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.