Modern Era · Africa · War
1904
Herero genocide in German South-West Africa
July 1904
When the Herero people rebelled against German colonial settlers in what is now Namibia, General Lothar von Trotha issued an extermination order. Herero families were driven into the Omaheke desert to die of thirst. Those who surrendered were worked to death in camps. Perhaps sixty-five thousand Herero perished, the century's first genocide.