#Shorts The Order That Sealed 80,000 Herero Deaths Was Stamped 'Confidential'

Added: 2026-06-02

In 1904, German colonial forces under General Lothar von Trotha issued a confidential extermination order against the Herero and Nama peoples in German South-West Africa, driving them into the Omaheke Desert where they were systematically killed by cutting off water and shooting survivors, resulting in the deaths of approximately 80,000 people; this genocide was officially documented in Berlin as 'necessary' while German doctors like Eugen Fischer conducted unethical research on victims' remains, demonstrating how colonial powers used bureaucratic secrecy and pseudoscientific racism to justify mass atrocities against indigenous populations.