Germany won't apologize for race superiority bones massacre

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BERLIN (Reuters) - Skulls and other remains of massacred tribespeople used in the colonial era for experiments to push claims of European racial superiority were handed over by Germany to Namibia at a church ceremony in Berlin. In what historians call the first genocide of the 20th century, soldiers of German Kaiser Wilhelm slaughtered some 65,000 Herero and 10,000 Nama tribespeople in a 1904-08 campaign after a revolt against land seizures by German colonists...

During its 1904-08 campaign in what was then German South West Africa, the German Reich sent reinforcements to put down an uprising by tribespeople over their expulsion from their land and recruitment into forced labor. The Hereros had killed 123 German traders, settlers and soldiers.

In addition to the slaughter, thousands of Hereros were driven into the desert and died of thirst and starvation, and the rest were sent to concentration camps...

Germany has acknowledged “moral responsibility” for the killings but to avoid compensation claims, has avoided making an official apology for the massacres.

Esther Utjiua Muinjangue, chairwoman of the Ovaherero Genocide Foundation, said the handover ceremony would have been the perfect opportunity for Germany to officially apologize.

“Is that asking too much? I don’t think so,” she told reporters in Berlin earlier this week.