Trotha, Adrian Dietrich Lothar von

(1848–1920)

   A commander of German colonial troops who is most noted for his defeat of the Herero Revolt in German Southwest Africa. Von Trotha had joined the Prussian army at 17, served previously in the Austro-Prussian War and the Franco-Prussian War, and also led the First East Asian Brigade against the Boxer Insurrection. In the latter case he had used mass reprisals against the defeated Chinese that he developed into a Vernichtungspolitik or “policy of annihilation” that he applied to the Herero. The policy stated that the Herero people would no longer be considered German subjects and further that any Herero who remained within German territory, armed or unarmed, was to be shot. Woman and children were to be driven into the desert. Public outcry against von Trotha’s actions prompted Chancellor von Bülow to have him relieved of his command, by which time the Herero had been reduced through shooting, starvation, and overwork from an estimated population of 80,000 to some 15,000 survivors.

   See also <>.

   FURTHER READING:

    Drechsler, Horst. Let Us Die Fighting: The Struggle of the Herero and Nama against German Imperialism. London: Zed, 1980;

    Hull, Isabel V. Absolute Destruction: Military Culture and Practices of War in Imperial Germany . Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2005.

   CARL CAVANAGH HODGE