From Genocide to Holocaust? Structural parallels and discursive continuities

Abstract

This article responds to the present debate over the impact of genocide committed by Germany during the 1904-1908 Nama-German war in present day Namibia on the policies of the German Third Reich and its 'final solution' during WWII. While the type of causal relationships postulated by Birthe Kundrus require further research and a conclusive chain of evidence is not established, if it is ever established in the study of historical/ social developments, there are more links than previously suggested on a number of diverse levels and fields. This linkage does not rely on personal experience or concrete military practice, but rather military thinking and public discourse in which the colonial war had a driving dynamic with broad publication and distribution of the colonial atrocities. This publishing activity cannot be separated from the right-wing mobilization of the Hottentot elections of 1907. The image of the colonial considerably contributed to the trajectory of the Germany.