Thread by @SusanneZippel

1/18 Yesterday the @GermanEmbassySA (South Africa) reacted pretty cool on a Russian propaganda tweet. In response, there are many hateful comments against Germany, referring, for example, to the #genocide by Germans in #Namibia. Let me look back for a second: 🧵

2/18 It is true that over a hundred years ago terrible crimes were committed by Germans in Namibia, I am ashamed of it since I knew about it. –– History went on. After much back and forth between other colonial forces, Namibia was considered as the "5th province" of South Africa

3/18 and referred to as South West Africa until 1989. For almost 30 years, a guerrilla warfare prevailed between South Africa and Angola, Namibia in between. The apartheid regime of South Africa felt empowered to make military incursions to prevent possibly communist or

4/18 socialist-led neighboring states. Namibian civilians fled their homes. During the so-called "Operation Reindeer“ in 1978, hundreds of women, children and old people were killed and injured in a brutal attack on the Angolian Cassinga refugee camp, which also functioned as a

5/18 training camp for the Namibian liberation organization #SWAPO. The camp was bombed from the air, then paratroopers were dropped. It was the dictatorial part of the formerly divided Germany, the GDR, where they took in the wounded.The youngest child was 11 years old, she run

6/18 away from home at 9 years to fight for a free country, her thigh was shot. After the injured people recovered, they were allowed to pursue an education, many went on to study. Of course, behind this support was not only the idea of historical reparation, but the pure end

7/18 in itself to implant a communist ideology here. It was not for nothing that the fight of the SWAPO was also strongly supported militarily by the then Soviet Union and Cuba. In 1988, a first ceasefire was agreed between South Africa and Angola, Namibia's independence

8/18 was to be accepted if Cuba withdrew from the area. The first free elections were held in Namibia in October 1989, and Namibia was declared independent in 1990. This brought back the many people living in exile. Many of the very first

9/18 black academics in liberated Namibia had studied in East Germany, the first female dentist in Leipzig, for example. Before returning to Namibia, she lived at my family’s place in Berlin; she was like a big sister to me. My father was the doctor who treated from one day to

10/18 the other all the wounded people in his hospital. I'll never forget him coming home & saying to us three little ones: Pack up all the toys you can find, we'll give them to Namibian children! After that, there was no Christmas eve,

11/18 no Easter, no holiday that I didn't spend with the wonderful people from Namibia in my childhood. Right, shame on us Germans for what we did last century. We sincerely try better today, believe me! I grew up in the part of Germany, where a dictatorship ruled under the

12/18 guise of the supposedly better social order, which is so called socialism or communism (I even want to forget how to call those ideologies). I do not wish that to anyone! > Every day brainwashing, every day fear of not saying the right thing, because then

13/18 someone from your family could "accidentally get run over by a car", in Russia even today you just end up in the gulag. Okay, I've been through that, it's over. But I am still German. So I am part of the history that has brought terrible suffering to

14/18 millions of human beings. Since the end of WW2 we apologize (I am in the third or fourth generation). We will continue to do so. Folks, be aware that when you set all whites against all blacks, you are talking racist, too. Please stop it, if only for this moment! Here

15/18 in Europe, there's a completely insane guy fighting his neighbors. Let's just look ahead for the one moment and consider what it would mean to all of us if this Russian moron completely lost his mind. This guy, by the way, is the same guy who already

16/18 supported the totalitarian political system of East Germany, who wants only one thing: to turn back the wheel of history. By always talking about your wounds today, you only make your situation worse, because that's exactly what

17/18 this guy wants: to distract from himself, so he can have a free ride. Just saying. This is my story, this is my sorrow, this is my fear. I ask you, let us deal at least here and today peacefully with each other, that could prevent a third world war! Because

18/18 the world after all is not divided in black and white, but in respect or narcissism. (Oh dear, that was not at all easy for me now -- thank you!) • END