Germany’s Selective Memory on Reparative Justice

In October 2025, the German government pledged a record US$1 billion to support home-care services for Holocaust survivors.

The world applauded – a gesture of moral clarity, historical responsibility and human dignity.

But here in Namibia, where the soil still carries the bones of the Ovaherero and Nama, the silence is deafening.

Germany’s compassion toward Holocaust survivors is right and necessary. Yet its treatment of the Ovaherero and Nama genocide reveals a troubling double standard. Up to 100 000 Ovaherero and 10 000 Nama were exterminated through starvation, forced displacement and concentration camps. Historians recognise it as the blueprint for later genocides.

When Germany finally acknowledged this atrocity in 2021, it pledged €1.1 billion over 30 years, not as reparations, but as ‘development aid’.

Aid, as if our ancestors were underdeveloped rather than annihilated.

The descendants of the victims were excluded from negotiations. Traditional authorities were sidelined. The apology was never delivered in the Bundestag. And the decision to frame the funds as development assistance reeks of colonial paternalism. It is not only unjust, it is deeply insulting.

Germany’s moral ledger remains unbalanced. One cannot provide home care to one group of survivors while offering infrastructure projects to another. One cannot honour memory in Berlin while erasing it in Windhoek. Reconciliation demands equality, not expediency.

Namibians are not asking for charity. We are demanding parity.

President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah and vice president Lucia Witbooi should summon the German ambassador and reopen negotiations. The process must centre the voices of the Ovaherero and Nama. The apology must be delivered in the parliament, not whispered in diplomatic corridors. The funds must be recognised as reparations, not aid.

Germany has shown that it understands the power of remembrance. But memory is not a currency to be spent selectively. It is a covenant, a solemn promise between past and present, between the dead and the living.

To honour that covenant, Germany must confront its colonial crimes with the same moral courage it applies to its European past. Only then can remembrance be whole, and reconciliation genuine.

– Nguvitjita Meeja

In an age of information overload, Sunrise is The Namibian’s morning briefing, delivered at 6h00 from Monday to Friday. It offers a curated rundown of the most important stories from the past 24 hours – occasionally with a light, witty touch. It’s an essential way to stay informed. Subscribe and join our newsletter community.