Ghosts of the Past

Dedication

For Nicola

and

Edward Lionel Presgrave

soldier, rebel, Australian

1881 – 1905

THE ANGLO-BOER WAR AND THE HISTORY OF

GERMAN SOUTH WEST AFRICA (MODERN-DAY NAMIBIA)1883 Adolf Lüderitz, a merchant from Bremen, Germany, establishes a trading post at Angra Pequena (later named Lüderitz Bay) on the Atlantic coast of Africa. 1884 Lüderitz requests protection against British expansion and German South West Africa is proclaimed. 1899 Anglo-Boer War breaks out between the Boer republics and the British Empire. 1902 Anglo-Boer War ends with British victory. 1904 The Herero people of German South West Africa rise up against Germany in protest of unfair land and work policies. Some Nama tribes initially side with Germany, then join the Herero. Tens of thousands of Nama and Herero die of starvation, disease and overwork in concentration camps. 1907 Armed conflict between Germany and Nama and Herero ends. 1914 First World War breaks out, South Africa invades German South West Africa at the behest of Britain. 1915 German troops surrender in German South West Africa. 1920 South Africa is granted a mandate over South West Africa. 1990 South West Africa gains independence after a protracted struggle and is renamed Namibia. 2004 Germany offers an apology for the deaths of Herero and Nama during the ‘genocide’ of 1904–07, but rules out compensation. 2011 Skulls of twenty Herero and Nama taken for research purposes during the genocide are returned to Namibia from a museum in Germany. 2018 The Herero and Nama people launch a class action lawsuit in the US Federal Court against the German government, calling for reparations over the genocide.