ABSTRACT
In 2004, the centenary year of the Herero genocide in Namibia, an unprecedented level of attention was paid to the German colonial past. Debates were given a new dynamic, and the longstanding veil of amnesia covering German colonial legacies seemed to have been partly lifted, even if perhaps only temporarily. Demonstrating the infl uence of a new wave of historical research on media debates, most journalists accepted and frequently employed the term “genocide” to refer to the colonial violence perpetrated by the German army in 1904. Alongside a series of newspaper articles and numerous radio and television contributions, seven exhibitions played an important part in raising public awareness of the anniversary. A number of disparate civil initiatives and ceremonies took place on a non-offi cial level in several different cities across Germany in 2004. These were organized by human rights and international solidarity groups such as the Gesellschaft für bedrohte Völker, the Global African Congress, the specially formed umbrella group Erinnern-Deutsche Kolonialgeschichte aufarbeiten, and church organizations.1 Many of these small-scale ceremonies and commemorative actions focused on memorial landscapes and visual memory, engaging with existing colonial monuments in Bremen and Hamburg and street names in Munich and Berlin. However, the event perceived as the real milestone of the centenary occurred not in Germany but in Namibia, during the ceremony held in Okakarara on August 14 2004 to commemorative the decisive Waterberg battle of the Herero war.2 In the course of her speech, the socialist German development minister, Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, expressly characterized the colonial atrocities as a Völkermord and recognized Germany’s historico-political and moral-ethical responsibility. Although the minister asked for forgiveness for Germany’s guilt, her statement of repentance was also carefully worded in order to avoid any commitment to the payment of reparations, as demanded by Herero campaigners. None the less, following previous refusals by German state representatives to recognize Germany’s responsibility for the genocide, the semi-offi cial apology indicated a signifi cant change in policy.
