German South West Africa , German German South West Africa , a former German colony (1884–1919), who today's nation Namibia in south-west Africa. In 1883 Franz Adolf Lüderitz , a merchant from Bremen, Germany , a trading post in Southwest - Afrika founded in Angra Pequena, which he renamed Lüderitzbucht. He also acquired the adjacent Coastal area he called Lüderitzland. These areas have been formed , the first German colony under German protection on April 24, 1884. The German occupation in the Align in Internal extended. By the last 1880s, the German Southern Colonial Company realized that it was unable to administer the area, and the German government immediately took over the administration of the colony. By the Zanzibar Treaty (1890) between Germany and Britain, German South West Africa acquired the Caprivi Stripe (named after the German Chancellor Count Leo of Caprivi ), a 450 km stretch of land in the extreme north-east of the territory; This gave the colony access to the Zambezi .
Britannica Quiz Destination Africa:Fact or Fiction? Is Africa's northernmost point further north than Europe's southernmost point? See if your geographical knowledge points north or south on this journey through Africa. Major Theodor Leutwein, governor of the colony in 1894–1904, suppressed uprisings Khoekhoe (1894) and the Hereros (1896). In 1904 however, the Hereros were fomenting a far more dangerous rebellion. The German force, initially only 750 strong and supported only by an artillery battery, had to face an army of around 8,000 men, equipped with modern weapons. Reinforcements bolstered the German force, ultimately commanded by General Lothar von Trotha, and resulted in a decisive German victory at the Wasserberg. Further uprisings in Khoekhoe were crushed in 1904–07.
In World War I (1914–18) the German defense forces in the colony had to on July 9, 1915 before South African forces surrender , which were ten times their superior. 1919 South West Africa became commissioned from which League of Nations after South Africa . South West Africa remained under South African control until gaining independence in 1990 under the name of Namibia.