Herero and Namaqua Genocide - Influence Upon Nazi Germany

Influence Upon Nazi Germany

The Herero genocide has commanded the attention of historians who study complex issues of continuity between the Herero Genocide and the Holocaust. It is argued that the Herero genocide set a precedent in Imperial Germany to be later followed by Nazi Germany's establishment of death camps.

• According to Benjamin Madley, the German experience in South West Africa was a crucial precursor to Nazi colonialism and genocide. He argues that personal connections, literature, and public debates served as conduits for communicating colonialist and genocidal ideas and methods from the colony to Germany.

• Tony Barta, honorary research associate at La Trobe University Melbourne, argues that the Herero Genocide was an inspiration for Hitler in his war against the Jews.

• According to Clarence Lusane, Eugen Fischer's medical experiments can be seen as a testing ground for later medical procedures used during the Nazi Holocaust. Fischer later became chancellor of the University of Berlin, where he taught medicine to Nazi physicians. One of his prominent students was Josef Mengele, the doctor who performed genetic experiments on Jewish children at the Auschwitz concentration camp.

• Ben Kiernan, the director of the Genocide Studies Program at Yale University, pointed out that Eugen Fischer was not the only person who took part in both genocides. Franz Ritter von Epp, who was later responsible for the liquidation of all Bavarian Jews and Roma as governor of Bavaria, took part in the Herero genocide as well.

• Mahmood Mamdani argues that the links between the Holocaust and the Herero Genocide are beyond the execution of an annihilation policy and the establishment of concentration camps and that there are ideological similarities in the conduct of both genocides. Focusing on a written statement by General Trotha translated as:

Mamdani takes note of the similarity between the aims of the General and the Nazis. According to Mamdani in both cases there was a Social Darwinist notion of "cleansing" after which "something new" would "emerge".