After a career as a provincial judge, the Dutch-speaking Göring was appointed as the first Imperial Commissioner of German South West Africa in 1885. (German commercial interests had forced the
Imperial Chancellor,
Otto von Bismarck, into creating a state-financed colonial administration to support his country's fledgling
Protectorate of South West Africa.) Göring started by signing a "protection treaty" with the leading
Herero chief,
Maharero. The treaty of protection was not worth the paper on which it was written, as Göring was in no position to offer assistance. Repeated armed attacks by Witbooi's
Nama clan proved the point. The treaty was repudiated a few years later by Maharero, who also expelled Göring from Hereroland. The Germans' behaviour had become too much, and, worst of all, Göring had (perhaps unwittingly) extended his house on top of a Herero ancestral graveyard. An alleged discovery of gold was a hoax: the purported gold deposits were nothing apart from the remains of gold pieces fired at a rock face. The identity of the hoaxer remains a mystery, but suspicion falls on Göring making a last-ditch desperate attempt to bring investment to the protectorate and thus to save his failing mission. Göring left South West Africa in August 1890 without having been able to settle the constant friction between the Herero and the
Oorlam people. The expected vast gold deposits started a
gold rush of German settlers and investors, whose behaviour further alienated the Herero. This eventually led to the
Herero and Nama genocide (1904–1908) under
Lothar von Trotha. Herero skulls were eventually used by the
Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics, which pursued a policy of
eugenics. ==Personal life==