Dialogue / Media Reports

Germany’s Colonial Memory Failure – Namibian 15-02-2026

“Germany’s Colonial Memory Failure

By Henning Melber
15 February 2026

[…]

The first genocide of the 20th century took place in South West Africa, where an estimated two thirds of the Ovaherero, a third of the Nama and numerous Damara and San people were deliberately killed, with lasting consequences for the descendants of the victims until today.

Ending with World War 1, colonialism was widely degraded to a mere footnote of German history. In West Germany it was mainly perceived through an uncritical lens.

In East Germany, the colonial archives and the support of the anti-colonial struggle fostered a critical historiography.

As different as these engagements were, they had no impact on a memory culture among the wider public in both countries.

This has changed since reunification. Civil society has made inroads in the public discourse. Post-colonial initiatives, Afro-Germans and scholars have engaged with the brutal forms of German colonialism.

They have all managed to obtain some media coverage and entered mainstream debates, if only with limited impact.

[…]

MODEST INROADS

In 2015, the German government admitted that the warfare in South West Africa was genocide from today’s perspective.

German-Namibian government negotiations resulted in a controversial joint declaration not yet adopted. This has created increased debates on how to come to terms with the past in the present.

The so-called traffic light coalition of the Social Democrats (SPD), the Greens and the Liberal Party (FDP) declared in its coalition agreement of December 2021 the reconciliation with Namibia an indispensable task of historic and moral responsibility.

[…]

But apart from an intensification of provenience research and the restitution of some looted artefacts (notably a few Benin bronzes) and human remains, little has happened.

[…]

REACTIONARY ROLL-BACK

The new discourses provoked colonial-apologetic revisionism rejecting post-colonial efforts as a ‘guilt complex’.

A draft resolution submitted by the right-wing Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) to parliament in December 2019 argued that German colonialism contributed to the liberation of the African continent from archaic structures.

It called on the government to develop a commemorative culture that acknowledged the beneficial aspects of the German colonial era, to promote such perspectives in school curricula; to decisively oppose demands for reparations, to refuse the restitution of cultural goods merely for reasons that the colonial times were ‘criminal’, and to appeal to communities in the federal states to maintain street names which memorialised colonial personages and places.

It attacked ‘cultural Marxist inspired post- and de-colonialism’ and bemoaned a paradigm shift since German unification, creating the impression that critical colonial-historical studies had since then been indoctrinated by East German ideology.

[…]

RELEGATION OF COLONIAL MEMORY

The current government of CDU/CSU and SPD entered in May 2025 a coalition agreement.

It deals with colonialism in three sentences.

Namibia is not mentioned any longer. It declares to keep an eye on creating a dignified place of memory for dealing with colonialism, but there is no mention of this under memorials or elsewhere.

Such initiative would be a task for Wolfram Weimer, appointed as state secretary for culture and media in the office of the chancellor.

[…]

In September 2025, Weimer presented his new state memory concept, in which colonialism is not mentioned.

Using the Holocaust as argument to disrespect in official memory culture other forms of trauma caused by mass violence of the German state creates a calendar with the Holocaust as first breach of civilisation in denial of earlier uncivilised acts.

Not by coincidence reminds Hannah Arendt of the practices in the German colonies and the mindset of the perpetrators as seeds, which were bearing fruits in the Nazi regime.

The otherwise admirable willingness to face the responsibilities for the Holocaust has, as Pankaj Mishra observed, de-sensitised towards other forms of mass crimes.

Such selectivity by omission is tantamount to memory failure.

* This was presented at a conference by Historians Without Borders on ‘Narratives of Power: Memory Politics in Russia, Germany and the Contemporary World’, held in Potsdam on 28 October [2025]. Henning Melber is an associate of the Nordic Africa Institute in Uppsala and an extraordinary professor at the University of Pretoria and the University of the Free State in Bloemfontein, South Africa.”

Full analysis “Germany’s Colonial Memory Failure” by Henning Melber on the website of the Namibian (last checked in February 2026).

See also presentation “Germany’s colonial memory failure” by Henning Melber, a slightly different version, published 7 November 2025 on the website of Historians Without Borders (last checked in February 2026).

See also “Erinnerungskultur und Gedenken” – “Remembrance culture and commemoration” in the Coalition Agreement between CDU, CSU and SPD from 5 May 2025 in the ‘Primary Sources’ section of this website.

See also “Aufarbeitung der deutschen Kolonialvergangenheit – Reappraisal of Germany’s colonial past”. Response of the German Government dated 14 August 2025 to the minor interpellation by opposition party Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen, in the ‘Primary sources’ section of this website.

See also media release “Bundeskabinett beschließt neue Gedenkstättenkonzeption” (Federal Cabinet approves new memorial concept; available only in German) from 12 November 2025 by the German Federal Government (last checked in February 2026).

See also report “Kolonialismus bleibt Streitpunkt bei Gedenkstättenkonzeption” (Colonialism remains a point of contention in memorial concept; available only in German) about the public hearing of the Parliamentary Committee on Culture and Media from 17 December 2025 by the German Bundestag (last checked in February 2026).