Genocide: - DIIS

Henrik Lundtofte
to die out of themselves, quite the opposite, the rebels threatened German
colonial development.
The Herero at the start pressed Leutwein’s forces hard but in the course of
the spring of 1904 he raised the Herero’s siege of all the towns. Nevertheless
Leutwein was replaced as military leader in May 1904. The replacement
was made immediately after the Herero warriors had decimated a
German force and at a time when it was rumoured that Leutwein would
negotiate peace with the Herero – Leutwein received a command not to
negotiate. 33
Above all, troop re-inforcements and the appointment of a new commander-in-chief,
General Trotha, indicated that the power structure in Berlin
wanted the rebellion to be completely crushed. However, neither Leutwein
nor Trotha were given orders to carry out a war of extermination,
only orders to crush the rebellion. Trotha in a letter to Leutwein wrote,
that he never received any specifi c instructions when he was appointed
commander of the German forces: “His Majesty the Emperor and King
only said to me that he expected me to crush the uprising by any means
necessary…” 34 On the other hand Leutwein pointed out forcibly that a
population of 60 to 70 thousand could not easily be exterminated. This
suggests that there were people of infl uence who wanted to exterminate
the Herero. 35
If the extermination of the Herero was the hidden agenda, then an analysis
of German military strategy should be able to reveal this. One of the results
of Leutwein’s strategy was that the major part of the Herero forces with
women, children and cattle were concentrated on the Waterberg plateau
in the northern part of central South West Africa. It was here that Trotha
would attack the Herero.
33 Krüger (1999), p. 50; Bley (1968), p. 194.
34 “Instruktionen oder Direktiven habe ich bei meiner Ernennung zum Kommandeur in
Südwestafrika keine erhalten. Seine Majestät der Kaiser und König haben mir nur gesagt,
er erwarte, dass ich mit allen Mitteln den Aufstand niederschlagen…“. Cited in Drechsler
(1966), p. 180.
35 Drechsler (1966), p. 172-173; Bridgman (1981), p. 86-87.
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