The Kaiser's Holocaust: Germany's Forgotten Genocide and the Colonial Roots of Nazism - Hardcover

Erichsen, Casper; Olusoga, David

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0571231411 ISBN 13: 9780571231416

Publisher: Faber and Faber, 2010

Synopsis

On 12 May 1883, the German flag was raised on the coast of South-West Africa, modern Namibia - the beginnings of Germany's African Empire. As colonial forces moved in , their ruthless punitive raids became an open war of extermination. Thousands of the indigenous people were killed or driven out into the desert to die. By 1905, the survivors were interned in concentration camps, and systematically starved and worked to death.

Years later, the people and ideas that drove the ethnic cleansing of German South West Africa would influence the formation of the Nazi party. The Kaiser's Holocaust uncovers extraordinary links between the two regimes: their ideologies, personnel, even symbols and uniform.

The Herero and Nama genocide was deliberately concealed for almost a century. Today, as the graves of the victims are uncovered, its re-emergence challenges the belief that Nazism was an aberration in European history. The Kaiser's Holocaust passionately narrates this harrowing story and explores one of the defining episodes of the twentieth century from a new angle. Moving, powerful and unforgettable, it is a story that needs to be told.

About this title

Review:

'Besides being a rivetingly written, chilling African tragedy, this is a book that makes us see the roots of the Holocaust in a different way. It is amazing that previous writers have paid so little attention to this history, and appalling that some of the Allied nations joined the Germans in trying to cover it up.' --Adam Hochschild, author of King Leopold's Ghost

'A chilling work that lifts the veil on a forgotten genocide, Imperial Germany's slaughter of modern Namibia's early peoples. This is history writing at its most compelling: forensic analysis, authoritative sourcing, courageous conclusions. In any reckoning of the colonial age, The Kaiser's Holocaust must be read.' --Tim Butcher, author of Blood River

Book Description:

The unknown story of the genocide of the Herero and Nama peoples in Germany's forgotten African Empire - an atrocity that foreshadowed the Nazi genocides forty years later.

About this edition

• Publisher: Faber and Faber
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0571231411
• ISBN 13: 9780571231416
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 400