Race And Bureaucracy Revisited
Hannah Arendt's Recent Reemergence in African Studies

In October 1904, an extermination order was issued by General Lothar von Trotha in the sparsely colonized territory of German Southwest Africa (contemporary Namibia). As a consequence of an anti-colonial uprising that had broken out in early January of that year, members of the Herero community were to be shot on sight, with those escaping direct execution to be driven into the Omaheke Desert where they would be left to die from exposure. This policy did not exclude women or children. In short, this order sought in explicit terms to eliminate the Herero people and thus end a conflict that had persisted in various forms since Germany first declared its imperial intentions over the region in 1884. The brutality of this policy was underscored by the fact that it was issued after the Herero had been defeated militarily in the Battle of the Waterberg. An estimated 60,000–70,000 Herero people, out of a total of approximately 80,000, were eventually killed. Many died from starvation in the Omaheke after being separated from their cattle and sources of water. The level of German oppression was such that it sparked a second anti-colonial revolt by the Nama with parallel results. By 1908, roughly half of the Nama community had died as well.1