Hermann Heinrich Vedder (born 3 July 1876 in Westerenger [Wikidata], Westphalia, Germany; died 26 April 1972 in Okahandja, South-West Africa) was a German missionary, linguist, ethnologist and historian.
He was raised in a strict, devout home and attended the local primary school (Volksschule), where under the influence of his skilled teacher, Decius, became a diligent student, especially of languages.
"[5] While these sentiments impressed a missionary calling on Heinrich, neither he nor Anna could dream that he would one day teach Gertze's niece in South West Africa.
At the insistence of his father, Heinrich Vedder left school after his confirmation to help on the family farm and learn the weaving trade.
After the committee meeting, Vedder was given his orders to go to Swakopmund, first living with the missionary Johannes Friedrich Albrecht Böhm in Walvis Bay.
[6] On December 27 of that year, Vedder and his fellow missionary Friedrich (Fritz) Eisenberg disembarked at the beach near Swakopmund and traveled on foot the 30 km to Walvis Bay.
Hermann Nijhof (Nyhof), for Rooibank (Scheppmansdorp) on the banks of the Kuiseb River, where some impoverished Nama people lived who could teach him Khoekhoe.
While he was assigned to work specifically with the Topnaar Nama of Walvis Bay, his year-long journey between Scheppmannsdorf, Karibib, and Otjimbingwe allowed him to learn Khoekhoe, Herero, and the Ndonga dialect of the Ovambo language.
In Karibib, Vedder would be able to visit Johanna Gertz, who lived in the local black neighborhood and had so inspired his mother and himself to his missionary career path.
A linguistic prodigy herself, Johanna had traveled with Hahn throughout Namaqualand and Cape Colony, eventually speaking Khoekhoe, Herero, Afrikaans, English, and German fluently and later teaching in Otjimbingwe.
In Swakopmund, Vedder lived with the missionary Hammann in a small rectory built out of floorboard, which resembled a giant casket from afar.
By the custom of the day, Vedder visited his fellow townspeople in his top hat and tails, but was given a frosty reception by white settlers that blamed missionaries for the Herero uprising.
Vedder opened a school for black children, held night catechism classes, and began writing his Khoekhoe grammar and a manual for acolytes.
Undeterred and with a keen sense of human nature, Vedder offered his services to Major Friederichs to serve as a military champion, and was accepted as such to minister to around a thousand soldiers posted locally.
Thereby was founded the Swakopmund congregation of the German-speaking Evangelical Lutheran Church in Namibia, in which Vedder finally won the respect of his German brethren.
At a missionary conference in Hereroland, a training school was proposed for native teachers and pastors, similar to that which Hahn had founded in Otjimbingwe in 1864.
In the north, near Tsumeb, a lush oasis named Gaub (or Ghaub) appealed to the farmer in Vedder, who suggested it as the location for the new training center where the students and staff could work undisturbed and be self-sufficient.
He lived in Omaruru for half a year to compile biblical narratives in Herero to serve as the school Bible and to prepare his New Testament for another print edition.
In the winter of 1914, at the recommendation of his fellow missionaries, Vedder took an oxcart journey through the Kaokoveld to appraise possibilities for future missions in the area.
In 1922, he was brought back to SWA at the insistence of the Cape Town-based Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa (NGK),[7] and once more he trained teachers and pastors—this time at the Augustineum just outside Okahandja.
With his usual zeal, he rejuvenated the institution, taking a study trip to the Union of South Africa to learn Afrikaans (his eighth language) and helping develop curriculum in tandem with the League of Nations mandate administration.
He spent the rest of his days in a small missionary retreat in Okahandja, where he concentrated on writing works such as his memoirs, published as Kurze Geschichten aus einem langen Leben in 1953.
In the early postwar years, Vedder emerged as an advocate for the concerns of German Namibians and twice led delegations of them to South African Prime Ministers: in 1947 to Gen. Jan Smuts and in 1949 to Dr. Daniel Malan.
In 1950, the Governor General of South Africa Ernest George Jansen named him a senator on behalf of indigenous peoples, an office in which he served for eight years.
All 10 delegates were from the National Party, except for Vedder, who was titled "the venerable German missionary, ethnologist, and historian, nominated by the government for his specialized knowledge on the natives.
Vedder's literature finds inspiration in the mysteries, people, plants, and animals of Namibia itself, highlighted by his two volumes Am Lagerfeuer; Geschichte aus Busch und Werft .
He had access to valuable documents related to the early pioneers of South West Africa in the archives of the RMS in Barmen, copied and published in 28 chapters under the title Quellen zur Geschichte von Südwestafrika.
He also contributed a selection on German rule and the military occupation of SWA in the 1936 edition of The History of the British Empire, and in 1928, he published Einführung in die Geschichte Südwestafrikas, aimed at a student audience.
Vedder, as a respected missionary in the mandate territory, was asked on August 23, 1923, to rebury the remains of Samuel Maharero in Okahandja after his death in Serowe (Serui), Bechuanaland, on March 14 of the same year.
He also declined an Emeritus post from the University of California because he preferred his simple black robe in South West Africa to the bright blue uniforms the latter school offered.