"The angel of death has descended violently among them", A study of Namibia's concentration camps and prisoners-of-war, 1904-08

The historiography of the concentration camps, which the German colonial regime established in the wake of the war against the Herero and Nama peoples in Namibia, has been deeply influenced by white settler racial mentalities and concomitant denials of their existence. This revisionist historiography penetrated Namibia’s academic community, leading to publications – such as the work of Brigitte Lau – arguing that no genocide ever took place.
Casper Erichsen’s The Angel of Death offers a systematic overview of the existence of these camps in German South-West Africa and the atrocities that took place under German rule vis-à-vis the Herero in particular. He describes in detail practices such as the forced labour that the local population was subjected to in the context of Namibia’s railway construction. The author diligently reconstructs this black page of Namibia’s and Germany’s history from a patchwork of different archival sources, thus ensuring that the dreadful events that occurred between 1904 and 1908 will never be forgotten.

Discussant: Jan-Bart Gewald

Before this seminar the Director of the ASC will present the award to the 
winner.