Jürgen Zimmerer

Gender order is one domain in which claims to power are demarcated in societies based on a religious codex as well as in secular societies such as nation-states. Gender order especially becomes the area in which conflicts are carried out when a society experiences transition or clashes with another society. At a time when Israel and Palestine face an escalation of their conflict and Germany is undergoing profound changes, renowned scholars discuss the implications on the gender order from their individual vantage points. The transdisciplinary articles focus on Gender in the context of Knowledge, Arts and Representation, Memory and Scripture, Political Transition, and Life Sciences. "Ulrike Auga" is assistant professor at Humboldt University, Berlin (Germany). "Christina von Braun" is the head of the Chair for Cultural History and Gender at Humboldt University, Berlin.

Forty years before the war of annihilation in eastern Europe and the Holocaust, German colonial troops in German South West Africa perpetrated the first genocide of the twentieth century. From Windhoek to Auschwitz? interrogates the relationship between colonialism and National Socialism, using genocide, the 'racial state', and systems of forced labour as points of departure for comparative observation. The book is an indispensable document in the intensive debate among German and international scholars about the postcolonial expansion of German history, and it offers a fresh look at the history of colonialism and also the 'Third Reich'.

Although it lasted only thirty years, German colonial rule dramatically transformed South West Africa. The colonial government not only committed the first genocide of the twentieth century against the Herero and Nama, but in their efforts to establish a “model colony” and “racial state,” they brought about even more destructive and long-lasting consequences. In this now-classic study—available here for the first time in English—the author provides an indispensable account of Germany's colonial utopia in what is present-day Namibia, showing how the highly rationalized planning of Wilhelmine authorities ultimately failed even as it added to the profound immiseration of the African population.

Forty years prior to the Holocaust, German colonial troops in German Southwest Africa (known today as Namibia) murdered up to 80000 Herero and 20000 Nama, and caused many more thousands to perish in the desert and as slave laborers in concentration camps. During the last decade, a fierce debate has emerged regarding the Herero and Nama genocide and its meaning within German 20th-century history, particularly the extent to which it can be seen as a precursor to Nazi crimes. This book examines the relationship between colonialism and the Holocaust, and situates Nazi crimes firmly within the global history of mass violence. Zimmerer documents the development of an argument that has changed the way we view the Holocaust by pointing to continuities and parallels, thereby offering a fresh, postcolonial perspective on the Third Reich.

Forty years before the war of annihilation in eastern Europe and the Holocaust, German colonial troops in German South West Africa perpetrated the first genocide of the twentieth century. From Windhoek to Auschwitz? interrogates the relationship between colonialism and National Socialism, using genocide, the 'racial state', and systems of forced labour as points of departure for comparative observation. The book is an indispensable document in the intensive debate among German and international scholars about the postcolonial expansion of German history, and it offers a fresh look at the history of colonialism and also the 'Third Reich'.

Although it lasted only thirty years, German colonial rule dramatically transformed South West Africa. The colonial government not only committed the first genocide of the twentieth century against the Herero and Nama, but in their efforts to establish a ‘model colony’ and ‘racial state’, they brought about even more destructive and long- lasting consequences. In this now-classic study – available here for the first time in English – the author provides an indispensable account of Germany’s attempts to make a colonial utopia in what is present-day Namibia. This book shows how the highly rationalized planning of Wilhelmine authorities ultimately failed even as it added to the profound immiseration of the African population. German Rule, African Subjects sketches out the nature of everyday life in the racist state, the inevitable transmutation of a legal system based on racial distinctions into structural and individual exploitation and barbarity. It shows that it was this racist state, the core features of which had already been established before 1904, that endowed German colonial rule with its characteristic features, and that together with the genocide was responsible for its gravest after-effects. It corrects both the false image of German colonial rule as having been exercised benevolently before 1904, and that of a ‘peace of the graveyard’ (Drechsler) after the genocide.

Although it lasted only thirty years, German colonial rule dramatically transformed South West Africa. The colonial government not only committed the first genocide of the twentieth century against the Herero and Nama, but in their efforts to establish a “model colony” and “racial state,” they brought about even more destructive and long-lasting consequences. In this now-classic study—available here for the first time in English—the author provides an indispensable account of Germany's colonial utopia in what is present-day Namibia, showing how the highly rationalized planning of Wilhelmine authorities ultimately failed even as it added to the profound immiseration of the African population.