German Counterinsurgency in South-West Africa (1904–1907)

This chapter shows the effects of a shift from Scenario 1 to Scenario 4 on the level of civilian targeting through the case of German counterinsurgency in South-West Africa during the German-Herero/Nama War (1904–1907). In Scenario 4, the counterinsurgent perceives an external threat against the occupied territory while supporting would-be dominant groups aiming to expropriate and subdue the insurgent’s popular base; that would facilitate extreme civilian victimization. The prospect theory logic behind Scenario 4 suggests that a commitment to would-be dominant groups as a strategy to prevent the loss of the occupied territory would facilitate the counterinsurgent’s drive to exterminate the insurgent population and take the corresponding risks; at the same time, perceptions of external threats would further exacerbate the counterinsurgent’s fear to lose the occupied territory and would reinforce its tolerance of the risks of annihilation. The chapter introduces the campaign background before examining Germany’s external threat perceptions and local alliance strategy. German political and military leaders’ initial concerns about Germany’s world prestige and Britain’s ambitions over GSWA coexisted with a local alliance strategy that varied over the course of the campaign. While Governor Leutwein tended to oppose settlers’ ambition to expropriate and enslave the tribes at the beginning of the conflict, his successor, Lothar von Trotha, fully endorsed it. An analysis of the campaign shows that within-case variations in the local alliance strategy corresponded to an escalation towards an extreme level of civilian targeting, according to the book’s argument. The chapter ends with an assessment of alternative explanations.