Colonial memories and images occupy a paradoxical place in Germany. This is due in part to the peculiarities of German colonial history, but it also reflects another aspect of German exceptionalism — the legacy of Nazism and the Holocaust. In recent years German colonialism in Southwest Africa (Namibia) has been widely discussed, especially with respect to the attempted extermination of the Ovaherero people in 1904. For reasons explored in this article, these discussions of Germany’s involvement in Southwest Africa have created new and unexpected discursive connections that are reshaping colonial memories in both Germany and Namibia. One possible outcome could be a belated decolonization of the landscape of colonial memory in both countries.

Postunification Germany was long preoccupied with its National Socialist prehistory; the German colonial past has only started to come into focus more recently.¹ The years 2004–5 saw numerous commemorative events around the centenary of the 1904 German genocide of the Namibian Ovaherero people and the completion of the controversial Berlin Holocaust Memorial. On one level this is mere coincidence. At the same time, there is an increasing entanglement of these two central political topics. But little research has been done on the visual archive of German colonialism, in contrast to the extensive studies made of the public circulation of Holocaust photographs and images.² The present essay is a first attempt to trace the role of colonial images in Germany in relationship to Namibia. More specifically this essay examines the relationship between discussions about the legacy of the Holocaust and discussions of the legacy of colonialism, including its iconic legacy — both in Germany, and more surprisingly, in Namibia.