Steven Press’ aptly-titled Blood and Diamonds is a major achievement. Focusing on the diamond industry in German Southwest Africa, which was deeply implicated in the genocidal violence against and the economic exploitation of Africans that characterized German rule, Press explores the intersections between politics in the colony and the German metropole and the connections between the colonial diamond trade and transatlantic markets, particularly that in the United States. Equally significant to the story that Press tells were the beneficiaries of diamond mining and sale, companies that controlled mineral rights, merchants who cheated gullible buyers, mine owners who brutally exploited African labor, and the German banks that backed the mining and monetization of diamonds. Although the search for diamonds began with the colony's founder, Adolf Lüderitz, the discovery of major deposits in 1908 in the Namib desert defined German colonial development, which fell under the oversight of Bernhard Dernburg, secretary of the capital Colonial Office. To assure the profitability of the mined diamonds, which would bring revenue to the German state and sustain the colony, Dernberg enclosed most of the Namib in a Forbidden Zone to prevent the De Beers mines in British-ruled South Africa from engaging in espionage. To compete with De Beers, Dernburg sought to exploit the popularity of engagement rings in the American market, partnering with diamond cutters in Antwerp who had excellent connections with the United States.

The two-year boom that followed the discovery of the deposits depended on the exploitation of Ovambo workers, who replaced the Herero and the Nama exterminated between 1904 and 1908. The lethal treatment meted out to the Ovambo provided no recourse for the workers because the closed-off Forbidden Zone made investigations of their conditions impossible. In the meantime, the Southwest diamond market boomed between 1908 and 1910, the result of what might charitably be called unregulated capitalism driven primarily by traders who repeatedly upped the share prices of colonial diamond companies. The boom attracted a multitude of smugglers, many of them settlers resentful of the colonial state's coziness with big business, who bypassed the Regie, the Southwest's central selling organization, and flooded major markets with rough stones. Nevertheless, rumors circulated the claim that “foreigners” and especially Jews were the culprits, a suspicion that fell upon Dernburg, a Christian of Jewish descent. Indeed, the diamond enterprise contributed significantly to intensifying German antisemitism, which would have long-term consequences. Regardless, the costs of managing Southwest Africa and Dernburg's oversight of the diamond business drew the attention of the Reich government, notably the chancellor Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg and Dernburg's arch-rival, the Center Party politician Matthias Erzberger, both of whom disliked the privileges of colonial companies, the huge profits of shareholders and the banks, and the monopoly capitalism that they represented. Reflecting the electorate's mounting populism, Erzberger's demand to nationalize the diamond industry popped the stock bubble, leaving shareholders with worthless assets and forcing Dernburg's resignation. In addition, the softening of the American diamond market ensured a transatlantic slump. Ultimately, the post-World War I peace settlement, which incorporated Southwest Africa into South Africa, resulted in the sell-off of the assets of German diamond companies to Ernest Oppenheimer, a German-Jewish emigrant and British citizen, who also took over De Beers.

In challenging the argument that Imperial Germany's colonies were economically marginal in providing raw materials or markets for German exports, Press effectively argues that Southwest Africa generated hundreds of millions of marks from mining and exporting, such that Germany accounted for between a fifth and a fourth of the global production of diamonds. For that reason alone, the diamond industry's significance justifies expanding on the “Windhoek to Auschwitz” argument beyond the Herero and Nama genocide. Press offers an array of examples that should stimulate further discussion regarding the continuities between German colonial violence and the Holocaust. According to Paul Rohrbach, the populist opponent of elites and big banks, the diamond trade justified Germany's world ambitions. Or, as indicated in Bethmann-Hollweg's September Memorandum of 1914, German war aims were to include the acquisition of major colonial diamond producers, the French Congo, the Belgian Congo, and Portuguese Angola. Other examples include the similarities in the appalling treatment and high death rates of laborers in the Forbidden Zone and in Nazi labor camps, both of which spoke to the primacy of racism over economic interests. Above all, the escalation of antisemitism that linked “the Jew” with smugglers and shady diamond brokers retained its power among the Nazified citizenry in the Southwest African town of Lüderitz Bay and at home in the depiction of “Jewish stockjobber” Bernhard Dernburg. Among his many sins, Dernburg “betrayed” the Kaiser and the German war cause, dispensed colonial wealth to Jews and bankers, and placed cosmopolitanism over the nation. Dernberg's photo assumed pride of place in the Nazi art exhibition in 1937, The Eternal Jew. Consistent with recent scholarship on empire, studying German colonialism does not reduce the significance of the Holocaust inasmuch as the two are linked.

Press concludes by addressing the amnesia of the Anglo-European world, not only with respect to its economic exploitation of Africa prior to World War I but also its legacy, the continued demand for diamonds, gold, and other precious metals in postcolonial Africa. To be sure, there has been recent attention to the relationship between the present demand for precious stones and the violence that arises from the mining of them, but acknowledging the history of economic exploitation is long overdue. Press recognizes the ongoing negotiations between the Federal Republic of Germany and Namibia that include an apology for the genocide of the Herero and the Nama. Nevertheless, reparations to compensate for the economic injustice—the theft of African resources to provide diamond engagement rings for the American market—has yet to be addressed. The value of Blood and Diamonds lies not only in its examination of Germany's place in the global diamond trade but also in the manifold ways in which Southwest Africa's native peoples suffered the consequences.