DOI 10.60531/INSIGHTOUT.2024.2.6| FRAUWALLNER: IN//OUT OF FRAME_ INSIGHTOUT 2(2024) 30 to gain an understanding of how women were made (in-)visible in different contexts. Through a(neo-)co­lonial and patriarchal gaze, the work of women often remains“unseen, unacknowledged, and unpaid”. 4 However, regarding the issue of in-visibility, Muthien and Bam stress the importance of asking by whom and to whom women were made invisible: Indigenous women were and are very much visible to themselves while they might have been or might be invisible to a white academic audience. 5 Gesine Krüger’s 1999 book Kriegsbewältigung und Geschichtsbewusstsein: Realität, Deutung und Ver­arbeitung des deutschen Kolonialkriegs in Namibia 1904 bis 1907 proved to be a highly interesting read as it features a section on women’s roles in the war – in­valuable insights into the interactions between forced and non-forced labourers, some stemming from testi­monies archived at the National Archives of Namibia (NAN), were offered by William Blakemore Lyon in his (so far unpublished) 2022 PhD-thesis on Namibian la­bour history, titled Namibian Labor Empire: Genocide, Migrant Labor, and the Origins of Colonial Capitalism in South-West Africa, 1892–1925 6 . First, the tense relations which ultimately lead to the German-Namibian War will be discussed in order to gain an understanding of the setting. Next, the re­presentation of Herero women will be analysed in the context of German war propaganda. In the third section, the erasure of women forced labourers from the visual documentation of a colonial infrastructure project will be examined. Then, the issue of the colo­nial gaze and clothing will be briefly touched upon to help understand the difference in portrayals. A battle for land: the German–Namibian War, 1904–1908 The ongoing conflicts between the local population and the colonialists escalated after the increasing land appropriation by the Germans and the accom­panying displacement of local groups, especially the Herero. When a Herero group led by Samuel Maherero attacked German farms, railways, and trading posts in early 1904 and killed several Ger­man settlers in the battle for the town of Okahandja, the colonial administration retaliated violently. The commander-in-chief of the Schutztruppe, Lothar von Trotha, would soon declare the extermination of the Herero as the only solution to the conflicts surroun­ding land use. The so-called “Vernichtungsbefehl” (“extermination order”) issued by von Trotha stated that all Herero, whether armed or not, were to be killed or expelled from the colony. 7 In January 1905, the colonial administration began setting up internment camps. These were located in Windhoek, Karibib, Omaruru, Swakopmund, and Lü­deritzbucht, primarily housing Herero prisoners of war. Prisoners would work as forced labourers for the military in field hospitals where they were exposed to medical experiments on other prisoners, as well as in businesses and private households. Herero women were subjected to demonstrations and examinations by German military doctors. 8 Among the businesses making use of forced labour was the Arthur Koppel AG, which had women work not only at the offices of the firm, providing care work, but also had them doing heavy construction jobs on the Otavi railway – and according to testimonies by other forced and 4 B. Muthien and J. Bam(eds.), Rethinking Africa: Indigenous Women Re-Interpret Southern Africa’s Pasts (Johannesburg, 2021), 10. 5 Muthien and Bam, Rethinking Africa , 10(see n. 4). 6 Lyon’s book Forged in Genocide: Migrant Workers Shaping Colonial Capitalism in Namibia, 1890–1925, published by De Gruyter, will be released in July 2024. 7 Wallace and Kinahan, History of Namibia, 237(see n. 2). 8 W. B. Lyon, Namibian Labor Empire: Genocide, Migrant Labor, and the Origins of Colonial Capitalism in South-West Africa, 1892–1925 , PhD thesis, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin(Berlin, 2022), 97, 120–121.