Document Type
Essay
Publication Title
Leiden Journal of International Law
Publication Date
2026
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0922156526100831
Abstract
The first German missionaries arrived in Namibia in the 1820s. German rule over Namibia officially began under Otto von Bismarck in 1884. Following a January 1904 uprising led by Herero chief Samuel Maharero against colonial rule, German officials ordered the extirpation of the Herero and Nama peoples. On 4 October 1904, German military commander General Lothar von Trotha issued a chilling extermination order (Vernichtungsbefehl) to his troops: "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 I will let them be shot at."
Germans murdered 10,000 Nama (half the population) and 65,000 Herero (nearly 80 percent of the population), as well as thousands of other indigenous peoples.
The 1904 Herero uprising was crushed. The town of Okahandja, the site of uprising, is today a scene of memory. We visited on a sunny Saturday morning in October 2025.
Recommended Citation
Mark A. Drumbl & Shannon Fyfe, Land, Genocide, and Kintsugi in Namibia, 39 Leiden J. Int'l L. 792 (2026).
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