PA 28 Hauptmann Gustav von Sack (1860–1935). Documents from German South West Africa 1884–1898

  • Language: German, English
  • 45 pages
  • Index
  • ISBN:
  • Print: 978-905758-02-03
Dag Henrichsen (comp.)

PA 28 Hauptmann Gustav von Sack (1860–1935). Documents from German South West Africa 1884–1898

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The archive inventory makes accessible a collection of military and administrative files with reference to German colonial rule in Namibia during the 1890s. The files, as well as some additional personal records, concern Captain Gustav von Sack (1860–1935), who, between 1894 and 1896, was stationed in German South West Africa in the capacity of high-ranking military officer and administrative official. The files were evidently put together by von Sack himself and remained private property. In 2002, they were put on offer by an antiquarian book dealer and acquired by the Basler Afrika Bibliographien.

The files themselves refer to fundamental military and political conflicts in German South West Africa that were decisive with regard to the military and political conquest of the African population in central and southern Namibia, on the one hand, and the establishment of German colonial rule, on the other. Von Sack participated in these conflicts as commander of the so-called Second Company. The files, above all, deal with the so-called Naukluft campaign of the German troops (Schutztruppe) under Landeshauptmann (later Governor) Major Theodor Leutwein against the Witbooi group around Kaptein HendrikWitbooi; furthermore, the second campaign against the Khauas group at the end of 1894, beginning of 1895; as well as the 1895 punitive expeditions in view of the so-called boundary and smuggling crisis in southern Hereroland against the Batwana Rolong dealers, as well as the Herero and Mbanderu under the Ovahona (‘chiefs’) Nikodemus Kavikunua and Kahimemua Nguvauva. The latter crisis lead in mid-1896 to the campaign – though no longer documented in the existing files – against the already-mentioned Ovahona.

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