The Genocidal Gaze: From German Southwest Africa to the Third Reich

223 Pages·2019·8.32 MB·English

by  Elizabeth R. Baer

© 2017 by Wayne State University Press, Detroit, Michigan 48201.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without formal
permission.
Manufactured in the United States of America.
ISBN 978-0-8143-4438-5 (hardcover) | ISBN 978-0-8143-4385-2 (paper) ISBN
978-0-8143-4386-9 (e-book)
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017950993
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For CLINT | again and always
Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
ONE The African Gaze of Resistance in Hendrik Witbooi and Others
TWO The Genocidal Gaze in Gustav Frenssen’s Peter Moor’s Journey to
Southwest Africa
THREE Uwe Timm’s Critique of the Genocidal Gaze in Morenga and In My
Brother’s Shadow
FOUR William Kentridge’s Black Box / Chambre Noire: The Gaze on / in the
Herero Genocide, the Holocaust, and Apartheid
FIVE Ama Ata Aidoo’s Our Sister Killjoy: The African Gaze of Resistance
Today
Afterword
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Illustrations
Illustrations follow page 82
FIGURE 1. “Map of Deutsch Südwestafrika, 1904” (German Southwest Africa)
FIGURE 2. “Der Nama-Führer Hendrik Witbooi, um 1900” (The Nama Leader
Hendrik Witbooi, around 1900)
FIGURE 3. “Surviving Herero after the escape through the arid desert of
Omaheke, c. 1907”
FIGURE 4. “Herero chained during the 1904 rebellion”
FIGURE 5. “Samuel Maharero (1856–1923), son of Maharero”
FIGURE 6. “Gustav Frenssen, Schriftsteller, Pastor, Deutschland”
FIGURE 7. Cover design for 1943 edition of Gustav Frenssen’s Peter Moors
Fahrt Nach Südwest
FIGURE 8. Edition of Frenssen’s Peter Moor created for the Wehrmacht
FIGURE 9. “Le major Leutwein lors de son mandat dans le sud-ouest africain
(1894–1904)” (Major Leutwein during his Mandate in Southwest Africa)
FIGURE 10. “Portrait of General Lothar von Trotha, ca. 1905”
FIGURE 11. “Photo of the Death Camp at Shark Island, German South West
Africa (now Namibia),” circa 1903
FIGURE 12. “Photo of Lieutenant von Durling at the death camp at Shark
Island, German South West Africa (now Namibia),” December 1904
FIGURE 13. “German Soldiers Packing the Skulls of Executed Namibian
Aborigines at Shark Island Concentration Camp, circa 1903”
FIGURE 14. “Kamelreiterpatrouille” (Camel rider patrol)
FIGURE 15. “Deutsch-Südwestafrika, Herero-Aufstand” (German Southwest
Africa Herero Uprising)
FIGURE 16. “Jacob Morenga, leader of African partisans in the insurrection
against German rule”
FIGURES 17–19. William Kentridge’s Black Box
FIGURE 20. Mohrenköpfe
Acknowledgments
I often turn to the acknowledgments as I open a new book, curious to know what
the author reveals about her/himself, and who the author’s influences have been.
Did the author get financial support for the project? Do archival research? Rely
on other scholars for critiques? Who brought coffee?
As I think back over a long career and the work on this, my fifth scholarly
book, I have many debts to acknowledge and much gratitude to express. I want
to begin with profound thanks to the people who have been important teachers,
many of whom are no longer living. These include my parents, who so highly
valued education; Sister Emma, a Dominican nun who taught me the joy of
research in seventh and eighth grade; and Terry Plunkett, a professor of
American literature at Manhattanville College, who pushed his students to think
critically and theoretically. In graduate school, at Indiana University, I had the
enormous good fortune to study with Susan Gubar, whose pioneering work in
women’s studies literally opened new worlds for me and gave voice to what I
was dimly beginning to grasp. Vladka and Ben Meed, of blessed memory,
survivors of the Warsaw Ghetto, took me to Poland and Israel with the Jewish
Labor Committee, teaching me at every step about the Holocaust in a visceral
and unforgettable way.
More recently, I have had the pleasure of being taught by those far younger
than I. These include my children, Hester Baer, Chair of German Studies at the
University of Maryland, with whom I have traveled to Germany many times and
whose regular consultations considerably enriched this book, and my son,
Nathaniel Baer, Energy Program Director at the Iowa Environmental Council,
who inspires me daily with his dedication to addressing climate change. My
sister Mary Louise Roberts, who is the Distinguished Lucie Aubrac Professor in
the Department of History at the University of Wisconsin, gave me invaluable
advice on the book at every stage—proposal, drafts, final manuscript, dealing
with academic presses. She read chapters and encouraged me to think
historically. She told me, “You are not writing everything you know,” which
somehow gave me permission to do so. My sister Pamela Bonina is an exemplar
of generosity and caring, of which I have been the frequent beneficiary. My
students over the years at Gustavus, the University of Minnesota, and Stockton
University made many contributions to my understanding of the Holocaust,
postcolonial literature, and theory.
During the five years in which I was writing the book, many other people
offered support, financial and otherwise, providing me the opportunity to make
The Genocidal Gaze the best book possible. These include Phyllis Lassner,
Professor of Jewish Studies, Gender Studies and Writing at Northwestern
University, who mentored me through the final year of writing in a most candid
and sage manner; Alejandro Baer, Stephen Feinstein Chair and Director of the
Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the University of Minnesota, who
provided me the opportunity to teach portions of the manuscript, always a
clarifying experience; and the African Studies Association, whose stellar
conferences taught me a lot and gave me a venue to try out ideas over the past
four years. Because my career during the writing of The Genocidal Gaze was at
a small, liberal arts college in a rural location, the daily assistance of Interlibrary
Loan was essential; no scholar could ask for or find a finer ILL librarian than
Sonja Timmerman at Gustavus Adolphus College. No request was too small or
too obscure for Sonja. Similarly, the archivists Dr. Hartmut Bergenthum and
Christina Sokol in the Lesesaal Afrika at Universitätsbibliothek Johann Christian
Senckenberg in Frankfurt, Germany, were an unrivaled source of help and
support, both electronically and in person. The thirty or more books I had
requested to review during my visit there were neatly collected on a dolly when I
arrived and further requests were handled promptly. I owe a great deal to
Gustavus Adolphus College: the college partially funded three trips I made to
Africa to do research, awarded me a sabbatical for writing, and recognized my
work with the Faculty Scholarship Achievement Award. The Faculty Shop Talk
provided a venue for sharing my ideas with colleagues as the book neared
completion. Kathryn Wildfong, editor in chief at Wayne State University Press,
demonstrated great enthusiasm for the book in the abstract and in its final
iterations and accepted the manuscript expeditiously. Her staff have been terrific
to work with. Fast friends Carolyn O’Grady, Michele Rusinko, Lois Peterson,
Pat Conn, and Cathy Ahern commiserated and celebrated with me along the way.
Granddaughters Della and Flora brought joy to my life as I wrote about a
dark topic.
In addition to thanking those who taught me and those who supported my
work in various ways, I want to thank those who have saved me. Zoe Barta, a
healer and friend extraordinaire, has taken me through many crises during the
past twenty-plus years. Dr. Todd Brandt literally saved me, resolving an
unexpected and severe health problem. And, finally, and most significantly, my
husband of almost fifty years, Clint Baer, to whom this book is dedicated. He
nourishes me in so many ways, most importantly when the work has made me
cranky.