Introduction

This introduces the book’s main issues via a historical vignette of German imperialism in Southwest Africa from the 1890s to 1908. The German strategy was to seize the land of the most powerful tribes in the area for German immigrants to farm. In the process, Germans unethically victimized the Africans, undercutting their culture, their roles, and identity as regional leaders. German racism was a continuum, a hallmark being frequent floggings, which Germans considered “parental chastisement.” When the key tribe rebelled in 1904, German forces fought not simply to defeat them but also to completely obliterate them. It was the twentieth century’s first genocide: 92,000 Africans were slain.