Controversial kinship: From colonial rule to the Holocaust?

Racial hierarchy, dehumanization, concentration camps, settler expansion in the name of "living space," collective punishment and mass violence: at first glance, the continuities between colonial and Nazi violence appear obvious. In 1941, Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler himself compared Eastern Europe to "Germany's India" after the British colonial model, declaring "like the English, we shall rule this empire with handful of men."

But the extent to which Nazism was shaped by the age of empire, and whether the two systems of violence can even be compared, remains the subject of intense debate. This is particularly true in Germany, where the fear is often expressed that any comparison risks relativizing or minimizing Nazi crimes, and particularly the Holocaust.

Contrasts and connections

The exhibition begins with a hippopotamus-hide whip used in African colonies displayed alongside a canister of Zyklon B, the poison used in Nazi gas chambers. The juxtaposition highlights the contrast between colonial violence and the industrialized mass murder of the Holocaust. Yet it also points to connections: whips were used in Nazi concentration camps, while Fascist Italy deployed chemical weapons against civilians and soldiers during its invasion of Ethiopia in 1935-36.

Racism and extermination

While racism underpinned both colonial empires and Nazism, Malinowski says the goals were different. The colonial powers tended to present assimilation as a path to advancement, forcing colonized people to adopt European culture and serve imperial interests. "This is definitely not something that the Nazi regime is offering to Poles or to Russians or let alone to Jews," added Malinowski.

Edward Kissi, a historian at the University of South Florida, explains: "In terms of violence, colonial violence was just as extreme as Nazi violence. But Nazi violence was annihilatory and exterminatory compared to colonial violence in the colonies." He points to how Nazis pursued the elimination of Black-Germans through forced sterilization, unlike European colonial powers in Africa.

Historical debate

The mass murder of tens of thousands of the Herero and Nama during German colonial rule in Namibia is now regarded as the first genocide of the 20th-century. In 2016, Nama representatives walked out of talks after Germany's chief negotiator said what happened was "incomparable" to the Holocaust. The German government has since recognized the events as genocide "from today's perspective," but it has not yet accepted legal liability.

The exhibition opens amid renewed debates over settler colonialism, the definition of genocide, and the meaning of "never again," sharpened by Nicaragua's case against Germany at the International Court of Justice over German support for Israel during the war in Gaza.