GENOCIDE: From the Second Empire's Namibia, to the Third Reich’s Birkenau

The concept of the Empire (Reich) of the German Nations was first established by Otto I in the year 962. It was revived from the defunct Holy Roman Medieval one at a post-war conference in Versailles, in 1871. This revival became a reality by the unification of the dispersed German states, with Otto v. Bismarck named as chancellor and William I, as emperor.(1871-88). It was however, in 1884 at a meeting in Berlin, that the European states divided the potential African colonies. Consequently, Germany was granted a colony on the South/Western African coast, in today's Namibia, the land of Hehero and Nama.

Starting as an economic enterprise (tobacco, metals, diamonds, and cattle), this soon became a racially driven Genocide, which included medical experiments. The similarities of the Second Reich with the coming Third Reich were described by many historians. Given were various epitaphs such as the Second Reich being a 'blueprint or "precursor" of the Third one, or better yet a "rehearsal" and that the Vandalism in Namibia was an inspiration for the Barbarity in Birkenau.

Historians of the Third Reich could have been surprised to learn that the Nazi terminology already existed in the previous Reich. The history was outlined in detail by several writers [1-10]. It was in exemplary summaries by Madley, by Faber-Jonker and Erichsen on which this review is resting. There was one challenge to the thesis, asserting that German colonial behaviour was shaped by specific local conditions [3]. However, this theory would not be able to negate the impression of a direct connection between the Empires on political, military, anthropological and medical/scientific grounds. What was similar? What was the precursor??