Häußler, Matthias Die Last der Sonne

Die Kriege der Ovaherero und Nama gegen die deutsche Kolonialherrschaft

German South West Africa, 1904: The Ovaherero rise up against German colonial rule. In an attempt to break their resistance, German troops commit the first genocide of the 20th century. Later, the Nama also take up the fight against colonial rule. Matthias Häußler now presents the first comprehensive account of the bloody wars in present-day Namibia. "He has taken on the 'burden of the sun' and it will crush him," the Nama leader Hendrik Witbooi prophesied to the Ovaherero leader, Kamaharero, when the latter signed the protection treaty with the German Empire in 1890. He would be proven right. But how did the crimes committed by the German colonial troops during the suppression of the uprisings come about? In his compelling account, Matthias Häußler shows how the violence slowly escalated and how the genocide was fueled more by the prevailing circumstances and an excessive will to power than by a genocidal intent. In doing so, he describes the Ovaherero and the Nama not merely as powerless victims, but deliberately as independent actors whose abilities and successes surprised the colonial rulers more than once and truly fueled their will to destroy them.