Herero and Namaqua Genocide - Aftermath

Aftermath

With the closure of concentration camps all surviving Herero were distributed as labourers for settlers in the German colony, and from that time on, all Herero's over the age of seven were forced to wear a metal disc with their labour registration number, and banned from owning land or cattle, a necessity for pastoral society.

About 19,000 German troops were engaged in conflict, of which 3,000 saw combat, the rest were used for upkeep and administration; the German losses were 676 soldiers killed in combat, 76 missing and 689 dead from disease. The Reiterdenkmal (English: Equestrian Monument) in Windhoek was erected in 1912 to celebrate the victory and to remember the fallen Germans with no mention of the killed indigenous population. It remains a bone of contention in independent Namibia.

The costs of the campaign were 600 million marks, the normal subsidy of the colony was usually 14.5 million marks At about the same time, diamonds were discovered in the territory, and this did much to boost its prosperity. However, it was short-lived. In 1915, at the start of World War I, the German colony was taken over and occupied in the South-West Africa Campaign by the Union of South Africa, acting on behalf of the British Imperial Government. South Africa received a League of Nations Mandate over South-West Africa in 1919 under the Treaty of Versailles.