Memorial of history

Humans have been living at the Waterberg since prehistoric times because of the springs and game they found here. Explorers Francis Galton and Charles Andersson, who were the first Europeans to venture into the area in 1851, encountered San (Bushmen) and Damara. From 1870 onwards the cattle-herding Herero also settled here. The missionaries of the Rhenish Mission arrived shortly afterwards.

In 1884 the area of what is today Namibia was declared a German protectorate. Over the years conflict over land increased. Traders sold consumables like alcohol on credit, which they levied by confiscating cattle. It was the German judicial authorities that decided in cases of dispute and they often used double standards. In addition, a devastating cattle plague in the year 1897 drove many Herero into poverty and famine.

In January 1904 the Herero in Okahandja rose against the German regime under the leadership of Herero Paramount Chief Samuel Maharero. After many battles they concentrated their main forces, with women, children and cattle, at the Waterberg. General Lothar von Trotha, commander of the German Schutztruppe, attempted to encircle and annihilate them.

On 11 August several German divisions marched from different angles. The Herero awaited them at strategically well-placed emplacements. The fighting lasted for nearly a day. Samuel Maharero and his entourage decided to break off the battle and flee into the British protectorate of Bechuanaland (Botswana), probably for lack of ammunition. Men, women, children and elderly and most of the cattle moved through the divisions in an easterly direction. Due to exhaustion and lack of fresh troops, the Schutztruppe could only follow two days later and had to retract again soon afterwards. The balance of the battle: 26 German soldiers were killed and 60 wounded in action. The number of Herero victims is unknown.

A military defeat for General von Trotha. However, the trek of the Herero through the Kalahari proved even more catastrophic. Thousands perished, only 1,400 Herero reached Botswana, amongst them Maharero.

On the second of October Von Trotha released his infamous "Schießbefehl", an order to shoot every Herero; in the case of women and children shots were to be fired over their heads to make them run.

However, thousands of Herero survived in the bush. The Schutztruppe was unable to track them down. In 1906 the colonial administration asked missionaries, whom many of the Herero still trusted, to set up detention camps, where over 12,000 Herero were interned and disarmed. One of these camps was situated at a spring-water stream in what is today the Waterberg Wilderness private nature reserve.

From these camps the Herero were sent to concentration camps (following the example of the British in the Anglo-Boer War) and engaged in forced hard labour like railway construction. About 30 per cent of the Herero died in detention, close to 7,700 people in total.

Today this is referred to as the first genocide of the 20th century. For years the Herero (and Nama) have been demanding reparations from The Federal Republic of Germany as successor of the German Empire. The German government however refers to the special relations with Namibia since Independence in 1990 and the fact that Namibia has since received the highest per capita amount of German foreign aid in comparison to other countries.

In August 2004 the German Minister for Foreign Development, Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, delivered a moral apology to the Herero people at the 100-year memorial event in Okakarara. Little later she started a “special initiative” for the regions that were particularly affected at the time. In December 2015 Namibia and Germany finally took up discussions on colonial history and a united way forward into the future. The Battle of Waterberg thus continues to link the two countries in a very peculiar way.