Herero and Namaqua genocide

About 35 years before the Holocaust, Germany committed one of the first genocides of the 20th century in modern-day Namibia. While Namibia was still a German colony, the Herero and Namaqua tribes rebelled against German colonial rule. The German soldiers refused to fight because they didn't want to shoot civilians. So the high command told them to shot over their heads to push them out into the desert. German forces then sealed off the Namib Desert, leaving up to 100,000 native Africans to die of starvation and exposure.