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Horrific Facts from History that Will Invade Nightmares

Khalid Elhassan October 31, 2021 35 min

Hulagu and a cowering Caliph after the fall of Baghdad. Deadliest Blogger

20. The Horrific Herero and Nama Genocide

Led by General Lothar von Trotha, the German soldiers pursued the Herero survivors into the desert. To prevent them from accessing water, they placed armed guards on water sources or poisoned the wells. As a result, thousands died from thirst. On October 4^th, 1904, Trotha reported to his superiors: “I believe that this [Herero] nation as a nation must be exterminated… I prefer for the nation to disappear entirely rather than allow them to infect our troops with their diseases“.

As to the Nama, the German settlers called for their extermination. Those who did not flee were sent to concentration camps, and a third of the captives died en route before they reached the camps. Once in the camps, many more died of epidemics and mistreatment. The captives were subjected to forced labor, beaten, whipped, and tortured, while many of the women were raped or made into concubines. In total, about 65,000 Herero, 80% of their total population, perished in the horrific genocide. 10,000 Nama, 50% of that people, were also killed.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.