The Land God Made in Anger. John Davis Gordon
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‘Why this sudden passion for German history of this neck of the woods?’ He looked over the top of his glasses. ‘You’re looking for a political reason for this submarine being off this coast?’
McQuade said: ‘If there was a political reason – if these guys were high-up Nazis and not ordinary sailors, they probably had a stack of loot on that submarine.’
Roger looked at him over the top of his spectacles. ‘Okay. Where do you want to begin?’
‘Assume I know nothing.’
Roger raised his eyebrows. ‘And he wants it in a nutshell. Okay …’ He rubbed his chin. Then began like a professor delivering a lecture. ‘When South Africa was colonized, this whole vast area of South West Africa was unwanted by anybody. Because it was desert. Then the Scramble for Africa began in earnest. The Germans grabbed Togoland, the Cameroons and Tanganyika. Then a young German, called Lüderitz, found a nice little shallow-water harbour and persuaded the local chief to sell it to him, plus the surrounding area in a radius of five miles. Trouble is that Lüderitz meant five German miles, which are twenty miles of ours. So local war broke out. Lüderitz asks the Kaiser for protection. Troops arrived and pacified the natives. Then Great Britain gets nervous that the Germans may threaten her Cape sea route so she seizes the only deep-water harbour, namely here at Walvis Bay. Which pisses off the Krauts. Even Queen Victoria wasn’t amused because she wanted the Kaiser, who was her dear nephew, to have a bit of an empire too. So Germany officially colonizes the rest of South West Africa. Then …’ he held up his finger, ‘diamonds were discovered. Such as the world has never seen, just lying in the sand dunes for the picking. Fortune hunters from all over the world arrive in thousands, and the German colonization of South West began in earnest.’ Roger spread his hands. ‘And the inevitable happened. When the natives found they were being forced off their land they rebelled. The colonists mounted punitive expeditions, and inevitably full-scale bloody wars of pacification.
‘Finally, after years of intermittent warfare, the Germans were fully in control of the whole vast territory. With only the British enclave of Walvis Bay spoiling the Teutonic picture. And …’ he shrugged, ‘the Scramble for Africa was over. Great Britain had Egypt, Sudan, Uganda, Kenya, Northern and Southern Rhodesia, Nyasaland, Nigeria, Ghana, and the Union of South Africa. The French had Algeria, the Sahara and Equatorial Africa, the Portuguese had Angola and Mozambique, the Belgians had the Congo, and the Germans had the Cameroons and Togoland and Tanganyika and South West Africa – or Namibia. Everything seemed stable in the world. But …’ he held up his finger again, ‘Germany had other plans for Africa.’
He took a swallow of his beer.
‘It was Germany’s plan to expand from Namibia and Tanganyika, gobble up South Africa and start to strangle the British Empire. With her warships based in Namibia she would have been able to dominate the Cape sea route, and with her warships based in Tanganyika she would have dominated Suez and the Indian Ocean. Then South Africa would have fallen into their hands. It was the South African goldfields and diamonds that Germany desperately wanted. However, they jumped the gun: the First World War came a little too early. And Great Britain asked the South African Government to send troops into Namibia and Tanganyika, to save the empire. But you must know all this?’
‘The First World War is distant history for me.’
‘But it’s not distant history to the Germans.’ Roger nodded down the bar. ‘These guys are more German than the Germans. Just like in the former colonies you meet people who are more devoutly British than the British. But the Germans?’ He sighed. ‘As individuals they’re fine – even less offensive than the British. But together? Put a dozen Germans together and you’ve got a fucking regiment. They’d love this territory to revert to German rule.’
‘And in 1945?’
‘I’ll come to that. Under the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 at the end of the war, Britain took over Tanganyika, and South Africa took over the administration of Namibia.’ He glanced down the bar. ‘The Germans were stripped of their colonies for two reasons. Firstly, their strategic value. Secondly, the Germans were told by the Allies that they were “Unfit to govern”.’ He snorted. ‘And the Allies were right.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning,’ Roger said softly, ‘that the Germans were bastards towards the natives …’ He glanced down the bar. ‘Drink up and let’s go to my house. I’ll lend you some books. Barbara’s got people coming to dinner, but we’ve got time for a beer there.’
The Wentlands’ house overlooked the lagoon that was always full of flamingoes and sea birds. Roger went straight to the living-room bookshelf. He looked at the list provided by the Sam Cohen library, then pulled out a book. ‘This list is inadequate. You must read German Rule in Africa by Evans Lewin.’ He pulled out another. ‘And Britain and Germany in Africa, published by Yale. This compares the two countries’ policies and behaviour.’ He reached for another book. ‘And The Germans and Africa.’
McQuade took them. ‘But how were the Germans so bad?’
‘In a nutshell?’ Roger went to the bar in the corner and got two beers. ‘British colonial policy was to maintain the tribal structures and the natives’ rights as far as possible, as well as the authority of the chiefs. German policy was the opposite. It was to destroy the authority of the chiefs, to render the natives powerless so they could be press-ganged into labour and deprived of their land. It was even written in the Koloniale Zeitschrift …’ He reached for one of the books and leafed through it. ‘Here. This was written in the German press. Quote: “Our colonies are acquired, not for evangelization of the blacks, not for their well-being, but for ours. Whosoever hinders our object we must put out of the way”.’ He looked at McQuade. ‘That was German policy, in a nutshell. When the Hereros rebelled, General von Trotha arrived from Germany with nineteen thousand soldiers and his entire purpose was extermination. He slaughtered them in their scores of thousands. He drove them into the desert where they died of thirst and starvation in the thousands, while his soldiers gleefully picked them off. Only a few thousand survived, to struggle across the desert into British Bechuanaland. Finally there was an outcry in Germany against this inhumanity and von Trotha’s extermination order was cancelled.’ He shook his head. ‘They were the same in Tanganyika and Togoland and the Cameroons, and the result of their policies has always been ruin and chaos. Because of their extermination campaigns the Germans had no native labour! In 1898 the black population here was 300,000. Fourteen years later, in 1912, there were only 100,000 blacks! Two-thirds of the population slaughtered!’
‘Jesus.’
Roger nodded. ‘So when the First World War broke out and South Africa occupied this territory, we came as liberators. At least we brought law and order and Native Commissioners to look after natives’ rights, et cetera.’
McQuade’s schoolboy history was certainly sketchy. ‘And how did the Germans take it?’
Roger snorted. ‘After the war, many South Africans immigrated up here, and the Germans were bitter. When local self-government was set up by South Africa, the legislative assembly was always divided: Germans against South Africans. The Germans wanted to run it their way, but the South Africans wanted the country to become another province of South Africa. Then …’ Roger held up a finger again … ‘Herr Adolf Hitler came along …’
He got up and went back to his bookshelves. He plucked out three volumes.
‘You must read Germany’s African Claims. Published by the Daily Telegraph in the 1930s. And this, Nazi Activities in South West Africa, published by the Friends of Europe. But the most important book of all,’ he held it up, ‘is Hitler Over Africa, by Benjamin Bennett.’
McQuade was all attention. Roger drained his mug. He was beginning to get along with the beer. He got out two more.
‘Hitler came to power on the massive wave of German bitterness after their defeat in the First World War. They had been humiliated,