German Namibians (German: Deutschnamibier) are a community of people descended from ethnic German colonists who settled in present-day Namibia. In 1883, the German trader Adolf Lüderitz bought (from a local chief) what would become the southern coast of Namibia and founded the city of Lüderitz. The German government, eager to gain overseas possessions, annexed the territory soon after, naming it South-West Africa (German: Deutsch-Südwestafrika). Small numbers of Germans subsequently immigrated there, many coming as soldiers (German: Schutztruppe), traders, diamond miners, or colonial officials. In 1915, during the course of World War I, Germany lost Southwest Africa (see History of Namibia); after the war, the former colony became a South African mandate. The German settlers were allowed to remain and, until independence in 1990, German remained an official language of the territory.
Read more about German Namibians: Language, Communities, Decline
Famous quotes containing the word german:
“She had exactly the German way: whatever was in her mind to be delivered, whether a mere remark, or a sermon, or a cyclopedia, or the history of a war, she would get it into a single sentence or die. Whenever the literary German dives into a sentence, that is the last you are going to see of him till he emerges on the other side of the Atlantic with his verb in his mouth.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)