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Von Windhuk nach Auschwitz? Beiträgezum Verhältnis von Kolonialismus undHolocaustNorbert Finzsch aa University of KölnPublished online: 22 Feb 2012.

To cite this article: Norbert Finzsch (2012) Von Windhuk nach Auschwitz? Beiträge zumVerhältnis von Kolonialismus und Holocaust, Journal of Genocide Research, 14:1, 115-118, DOI:10.1080/14623528.2012.656905

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14623528.2012.656905

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Von Windhuk nach Auschwitz? Beitrage zum Verhaltnis von Kolonialismusund HolocaustJurgen ZimmererBerlin, Munster: LIT, 2011352 pp., EUR 34.90 (pbk)

This book was written with a German audience in mind. It positions itself within afield of research and intensive debate that grapples with questions of the Sonder-weg (German special path) and the explanations of what has been termed ‘Ger-many’s darkest eleven years’. The extent to which German colonialismprefigured, predetermined and prepared the ground for the Nazi Holocaust hasbeen debated ever since Jurgen Zimmerer’s path-breaking book appeared in2003;1 by 2004, a fierce polemic was underway, centered on Zimmerer’s conten-tion that a direct connection existed between the colonial genocide and the massmurder of Europe’s Jews.

The protagonists in this polemic can be grouped loosely into two camps: thosewho claim that the Holocaust was a historic ‘first’, a unique event incomparablewith other cases of genocide in history; and those who are willing to concedethe uniqueness of the Holocaust in terms of its sheer scale, brutality and effective-ness, but who nonetheless insist that a German genocidal discourse and practiceexisted prior to 1941, and thus seek to establish a link to Germany’s bloodyrole in Namibia, for instance. It goes without saying that the former camp consistsmainly of German historians who study German history, while the latter groupsitself around the small but growing circle of international historians who study(post)colonial history and comparative genocide. The fact that this reviewer situ-ates himself in the second category does not mean that he overlooks the proble-matic aspects of both positions.

Jurgen Zimmerer’s contribution to the field, as represented by this volume, con-sists of a collection of pertinent, previously-published articles. They document theevolution of his point of view, touch upon the somewhat polemical and combativeattacks by his opponents, and clarify a number of the important elements eitheradvanced by Zimmerer himself, or presumed by others to be inherent in his argu-ment. The book would have profited from a more consistent documentation of thefirst group, which I will call for the sake of the argument ‘the German school’.This school’s adherents appear only ‘between the lines’, as it were, via somepassing allusions and in the footnotes. We can appreciate the tenets of their pos-ition only if we know the Holocaust literature quite well. Leading this group is theHamburg professor of German history, Birte Kundrus, ironically a denizen of thesame history department in which Zimmerer teaches. One can imagine the tone ofthe department meetings. Zimmerer’s collection consists of eleven original contri-butions, and a prefatory text which is provided ‘in lieu of an introduction’. Thistext, first published in the journal Zeitschrift fur Geschichtswissenschaft (ZfG)in 2009, summarizes the debate and the ambit of the book as a whole. The ZfGthus—despite its own inclinations in the debate—granted Zimmerer a voice,while the house organ of the Bielefeld School, Geschichte und Gesellschaft

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(GuG), chose to exclude a position that it did not appreciate—at least according toZimmerer. In a way, the entire debate reminds one of the Historikerstreit (histor-ians’ debate) of the late 1980s, in which the Bielefeld School prevailed. This time,however, the GuG favoured the more conservative and traditional approach. TheGerman School, with its reliance on Hegel and on Max Weber (not exactly a saintwhen it came to German colonialism), understandably feels challenged by con-ceptions of German history that place the country in a postcolonial context. Itshould also be noted that there are very few chairs in African history inGermany, and therefore the notion of Africa as an ‘ahistorical continent’ largelyprevails. The average student in any major history department in Germanylearns nothing about Africa, unless he or she studies in Berlin, Hamburg orEssen. One can also lament the absence of Asian history in the German curricu-lum. Regrettably, then, the majority of German historians are likely to side withBirte Kundrus and her posse. The points of reference for the group that I shalllabel ‘the Postcolonial School’ therefore lie with writers like Oliver Cox,W.E.B. DuBois and Aime Cesaire—figures with which the German School prob-ably is not even familiar. If it were not for the redoubtable Hannah Arendt, Zim-merer and his crew would probably also be assigned other, uncomplimentarylabels. But given Arendt’s Jewish background, it is hard to play the antisemitismcard against the Postcolonial School. Although I remain unconvinced by Zim-merer’s statement that the history of violence is a neglected chapter in globalhistory, because the agency of the colonial subaltern is given excessive emphasis(p. 17, note 8), it is obvious that a fresh look at German history, as viewed from theperiphery, is necessary. This involves much more than overcoming the Sonderwegdebate; it demands a total reconceptualization of German history in the twentiethcentury

Zimmerer aims to provide an intermeshed interpretation of German colonial-ism—a histoire croisee of its interrelationship with other forms of colonialism.He specifically includes the settler colonies of the Anglosphere in this attempt.By relocating genocides within the context of settler imperialism, Zimmerer(who is, despite his insistence, not alone in this) pursues the analysis of genocidein concordance with the framing of the concept’s founder, Raphael Lemkin.Nowhere in his deliberations does Zimmerer equate colonial genocides with theHolocaust, or relativize the importance of the latter.

What, then, is the relationship between the first genocide of the twentiethcentury, and the genocidal violence of previous centuries? At the North Americanand Australian frontiers, violence was predominantly organized by the settlers—sometimes in cooperation with the colonial centre, sometimes against theexpressed will of colonial and state governments. In most cases, colonial/stateadministrations were unable to stop the encroachments and the violent ‘seizingof the land’ (Carl Schmitt’s phrase) by the settlers.2 Therefore, the ensuing vio-lence was uncoordinated and of low intensity. Colonial warfare only rarelyerupted, because it was extremely expensive to wage, and often not very effective.The German war against the Nama and Herero (1904–1908) differs in that state-organized and military violence was directly employed. This violence was

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organized from the top down, combining operations in the field with a policy ofconcentration.

I differ, however, with Zimmerer’s comparison of the German approach withthe American experience in the Philippines. There, too, state-organized militaryviolence was accompanied by the concentration of the indigenous populations incamps (p. 22). Interestingly, four colonial powers experimented with a combi-nation of colonial wars and concentration camps at about the same time: Spainin Cuba, Germany in Namibia, the US in the Philippines, and England inSouth Africa—a point that has yet to receive meaningful attention from the inter-national research community. However, the Namibian genocide by itself demon-strates two things, according to Zimmerer: genocidal fantasies and practices didexist among the German military as early as 1904; and genocidal violence madeextremely inhumane and brutal acts acceptable among the German population.(Zimmerer fails to include, in this context, the rhetoric of the Boxer Uprisingwhich prompted a reevaluation of colonial violence in the German empire asearly as 1899.)

With regard to the first point, what we would like to understand better is howprevious strategies of German colonialism are related to Nazi colonialism andempire-building. Do the ‘similarities’ between regimes allow for adaptation,transfer, change, or progress? How exactly does this transfer occur? Is it bysimple biographical continuity? Is it by adaptation in the Foucauldian regime ofknowledge/power? Are there structural and/or organizational continuities thatcould explain it? Zimmerer never asserts a linear causality leading from Windhoekto Auschwitz, hastening to state that other factors were also at work: antisemitism,anti-Bolshevism and anti-Slavism. A nonlinear explanation, however, is always amuch more complex enterprise.

Genocidal violence was not the only trait that the Namibian colony shared withthe Nazi project. German southwest Africa was also the first German attempt tofound a ‘race-state’ (Rassenstaat) with a German master class and an Africanworkforce separated by segregation and laws against ‘miscegenation’ (Ras-senschande). Thus, racist apartheid was practiced before and after the extermina-tion of the Nama and Herero.

What does it mean, then, to write a postcolonial history of the Holocaust? Itshould be a historiography that places the Third Reich in the context of global gen-ocides. It should compare, but not level the field through excessive relativism.Anti-Slavism is by no means the same thing as antisemitism; it does not entail fan-tasies of a global conspiracy against the ‘Aryans’. Antisemitism also includeddelusions of Jewish superiority, unlike the ideas that Germans held about Slavic‘subhumans’. We are dealing with two very different kinds of othering here.

Many of Zimmerer’s most convincing arguments are repeated over and overagain in this collection, as in much of the cited literature. The book could havebeen shortened considerably through a system of citation that takes this repetitioninto consideration. The remaining space could have been used to reprint some ofthe better articles by Kundrus and her consorts, as a counterpoint to Zimmerer’sown thesis. It also should be mentioned that Zimmerer’s articles quote only one

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principal contributor from the Postcolonial School—Zimmerer himself. Importantcontributions to the debate are recapitulated in the text without reference to theinternational community of researchers working on the complex history of geno-cide and colonialism. Parts of Zimmerer’s argument, for example, can be found inDominick J. Schaller’s chapter, ‘From conquest to genocide: colonial rule inGermany, Southwest Africa, and German East Africa’, in A. Dirk Moses’sedited collection Empire, colony, genocide (2008), and should be cited accord-ingly. This criticism, however, does not detract from the fact that Zimmerer’svolume is a welcome and necessary clarification of the positions staked out inGermany’s latest Historikerstreit.

Norbert Finzsch # 2012University of Koln

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14623528.2012.656905

Notes and References

1 Jurgen Zimmerer, Volkermord in Deutsch-Sudwestafrika. Der Kolonialkrieg in Namibia (1904–1908) und dieFolgen (Berlin: Christoph Links Verlag, 2003). An English edition was published as Genocide in Germansouthwest Africa: the colonial war in Namibia (1904–08) and its consequences (London: Merlin, 2008).

2 Carl Schmitt, Der Nomos der Erde im Volkerrecht des Jus Publicum Europaeum (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot,1950), pp. 16–44.

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