Beyond Skulls: Why The Measures of Men Fails to Address the True Cost of Genocide

I first saw the poster for The Measures of Men in the bathroom of the Goethe Center in Windhoek. A Black woman’s face stared back at me, covered by bold German lettering. The image seemed to promise something rare in films about colonial history—a story that centered a Black female character within the brutal realities of German rule in Namibia. But what I received instead was a poorly developed character, a woman who existed not as a fully realized person but as a tool to propel a German man’s moral crisis.

Yet, despite my disappointment in how the film handled Kunouje’s character, I cannot dismiss the ways in which The Measures of Men succeeds. It does not shy away from the brutality of German colonial rule, nor does it offer a comforting, redemptive arc for its perpetrators. Instead, it forces viewers—particularly German audiences—to confront the full horror of what was done.

The film’s focus on stolen skulls is especially powerful. Genocide is an identity-based crime, and decapitation is a form of deletion—the removal of identity from the body. The fact that these skulls remain in museums instead of being laid to rest is a continued act of dehumanization. By centering this issue, the film makes a clear demand for historical accountability.

It also refuses to provide an easy narrative of resistance or redemption. As director Lars Kraume has insisted, there were no “good Germans” in this story. The outcome of German-Herero/Nama interactions had no hopeful resolution. This historical truth is difficult but necessary to confront.

Finally, while the film’s violent depictions may be deeply painful for descendants of survivors, they serve an undeniable purpose: they force German audiences to reckon with the colonial atrocities their country has long ignored.

While The Measures of Men succeeds in its historical messaging, it also presents a clear thesis: there were no “good Germans.” This stance is evident in its depiction of violence, the dehumanization of Herero and Nama people, and the film’s refusal to provide any kind of redemptive arc. But the character of Alexander Hoffmann complicates this idea.

At the film’s outset, Hoffmann is positioned as someone with a moral conscience. He is uneasy about racial pseudoscience, questioning its legitimacy. Yet, he does not resist the colonial system in any meaningful way—his discomfort is intellectual rather than moral. He is pulled along by power, eventually becoming an active participant in the genocide he initially found troubling.

This raises a larger question: was Hoffmann a “bad” character, or simply a weak one? The film seems to suggest that his eventual descent into complicity makes him no different from his more ruthless counterparts. But history is often more layered. The ease with which people surrender morality to power is not always the result of outright evil—it is often the result of cowardice, self-preservation, or the illusion of neutrality.

Where the film stumbles is in Hoffmann’s abrupt ideological shift. After witnessing Kunouje’s defeat at Shark Island, he suddenly seems to recognize the full weight of the horrors he has contributed to. But this transformation feels unearned. If the film wants to insist that there were no good Germans, it should have taken more care in showing how Hoffmann reached that conclusion—or, alternatively, it could have allowed him to remain fully complicit, reinforcing the idea that the German colonial project left no room for moral awakening.

By presenting morality in rigid binaries, the film misses an opportunity to explore a more unsettling truth: that people like Hoffmann—intellectuals, scientists, bureaucrats—did not need to be ideologically evil to enable genocide. They simply needed to obey.

If The Measures of Men had fully characterized Kunouje, it would have hit the proverbial nail on the head by addressing the core issue of the reparations debate: land. Kunouje manages to say it—Ihr nehmt unser Land weg—but the film does not develop this theme. Instead, her role remains secondary, serving more as a moral turning point for Hoffmann than as a fully realized character in her own right.

On a research trip to Charles Hill, Botswana, I asked an elder what reparations should look like. His answer was simple yet profound. In Otjiherero, he said: Twayekwa ehi. Our land was confiscated. Land dispossession is the unbroken thread that links the genocide to the present. Yet, the film, which successfully highlights the theft of skulls, does not extend the same depth of attention to the theft of land.

Kunouje could have been the vehicle through which the film engaged with this historical and ongoing injustice. By sidelining her perspective, The Measures of Men misses an opportunity to deepen its impact. The audience sees her pain, her resistance, and ultimately her defeat—but we never truly hear her. If the film had developed her character, it could have made a more powerful case for what real justice should look like today.

While The Measures of Men succeeds in confronting Germany’s colonial crimes, it falls short by failing to develop Kunouje’s character and the central issue of land dispossession. The film recognizes genocide as an identity-based crime but does not extend this recognition to the theft of land, which remains the core demand in reparations debates today.

This is where deeper collaboration between Germans and Namibians is essential when constructing stories about the past. The voices of those who lived with the consequences of genocide—the descendants of the dispossessed—should not be secondary. The script would have benefited from more time spent on character development, particularly on Kunouje, who could have carried the film’s most urgent message.

If Germany is serious about reckoning with its colonial history, it cannot stop at the return of stolen skulls. It must also confront the ongoing legacy of genocide—the land that was taken and never returned.

What are your thoughts on this film?