The burden of history: Namibia and Germany from colonialism to postcolonialism

Abstract

When former German Foreign Minister Joseph ‘Joschka’ Fischer visited Windhoek in October 2003, he went on record to say that there would be no apology that might give grounds for reparations for the first genocide of the 20th century, which was committed by German colonial troops in Namibia in 1904–1908. Fischer’s rather undiplomatic words are indicative of the intense and heated historical and present relations between Germany and her erstwhile colony.