What Was the Herero and Nama Genocide?

The genocide occurred in present-day Namibia under the German Empire, which ruled German South West Africa from 1884 to 1915. Colonial seizure of land and cattle, debt, racial law and violence drove Herero resistance beginning in January 1904. Lieutenant General Lothar von Trotha defeated Herero forces at the Battle of Waterberg on 11 August 1904, then drove civilians east toward the water-scarce Omaheke.

On 2 October 1904, von Trotha issued his Vernichtungsbefehl, or extermination order:

“Within the German borders every Herero, with or without a rifle, with or without cattle, will be shot.” — Lothar von Trotha, 1904, Proclamation to the Herero People

Berlin rescinded that written order in December 1904, but not the destructive policy. Survivors were incarcerated in camps, including Shark Island, Swakopmund and Windhoek, and subjected to forced labor, inadequate food, exposure and disease. Nama resistance under leaders including Hendrik Witbooi continued after October 1904; German forces answered with executions, deportation and confinement. Organized resistance was largely crushed by 1908.

The evidence is not limited to retrospective death counts. It includes von Trotha’s October 1904 order; military cordons that prevented Herero from returning from the Omaheke; contemporary reports of poisoned or guarded water sources; mass imprisonment; and mortality records from concentration camps. In an October 1904 letter, von Trotha described the conflict as a “racial struggle” and argued that the Herero nation had to be destroyed or expelled.

The colonial system continued after the extermination order was withdrawn. Germany’s 1907 regulations compelled surviving Africans to carry identification passes and restricted land ownership and movement. Prisoners were leased to military, railway and private employers. At Shark Island, established in 1905 near Lüderitz, Nama and Herero prisoners endured cold, hunger, disease and forced labor; German records cited by historians indicate mortality reaching roughly 45–74% among groups held there during 1905–1907, depending on the population and accounting period.

Bodies were also exploited. Skulls and other remains were sent to German institutions for racial research. Eugen Fischer studied mixed-descent families at Rehoboth in 1908 and published his racist findings in 1913. Germany returned 20 skulls to Namibia in 2011, followed by further remains in 2014 and 2018.

The Herero and Nama genocide was not an accidental consequence of drought or an ordinary battlefield defeat: documented orders and detention practices show state-directed group destruction.

No complete census or death register exists. Colonial records were uneven, mobile populations were undercounted, and deaths in the desert or after displacement often went unrecorded. Consequently, historians distinguish between absolute estimates and percentages derived from disputed prewar population figures.

Source or formulation	Herero deaths	Nama deaths	Period and basis
Common modern scholarly range	40,000–80,000	about 10,000	Deaths during the 1904–1908 war, expulsion and camps
United Nations Whitaker Report	about 65,000	about 10,000	1985 report; approximately 80% of Herero and 50% of Nama populations
Isabel V. Hull	roughly 60,000–80,000	roughly 10,000	2005 synthesis of military destruction, desert expulsion and incarceration
German-Namibian Joint Declaration	approximately 65,000	approximately 10,000	2021 political declaration using widely cited historical estimates

The frequently repeated claim that 80% of Herero and 50% of Nama died comes from comparing estimated prewar populations with surviving populations. If the Herero population before 1904 was approximately 80,000, an estimate of 65,000 deaths implies about 81%. Larger prewar estimates produce the upper figure of 80,000 deaths. These are reconstructions, not precise counts.

Mainstream genocide scholarship recognizes the events as genocide, but disputes concern legal liability, terminology and reparations. Some older German colonial histories described a “war” or “uprising,” foregrounding settler deaths and military operations while minimizing civilian expulsion and camp mortality. A minority of writers challenge the intent evidence or the reliability of population estimates. Neither uncertainty over exact totals nor the December 1904 cancellation of von Trotha’s order erases the documented attempt to destroy the Herero as a group or the subsequent destruction of Nama communities.

Legal arguments are narrower than historical findings. The 1948 Genocide Convention was adopted 40 years after 1908 and is generally not applied retroactively. In 2019, a United States federal court dismissed a lawsuit brought by Herero and Nama representatives against Germany on sovereign-immunity grounds; an appellate court affirmed dismissal in 2020. Those rulings did not decide that genocide had not occurred.

Germany first used the term genocide officially in 2015. In May 2021, Germany and Namibia announced a Joint Declaration under which Germany recognized genocide “from today’s perspective” and proposed €1.1 billion over 30 years for development programs. Herero and Nama traditional-authority and activist groups rejected the process because they were not direct negotiating parties and because Germany framed the funding as reconstruction and development, not legally owed reparations.

The genocide transformed Namibia’s ownership structure. Herero and Nama land and livestock were confiscated, while survivors entered a coercive labor regime serving settlers, mines, railways and farms. German rule ended when South African forces occupied the colony in 1915 during the First World War; South Africa then administered the territory under a League of Nations mandate from 1920. Namibia became independent on 21 March 1990.

The consequences remain material: inherited land inequality, family loss and the dispersal of communities cannot be separated from German colonial confiscation. Memorial campaigns have therefore demanded direct participation, restitution of human remains and cultural property, land-related redress, an apology accepted by descendants, and reparations rather than discretionary aid.

The 2021 declaration did not settle these demands. Namibia’s government sought revisions after domestic criticism, and descendant organizations continued to challenge bilateral negotiations that treated the Namibian state as their sole representative. Understanding this unresolved dispute requires keeping three questions distinct: whether genocide occurred, which historical estimate is strongest, and what legal or political remedy is owed. The first is settled in mainstream scholarship; the latter two remain contested. See the archive’s overviews of the Namibian genocide and the colonial system of the German Empire.

• United Nations, Whitaker Report on Genocide (1985)
• Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Herero and Nama genocide”
• United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, “German South West Africa”
• German Federal Foreign Office, Joint Declaration initialled in 2021
• Isabel V. Hull, Absolute Destruction: Military Culture and the Practices of War in Imperial Germany (2005)
• Jürgen Zimmerer and Joachim Zeller, eds., Genocide in German South-West Africa (2008)