Chloe Fergus
Hannah Arendt’s Ghosts: Reflections on the Disputable Path from Windhoek to Auschwitz by Robert Gerwarth and Stephan Malinowski.
This article tackles the continuity theory between the Holocaust conducted in Germany against Jewish people between 1941-1945 and critically compares it to the previous German ‘genocide’ and colonial conquest of Herero and Nama in Southwest Africa in 1904.
Throughout the article, Gerwarth and Malinowski draw upon several other historians opinions and examine them. They note Zimmerer who claims that there are ‘African roots’ to the holocaust and if they are ignored, then a crucial element is being overlooked in explaining the context of the Nazis mass murder of European Jewry. He states the colonial conquest was a “decisive link to the crimes of the Nazis” and the Herero war was the starting point of a genocidal path, ending in the Holocaust. He even goes as far to say that the Nazi war of extermination and murder of the Jews would likely not have been possible without this colonial experience. This argument is countered by recent general histories of the Third Reich in which Germany’s colonial past plays no role whatsoever.
Continuity regarding the use of concentration camps is drawn upon by Benjamin Madley suggesting that the idea of the camps was first tested in German South-West Africa and that the Nazis borrowed ideas and methods from the previous ‘genocide’ that they employed and expanded upon. Gerwarth and Malinowski tackle these historical interpretations and argue that their chronological and spatial boundaries are not clear. They pin-point Zimmerer’s case and argue that in his articles on the war against Herero and Nama are of central focus but in other publications, the German colonial massacres of 1904 are only used as one example amongst many others.
Hannah Ardent argues that neither Germans nor the Nazis were responsible for investing racial theories and her interpretation is based largely on anti-Semitism, racism and colonialism as European phenomena’s. The violation of 1904 had been much within standard European colonial standards and practices and did not merit an exceptionally shocking level of violence in accordance with European colonialism.
Gerwarth and Malinowski utilise three other examples of colonial mass violence that could be deemed as genocides, all of which took place before German interference in Southwest Africa. The American conquest of the Philippines (1898-1902), the Spanish colonial wars in Cuba (1895-1898) and French massacres in Algeria (1830-1872). These examples are drawn upon to emphasise that violence, systematic destruction, racist legislation and attacks on culture were standard procedure rather than an exceptional “taboo violation”. The three examples are analysed, and parallels are drawn such as racist criteria and viewing groups as inferior in which Americans viewed natives as “savages” and ordered anyone over the age of ten to be shot. This correlates with Trotha’s “extermination order” of 1904. Furthermore, the death rate of the American colonial conquest in the Philippines exceeded the death rate several times over compared to that of German Southwest Africa.
The Spanish-Cuban war also had parallels, not only with the use of mass violence but with the use of concentration camps. This “successful” policy was in turn used by the Americans in the Philippines, the British in South Africa and the Germans in Southwest Africa, this therefore contrasts what Madley stated previously.
The French conquest of Algeria is an early example of racist discourses and colonial conquest and extermination. In this case there were between 250,000 to 900,000 largely civilians victims – men, women and children. It is repeatedly emphasised however, that in the Western context of violence this was nothing out of the ordinary since it was Western powers who dominated the colonial field.
Gerwarth and Malinowski draw upon WW1 Germany and their experience of defeat, civil war and revolution as of great importance in explaining an enhanced willingness to use violence which opposes the continuity theory. Another objection to the continuity proposition is the lack of personal links between 1904 and 1941. “Knowledge transfers” between generations is feasible however, those still alive from the 1904 conquest would have much aged and likely had very little impact on a German army that exceeded 3 million at the beginning of its efforts.
The role of the developed bureaucratic terror apparatus of the Third Riech is also noted in which they collaborated willingly in Nazi Germany but not in German Southwest Africa 1904. Hannah Ardent claims that racism was not an inherently German attitude and was a result of colonialism. To further this, issue lies with the difference between colonial, colour-coded and European anti-Semitism and that colonial racism was directed at non-Europeans (in other words, non-whites). Bartov highlights that the “Jewish enemy” who were deemed alien to European civilisation could also physically appear as European and be ‘disguised’. This draws upon the differences between the 1904 colonial conquest and the Holocaust as one was racially motivated and was colour-based racism where civilians were viewed as ‘inferior’ and the other was an anti-Semitic attack.
Overall, the narrative of the article appears to disassociate Windhoek to Auschwitz and claim they were two very separate events, at different times, under different leaderships with different ideologies and motives. It also plays down the violence conducted at Windhoek stating that this was somewhat the ‘norm’ for the time. Although parallels between the two are stated and analysed, Gerwarth and Malinowski present a strong thought-provoking argument against the continuity theory. They argue that Hannah Ardents proposed theory of racist imperialism as a laboratory for totalitarianism needs further empirical evidence however, they do recognise some plausible parallels between Windhoek and Auschwitz.
Molly McAllister
Benjamin Madley, ‘From Africa to Auschwitz: How German South West Africa Incubated Ideas and Methods Adopted and Developed by the Nazis in Eastern Europe’
This article highlights the comparability of the ideology and methods demonstrated within German-colonised South West Africa and Eastern Europe.
Throughout this article, Madley calls attention to the fact that the actions and methods used in the second world war towards Eastern Europeans did not follow the patterns set in German South-West Africa by coincidence, but because they borrowed these ideals and expanded upon them. He highlights the fact that the policy of annihilation used in the South West African genocide was unheard of in other mass murders taking place throughout Africa, and the policy was adopted by the Germans in the East through Nazi rule.
The implementation of Ratzel’s Lebensraum theory in South-West Africa helped to premise Nazi colonial expansion and settlement with the aspiration to obtain ‘living space’. Ratzel built the theory under the assumption and notion that ‘superior cultures’ destroy ‘inferior cultures’ in fights for living space, therefore justifying the violence against the South-West Africans. This was the same logic Hitler used within Eastern Europe when he wrote of ‘the right to possess soil’ and German racial superiority.
Additionally, Madley highlights that German South West African colonists introduced the implementation of a Weltanschauung which was later adopted by the Nazis, in which superior Germans ruled over sub-human non-Germans with brutality and slavery. This concept can be shown in both South-West Africa and Eastern Europe with the enslavement of both peoples.
Ideologies first trialed in South-West Africa also made their way to Eastern Europe as the German South-West Africa’s 1905 law banning Rassenmischung, or race mixing, it is not surprising that Nazis used vocabulary nearly identical to these laws when they criminalised marriage and sexual intercourse between Jews and ‘Aryan’ Germans.
Furthermore, the concept of concentration camps in South-West Africa were used as a template for Third Reich concentration camps such as Buchenwald and Dachau. Madley highlights that Von Trotha’s camps were unofficially divided into two categories: camps geared simply to kill, and work camps where prisoners were worked under conditions that led to death and their purpose was to extract economic value from prisoners in conditions which camp administrators anticipated would lead to mass casualties which shows clear similarities to concentration camps which imprisoned millions of eastern Europeans.
Overall, this article focuses on the Third Reich leaders borrowing ideas and methods from the German South-West African genocide that they employed and expanded upon. Through the use of genocidal rhetoric, the Lebensraum theory, the brutal treatment of colonised people as sub-humans, and the use of legally institutionalised racism, and deporting prisoners of war and noncombatants to work and death camps, they were all introduced to modern German history in the violence against Eastern Europeans through the South-West African experience.
From Auschwitz to Africa – Comments
I found this article useful in contextualising the development of the polices of the Third Reich. Madley’s arguments were clear and concise in a way that ensured the reader was left in no doubt that the polices that Hitler and the Nazis pursued were developed from colonial Germany. I was particularly struck by how much the policy of ‘lebensraum’ was adapted to suit the plans of the third Reich. Drawn from an existing idea from the colony of Namibia and extended into a violent racist policy that would annihilate millions of Jews. The article seems to suggest that the Nazis policies were in parallel with colonial Germany. Thus, the policies were received well by the German population at home as they believed that Germany should be restored to the glory days of Colonialism, and Imperialism.
I found the article of Madley a bit unsatisfactory. His initial point is to show how similar the events occurring in German South West Africa were to other violent colonial episodes, except for the annihilation policy. But isn’t exactly what makes it stand apart? Moreover, he doesn’t explain why and how it turned from concentration camps to a full-fledged extermination policy.
I enjoyed reading your summary Chloe!
I found it interesting when Gerwarth and Malinowski used other historians arguments, as you have stated, to explain the Holocaust in the context of the Herero War being the starting point for Germany’s genocidal path which ended with the Holocaust. Nazi atrocities which were committed during the Holocaust were, as W.E.B Du Bois wrote, something which the Christian civilisation of Europe had been doing against coloured people across the world in the name of a superior race. Also, Gerwarth and Malinowski used Jean-Paul Sarte’s argument which seen colonialism as a ‘boomerang’ that returned to Europe in the form of fascism – which I found to be a really interesting point to make.
My reading for this week focused on Dan Stone’s chapter where he argued that without modernity in the form of bureaucracy, infrastructure and technology the Holocaust would not have been possible. It is interesting to think that without the colonisation in Africa, would Nazi atrocities still have occurred due to modernity?
Thanks, Chloe and Molly, for these summaries of the readings. As I hope you’ll have seen, both readings go in very different directions – and I wonder which you find more convincing? One thing we’ll do shortly in the seminar is examine the links between ‘Windhoek and Auschwitz’. Molly uses the term ‘borrow’ to characterise this; do we think it is too strong to suggest some sort of causal link or direct line between German South-West Africa and the Holocaust?
I’m glad you’ve brought in the Stone reading here, Nakoma. One thing I’d like us to explore is how far we can combine these focuses on colonialism and modernity…
I found it very interesting when Gerwarth and Malinowski refer to Aimé Césaire’s quote on the Holocaust, suggesting that Europeans found the Holocaust so outrageous because European colonialism turned on itself. Colonial warfare in the Philippines, Cuba and Algeria show similarities to the Holocaust killing systems, demonstrated by the writers. These methods were typically reserved for “savages” and natives that challenged the imperial authority. However, once these systems took place on European soil they suddenly became deplorable.
I felt the readings were useful in being able to allow reflection on a part of the history of holocaust that isn’t as well known as the main Jewish extermination and persecution. The links of Lebensraum in Namibia to the ideas being developed into the treatment of Slavs to develop a larger space for aryans was good context for the origins of the ideologies developed by the Nazis. It’s useful to see that these ideas hadn’t come out of nowhere, they had been practised and developed previously. The knowledge and ability to carry out the holocaust was at Hitlers disposal due to the events of Namibia and Herero. Though, the fact that they were picked up in Europe by the Nazis even though colonisation of Africa was practised by many European countries shows that it’s not in fact that these events led to the holocaust but that they facilitated it. All it required was the right political conditions to be carried out, which was evidently found in Hitler and the Nazi party.
It’s also interesting to see the justifications and reasoning that is created for acts such as this. Lebensraum reminds me of the white-American ‘manifest destiny’, creating a name and rationalisation for eradicating a people and culture for the development of another allows easier acceptance.