The exhibition Namibia-Germany: a shared/divided history. Resistance, violence, memory

Abstract

The year 2004 was the centenary of the outbreak of a colonial war in former German South West Africa in which thousands of Africans were killed by the colonial power. Although of crucial importance for Namibia, the war had not entered public memory in Germany. The exhibition aimed at presenting colonial history, as well as the contemporary relationships between the two countries, showing a ‘shared’ and a ‘divided’ history. The exhibition created a public debate, which certainly supported the initiative of the German Minister of Economic Co-operation and Development to deliver an apology at the commemoration in August 2004 in Namibia. The article is a post-reflection of one of the co-curators on the exhibition putting it into a larger context and reviewing it concurrently.

Keywords

• Namibia
• genocide
• museum
• anthropology
• colonialism
• German South West Africa