I've often thought that we tend to overlook the continuities between aspects of German policy in 1933-45 and in 1890-1919. The Russian territory that Germany occupied late in the First World War, for instance, was the same general area that was again conquered in 1941- 42. Perhaps it would be useful to think of land grabs in the East as part of a long-standing German preoccupation rather than a specifically Nazi policy. In the same way, the ruthless colonial exploitation of occupied Russian land was presaged by the similarly ruthless treatment of South-West Africa in the 1900s. Some common features of both regimes give pause for reflection: dispossession, exploitation, extermination camps and racially charged medical experiments. Perhaps these, too, were German obsessions rather than Nazi ones. Not that other European colonisers were much better, as the pre-European occupants of North and South America, Australia, Africa and most of Asia could testify but I've always been vaguely aware that Germany's treatment of its African colonies was disgraceful even by the general standards of imperial powers. This book puts flesh on the bones of my limited understanding of a regime that made the neighbouring Afrikaners seem almost benevolent.
The virtues of the book are that, while giving specific details of how Germany came to control South-West Africa and explaining the origins and cultures of the Herero and Nama peoples, it describes some continuities (even certain surnames recur) between colonial oppression in Africa and the occupation of Eastern Europe during the Second World War. It also points out how many of the attitudes that underlay German excesses (Social Darwinism, for one instance; strange racial theories for another) were common to most European cultures at the time.
One war, the Nama uprising of 1905 was, in one sense, a cliché of the Boys' Own version of colonial wars: one side enters into hostilities on a matter of principle as befits a civilised power conscious of its humanitarian obligations. It complies with all the standards one would expect: a formal declaration of hostilities, organised protection of non-combatants, appropriate respect for enemy dead and wounded. The opposing side feels untrammeled by such constraints and its relationship with its opponents is characterised by treachery, deceit, cruelty and contempt. The civilised side was the Nama, in case you're wondering; the other one was the Germans.
Someone might write a history of Wilhelmine Germany specifically to emphasise the number of times it aped the worst aspects of Victorian Britain simply because Wilhelm II felt inferior to his British relatives. Bankrupting yourself by starting (as a land power) a ruinous naval armaments race might be one example. Casting around for an example of British expertise at which to excel them and saying to yourself "I have it! Concentration camps!" is another).
It seems that the Germans classified the various indigenous peoples who had fallen into their power as either potential serfs (to be cowed and dispossessed) or as unfitted for manual labour (and therefore to be exterminated). The concentration camp at Shark Island made no serious pretence to have any other purpose than killing the prisoners and little attempt was made to hide that purpose, either from the local German population or from the Government back in Germany.
I liked this book for one of the best reasons I ever like any book. It taught me a lot about a subject on which I had previously known a little. I recommend it heartily. However I must have another whinge about the unwieldy sub-title epidemic: this book should be known as The Kaiser's Holocaust and nothing more. I'm sure the graduates of university courses in marketing can expatiate about the purposes of long sub-titles that try to summarise the book. That's just one more good reason to ignore them (I refer to both the marketing graduates and the silly sub-titles).
