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Namibia: Genocide and the Second Reich

A hundred years ago, three quarters of the Herero people of the German colony of Namibia were killed, many in concentration camps.

Today, the descendants of the survivors are seeking reparations from the German government. This film tells for the first time this forgotten story and its links to German racial theories.

Described by the BBC as the story of Germany’s forgotten genocide. This powerful documentary by David Adetayo Olusoga took a sensitive and uncompromising look at the tragic circumstances leading to the massacre of three quarters of the Namibia population in German concentration camps built in Africa.

The programme included graphic reconstructions and did not shirk from showing disturbing scenes which revealed the savagery of european colonial ideology put into practise.

The documentary also showed the 2004 footage of Germany’s ambassador to Namibia expressing regret for their killing of thousands of Namibia’s Hereros during the colonial era. Unsurprisingly, the Germans refused to agree to the justifiable calls for reparations.

The programme also explored the current call for land reforms where most of Namibia’s commercial land is still owned by european farmers who make up 6 percent of the country’s population of 1.8 million.

Throughout it included interviews and powerful testimony from African survivors, descendants and reparation movement representatives thus making this a compelling programme which both educated the audience whilst treating the sensitive subject matter with the respect it deserved.

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  1. There is without doubt a deserved or not narrow bias towards Germany or Particular sections of the German political and military classes that are held solely responsible for all the anti semitist actions throughout history, and if we are to be reasonable, examine the facts and allow the evidence to draw conclusions then one will find many more culprits of racial genocide.
    Firstly, Anti semitism is as old as recorded history itself, and the word ‘pogrom’ (meaning massacre of jews) is a Russian word, and not confined to WW2, but not long after, Stalin had a large number of jews forcibly deported to a specially built town in the far east of the country.
    In the 16th C a ghetto was in existence in Venice, and during the Italian campaigns of the French Revolutionary Wars, Napoleon came upon a ghetto where Jews were forced to wear the star of David.
    In the led up to the Anti Semitic actions of the Nazi Party in the occupied area’s as well as Germany, it was largely only those who could pay their way out who were accepted by Allied countries such as the U.S, and most of the jews (not to mention the romani’s, political dissidents and opponents,Homosexuals, intellectuals, the infirm, Russian P.O.W’s, Poles and other’s were murdered alongside the jews in great number’s, but where are the monument’s, museum’s, nations, films, reactionary vengeance, for these victims?
    The holocaust has been hijacked as a solely genocidal crime against Jews.
    Just as Germanophobia continues to blossom as people love to hate all German’s innocent or not 80 years on from the event.
    Many nations and peoples have committed racial and religious genocide; it still goes on today, and the industrial scale along with the pre-meditated planning by the Government of Germany ’33-45 continues to over-awe and shock people.
    Eugenics was wholeheartedly embraced by the scientific community during the early part of the 20th C, the Idea that selective breeding should be employed to better the human race was promulgated and supported as part of a new era by the West.
    All I am saying is put your bitterness and hatred into perspective and respect the facts and beware of myth’s.
    History repeats because of these oversights, because of ignorance and narrow-mindedness and the desire to blame.

  2. Germany had a vile section in their history which cannot be forgiven or changed. However it is not the fault of the current German population who have moved on from these beliefs. Nothing could ever change the monstrosity of the past. How is it possible to make amends for such actions

  3. What’s wrong with the german people? Inbreed?

  4. ITS INN THE HISTORY AND REALITY OF THIS TIME THEY DID IT BEFORE THERE FORE THEY MUST ATONE WHY THE JEWS ARE NOT HELPPING THEM I WONDER WHY THE U.S IS NOT I WONDER EVEN MORE WHY WE DONT SEE THIS ON THE NEWS I DONT WONDER ABOUT THAY ONE IKOW BECAUSE THEY RE AFRIKANS AND BLACKS.

  5. ITS INN THE HISTORY AND REALITY OF THIS TIME THEY DID IT BEFORE THERE FORE THEY MUST ATONE WHY THE JEWS ARE NOT HELPPING THEM I WONDER WHY THE U.S IS NOT I WONDER EVEN MORE WHY WE DONT SEE THIS ON THE NEWS I DONT WONDER ABOUT THAY ONE IKOW BECAUSE THEY RE AFRIKANS AND BLACKS.

  6. Hi I’m German, I live for 7 years now in the UK. I would never dare to speak of any nation in a such generalising way (or characterize it); That frame of mind is known all too well and leads to that kind of hatred. Maybe it has something to to with the fact, what the BBC NOT airs, as for example about the boer war or the clearances …(just to pick two) Its easy to dis “the Germans”, but it is also “so unbelievable” how old fashioned perspectives still being carried on and whats still being blanked. “Sometimes ignorance is …” –  just that.

    • Comiting Holocaus once have been monstrous enought, comiting it twice… Wel I’m starting to belive that something is seriously wrong with german people, and no I have no grudge against Germans I just find your actions deeply disturbing.

      • All white European colonialism has taken on this system, and little has changed.  Kill off the indigenous people to take their resources, that is the game plan in Iraq and Afghanistan now as it was in Africa and North America then.  Corporate imperialism is the problem.  Racism is the flag they get people to wave in the form of patriotism, by the means of propaganda.

        • Racism? Hitler allied himself with the Japanese and Middle East,(ex – Saddam’s “Bath” party was created by the Nazis) and allied with the swarthy Italians to attack the lilly white French, British, Chec, Poles, and Russian populations.

          Maybe you need to rethink YOUR biases and engage your brain to at least question some of the propaganda you’re being fed by the left wing – who you support – who themselves are actually RESPONSIBLE for nearly ALL of the things your type thinks that you are railing against.

          Examples of Progressive Left Wing atrocities – Slavery, secession from the United States to PRESERVE SLAVERY, the lynchings of the American South (which were legal until 1964), the Jim Crow laws, the Scofield Trial, Pole taxes, the murderous anti-black Eugenics of Margaret Sanger which were later EXPORTED to form the backbone of Nazi racial theory, the dropping two atomic bombs, the internment of the Japanese during world war 2, the failure to bomb the crematoriums, gas chambers, and rail ways used in the Nazi Holocaust, the imprisoning political enemies such as Eugene Debs, the extermination of the plains Indians under the party line partisan Democrat policy of “Manifest Destiny”, racial segregation, EVERY filibusters of civil rights legislation in US history, the formation of the KKK, the “white league”, the Knights of the golden circle, the Red Shirts, etc – each a politically motivated group designed with the express purpose of terrorizing and attacking “Radical” Republicans – (Considered “Radical” because they believed that Black Americans were fully human and could be assimilated into mainstream Americans society) – the negligent failure to evacuate the Black population during Hurricane Katrina, the Left Wing religious cult atrocities such as Charley Manson, Jim Jones’ “people’s temple”, Heavens Gate, the OSHO bioterror attack and political assassinations, the weathermen and black panther bombings, 100% of the political violence – aka the “anarchy” movement and “occupy wall street”, etc etc etc

          Lets remember – you can’t be for “the 99% AND the minority both. History has proved it, anyone a progressive can outvote loses all rights and is expected to support the masses.

      • 1. National and Racial supremacy thinking was a child of the 19th and early 20th century which every nation had. A thing noone today is able to understand unless u actually bother to read and research about it.

        2. If u say something is “seriously wrong with german ppl” some things about brits:
        – conquering other Nations killing thousands in “glorious battles” like the Zulu, the Sudanese, the Afghans, the Pakistani/Hindus, or the Chinese …. i doubt thats any better and does not give those folks reason to ask the UK for reparations
        – Also the UK too has a nice history of concentration camps in the Boer Wars 
        – The Dutch have a nice disturbing history of colonial cruelty in the Kongo murdering and cutting off peoples arms

  7. Good Video, depressing but good.

  8. Good Video, depressing but good.

  9. Good Video, depressing but good.

  10. It is so unbelievable how cruel the Gernans have been and continue to be. Their day will come because you do not do this kind of thing and get away with it – it is the natural law of order. We do not control it however is controlled by the energies we live in. Watch out your cruel people. It is just around the corner.

    • I’m not a German but I can say that people who generalize like you are exactly the kind of people who sent the Jews, Poles, Gays, Roma etc to the ovens.

    • Numerous peoples have committed slaughters of those they saw as enemies.

      You seem to have a pre-existing issue with Germans. Kindly deal with it.

    • Numerous peoples have committed slaughters of those they saw as enemies.

      You seem to have a pre-existing issue with Germans. Kindly deal with it.

  11. I just wanted you to know that stupid Domino’s add was taunting me and I had to buy a pizza

  12. Awesome Doc well made.