Lucky Hereros escaped
execution through the desert
Into the Deep BlueBud's Observations
Many of Big Blue’s stamps have blood stains, none more so
than those of German South West Africa.
Between 1904 and 1907, the German
Empire almost completely exterminated the Herero and Nama people, leaving those
who remained to starve in the Namib desert or interning them in concentration
camps where they died. It was the 20thcentury’s first genocide. Sadly,
many followed.
The “Herero Uprising” generated a grisly body of collectable
military correspondence and postal history, much of it graphic and nearly all
of it from the German point of view. Feldpost
covers abound.
The stamps themselves are unremarkable, consisting of
overprinted numerals and German eagles, followed by the Kaiser’s yacht Hohenzollern
-- standard for German colonies.
Census: 13 in BB spaces, 6 tipped-in.
Jim's Observations
Bud's comment and header illustration reveals the dark side - Man's inhumanity to man.
Man was made to mourn: A Dirge
Robert Burns 1784
Many and sharp the num'rous ills
Inwoven with our frame!
More pointed still we make yourselves
Regret, remorse and shame!
And man, whose heav'n-erected face
The smiles of love adorn, -
Man's inhumanity to man
Makes countless thousands mourn!
German South West Africa Post & BB Checklist
Page 1
Comments appreciated!
Sadly this genocide has been almost ignored in modern memory outside of Namibia. The charge against imperialism that it was based on slavery (de facto if not de jure) and exploitation is completely accurate. I can't think of any country that was improved by having been an imperial colony, unless one considers railways and other technology as a sufficient offset against the negative side of imperialism, which is a hard case to make in my book.
ReplyDeleteThank you for remembering, Michael. Even the railways in Africa stretch from the interior to the sea, so raw materials can be exploited and the military transported. No railways travel north to south connecting the continent.
ReplyDeleteI added the one mark Hohenzollern to my collection today. It served to recall the GSWA atrocities even before I read your thoughtful comment.
Nearly everything created by imperialist nations in Africa and elsewhere was done for the purpose or making money off these colonies. Not only did all railroads run to the coast for the purpose of extracting minerals, rubber, and other products, but all hospitals were almost exclusively used only by Europeans. All schools taught only in European languages, never native languages, and the history taught in them was not the history of the country in which the school was located but the history of the colonizing country! Most of the good things like disease control and so on were primarily done for European benefit, but some clinics and schools certainly did good work mainly through private charitable contributions but that was never the main purpose of colonies which was making money no matter the suffering of the native poeples.
ReplyDeleteSadly, yours is an accurate and balance understanding of the colonial enterprise. Sadly, too, only recently have Europeans and Americans begun to acknowledge this fact. Bishiop Tutu is on record as saying "When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said 'Let us pray.' We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land." I’m glad they have the Bible. But correcting the land injustice is, sadly, painful and too slow.
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