#herero

The Post

Go read the other posts above for the background, I won't reiterate it all here. The essential theses of previous posts were 1) the death rate in Gaza was enormously lower than previous genocides, which I found at odds with Israel's military power and thus circumstantial evidence against intent of genocide, 2) overall death toll is less important than death rate, contrasting Gaza with Srebrenica, a much smaller death toll, yet one whose death rate exceeded Gaza's despite the Army of the Republic of Srpska's greatly inferior resources and organization as compared to the IDF, which I posited again as circumstantial evidence against genocidal intent, and 3) Gaza's death rate is well in line with both historical and contemporary examples of urban wars and can we please call a spade a spade and a war crime a war crime?

I may have focused overmuch on the death rate itself instead of emphasizing why it think it matters. The heart of the issue is context.

Death rate alone means nothing without an understanding of the perpetrator of an alleged genocide.

Today's example is the Herero-Nama genocide. In brief, the German Empire waged a four-year campaign (1904-1908) of genocide against the Herero and Nama peoples of Namibia, then German South West Africa in response to an attempted revolt. The method of genocide was primarily indirect: the Herero and Nama were driven out of their lands and into the Namibian deserts, where many of them died of starvation, dehydration, and disease. Many others were forced into concentration camps, where they were killed by means of neglect (starvation, dehydration, disease) or being worked to death. A small number of them were also subjects of human experimentation. Hooray!

I hate Wilhelmine Germany with a passion that burns with the heat of a hydrogen bomb, for this and other reasons. A story (really several) for another time.

The death toll was between 24,000 and 100,000, though most likely around 65,000, Herero and about 10,000 Nama, representing 80% of the native population.

That's a very slow rate of death—between about 23 to 75 deaths per day—both of which are well below most of the figures I calculated for Gaza. So did Israel commit a genocide in Gaza?

No.

In my opinion.

Let's look deeper into the ~context~.

The ~Context~

If you were surprised to learn that Germany had a colonial empire... well that's not good, but it is understandable. Germany isn't really known for their colonial prowess. By the time of German Unification in 1871, most of the accessible (and valuable) pickings had been claimed by Britain, France, Portugal, Spain, and the Netherlands.

Congo Free State was in 1885.

What's more, Germany actually wasn't that interested in colonization. I know, it seems wild, but there actually was a European great power (Austria-Hungary doesn't count) that wasn't totally gung-ho about Empire. Otto von Bismarck, who held a stranglehold on German foreign policy from its Unification to his dismissal in 1890 by Kaiser Wilhelm II, saw imperial ambitions as at best a boondoggle and at worst a potential source of unnecessary conflict with Britain and France. Domestic pressure eventually forced him to push for a German colonial empire, albeit with great reservations.

German colonial ambitions really got going with Kaiser Wilhelm's ascension in 1888 and his aforementioned 1890 dismissal of Bismarck as Chancellor. Wilhelm was a pitiable, insecure, racist antisemite who pined for Germany's "place in the sun", an ambition that, by its very nature, brought Germany into conflict with the established colonial powers and personally helped cause World War I. For more on why he is bad, see the post I just made on why he is bad.

The essential point of the matter is this. Germany aspired to be a colonial power that could challenge Britain, but lacked just about everything it would need to have to do so successfully. Locked in a ruinously expensive naval arms race with Britain that they started and would eventually lose, Germany's annual budget deficit in 1908 was €3.6 billion (2024 euros) as army spending simultaneously ballooned in response to colonial crises, the Franco-Russian Alliance, and Anglo-French Entente Cordiale. Their total spending that year was €10 billion.

Unlike Britain, Germany didn't have a large merchant marine it could press-gang into military service. It's navy was overwhelmingly centered in the North Sea in a vain attempt to offset their numerical inferiority against the Royal Navy. Their army was focused at home to counter the Anglo-French-Russian bloc. Their resources were limited.

The campaign against the Herero and Nama increased German South West Africa's budget expenditures tenfold. It cost Germany €4.5 billion over four years, and they only committed a maximum of 20,000 soldiers to the campaign.

For context, British troop presence in the Second Boer War peaked at 600,000, and the war cost Britain €23 billion (2022) in total. The British Empire suffered 22,000 war dead, more than the entire German allocation to Namibia. For more detail on that, see the comment thread that inspired this post, though fair warning that much of this is a repeat of that.

The God Damn Point

The Herero and Nama genocide was a very slow genocide. But it was slow because Germany lacked the means to carry out a fast one. Germany was forced to adopt a strategy of attrition in which more Herero and Nama died to the desert than they did the the Germans.

The rate of death in Namibia is not evidence against a genocide because Germany was limited by means, not by intent.

When evaluating historical genocides, I have generally found that génocidaires carry out their genocides as fast, or nearly as fast, as their capacity to do so. When intent is present, the limiting factor is usually capacity. When capacity greatly exceeds the rate of destruction, the limiting factor is usually a lack of intent.

I have said it before, so I'm just going to quote myself this time.

Netanyahu is the Prime Minister of a modern, developed nation with one of the most powerful and technologically advanced militaries in the world, operating mere tens of kilometers from their home soil, with absolute, unopposed air supremacy, completely unchallenged armored combat units, and supported by the unquestionably effective intelligence capabilities of Mossad.  Israel, with the co-operation of Egypt, has absolute control over movement of people and goods in and out of Gaza. They decide, alone and unchallenged, what aid has made it in, and what aid - by far the greater quantity - has been refused entry.  Most importantly, they have, since January 2025, the unconditional backing of THE SOLE global military hegemon, the United States.  The maximum destructive power the State of Israel could theoretically bring to bear on Gaza is unfathomable. If Netanyahu were really determined to genocide the people of Gaza, there would not be any of them left by now. 

— viv-hollande