The first genocide of the 20th century was committed by German troops against the Herero people in present day Namibia. After years of living in denial, Speaker of German Parliament (der Bundestag), Norbert Lammert (CDU), has challenged the German nation to wake up and call their atrocity what it is – genocide.
Lammert said in an interview with German TV, ZDF that the failure of Germany to take responsibility for its colonial crimes is personally embarrassing.
He however said that there will be a resolution of parliament in the near future, which is expected to call the killings a genocide.
It will be recalled that the same parliament this month overwhelmingly passed a symbolic resolution, which angered Turkey, declaring the killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks in 1915 a genocide. And Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan had reminded Germans of their Herero sins as he criticized the resolution against his country.
Green Party member of parliament,Cem Özdemir backed the speaker and said that “it is high time Germany took responsibility of its historic crime and call it what it is.”
Namibia’s representative in Germany, Zedika Ngavirue, also talking to ZDF, emphasized, that Germany must first accepts that it committed genocide against the Hereros and then apologize for it. After that “comes the important question of reparations.”
In 1904, the German army killed over 60,000 Herero and 10,000 Nama people. Namibia was then a German colony. And in 1904 when the people pushed for their freedom, Germany’s General Lothar von Trotha ordered that they be wiped out.
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