The book, which was co-edited by Dr Juergen Zimmerer, Director of the Centre for the Study of Genocide and Mass Violence at the University of Sheffield, has already forced the German government to apologise to the people of Namibia.

In the book Dr Zimmerer and his co-editor Dr Joachim Zeller document how between 1904 and 1908 the German colonial army in German South-West Africa committed the first genocide of the Twentieth Century.

The war against the Herero and Nama in German South West Africa was not only one of the bloodiest colonial wars of imperial Germany, but also the first genocide perpetrated by Germans.

They drove the Herero into the desert in order to let them die of thirst, they deliberately targeted women and children by cutting them off from their water-supply during anti- guerilla warfare and they killed men, women and children through deliberate neglect in the concentration camps.

Largely forgotten in German public consciousness, this book for the first time collects evidence of the atrocities, puts the war in context of Southern African history and narrates the story from the perspective of the victims as well as of the perpetrators.

It also describes the complex processes of Herero and Nama reconstruction after the war and illuminates the place of the genocide in Namibian and Herero memory and discourse, and sheds new light on the prehistory of the Holocaust by demonstrating important precursors.

First published in Germany in 2004, the book 'Genocide in German South-West Africa –The Colonial War of 1904-1908' influenced policy as it convinced the German Minister for Development and International Cooperation, Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, to apologise in the name of Germany to the Herero people of Namibia for the genocide committed by the imperial German troops between 1904 and 1908.

This apology fuelled reparation claims by the descendants of the victims. The Herero filed suit against the German government and German companies for four billion US dollars in reparations.

The English edition of the controversial book will add to the pressure on the German government by making the facts of this black chapter in German history globally available and could also spark more reparation claims.

Dr Juergen Zimmerer said:

"Genocide is about destruction of entire populations; its aim is total erasure. Writing the history of genocide means combating genocide. German academia had largely ignored Germany's colonial past.

"Uncovering the truth about the first genocide of the Twentieth Century and the first in German history did not go down well with historians and the public alike. The fact that there was genocide before the Holocaust pointed to a racist tradition in German history, which many wanted to deny. No longer can the Holocaust be treated as an accident, as a mere anomaly in German history.

"I am delighted that the book can now be read by more people around the world and that I have been given the opportunity by the University of Sheffield to set up the Centre for the Study of Genocide and Mass Violence, which is devoted to the study of all aspects of mass violence in history and at the present time."



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