General Adrian Dietrich Lothar von Trotha (3 July 1848 – 31 March 1920) was a German military commander during the European new colonial era.

He later served as governor of German South West Africa and Commander in Chief of its colonial forces, in which role he suppressed a native rebellion during the Herero Wars.

Born in Magdeburg, the capital of the Province of Saxony, Trotha joined the Prussian Army in 1865 and fought in the Austro-Prussian and Franco-Prussian Wars, for which he was awarded the Iron Cross 2nd Class.

In 1894 Trotha was appointed commander of the colonial forces in German East Africa and was ruthlessly successful in suppressing uprisings there, including the Wahehe Rebellion.

While temporarily posted to Imperial China as Brigade Commander of the East Asian Expedition Corps, he was involved in suppressing the Boxer Rebellion.

[1] On 3 May 1904 he was appointed Commander in Chief of German South West Africa and was directed to crush the native Herero rebellion.

At the Battle of Waterberg, he issued orders to encircle the Herero on three sides so that the only escape route was into the waterless Omaheke-Steppe, a western arm of the Kalahari Desert.

They have killed, stolen, cut off the ears and other parts of the body of wounded soldiers, and now are too cowardly to want to fight any longer.

An undisclosed German soldier was reported to have said of the massacres "...the death rattle of the dying and the shrieks of the mad...they echo in the sublime stillness of infinity."

[4] This, however, was too late to help the Herero, as the few survivors had been herded into concentration camps and used as labour for German businesses, where many died of overwork, malnutrition or disease.

In 2006, the Munich city council officially decided to change the name of this street to "Herero Straße" in honour of the general's victims.

[8] As General von Trotha has no living descendants, some of his distant relations traveled to Omaruru in October 2007 by invitation of the local Herero chiefs and publicly apologised for his actions.

"[9] On 16 August 2004 the German government under Gerhard Schröder officially apologized for the genocide, but rejected calls to pay reparations to the descendants of the Herero and Nama.

[10] The 2023 survival horror video game Ad Infinitum features a semi-fictionalized Trotha, although differing in name: Lother von Schmidt.