German South West Africa

The History and Legacy of Germany’s Biggest African Colony

By: Charles River Editors

Narrated by: Stephen Platt

“The great questions of the day will not be settled by means of speeches and majority decisions but by iron and blood.” (Otto von Bismarck)

The modern history of Africa was, until very recently, written on behalf of the indigenous races by the white man, who had forcefully entered the continent during a particularly hubristic and dynamic phase of European history. In 1884, Prince Otto von Bismarck, the German chancellor, brought the plenipotentiaries of all major powers of Europe together to deal with Africa's colonization in such a manner as to avoid provocation of war. This event, known as the Berlin Conference of 1884-1885, galvanized a phenomenon that came to be known as the Scramble for Africa. The conference established two fundamental rules for European seizure of Africa. The first of these was that no recognition of annexation would be granted without evidence of a practical occupation, and the second, that a practical occupation would be deemed unlawful without a formal appeal for protection made on behalf of a territory by its leader, a plea that must be committed to paper in the form of a legal treaty.

This began a rush, spearheaded mainly by European commercial interests in the form of chartered companies, to penetrate the African interior and woo its leadership with guns, trinkets, and alcohol, and having thus obtained their marks or seals upon spurious treaties, begin establishing boundaries of future European African colonies. The ease with which this was achieved was due to the fact that, at that point, traditional African leadership was disunited and the people had just staggered back from centuries of concussion inflicted by the slave trade. Thus, to usurp authority, to intimidate an already broken society, and to play one leader against the other was a diplomatic task so childishly simple, the matter was wrapped up, for the most part, in less than a decade.

The German role in this complicated drama was something of an enigma. The German Empire would prove to be the most short-lived of all, for, along with the Russian and Ottoman Empires, it did not survive World War I. In 1919, Germany lost all of its African colonies, which then accrued as League of Nations mandated territories either to France or Britain. The mandate over German South West Africa, the future Namibia, was placed under British control by proxy, and its day-to-day administration was handled from South Africa. Ultimately, South Africa absorbed South West Africa as a virtual province and resisted pressure to cede authority to the United Nations for decades. Furthermore, the contest between Germany and Britain on the African continent during the late 19th century would also create the conditions that led to the North African Campaign in World War II.

German South West Africa: The History and Legacy of Germany’s Biggest African Colony chronicles the politics and conflicts that marked Germany’s efforts to colonize German South West Africa. You will learn about German South West Africa like never before.

©2020 Charles River Editors (P)2020 Charles River Editors

General Historical Overview

It was well written, well recorded and read, and very informative. It is definitely a general overview of the history and clearly has to spend a lot of time setting the scene in history for those unfamiliar with what was occurring with African colonialism. It does spend more time on the Boers and British and French involvement and setting the scene than it does focusing outright specifically on the German colonisation of South West Africa. It gives a decent starting position for those studying the history of African colonialism but barely slaked the thirst for more in depth information on this particular German colony. But overall well worth the listen!

Perfect in Historical Detail but light in pronunci

An excellent book with just the right amount of historical detail to make it a comfortable leisure read. The narrator did, however, strugle with the pronunciation of the majority of the plentiful Afrikaans and German names, places and objects. The pronunciation was so poor that I will have to obtain n hard copy to determine who some of the key figures were. It would have been better to get a native German or Afrikaans speaker to narrate or an English speaker with good knowledge of Afrikaans and German.

10 minutes on wikipedia will give more info

This is by far the worst "book" I have listened too on audible.

The book spends most of its time reciting well known facts about South Africa. It goes into quite some detail on South African politics, but when it comes to Namibian history and politics things are hurriedly summarized before moving back to the well-known colonial history.
The book use phrases like "the visionary C. Rhodes" and the generalization of all Germans in Namibia as "racists". This is a bias that surfaces throughout the text. I won't call it a book.

In the 2020's I expect a text to be more on-topic, less biased by mid 1900's attitudes and much more nuanced in its description. Stereotypes abound.

There is more information in this short text on South Africa, Togo, Cameroon and Tanzania than on Namibia (German South West Africa).

I suspect the author(s) to be largely ignorant of Namibian history, thus resorting to talk about South Africa, Rhodesia, Tanzania, Togo, Cameroon. There is even a bit on the Suez Canal, but hardly anything of substance on Namibia beyond naming the large ethnic groups and a vague description of the Bantu migration.

Save your money. A more in-depth account can actually be found in African Kaiser - available on audible. Although the main story there takes place in Tanzania (then German East Africa). The only readers that could benefit from this short text is someone with absolutely NO background on Southern African history, but it would still come across as biased. There are so many good books on the topic, so listen to those instead.

I only finished this book so I could write this review! Next apply for refund!