German Identity and Transnational Nazism in Southwest Africa, 1918-1948

Samuel Huston Goodfellow examines the transnational spread of Nazism from Germany to Southwest Africa, where former colonists sought to preserve German culture and reclaim influence. By embracing Nazi organizations, they built a movement that peaked in 1939, before the South African administration began to intern Germans at the start of the war. Although local Germans and the party were ideologically aligned, divisions now arose between local ambitions for control of the Mandate territory, and the Nazi regime’s vision of global German unity under Hitler. The experience of war divided support for Hitler and demonstrated that Nazism was no longer useful in Southwest Africa.