There are plenty of reminders of the colonial past in Swakopmund, a town on Namibia’s coast if you know where to look. Mechanics work beneath battered Mercedes; doughy cooks prepare doughy strudel; a guesthouse is named after a Bavarian prince.
In the centre of town, the privately run Swakopmund Museum is a mix of taxidermy and Germany. Near a stuffed seal is a cabinet of pilsner glasses used by those who left the Second Reich for German South-West Africa, as Namibia was known between 1884 to 1915. The museum’s curator concedes that it “does not tell the whole story” and cites a lack of funds.
To grasp a fuller account of German colonialism, travel to the town’s outskirts. In front of a small house is an outbuilding no bigger than a Volkswagen SUV. It is probably the smallest museum in Africa; it is certainly one of the most important.
The Swakopmund Genocide Museum memorialises what scholars have described as the first genocide of the 20th century. From 1904 to 1908, around 65,000 Herero people (80% of the total) and 10,000 Nama (50%) were killed as part of a brutal German response to a rebellion.
So moved by Namibia’s powerful statement. The images of the genocide in the museum in Windhoek are haunting and painful, they’ve stayed with me. And are essential for understanding Germany as a country whose history is founded in settler colonialism, apartheid and genocide https://t.co/kpF8Dd7nal pic.twitter.com/GwphJeD5fo
— Bhakti Shringarpure (@bhakti_shringa) January 13, 2024
The methods foreshadowed and inspired the Nazis. (The brown shirts worn by the Nazi Party’s paramilitary Sturmabteilung came from a surplus supply of colonial uniforms.) Thousands were crammed into concentration camps. Their skulls were sent to Germany for examination by eugenicist scientists.
"I set this up because the Swakopmund Museum does not tell the story of my people," says Laidlaw Peringanda (pictured), whose museum officially gained permission to operate in January. It is sparse, consisting mostly of homemade print-outs of black-and-white photos. The images are of skulls, emaciated children in camps and women chained together.
Aside from an old German rifle that Mr Peringanda swivels in his hand as he talks, there is just one artefact: an ekori (a traditional headdress worn by Herero women). It was sent by a rich Swiss woman who found it in her private collection. Many totems still remain outside Namibia.
After more than five years of talks, in 2021, Germany's then-foreign minister announced that "We will now officially call these events what they are from today's perspective: genocide." Germany promised to spend more than €1bn ($1.1bn) over 30 years on aid and development projects.
