Over the last two or three decades, Germany’s colonial past has been brought more to public attention in the country than had happened during most of the post-World War II period. Still, this past seems to interest mostly a concerned minority, and colonial amnesia or otherwise colonial aphasia continues to prevail—not in the sense that facts would not be known to attentive listeners or readers but in the sense of a blatant lack of public concern. As far as it goes, Namibia and particularly the genocide of 1904–1908 has played a crucial role in raising such awareness in present-day Germany about the country’s ignominious colonial record. In 2021, the Namibian and the German government reached an agreement about atonement for German colonial crimes in the erstwhile colony, known as the Joint Declaration ‘United in Remembrance of Our Colonial Past. United in Our Will to Reconcile, United in Our Vision for the Future’. However, this document remains deeply controversial and has not been ratified nearly four years after its announcement. Apart from justified excitement and controversy particularly over this matter, issues raised range farther than a bilateral relationship that remains structurally asymmetrical, as I shall also demonstrate below.