Between 1904 and 1908 the German colonial administration in South West Africa conducted a campaign against the Herero and Nama peoples that is now widely described as the first genocide of the twentieth century. An extermination order was issued, survivors were driven into the Omaheke desert and denied access to water, and the remainder were held in camps where mortality was extreme. Most of the Herero population and a large proportion of the Nama population died.
The religious dimension is direct rather than incidental. The missionary societies working in the territory were German, their personnel were present throughout, and their role was mixed: some missionaries protested and interceded, some ran the camps' spiritual care, and the mission societies benefited from the reordering of the territory afterwards. Skulls and other remains were sent to German institutions for racial research, and their return to Namibia, in several stages from 2011, was carried out as a religious as well as a diplomatic event, with church services on both sides.
Germany acknowledged the events as genocide in 2021 and offered development funding, in an agreement negotiated with the Namibian government that many Herero and Nama representatives rejected as having been made over their heads and as avoiding the word reparations.
The Herero annual commemorations at Okahandja, at the graves of their chiefs, combine Christian service with older forms of remembrance, and are among the country's most significant religious occasions.