Bundestag Clashes Over Genocide Reparations: 100,000 Dead
The Bundestag devoted 30 minutes to two separate motions, one from the socialist Left Party and one from the environmentalist Greens, before sending both to the Foreign Affairs Committee for further review.
The Left Party urged the government to formally accept “full historical responsibility and legal liability under international law” for atrocities carried out by the German Empire. Its motion also demanded immediate, comprehensive reparations, paid straight to the descendants of those killed or persecuted.
The Greens pursued a different set of demands: an official apology from the Federal Republic of Germany to Namibia and to the victims’ descendants, plus the return of cultural artifacts and human remains still held in German collections.
Tension flared inside the chamber when Left Party lawmakers turned their backs in protest as Alternative for Germany (AfD) deputy Ronald Glaeser took the floor.
AfD lawmaker Alexander Wolf then attacked the motions, claiming they reflected “German self-hatred” among “left-green ideologues” rather than genuine concern for Namibia.
Germany governed the territory as a colony from 1884 to 1915, relying on military force to crush resistance and extend its control. Between 1904 and 1908, German colonial troops waged a campaign of mass violence against the OvaHerero and Nama. An estimated 100,000 people were killed, died of thirst or perished in detention camps. Historians widely regard the atrocities as the first genocide of the 20th century.
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