Lions Led By Donkeys Podcast - Episode 165 - The Namibian Genocide Part 1: The Scramble For Atrocities

Episode Date: July 19, 2021

Germany unifies and colonizes Namibia, is shocked to find out this is unpopular to the people who live there. Sources for both episodes: The Kaiser's Holocaust: Germany's Forgotten Genocide and the Colonial Roots of Nazism The Herero Genocide: War, Emotion, and Extreme Violence in Colonial Namibia (War and Genocide Book 31) The Genocidal Gaze: From German Southwest Africa to the Third Reich Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/lionsledbydonkeys

Hey everybody, Joe here from the Lions Led by Donkeys podcast. If you enjoy what we do here on the show and you think it's worth your hard-earned money, you can support the show via Patreon. Just a $1 donation gets you access to bonus episodes, our Discord, and regular episodes before everybody else. If you donate at an elevated level, you get even more bonus content. A digital copy of my book, The Hooligans of Kandahar, and a sticker from our Teespring store. Our show will always be ad-free and is totally supporter-driven. We use that money to pay our bills, buy research materials that make this show possible, and support charities

like the Kurdish Red Crescent, the Flint Water Fund, and the Halo Trust. Consider joining the Legion of the Old Crow Led by Donkeys podcast. I'm Joe, and with me as always is Liam. Hello, Liam. Why are you making me do a genocide you know yeah all right i i remember like when you asked me to like guest host or whatever it is i'm doing until nick comes back like fucking being so excited and telling my girlfriend like i went from like listening to my favorite podcast to guessing on my favorite podcast to being a host of my favorite podcast. And now I'm really in it for the long haul because here I fucking am on a genocide duology. In my defense, I warned you about this beforehand.

Yeah, I'm not saying you didn't. I know what I got. I know what I'm getting into. saying you didn't i know what i got i know what i'm gonna get to i'm just you know just had a a relaxing monday at the office and here i go to learn about genocide that's right tuesday i will i will start this off on a good note i guess um so i'm not sure when this episode will be coming out um but not that long ago obviously liam and I, for us, it's last week, recorded a duology about the Pancho Villa expedition. And I asked if any Mexican listeners had any opinions regarding Pancho Villa, how he's seen in Mexico today, how he's taught in schools and things like that. And I did get a comment from a longtime Mexican listener.

And she said, Villa is seen in Mexico as a folk hero, like a Mexican Robin Hood. And he gave a black eye to the gringos and they never captured him. Obviously, I am, this is a direct quote. And him not being on the victorious side of the war and later being assassinated,

made sure that his legend spreads as well as meaning that while the constitutionalistas, sorry, like Carranza and Obregon are viewed as the men that gave us the PRI, Villa and Zapata are the people's underdogs and ones that would have given us a fairer country. So in a way, Defeat made sure that he would always be a hero in the popular imagination here. And she also adds on, to anybody that considers VA a hero, I do need to point out that he did pogroms against Chinese Mexicans. That's a dick move, man. Yeah. So thanks for that. If you happen to be from a place that we talk about,

feel free to slide into our DMs, emails, or in that case, our Discord and tell us how things are seen on your side. Unless you're American, I don't want to hear from you. Because the only people I ever hear from are fucking Neo-Confederates. It lasted

four years. I had a relationship that lasted that long cowboy bebop is a larger part of our cultural uh zeitgeist than the confederacy is um i've taken shits longer than the confederacy lasted um now obviously i i say americans i don't mean natives um you guys are feel free um now as uh as li Liam has already pointed out, and you've read the title before you started listening to this podcast, I assume, we are talking about the Namibian genocide. But I do need to clear some things up before we start. I need to address the title that I'm using, the Namibian Genocide, rather than the more commonly known Herero and Namakwa Genocide. Now, these titles are used interchangeably in the field of genocide studies and are both technically accurate.

I choose the shorter one because I have to title these in SoundCloud, and SoundCloud does not like long titles. Also, like we've talked about before regarding the Holocaust andust and the armenian genocide and as well as the cambodian genocide many more people than just the herrero and namaqua people were killed in this genocide so i feel like just calling it the herrero and namaqua genocide is incomplete um sure yeah another note the sources i'm using for this, our books, exterminate all the brutes, let us die fighting and the African Kaiser, unless I note otherwise. There, I think I took care of all the professional stuff in case my professors are listening. Hey, guys. Hello.

Please ignore all the swears. We're opening Wikipedia to the part of a series on genocide issues list by death toll, genocidal rape, war and genocide. That's right. Effects on effects on youth, genocide of indigenous peoples, late Ottoman genocides,

world war two, the cold war, genocides of post-colonial Africa, ethno religious genocides, a contemporary area. God damn dude. Anyway, dude anyway that you since you just saw our footprint of your future on the show um no uh and uh you know there's eventually one day we'll we'll talk about um rafael lemkin in general uh because he's one of my favorite uh researchers

but there's also uh he made a very good argument, in my opinion, that colonialism in general is a form of genocide. He used the term colonial genocide as in just being settler colonialism in general. And there's a lot of talk about parcel of the that's a necessary part of the whole thing. I would imagine. Yeah. And he used the native genocides in North and South America as the basis for his study in genocide. A lot of people believe it was the Armenian genocide. It's incorrect.

Americans like to use that as like, oh, yeah, he learned about genocide in the Ottoman Empire. So we didn't have to reflect upon what we did here in America. Lemkin would strongly disagree. what we did here in America, Lemkin would strongly disagree. But Lemkin didn't write a whole lot on this one because it was, well, it happened in Africa. Raphael Lemkin's Polish. Do with that what you will. But also because there's not a lot of good research on it until very recently um and you know this story of genocide like most of them

if not all of them begins with good old colonialism in the late 1800s but unlike the usual suspects of it being britain france or the united states this falls squarely on the shoulders of the german empire in spain, if you're listening, we know about you too. Alright? And, you know, Belgium. All of you, really. You're all bad. But the Germans were very late to the colonialism game. Now, there's a very

good reason for that, as they were only recently unified in 1871. Thanks for nothing, Bismarck. You fucking dick. It wasn't from a lack of wanting to do genocide and colonialism. It was the fact that Bismarck had to, you know, real politic together the German Empire and give it to a family of very stupid people thrown into the ground. They sure made up for it, though. Don't you worry, boys and girls.

Way to go, Otto. don't you worry boys and girls way to go auto um now this was uh you know unified by a group of world-renowned assholes mostly you know bismarck uh but most of the profitable and prestigious tracts of land uh which were the point of colonialism for the most part had already been snatched up by their neighbors right um all, how can you call yourself an empire if all you control is fucking Germany? Am I right? Now, it was common in Germany and most of Western European courts at the time

to think of the acquisition of colonies as the true measure of nationhood. Kaiser Wilhelm would eventually call it their place in the sun, things like that. But one person that actually kind of disagreed was, shockingly, Otto von Bismarck. Now, I do need to point out there was no ethical or moral reasons for this. It was purely financial. He believed that controlling vast quantities of land, they would then be forced to pour their you know imperial coffers into as well

as defend right it would be a liability um especially you know it would be all of the good stuff was taken for a lack of a better term you know he figured that all we're ever going to get is tracks of bullshit with nothing on them people already have the rubber and the oil what do we have right uh endless slave labor that's right uh something germany has never been shy about um but that didn't stop people from trying and most of these that we're going to talk about were independent attempts separate from the german government like the german government was not rounding up settlers under the eagle and sending them off to conquer lands.

These were people attempting to become independently wealthy and strike out on their own. And I bring up one of these because it's very interesting as someone who used to live in Texas. In 1844, a bunch of German aristocrats attempted to start a colony in independent texas uh now this was after the revolution before they became part of the united states their idea was well just some dudes it was that weird gap period where texas was technically independent

right okay and the germans believed that and rightfully believe that independent Republic of Texas is quite weak. We might be able to flex on them, make them subservient to the German Empire. Now, this didn't work, mostly because the place that they moved into in Texas is pretty miserable. It's in central Texas. is pretty miserable uh it's in central texas uh and for people who are unfamiliar texas it's kind of like settling i don't know la right now uh there's no water there's not a lot of places to grow shit it's arid and horrible it's very fucking hot oh it's like what uh black hammer's trying to do yeah it's just as stupid yeah um, most of them died. And also their plan to flex on Texas didn't work because Texas then joined the US the next year. Though it did create a very small, very weird population of German-speaking Texans that are still around today.

Now they're mostly around the New Braunfels area for people who are unaware. You just simply drive through central Texas until things until things have weird german names that's it there's a bunch of checks around waco right because they make really good pastries yep uh yes they're fucking delicious um you'll see signs for them everywhere and there's other waves of immigrants to texas after this but the the gene seed of the German Texan is accidental German imperialism that failed? Interesting. And Texas kept German as an equal language

with equal status to Spanish until World War I, which is very weird. And the only reason why they did that is because obviously we had to go fight Germany. One of the most important parts in creating an overseas empire is having a powerful, long-reaching, and strong navy that made transporting people and defending these things possible. And it's something that the splintered German states didn't have

until unification. And more importantly, until the rise of Kaiser Wilhelm II, the failed son of the Kaiser Reich. Wilhelm wanted an overseas empire, constantly butting heads with Bismarck over the idea. And one of their many problems would eventually lead to Bismarck losing control of the idiot fail son that was supposed to be pretty much a plaything for him to run the empire. Whoops.

It was one of the reasons that led to him being fired as chancellor, not the only oneops it was one of the reasons that led to him being fired as chancellor not the only one uh but certainly one of them uh you know bismarck was more worried about the coming two-front war in europe that he had pretty much created um that he at least laid the the seeds for spoil alert he fails um now old nicky was obsessed with the idea that an overseas empire would make him look sorry that was an accident his he was willy russia was nicky uh old willy was obsessed with the idea that would make him look better and more powerful if you if they had this overseas empire germany is trying to step out onto the world stage right right? Yeah. And like Japan thought much of the same thing at around the same time.

Uh, you know, good. A man consumed by ego destroys entire, uh, entire group of people. Love it. Yeah.

Love it. Love it. Love this game. Love this game. You were playing together, Joe, someone call it the great game. Dun,

dun, dun. Um, now, uh, Wilhelm was really bad at all of this like most thing that he did but to be fair to be fair he walked

into the colony that we are talking about today because Bismarck began to fuck with colonies even though he said that he was against it when his dad was on the throne that you know bismarck supported this a bit a bit a bit yeah it was like he was forced into it um otherwise he'd look bad and now to be fair i am not defending out of on bismarck in any way

uh he's a bastard but oh yeah what happened was is like i said before, a lot of German independent citizens went out with corporate backing, effectively, to go settle places and colonize them. Those places ended up becoming very large, or at least decently large. And a lot of them ended up becoming... People knew that Germans settled them, even though they were not German colonies officially. People, especially England and France, knew that they were an arm of the German Empire, but officially. So when they became threatened by imperial bullshit games, they became under the protection of the German Empire. Effectively folding someone's corporate land grab into being an actual official part of the german empire effectively folding someone's corporate land grab into being an actual official part of the government sure so it's sort of like a dutch east

india company sort of deal where they they sort of have a blessing for the government but isn't they're not the government pretty much yeah without going into the minutia of stupid German law. Yes. Okay. Now, these would go on to cement the colonial empire more than anything Willie would ever do. Oh, that is almost 100% Bismarck's doing. This, of course, is all part of the so-called scramble for Africa, sparked by the Berlin Conference of 1884. Now, this was called by Bismarck himself in order to regulate and control European train and colonization over Africa. Now, of course, this goes without saying,

no Africans were invited to this meeting. Ah, fuck off. Now, this meeting... Let's all later. Let's all later. Yeah. Oh, they would find out. And it could rightfully be argued that they are still finding out today.

Now, most of this was because Belgian King Leopold II was scheming along with a few other powers in order to go around the traditional methods of trade and take over large tracts of land for themselves. over large tracts of land for themselves. Now, this would happen in the free state of Congo for Leopold, which, unlike others, was his personal plaything. It was not part of Belgium for many years. It was King Leopold's personal possession. Like, you would own a house. Right.

Now, this coincided with the knowledge that Africa itself was expanding beyond coastal regions. For instance, they were sending scouts and surveyors further inland. People like Henry Morton Stanley, who were hired by Leopold to do map work and stuff in order to... Because up until this point, people had pretty much only colonized the coasts. Right. because up until this point, people had pretty much only colonized the coasts. Right. So he sent these people for anyone normally following rivers and stuff like that to make contacts with new people in order to take them over

with hilariously stupid contracts. Like people in the Congo, what you did today, what you know as the Congo, would have people like Henry Morton Stanley show up and get them to sign contracts to sign over their land which the tribe itself didn't own because land ownership wasn't a thing the concept right yeah um and it was a language that they did not understand uh and like the contract gave thousands of miles of land and all of the people within it for king leopold and shit like that

this is something that america would do as well uh in different ways pretty much every imperial country would do something kind of similar to this um but what this conference really did do uh was let all of these european powers who really hated one another to direct their hostility outwards against effectively the entire continent of africa the continent was divided into spheres of influence and soon powers were rushing to take shit over as fast as possible forcing the indigenous populations into signing treaties like leopold did um so back in 1882 this is where germans finally get their claws on africa a guy named fr Adolf Luterlitz, again, never dressed in Adolf, wanted to establish a foothold in Africa in order to make himself old-timey rich. He failed a few times in a few other places before finally doing the same thing in what is known as Southwest Africa, which was generally known as German Southwest Africa.

Today, modern-day Namibia. Africa, which was generally known as German Southwest Africa. Today, modern day Namibia. Previous to this, Luterlitz attempted to do the same thing in a colony that was controlled by Africa and was today Nigeria and failed miserably and got evicted. And him and another German named Heinrich Vogelsang teamed up in Namibia. Now, the area wasn't claimed by any imperial power quite yet. And there were a decently large number of German immigrants moving to America at the time. So their goal was to try to get them to go there instead. In 1883, he bought the anchorage at Angra Pequina from a local chief who eventually went by the German name Josef Frederick II.

It's the only name that I can find for him. Gotcha. It was for 100 pounds of gold and 200 rifles. He then purchased more land a couple of months later for more gold and more rifles. But, of course, there was fuckery in the deal the contract a local chief signed specified that the area of lands with as 20 geographical miles this is a term that the chief had no concept of or had ever heard before because why the fuck would he also german geographical mile equaled 7.4 kilometers where the common mile was only 1.4.

Now, the chief didn't know this, but Luterlitz did. So I kind of appreciate you. They're finding new and new and innovative ways to fuck over indigenous people, like changing how big a mile is. Yeah, like and you don't even have to do it right. Like you're just doing it you're just doing it because you can't like at some point like obviously a lot of the shit is just because you could but like if you're if you're gonna be as petty as to change how big a mile is like you're just an asshole what's interesting and probably the first time um that

i've been researching stuff like this which admittedly isn't as long as actual historians, that this treaty was so fucked up and illegal that the German colonial department knew it was unactionable and illegal by any sane court. I feel like if a German imperial court is like, I can't do that.

Like that... Imagine a minority so badly that a German imperial court is like, I can't do that. Like that. Imagine a minority so badly that a German imperial court's like, whoa, it's like when Robert E. Lee tried to fuck over his slaves so bad that Confederate Virginia was like, no, you have to let him go.

Jesus Christ. But they let the contract slide because he swindled the black guy and nobody gave a shit. Sure. Of course. Right. Now, before we get into the real bad things, long-time listeners of the show know that we have

a special, I don't know, bit that we have whenever we talk about something terrible. Liam, this is your first time experiencing this, though I know you've listened to the show before. So, for people who maybe are new um whenever we talk about anything terrible at any point liam and liam alone can call for an animal fact uh i have a list of random animal facts that i will read to him i also have a bonus uh which is a one-time drop uh that i will that is uh lyndon b johnson talking about his bunghole uh that i will allow you to

play thank you thanks joe has anyone ever gotten through these without an animal fact no though to be fair nick is very good at it because he's in the military and he's used to being psychically damaged continuously throughout every day of his life all All right. You know, you ever watch Hot Ones? Yes. All right. So Joel Embiid, who set up for the 76ers, made it a point to not drink any milk or water

as he got through it. And at the end, as he's clearly like in agony, he's like, well, did anyone else get through it without drinking milk or water? And like one other person had done it. So now I've got to beat Nick.

Okay. All right. Let's do do this let's do a genocide i i will say that this first episode you might not use any it's the second episode that i'll get you oh great it's like uh you're going back to hot ones da bomb um which fucks everybody up so yeah uh it turned out like i said the court knew it was illegal but they also did not care and the looter lit slant uh looter lits uh uh did what what else but name his new colony looter let's land come on dude somewhere donald trump was giving him a knowing nod uh like if this guy could build a skyscraper if this guy could build a skyscraper his name would be on it in gold letters for sure oh there's a looter let's bay too oh yeah yeah looter it's back come on you fucking prick so then a few years later bismarck used the conference of berlin to solidify german

claims over the area, officially claiming it as a protectorate that same year. Though, he went out of his way to not call it a colony in order to not piss off the British who had settled down in other colonies just across the border. As soon as the German flag went up over the colony, it became a beacon for thousands of colonists, missionaries, and traders. Now, missionaries, I'm not going to go into a whole lot about their spread through Namibia, but they're heavy influence as they are in most versions of settler colonialism. Virtually all of the education systems available for Germans and Africans in Namibia are church-based, so they can work on religious and cultural assimilation.

so they can work on religious and cultural assimilation. This happened in Vietnam with the French, and they used it as a mechanism to deploy soldiers there and eventually turn it into a colony. We did it in the United States. Canada, still finding out about that every other week, it seems.

You don't get to play in a bunch of churches being burned right now. I get it's kind of a dick move, but let them have this one. Yeah, I don't give to play in a bunch of churches being burned right now no i do like i get it's kind of kind of a dick move but like yeah let them have this one yeah i don't i don't give one fuck uh i think they could have this one that's how i feel about it i don't think i can legally say how i feel about that um on this podcast but uh yeah i'm with you yeah um my my thoughts and... As Alice would say, I hope they have a nice time. That's right. I hope at one point we can stop finding mass hidden graves under churches in Canada until that point.

Of children. I will not care. Yeah. Yeah. Now, this became a beacon for everyone. Bismarck hated the idea of public funds being used to fund and develop the colony leading to what else it's total and complete privatization uh so he accidentally didn't einrand

who is john gulp uh it turns out uh he runs a concentration camp in namibia oh that's not surprising. And to be fair, both him and Ayn Rand would probably be fine with that. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Don't forget they'd collect Social Security while they did it. That's fucking right. Now, the reason why he did this, like I said, was not because he disapproved of colonies.

He didn't want them to become a financial burden on the empire, which meant at no point would the German government dip in and be like, oh, we have to pay for this, that, or the other thing. No, you want to succeed, you have to make money in your colony. And then pay us taxes with it, because fuck you. Sure. Now, the German Colonial Society for Southwest Africa was formed by bankers industrialists and politicians and granted a full monopoly right over minerals within the colony uh so yeah uh and a lot of members of the german government did their awful shit through this vector like the german government can't

officially do this but the colonial society can right Right. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge. Sure. Even though they're like a prince or something. Now, the only bright spot of this entire episode I get to point out, just as the colony became filthy fucking rich, Lurlit mysteriously died on a boat trip and nobody ever

found his corpse. Okay. Well, that's one good thing, I suppose. Yeah. The first commissioner for West Africa, Gustav Nachtigall, died the same way. Which means my opinion on boats is going way up.

Maybe the boats did it, man. Team random German drowning from boats. After Gustav died after only a year in office, he was replaced by, brace yourself, Heinrich Ernst Goring.

Yes, he was that Goring's dad. Oh, no. No. Great, great. Start strong. All right. Fuck fantastic, bud uh these are going to be the the first footprints of the next one if you know what i mean um yeah there's an awful

lot of these connections that pop up i studied at my dad's knee to learn how to kill 12 million people now if it makes you feel any better heinrich ernst goring uh was very bad at his job um it like comically well but we'll get there up until this point germans in namibia were dicks but they weren't like outstanding dicks they would become well obviously they'd lied and cheated their way into owning this colony there was free trade with them and by uh with native people like the herrero and namakwa tribes in the area they weren't't exactly living in harmony, but they were giving each other space. There wasn't a large enough German population yet to displace them. So the Herero and Nama had to give up a few things,

but there wasn't death squads after them. We're talking a low bar here. They weren't enslaved. They weren't being mass murdered. If they stayed away from Germans for the most part, it was live and let live, which is as best case as this situation is going to get.

The Germans mostly lived on the coast and the natives stayed further inland because, and this is a huge part of Herrero and Nama culture, is cattle farming uh so like you had to bring the cattle further inland uh in order for them to have you know grazing lands um the germans were more than welcome to let them do the hard work of actual actually farming at the time and then just buy their cattle or steal them whichever so all of that would unfortunately

um change under goring come to a crashing halt because he's a proto-nazi remember the colony wasn't going to get any german state money uh and they had to earn their own way and it was up to the commissioner to drive investment into the colony any way he could so pull ourselves up by our genocide bootstraps uh yeah that's good to make the name of the book that i'm gonna cite here uh apt so goring did what anybody would do in his shoes fake a gold rush what all right now i'm in i'm in so far i'm in so far. I'm in so far. According to the book, The Kaiser's Holocaust, Goring ordered someone to fire gold pieces at a rock face, pulverizing them into gold dust

in chunks, and then announced they had found gold in the colony. This eventually attracted thousands of new colonists to flood there, along with their money and tons of new investments. Yeah. That's fucking... Hey, man.

If it was anybody other than Herman Goring's dad, I'd be like, you know what? Props. Yeah, but no. He's a proto-Nazi. Yeah. You can't hand it to Herman Goring. It's not good.

You shouldn't do that. Now, this rush of new people and money meant that the Germans would need to take and secure more lands for new settlers. As you can imagine, this led them into more and more conflict with the native population of Namibia. And Germans would have to figure out a way to, quote, pacify them. And they would do so with what were effectively protection rackets. Well, the Germans

referred to the native peoples of various... They used a lot of different words. The most common one you hear is hottentots or hottentots or whatever. Now, it's normally a term used for nomads, which is not accurate um now some of the the nama and herero tribes were nomads while others were not sure it seems that they use the term nomad to try to say like well they didn't have any claim to the land anyway they

moved around so often right and because they're presumably subsistence farmers some of them at least do do that yes um but like also land ownership is not a concept to these people because why would it be right um and there's various different tribes and different captains which is what they called their chiefs leading to different bands of people all with different politics alliances and intertribal conflict. A lot of German writing, especially of the day, pretty much lumps the Herrero and Nama into two camps,

which is absolutely not true. But the Germans here, doing their protection rackets, would play kingmaker, picking and choosing who they think would best serve their purposes as colonial subjects, tilting the table in favor of the person that promised to join the colonial side of things. But sometimes it didn't always work, and these intertribal conflicts would

erupt into all-out war between clans and tribes. So that's when the Germans would simply get involved in these conflicts. They would play competing captains against one another, create conflicts where there was originally none at all, and then wait for what happened next. In many cases, a captain who thought that they might lose these smaller civil wars would reach out to the Germans and ask for help, normally with guns and stuff like that. At this point, most of the tribes are still fighting with hand weapons. Guns are not super common. not the guns are not super common um now the germans would be willing to help this captain with guns and supplies or whatever they need as long as they signed a protection agreement well now meaning that while their tribe would have freedom to rule within a certain part of

this land the land itself fell under the rule of the german colonial government once these were signed the germans would let the locals fight it out, destroying each other, then sometimes backing one side against the other if they thought one side was winning a bit too easily. And then when it was over, they would simply go in and pick apart the winner, knowing they'd be too weak or bound by a treaty to resist them. Sometimes weaker tribal leaders would reach out to the Germans to sign these agreements to protect their cattle herds, only for the Germans to then seize the cattle in payment for the agreement that the leader signed but did not understand. Dicks. Yeah. The Germans were very, very open about all of this, of course, at least to one another. Obviously, while many of the tribal leaders simply didn't see any other way of surviving.

see any other way of surviving the Germans could also levy these tribal people into their own colonial army units using them rather than Germans for dangerous situations because the Germans don't even have an army in Namibia yet they're just leveraging people against one another dudes right yeah there's like local

protection groups which is just like Germans with guns sure but the the shots troop or the security troops weren't there yet. Just Christ. Everything sounds so fucking nefarious in Germany. It always does. Yeah.

Slowly, but surely more and more of Namibia was chipped away like this going from a land set aside for the natives to part of the colonial enterprise. More and more German settlers arrive in the colony, increasing the pressure between colonial administration and the natives who saw the land that they were promised in these protection agreements slowly but surely being stripped away, either under threat of direct violence or the threat of withdrawing protection, leaving them open to violence from other tribes, which the Germans would, of course, encourage when people didn't listen.

By this point, most tribal leaders had signed one protection treaty or another with the germans working with them in the hope they'd eventually be left alone with the exception of one and he would pretty much dedicate the rest of his life to fucking with the germans as much as he could and that man's name was a normal effort boy or hendrick wit boy i love him now henrik wit boy uh the wit boy being a sub tribe of the namas um was a member of the nama tribe and his grandfather and father were both captains within the same group of namas and they were the first to move uh into what would become namibia from what was considered south africa like most high-ranking tribal children he was educated in lutheran schools by german missionaries he spoke german and by all accounts of the schools and his fellow tribal

members and the germans himself he was a clever Eventually, like his dad and granddad, he would take over as captain as his tribe, but his faction of the tribe did not quite take this lying down as Henrik's own father complained that his son was headstrong. This is because when Henrik was

younger during inter-travel war with the Hereros, he was nearly killed, and while he was recovering, he had a vision that he was sent by God to lead his people north further into Namibia. Now, everyone knew this would bring them into further conflict with other tribes and even other settlers. This led to several people wanting to be captain and then something that we would consider a mini civil war over the title. Henrik knew what was probably going to come next, and that was the Germans getting involved

like they had with his neighbors. Like I said, he was a smart dude. He knew what the Germans were up to. But Henrik wasn't going to let that happen. He immediately wrote to the Germans, kind of negging them into staying out of the war. He wrote, quote, I appeal to you. Be so

good as to distance yourself from the chiefs who would engage in treachery against me. I consider it ill-judged of your excellency to cooperate with those who cannot make peace and therefore envious of me. Stay neutral so Captain Jan Afrikaner and I can fight it out with them ourselves. Him being a distant relative and also claiming to be captain. Sure. So, how this worked. Now, remember, he didn't make any agreements to working with

the germans but he was so well spoken spoke such good german the germans assumed that he would eventually fall under their wing as well uh and henrik eventually out surprise motherfucker that's right uh and henrik eventually outmaneuvered all of his political opponents centralizing tribal power onto himself now um unified under Henrik and marching north brought him a direct confrontation with Chief Mahajero, a Herero faction with some amount of strength who had just signed a protection treaty with the Germans. Now, most of these tribes assumed they would be untouchable because they were saddled up with the Germans. And everyone assumed that the Germans, like all Europeans,

had massive military power they can bring down whenever they wanted. And the Germans, likewise, assumed that they locked all of these tribes into a weird network of treaties that would ensure that they'd only fight one another when they wanted to, but really only when the Germans needed useful fighting

to happen to replace someone they didn't like. They didn't actually think that someone that signed a protection treaty would actually get fucked with, right? Right. But Henrik didn't give one single solitary fuck about the German administration and attack them all. He simply didn't acknowledge German authority in any way. He marched against the Herero through the region of Damaraland and picked fights against other tribes, the same protection treaties. Now, he effectively called the Germans bluff, and this led to massive instability within the colony. You see, the Germans idea of protection was mostly just the agreement.

They didn't have colonial soldiers to actually protect everyone they said they would protect. And even if they wanted to, they didn't really care. They assumed that the agreements would be enough to scare anyone away. Now, they didn't care. However... Now, as you can imagine,

the Germans didn't care about any of these people, but the thing that this happened, the drawback of this happening, was it weakened the imperial mandate and the authority that they used to rule over everybody. Like, wait, the Germans aren't actually doing anything. Maybe they can't do anything. You know? Right.

Above all, instability threatened German economic interests. If colonial administrators could not guarantee stakeholders a return of their investments, commercial and industrial firms had little incentives to invest in the protectorate. Moreover, prolonged conflict discouraged potential German settlers from making the long voyage to the colony. So,

Henrik was fucking with the bottom line. And as we've learned on this show, you can't fuck with the money. Now, actually, this is one of the few guys who kind of gets away with it for quite a while. In June 1886, Reichskommissar Goring wrote to

Henrik, encouraging to end his quote, hostile actions in the colony. Act reasonably, he implored. Realize the best course is to return home and live in peace with your old father and your tribe. The German government... The German government cannot

permit chieftains who have placed themselves under German protection to support your enterprise of plunging the protected chiefdom into war. I trust you will attend my words. Henrik shrugged, crumpled up the letter, threw threw it in the trash and then kept going to war uh henrik there's a we're going to talk about a lot of this when he talks to

the german uh administration goring is pretty much the only one he just flat out ignores i think because everyone knew he was kind of an idiot good good good fuck him and his idiot kid because everyone knew who's kind of an idiot good good good fuck him and his idiot kid fuck his kid in particular oh yeah later that same year he received a letter from a louis niels a deputy officer in the service of goring nils invited wit boy to participate in a meeting between the various warring communities and welvis bay which is a nearby city where imperial authorities hope to facilitate a peace treaty in his response henrik chose to instead flex he said quote i understand you want to negotiate peace you you who call yourself a deputy how shall i respond are you someone else's representative am i

and am i a free autonomous man who only answers to god i have nothing further to say to you a deputy is less powerful so i've decided not to comply with your request damn oh that's hero shit henrik knew the same thing the germans did they had no meaningful way to enforce the rule in the region other than vague threats of possible force being brought by the german imperial military which which remember the Germans did not want to do. That was their whole thing. We don't actually want to protect you or give you money. We just want you to give us money in taxes. And not to mention that

military was thousands of miles away and there was no means or colonial army for the Germans to strike out against them in any particular area. At one point, Goring threatened all-out war and Henrik didn't care enough to respond. I fucking love this guy.

That's fucking tight. Henrik also understood the Imperial game going on, so he decided to reach out to German opponents to make them look bad. In addition, he reached out to other European powers and tried to emphasize the inherent contradictions underlying German Imperial directives. Henrich's prior relationship with missionaries and European

traders helped him gain access to foreign embassies and international media outlets. In a letter to the British magistrate in Walvis Bay in August 1892, he accused the German government of the very crime that the protection treaty supposedly promised to avert. he accused the German government of the very crime that the protection treaty supposedly promised to avert. Quote, what have I ever heard and seen since the arrival of Germans? It seems to me that the German himself is a powerful man who wants to invade our country. He rules autocratically, enforcing his own laws. Right and truth do not interest him. In an effort to broaden his appeal even further, Henrik underscored his knowledge of the Bible and regularly cited Christian

teachings while engaging German leaders and European diplomats. After Mahairo had negotiated a new treaty with the colonial administration in 1890, for example, Henrik compared the situation to Christ after Herod and Pontius Pilate had forged an alliance to, quote, get the Lord Jesus

out of the way. Oh my goodness. The guy just doing like an international uh diplomatic trip dunking on people and considering himself jesus good for him man when henrik found that european newspapers would publish his letters he made sure to always look like what he was a resistance fighter a free and independent person but also made sure to always look like what he was, a resistance fighter, a free and independent person, but also made sure to never directly threaten the Germans. So whenever the Germans did something, they would always look like the aggressor. In doing so, even in German newspapers, he looked like the superior of his opponents rather than the subhuman the German

colonial administration attempted to frame him as. And I don't use that term lightly. This is where Ubermensch starts. And Untermensch. Thanks for nothing, Gering's dad. You fuck. In August 1894, the popular Berlin newspaper Berliner, some other German words I cannot pronounce, wrote that Henrik was, quote, a character who makes history, much like Napoleon Bonaparte, leading him to be nicknamed in Germany, the Black Napoleon, a name I'm sure he can fight over with Toussaint Louverture in Haiti.

There can only be one. There can only be one. Dig up Napoleon's grave as well. Throw him into the mix. dig up Napoleon's grave as well throw him into the mix the German population unlike many others were actually pretty torn about the idea of an overseas empire

many people did not like the idea and Henrik's speeches and the constant owning of the colonial authorities and the battlefield of ideas or whatever in the newspapers only strengthened the cause on those people but it

did the same thing for those who thirsted for what the kaiser called their place in the sun it was decided that quitting while they were ahead would just be bad for business and the the colony would have to be secured and the government didn't care how bad they looked doing it so the kaiser hired kurt van francois a former mercenary under the employ of King Leopold II and captain of the German Imperial Army two things that nobody likes to hear especially not back to back

no no Kurt's job would be to sail to the colony and set up the Schutz Troop or the Imperial Security Troops now if you're wondering what kind of person Kurt was you probably won't be surprised when I tell you. He was a fanatical racist, even for the day. Oh, no.

Also, of course he was. Francois looked at Henrik as a mere, quote, tribesman who could be defeated with relative ease. Quote, the Europeans have failed to give the black man the right kind of treatment, he wrote upon his arrival. They made too many concessions.

Granting all of his wishes without bearing in mind this is only interpreted as a sign of weakness. Nothing but relentless severity will lead to success. Also, he did not use the term black man. I'll let you fill in the blank. Of course. God damn it. Francois and

Henrik actually met, which is kind of weird. they met to hash out their ongoing problems which in this case meant once again attempting to bend henrik to his will which he refused to do and i need to point out here that some members of the german public may have seen africans as human beings um francois did not oh yeah yeah he believed them and used the term untermensch very frequently uh which for people unaware means subhuman um and if that sounds familiar to you it should nazis were fans nazis were huge fans and if francois was around he would have been a huge fucking Nazi.

Oh, yeah. Now, these meetings were predictably bad, because it turns out Henrik was much better spoken than Francois, and Francois fucking hated Henrik because he was black. Did Henrik punch Francois in the face at any point? Because I want that. No, I wish he would have just smuggled in a pistol and put one between his eyes. Yeah. Now, Henrik framed the conflict as one's national liberation of the people he said quote every ruler is chief over his people and the country when one stands under the protection of another he is subordinate

and no longer independent or master of his people or country we are different nations live by different laws and customs and come from different countries. Each chief lives with his people according to his own laws and conditions which they find themselves. Now, after this conversation, Francois had one of those moments that you see in movies where the bad guy kind of suddenly realizes that he might actually be the bad guy. And that is when Francois admitted to Henrik that he understood because, quote, I could not bear to be bossed around either. But, yeah, then that didn't matter.

Um, and from all like firsthand accounts of the meetings, uh, Henrik was very calm and collected while Francois got more and more angry. Cause remember this guy worked for King Leopold the second in the free, in the Congo free state, you know what he does to black people he doesn't like. Yes. And this one is literally

making him look like a mouth-breathing idiot. Like a fucking idiot. Which he was. We should be glad about that. Yes. We are not here to stand Francois. But none of that mattered, unfortunately. Francois' only goal was to pacify the Nama people, not to cut deals with them. This meeting told him that the only way the Whitboy Nama tribe would stop fighting the Germans would be through military conquests. Or, what the German colonial government began to call, and I am 100% serious here, the answer to the native question.

Come on, dude. 100% serious here the answer to the native question come on dude I told you you'd keep seeing it just let that one love love love to do episodes on holocaust one not even holocaust one but uh it's it's a pre I feel comfortable calling

this a prequel for reasons that you will see more in an episode two um thanks joe yeah uh so francois ordered his security force around 200 to do some light genocide in what would not be the first or only extermination order given by the german military in this area and something that become frighteningly common throughout their immediate history Francois gave the order to his soldiers quote the object of this mission is to destroy the tribe

of the wit boy and that is where we will pick up next week I still got half an hour you know it's it's researching this has been interesting in that in the field of genocide studies and general history, right? Most people consider the Armenian Genocide to be the prequel to the Holocaust, right? You have Germans involved in it.

They're military advisors to the Ottoman military. They help. Actually, one of the best firsthand accounts comes from a German army medic that was there and was disgusted by what he saw.

I don't think that's accurate anymore. I think it was Namibia. For reasons that I don't want to's accurate anymore. I think it was Namibia. For reasons that I don't want to spoil, but become incredibly apparent in part two. Obviously, having a goring involved doesn't help things. But how are you feeling, man? This is your first heavy, heavy episode. I'm still far fine.

Not feeling great about tomorrow when we're recording this. Yeah. I will say that it's not as bad as the Khmer Rouge. I feel comfortable saying that. But then again, I don't know. I don't know. I'll let you be the judge of that. So, Liam, plug your other show uh well

there's your problem it's a show about uh engineering disasters go listen to it and not genocides most of the time uh sometimes genocide adjacent yeah to be fair we're also not mostly about genocide i try to hit like one good one a year to keep everybody on their toes. Thank you, Joe. Yeah. Keep them on their Joes, if you will. You're welcome for my service. And everybody, thank you for supporting the show.

Obviously, thank you for sitting through this. I know this is probably not the normal episode you tune in for. But thank you for supporting the show. If you donate at the $3 level or above, you get access to my premium, if that's the word I'm using for it, podcast called The History of Armenia, where I chart the history of Armenia from conception to the modern day.

Listen to it. And until next time, don't do colonialism. If your last name is Garing put a redacted in your mouth and redact it just add it