Otto Schimming

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Otto Schimming
Personal details
Born
Otto Ferdinand Schimming

(1908-11-19)19 November 1908
Gobabis, German South West Africa (now Namibia)
Died7 December 2005(2005-12-07) (aged 97)
Spouse(s)Charlotte Schimming, née Freiser

Otto Ferdinand Schimming (19 November 1908 – 7 December 2005) was a Namibian teacher and early independence activist. He was the first black teacher in Namibia when he founded the Rietquelle School. [1] A street in Katutura is named after him. [2]

Namibia republic in southern Africa

Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in southern Africa. Its western border is the Atlantic Ocean; it shares land borders with Zambia and Angola to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and east. Although it does not border Zimbabwe, less than 200 metres of the Zambezi River separates the two countries. Namibia gained independence from South Africa on 21 March 1990, following the Namibian War of Independence. Its capital and largest city is Windhoek, and it is a member state of the United Nations (UN), the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the African Union (AU), and the Commonwealth of Nations.

Katutura Place in Namibia

Katutura is a township of Windhoek, Khomas Region, Namibia. Katutura was created in 1961 following the forced removal of Windhoek's black population from the Old Location, which afterwards was developed into the suburb Hochland Park. Sam Nujoma Stadium, built in 2005, is located within Katutura. Katutura Community Radio, a community-based radio station, also operates from the township. Katutura State Hospital, one of two State Hospitals in the Windhoek area, is located in the township.

Contents

Personal

The son of a German Schutztruppe soldier and a Herero mother, Schimming was born in 1908 during imperial German rule of Namibia. [1] His parents divorced in 1918 when the South African authorities, having conquered the area during World War I, voided interracial marriage in the territory. Schimming and his brother then moved to a farm near Otjivero where he lived with Clemens Kapuuo's sister. By the age of 10, Schimming could speak three languages. [1]

Schutztruppe

Schutztruppe was the official name of the colonial troops in the African territories of the German colonial empire from the late 19th century to 1918. Similar to other colonial armies, the Schutztruppen consisted of volunteer European commissioned and non-commissioned officers, medical and veterinary officers. Most enlisted ranks were generally recruited locally.

Herero people ethnic group

The Herero, also known as Ovaherero, are an ethnic group inhabiting parts of Southern Africa. The majority reside in Namibia, with the remainder found in Botswana and Angola. There were an estimated 250,000 Herero people in Namibia in 2013. They speak Otjiherero, a Bantu language.

German South West Africa former colony of the German Empire

German South West Africa was a colony of the German Empire from 1884 until 1919. With an area of 835,100 km², it was one and a half times the size of the mainland German Empire in Europe at the time. The colony had a population of around 2,600 Germans.

In 1940, Schimming married Charlotte Frier, a Damara-speaker and lived with her and their three children in the Old Location of Windhoek. Shortly after the marriage, the couple had their fourth child and they soon moved to a series of different farms across the country, including ones in Grootfontein, Gobabis, Rehoboth, Seeis, Windhoek and Okahandja before settling near Witvlei - where three of his surviving daughters are still farming today. All of Schimming's children received post-secondary education in South Africa, causing suspicion of thievery by the White South African authorities and regular raids of the household in search of stolen diamonds.

Old Location

The Old Location was an area segregated for Black residents of Windhoek, the capital of Namibia. It was situated in the area of today's suburbs Hochland Park and Pioneers Park.

Grootfontein Town in Otjozondjupa Region, Namibia

Grootfontein is a city of 23,793 inhabitants in the Otjozondjupa Region of central Namibia. It is one of the three towns in the Otavi Triangle, situated on the B8 national road that leads from Otavi to the Caprivi Strip. Grootfontein receives an annual average rainfall of 557 millimetres (21.9 in), although in the 2010/2011 rainy season 956 millimetres (37.6 in) were measured.

Gobabis City in Omaheke Region, Namibia

Gobabis is a city in eastern Namibia. It is the regional capital of the Omaheke Region, and the district capital of the Gobabis electoral constituency. Gobabis is situated 200 km (120 mi) down the B6 motorway from Windhoek to Botswana. The town is 113 km (70 mi) from the Buitepos border post with Botswana, and serves as an important link to South Africa on the tarred Trans-Kalahari Highway. Gobabis is in the heart of the cattle farming area. In fact Gobabis is so proud of its cattle farming that a statue of a large Brahman bull with the inscription "Cattle Country" greets visitors to the town. Gobabis also has its own local Airport.

During the Old Location massacre on 10 December 1959, Schimming and his wife were in Cape Town attending the graduation of his son and son-in-law who are medical doctors. [3] In 1963, after his daughter Otillie and her husband Kenneth Abrahams had moved to Rehoboth in 1962, he took his son-in-law and others to hide away in caves, after nearly being arrested by the South Africans for their political activities, on his farm in the Rehoboth area before transporting them to Botswana. [3] [1] He was the father of politician Nora Schimming-Chase.

Nora Schimming-Chase was a Namibian politician. A member of the Congress of Democrats, Schimming-Chase has been a member of the National Assembly of Namibia from 2000 to her death in 2018. Prior to joining the NA with the opposition CoD, Schimming-Chase was a long time diplomat in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. She was a teacher and the South West African National Union representative in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania from 1974 to 1978. She was Namibia's ambassador to Germany from 1992 to 1996 and Austria from 1994 to 1996.

Schimming died on 7 December 2005 and is buried at De Rus (or Schimmings Rust) on the family farm near Rehoboth. At the time of his death, he was survived by three children, 17 grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren. [4]

Rehoboth, Namibia Town in Hardap Region, Namibia

Rehoboth is a town in central Namibia just north of the Tropic of Capricorn. Located 90 kilometres south of the Namibian capital Windhoek, Rehoboth lies on a high elevation plateau with several natural hot-water springs. It receives sparse mean annual rainfall of 240 millimetres (9.4 in), although in the 2010/2011 a record 731 millimetres (28.8 in) were measured. In 2005, it had a population of 21,378 later increased to 28,843 in 2011, according to the 2011 Namibian Population and Housing Census.

Teaching and activism

He received an education from missionaries and eventually studied education at Lovedale Mission Station in South Africa. Upon completing his education at Lovedale, Schimming returned to South West Africa and was urged by Chief Hosea Kutako to start a school for Herero-speaking children in Aminuis. The Rietquelle School was founded and for a time, Schimming was the school's only teacher. [1] In the first year, Schimming taught 150 pupils, In the afternoons he would build structures where the children could stay. He also acquired a rifle which he would hunt for meat during weekends to supply food for the children. During this time he found himself before a magistrate in Gobabis for shooting wild dogs and was fined one shilling and a six pence. He was also an advisor to the Herero Chiefs Council and secretary to Kutako. In that position, Schimming drafted the first letter to the United Nations protesting the proposed formal incorporation of the then South West Africa into South Africa. [1] Two years later, Schimming was hired as the chief translator for Windhoek's municipality because of his skill with languages. He could speak Afrikaans, German, Damara and Nama, Herero, Oshiwambo, English, Xhosa and Latin. In 1962, he accompanied international inspectors to Namibia as a translator to inspect the conditions in the country and report back to the United Nations. [1]

Lovedale (South Africa)

Lovedale also known as Lovedale Missionary Institute was a mission station and educational institute in the Victoria East division of the Cape Province, South Africa. It lies 520 metres (1,720 ft) above sea level on the banks of the Tyhume River, a tributary of the Keiskamma River, some 3.2 kilometres (2 mi) north of Alice.

South West Africa former country, a mandate of South Africa

South West Africa was the name for modern-day Namibia when it was under South African administration, from 1915 to 1990.

Hosea Kutako Namibian politician

Chief Hosea Komombumbi Kutako, was an early Namibian nationalist leader and a founder member of Namibia's first nationalist party, the South West African National Union (SWANU).

Related Research Articles

The history of Namibia has passed through several distinct stages from being colonised in the late nineteenth century to Namibia's independence on 21 March 1990.

Windhoek City in Khomas Region, Namibia

Windhoek, (pronunciation:), is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Namibia. It is located in central Namibia in the Khomas Highland plateau area, at around 1,700 metres (5,600 ft) above sea level, almost exactly at the country's geographical centre. The population of Windhoek in 2011 was 325,858, growing continually due to an influx from all over Namibia.

Omaheke Region Region in Namibia

Omaheke is one of the fourteen regions of Namibia, its capital is Gobabis. It lies on the eastern border of Namibia and is the Western extension of the Kalahari desert. The name Omaheke is the Herero word for Sandveld.

Otjiwarongo City in Otjozondjupa Region, Namibia

Otjiwarongo is a city of 28,000 inhabitants in the Otjozondjupa Region of Namibia. It is the district capital of the Otjiwarongo electoral constituency and also the capital of Otjozondjupa.

The Ovamboland People's Organization was a nationalist organization that existed between 1959 and 1960 in South West Africa. The aim of the organization was to end the South African colonial administration, and the placement of South West Africa under the United Nations Trusteeship system. Andimba Toivo ya Toivo had founded its predecessor, the Ovamboland People's Congress, in 1957 in Cape Town, South Africa. In 1959, Sam Nujoma and Jacob Kuhangua established the Ovamboland People's Organization (OPO) at the Old Location in Windhoek. Sam Nujoma was the president of OPO until its transformation into the South West Africa People's Organization (SWAPO) a year later and remained president until Namibia gained independence in 1990.

Clemens Kapuuo was a Namibian school teacher, shopkeeper, president of the Democratic Turnhalle Alliance (DTA), now called Popular Democratic Movement and chief of the Herero people of Namibia. Kapuuo was one of the leading opponents of South African rule of his country until his assassination following the Turnhalle Constitutional Conference.

Heroes Acre (Namibia) war memorial in Namibia

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Gottlieb Wilhelm Eduard Redecker was a German engineer and architect in South West Africa. He was responsible for a number of important buildings which still stand today in Namibia, particularly in Windhoek, including the national assembly building, the Tintenpalast.

B6 road (Namibia) road in Namibia

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Seeis Settlement in Khomas Region, Namibia

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Hendrik Samuel Witbooi Nama chief

Captain Hendrik Samuel Witbooi, Nama name: ǃGae-nûb ǃnagamâb ǃNansemab, was the sixth Kaptein of the ǀKhowesin, a subtribe of the Orlam, in the area of South-West Africa (SWA), today's Namibia. He was born in Gibeon; Hendrik Witbooi was his grandfather. He was selected to be the successor of his uncle David Witbooi who died in 1955.

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Franz Heinrich Kleinschmidt German missionary

Franz Heinrich Kleinschmidt (1812–1864) was a German missionary and linguist who worked in southern Africa, now in the region of Namibia. He founded the missionary station and town of Rehoboth and together with Carl Hugo Hahn set up the first Rhenish mission station to the Herero people in Gross Barmen. Kleinschmidt is known for his scientific work on the Nama language.

Coloured people in Namibia

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The Red Nation is the main subtribe of the Nama people in Namibia and the oldest Nama group speaking Khoekhoegowab, the language often called Damara/Nama.

Aminuis Settlement in Omaheke Region, Namibia

Aminuis is a cluster of small settlements in the remote eastern part of the Omaheke Region of Namibia, located about 500 km east of Windhoek. It is the district capital of the Aminuis electoral constituency.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "Otto Schimming: A self-made man (1908 to 2005)". Archived from the original on March 16, 2012. Retrieved 2012-09-06. New Era, 22 October 2010
  2. ↑ Have you seen these women? The Namibian, 4 November 2005
  3. 1 2 "Botha a Stubborn Defence Minister Who Stuck to His Guns". Archived from the original on March 16, 2012. Retrieved 2012-09-06.
  4. ↑ "Otto Schimming dies". The Namibian . 8 December 2005.
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