the latter being yet another Black African ethnic group) had patiently—as was, at the very least, tacitly expected of them—endured brutal treatment from the German occupiers for years.

  “During the 1890s,” says the World Book Encyclopedia, “the Germans brutally forced the Herero and Damara out of the Windhoek area. The Hereros began to revolt in 1904.” Eventually, the Herero and their ethnic African neighbors, the Nama, went to war because of displacement caused by the Germans. Encarta Africana[5] states the following:

  The cattle-raising Herero migrated further south on the central plateau, where they established a centralized state. Typically residing in self-sufficient homesteads, the Herero needed great tracts of land to graze their large herds…. Meanwhile, expanding European settlement in the southern part of the colony began pushing the Nama into Herero territory, leading to wars between the two groups. …

  The German colonial administration also introduced a system of private land ownership, initially setting aside 25 percent of the colony’s land for Africans. But even this portion was gradually eroded as concession companies, the German Crown, and settlers acquired more property from local Africans through direct purchases, treaties, and the extension of credit.

  Sporadic resistance to German colonial rule mounted until 1904, when the Herero, led by Chief Samuel Maharero and supported by the Nama and Damara, attacked German towns as well as the colonial headquarters at Okahandja.

  The Germans slowly chipped away at the 25 percent of land granted to the Africans. Disconcertingly, the Africans found themselves bargaining for their own land. And more times than not, they were on the short end of the deal.

  It was one of the grandest of land swindles ever. And, as stated, it was intolerable. So, Herero Chief Maharero, having had enough, led a revolt against the Germans in 1904.

  Writer Delroy Constantine-Simms touches on these facts by saying that “[i]n 1904 the Herero tribe revolted against their German colonial masters in a quest to keep their land. It was a rebellion that lasted four years.”[6]

  Tragically, this four-year revolt ultimately ended in a bitter defeat for all Africans embroiled in the strife, irrespective of his or her tribal affiliation or status in that particular “tribe.”

  Selective African Genocide

  Simms goes on to say that the Herero uprising against the Germans “led to the death of 60,000 Herero people—80 percent of their population.”[7]

  The World Book Encyclopedia adds 5,000 more to that number. It says that “[b]y the time the Germans [completely] put down the revolt—in 1907—they had killed about 65,000 Hereros.” The Nama were not spared either.

  As a result of this early Namibian struggle for survival, about half of the Nama population of 20,000 had been killed. As prisoners of war, they suffered the same fate as the Hereros. Many died of maltreatment in camps or as forced laborers. They were also deported to German colonies in Cameroon and Togo.[8]

  Though the defeat was ultimately devastating, it was not abrupt. The Herero gradually surrendered. What happened next is particularly disturbing.

  Coupled with the debilitating effects of the war, the Germans engaged in selective genocide of Africans, after the Herero surrendered.

  Realizing that they were outgunned and ill-equipped to deal with the barbaric war tactics of the Germans, the Herero, Nama, and Damara decided to appeal to the “humanity” of the German victors.

  In fighting one another as Africans they applied a certain unspoken template, namely, the victors would only go so far in claiming victory. Yes, the victors were humane to their fellow African captives. “Say uncle!”… “Uncle!”… Mercy.

  This was not to be the case with the devious colonists. “After negotiations,” says Encarta Africana, “the Germans initially appeared willing to accept the Herero’s surrender in 1904,[††] but they soon turned to the strategy of tacit annihilation.” This same reference source further state:

  Over the next four years [1904-1907] they engaged in the most genocidal war in Africa’s colonial history: nearly 80 percent of the Herero and more than half the Nama and Damara died at the hands of the German colonial forces. … The annihilation led to a severe labor shortage in the mines and on ranches, which turned to recruiting contract workers, or those tied to their employer through a strict contract which the state enforced, among the Ovambo and Kavango, who had not been involved in the war as the Germans were selective in their genocide.[9] (Emphasis supplied.)

  The uprisings gave the German colonialists a welcome excuse to conquer militarily. The defeat of the Namibian resistance in 1907 marked the end of any independent tribal social and political life in the South-West territory. From this point on, Germany systematically took over the land and effectively eliminated the civil rights of the remaining indigenous population.[10]

  While Namibian borders were arbitrarily etched by European pow
ers, the Germans recognized no boundaries when it came to the methods and ways to carry out their inhumane, selective genocide.

  Some of those who were not killed in war were hung from trees. In fact, there were mass executions that came in the form of group hangings.

  Ironically, these very same atrocious events occurred simultaneously with the lynching of Africans and their descents by fanatical White southerners in the United States.

  Like their Black brothers in America, unarmed, defenseless Black Africans were simply shot—in some cases, with the “benefit” of a blind fold. African boys were not spared either. Even with these cruelties, Africans did not have a clue as to the unimaginable horrors yet to come.

  African Concentration Camps

  What happened to others of those who survived or escaped brutal murders? “The survivors,” says Simms, “were imprisoned in concentration camps or used as guinea pigs for medical experiments, a foretaste of things to come.”[11] (Emphasis supplied.) Enter Dr. Eugen Fischer.

  Remarkably, decades before the Jews suffered as human guinea pigs in German concentration camps in Europe, Black Africans had suffered the same fate at the diabolical hands of men like Fischer, who had no qualms of conscience in denying his alleged loyalty to a Hippocratic Oath.

  The files of the Imperial Colonial Office reveal that the official policy of the German government was to deport and destroy the Nama. Until mid-1906, the Witboois and Bethanie people were held in concentration camps at Windhoek and Karibib.[12] (Emphasis supplied.)

  Yes, before there were horrifying pictures forever etched into our minds of Jews who were reduced to skin and bones, there were extremely disturbing pictures of Black Africans whose diseased skin barely covered fragile rib cages, and encased a frail overall skeletal structure.

  It is for this reason that the photograph on the front cover was selected; to show the world what really happened in Africa. Far too many of us are completely unaware.

  The startling photographs in this book may shock some into a form of denial since such photographs have rarely been seen before. In any event, it does not for a moment lessen the harsh reality of the African Holocaust.

  What is the difference between what happened to the Jews and what happened to the Africans?

  For one thing, Eurocentric history has, for the most part, hidden the whole story, as well as the shocking photographs of emaciated Africans.

  It has been discreet or selective in making the entire truth known to the world at large, or teaching what is brought out here in a course on African or world history. Take, for example, what happened on Shark Island:

  Shark Island (German Haifischinsel) is a small peninsula adjacent to the coastal city of Lüderitz in Namibia. Its area is about 40 hectares. Formerly an island, it became a peninsula from 1906 on by the creation of a wide land connection that doubled its former size.

  Now a campsite for tourists, it contained from 1904 to 1907 a concentration camp for members of the Herero and Nama tribes.

  Over the three years the camp was in operation, 3,000 residents died. Forced labour from the camp was used to build Lüderitz and local railways. Other camps existed throughout German South-West Africa at sites including Swakopmund, Windhoek and Okahandja. Shark Island was also a center for medical experiments carried out on the Herero and Namaqua prisoners.

  It would actually be more accurate to describe Shark Island not as a concentration camp or work camp, but as the first extermination camp or death camp (Vernichtungslager)[‡‡].

  There was at least one German citizen who visited German South West Africa during the period between 1904 and 1908, as well as working closely with the Nazi Party in Germany (straddling the Second Reich and Third Reich): Eugen Fischer, director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics (KWI-A). Fischer also worked closely for many years with his old friend Baron Ottmar von Verschuer, who was his successor at the KWI-A. It is indisputable that Eugen Fischer was fully apprised of the activities of the Nazis.

  The Herero and Namaqua genocide has been recognised by the United Nations and by the German Federal Republic. At the 100th anniversary of the camp's foundation, German Minister for Economic Development and Cooperation Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul commemorated the dead on-site and apologised for the camp on behalf of Germany.[13]

  At best, the entire horrible, tragic affair has been relegated to a barely noticeable footnote in recent African history.

  Thankfully, and ironically to some, fair-minded, good-hearted Europeans took it upon themselves to work in concert with Blacks to exposed this rank ugliness in the world’s modern history.

  In retrospect, one can easily see how colonial Germany sowed diabolical seeds with respect to what would further happen, not just in German South-West Africa, but in South Africa.

  How Apartheid Got Started

  Yet again (but, not surprisingly), little-known history makes a startling revelation concerning how the economic divide got started in South Africa. This is especially true with regard to how the infamous system of Apartheid first reared its ugly head.

  German South-West Africa made rapid economic development in the following years, accomplished only by a forced labor system. By 1913 about 90 percent of the adult male Africans worked in mining, on farms and in the budding industrial sector. Migrant laborers from the Ovambo area also labored in the southern diamond fields.

  The colonial administration divided the territory, enforcing a police zone and creating large ghettos for the indigenous population. This last stage of German rule was marked by systematic racial oppression, expressed in rigid decrees and legal ordinances which laid the foundation for South Africa’s future Apartheid structure.[14] (Emphasis supplied.)

  The way the Germans maltreated the Namas and Hereros by practicing racism and discrimination set the tone for other European powers to do the same.

  Granted, these powers were already practicing such on one level or another, but, as has been stated and well documented, colonial Germans took these mentally and emotionally debilitating practices to new lows.

  Note, for the record, what eventually happened to the Namas and Hereros after the attempted selective genocide of these indigenous African peoples:

  In the years to follow, Germany began transforming Namibia’s colonial economic system into one geared solely to advance the profit of the German economy. Surviving Namas and Hereros were used exclusively as farm laborers and cattle herders on German farms. The indigenous population of Namibia was subjected to the entire list of racial, social, and economic discrimination.[15]

  Their spirit broken, their friends and family executed, and their homeland snatched away from them, the Herero and Nama now faced demoralization; an erosion of their self-esteem; and a slow psychological death caused by racism and discrimination.

  “It all seemed to happen so long ago,” some may rationalize. The assessment of humans as intelligent creatures with immeasurably higher intellectual powers than brute beasts comes into question.

  We tell ourselves that members of our race—the human race—could not have done these things. “Someone, please, say it isn’t so!” may be the plaintive cry of the moment.

  Not only is it so, it is germane to our lives today. To be sure, there is relevancy for us in the above quiet-is-kept genocidal campaign. The reverberations can be felt down to our day. How is this possible?

  Such mind-numbing hatred and heart-wrenching terrors as are to be found in the pages of history that detail what the Nazis did to millions creep ever closer to our time.

  As we reluctantly brace ourselves on an imaginary raft, riding on the stream of time as we go—a stream with rivers of innocent blood flowing into it—we arrive at yet another bloodbath popularly known as World War II (1939-1945), only to find the most unlikely of situations.

  Who, at the time, could have ever foreseen that, after all the African dust caused by the German invasion had settled, an army of African and African American soldiers wo
uld set foot on German soil—twice within two decades?

  Chapter Two

  Enemy Black Soldiers

  Occupy Germany—Twice!

  “Though there were relatively few blacks in Germany, Hitler discriminated between

  black and white prisoners of war.

  Black soldiers captured during

  World War II were separated

  from their units and shot.”

  —Ina R. Friedman,

  The Other Victims

  Everyone may not know it, but Blacks had lived in Germany for decades prior to World War II. This was done in peaceful coexistence with White Germans, despite the horrible history of the German occupation of parts of Africa.[§§]

  Blacks from Germany’s African colonies had lived quite peacefully in Germany for decades. In fact, Berlin and other German cities were considered to be quite cosmopolitan and became trendy and fashionable hubs for the music and jazz scene during the 1920s early 1930s.[16]

  Yes, that was in the 1920s and 1930s. During this same time period, specifically during the 1920s, the Black actor Louis Winston Douglas (1889-1939) visited Berlin. A few other Black luminaries visited, attended university, or even lived in Berlin.

  [S]everal prominent African-Americans visited and studied in Berlin. W.E.B. Du Bois, the civil rights activist and writer, began working on his doctorate at the university here and March Church Terrell, an early suffragist, spent a year studying German in Berlin. Says [African American researcher Paulette] Reed-Anderson, “Both Terrell and Du Bois wrote in their memoirs that it was relieving to be here, because they were not under the same pressure as they were at home.”[17]