The white missionaries, traders, and the so-called Orlam (of the Nama tribe), who had migrated from the Cape Colony, brought with them new ways of living. Alongside cultural novelties such as Christian names, European clothing, square houses, and agriculture, they also introduced new forms of conflict — now fought on horseback and with rifles — which shifted the balance of power.

The event that set Namaqualand on the path to becoming a colony occurred in 1883, when a man with big ambitions entered the scene: Adolf Lüderitz, a merchant from Bremen whose dubious land deals marked the beginning of what would later become German South West Africa.

Lüderitz dreamt big — of a trading post at Angra Pequena, mineral mining inland, a harbour, settlements, and green gardens along the Orange River. He brought in equipment and experts from Germany to explore the land from Angra Pequena inland as far as Aus and even the Orange River. Ironically, Lüderitz’s prospectors never found any valuable minerals. This financial disaster forced Lüderitz to sell his land to the German Colonial Society (Deutsche Kolonialgesellschaft), a Germany-based organisation that promoted colonial interests in other territories as well.

Unlike colonies primarily used for crop production, German South West Africa was declared a settler colony — intended to attract Germans willing to migrate to Africa to build new lives. The fact that the land was already inhabited by native peoples was of little concern to the imperialists.

“Developing” the country, however, proved difficult. Farming was hard, infrastructure costly, and years of conflict with the indigenous people — particularly the Nama and Herero — culminated in the 1904 genocide, which claimed thousands of lives. Only in 1908 did the fighting end, and the Schutztruppe began returning home, leaving shops, bars, and hotels without customers. Economic decline seemed inevitable.

Then, in April, a miracle happened: diamonds were found. The lucky man was August Stauch, from a small town in Germany. Suffering from a lung disease, he had requested a transfer to Africa’s warm, dry climate, where his company was building railways. Career-wise, this was a setback; his new position was far less glamorous than his title, Bahnmeister in Kolmannskuppe, suggested.

Kolmannskuppe was little more than a railway siding in the desert, about 14 km from Lüderitzbucht. No passengers ever boarded or alighted there — its sole purpose was Stauch’s task: keeping the tracks free of sand. A lonely outpost with a small team, a few barracks, and daily sandstorms — a place many would have considered dreary and dull.