In September 1904 several Nama scouts slipped away from the Germans after the battle of Waterberg and the genocide of the Herero, to warn their leader, Hendrik Witbooi, of what the Germans were capable of. Hendrik Witbooi then called all the Nama leaders to war, a war where they used guerrilla tactics to confound the Germans and drive the German leader, von Trotha, home in defeat. But while they exhausted the German colonizers, they exhausted themselves as well and German missionaries were able to draw the survivors to surrender on false promises of good treatment, after which they were sent first to concentration camps and then to – perhaps – the world’s first death camp, on Shark Island. Our concluding episode on the Germans in the Scramble – on the Nama genocide.
