Serving God as a Soldier in Africa

How do you serve God as a soldier? For some this question is absurd. Only pastors, preachers and missionaries can serve the Lord, they murmur piously. We have already explored the inspiring story of the detective William Sleeman but let’s look at the life of an African disciple of Jesus who served God as a high ranking commander. First the background.

It has been called the first genocide of the 20^th century. In 1883, the German flag was  hoisted on the coast of South West Africa (Namibia today). As European settlers began to steal the tribal lands of the indigenous people, the Herero and Nama people groups resisted and this eventually led to a gruesome war in 1904 -7 in which many innocent African people died. Concentration camps were constructed by the German military machine and the prisoners were systematically exploited and starved to death. 60,000 Hereros and 10,000 Nama were killed in this grisly genocide.

On the 14^th of December 1904, Georg Wasserfall, the editor of the German South West African newspaper wrote this in an editorial:

“The Herero should not be exterminated – the Nama, yes – the reason being that the Herero are needed as labourers, and the Nana are an insignificant tribe.”

How can we make sense of this mindset? In the closing decades of the 19^th century, as Africa became the focus for a renewed burst of colonial expansion, the destruction of indigenous peoples was often justified using ideas drawn from Darwin’s theory of evolution. Life on earth is a struggle for existence and the history of races is governed by the eternal laws of natural selection. Indeed Darwin wrote this in his famous book The Descent of Man.

“At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace, the savage races throughout the world.”

We should also notice the full title of Darwin’s famous book: On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life.

Just as strong animals kill weaker animals in the struggle for life so civilised races (Europeans) are destined to exterminate ‘savage’ races (Africans). The spread of Europeans across the globe was regarded by many as the march of progress. Social Darwinism cast the extermination of inferior races as the key agent of progress. The idea that the strong were destined to overcome the weak in the struggle for life became a rallying cry, repeated many times in speeches, history lessons and scientific literature. Any lingering sense of Christian compassion, the command to love your enemies, could be cast aside. All this destruction of inferior races was inevitable in the march of progress.

Hendrik Witbooi (1830-1905) was one of the first African leaders to take up arms against German imperialist aggression in the defence of Nama lands and possessions. He was born in about 1830 in Pella, Northern Cape, in the Cape Colony. Witbooi received a Lutheran education through the German missionary Johannes Olp. He was a committed Christian who could recite long passages from Scripture in Dutch and his native language, Khoekhoegowab. He was intelligent and highly literate. We know a lot about him because he kept a thorough and detailed diary.

In 1904 Hendrik Witbooi led a major revolt against the German invasion of Nama lands. It was during this war that Hendrik Witbooi was killed by German shrapnel on 29 October 1905, near Vaalgras, near Koichas. His last words were: “It is enough. The children should now have rest.”

In August of 1904 the German General Lothar von Trotha (1848-1920) defeated the Herero army at the battle of Waterburg.  Von Trotha was steeped in the Darwinian worldview that viewed black people as ‘closer to monkeys’ than Europeans. Von Trotha referred to the Nama and Hereros people groups as Unmenschen (non-humans) in his diary.[1] He called them ‘cattle’ or ‘stock’.[2] This dehumanising of African people was endemic in virtually all the African colonies. British, French, Belgian as well as German colonies. Infamously Leopold 2 (1835-1909) ‘owned’ a slave colony in the Congo. Many of his soldiers and administrators were committed Social Darwinists. Some claim that 11 million Africans died in this nightmarish colony belonging to Leopold.

In brutal fashion von Trotha drove the Hereros into the desert of Omahake where many of the Herero warriors died of thirst. The German soldiers were ordered to poison all the water-holes in the region and they were ordered to take no prisoners and to do nothing for the remaining women and children.  Many of them were either shot or abandoned in the desert. The Herero population, which in 1904 had numbered about 80,000 people, had been reduced to fewer than 20,000 one year later.

Tragically German soldiers burned Herero women and children alive! Von Trotha defended the war by appealing to the Social Darwinist creed. The strong must exterminate the weak. He wrote this:

“Any Herero found inside the German frontier, with or without a gun or cattle, will be executed. I shall spare neither women nor children. I shall give the order to drive them away and fire on them. Such are my words to the Herero people.”

What a contrast with how the Christian general Hendrik Witbooi engaged in battle. He went to extraordinary lengths to ensure the safety of German non-combatants, women and children.[3] This deeply Christian man made sure that civilians were completely unharmed. His soldiers escorted women, children and German farmers back to the German lines. He faithfully obeyed the terms of the Geneva convention (1864) because he believed that all people are created in the image and likeness of God. How unlike von Trotha who totally rejected the Christian faith, replacing it with Social Darwinism.

In 1933, the Nazi authorities had named a street in Munich “von Trotha Straße” in honour of their so-called ‘hero’. In 2006 the Munich city council officially decided to change the name of this street to “Herero Straße” in honour of von Trotha’s many victims. Hendrik Witbooi is regarded as one of the national heroes of Namibia and his face can be seen on many of their banknotes.

It is sobering to ponder the lives of two soldiers who lived in such different worldview stories. Without doubt Hendrik Witbooi can inspire us to follow Jesus in the most challenging of circumstances, including those that threaten and destroy the innocent. We should seek to understand the many rules for justifiable warfare that have been developed by Christians since the time of St. Augustine up to the training of military forces in many countries, and that have been written into international codes. God’s ordination of government to overcome vengeance-taking is to encourage the good and to punish evil doers (Romans 12:17—13:4). The slaughter of innocent humans by either a government or a mob cannot be condoned on any terms. By contrast, seeking to protect the innocent from slaughter by violent forces is a legitimate government responsibility of retributive justice.

[1] See David Olusaga & Casper W. Erichsen The Kaiser’s Holocaust  (London: Faber and Faber Ltd, 2010) p.140

[2] Ibid, p.167

[3] Ibid p. 176

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Mark Roques

Mark taught Philosophy and Religious Education at Prior Park College, Bath, for many years. As Director of RealityBites he has developed a rich range of resources for youth workers and teachers. He has spoken at conferences in the UK, Holland, South Korea, Spain, Australia and New Zealand.

Mark is a lively storyteller and the author of four books, including The Spy, the Rat and the Bed of Nails: Creative Ways of Talking about Christian Faith. His work is focused on storytelling and how this can help us to communicate the Christian faith. He has written many articles for the Baptist Times, RE Today, Youthscape, Direction magazine and the Christian Teachers Journal.

Latest posts by Mark Roques (see all)

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