Abstract
What is the relationship between Namibia at the dawn of the XXth century, Mein Kampf and UNO? The Hereros establish the link; this community of Southwest Africa who, in spite of it, took part in the ideological elaboration of the genocides century. It is not a very common history which, for unknown it is, deserves to leave the shade. In the last quarter of the XIXth century, several European powers, mainly Great Britain, France, Germany and Italy, launched out in a hard competition in order to extend (France, Great Britain) or to constitute (Germany, Italy) their colonial empire, mainly in Africa, Asia and in the Middle East. In Asia and in the Middle East it was especially a commercial fight, the positions already being in general acquired. It is in Africa, especially, that the confrontation was the hardest, because around 1880, except Belgian Congo and a part of Southern Africa and North Africa, only the coastal zones were under colonial domination and 80 % of the continent was free. The massacre of Hereros by the German army since 1904 is considered by much, since the end of the XXth century, as the first attempt of genocide of this century, before the Armenian one. It is located in a context of tension between European colonial powers but also in a series of similar actions carried out by the German army between the end of the XIXth century and the beginning of the First World War.
