Those attitudes appear to be slowly changing.

Berlin officials agreed a couple of months ago to rename Petersallee and two other streets honoring German colonizers, much to the delight of activists who have spent years lobbying for the changes. The streets will be named after African resistance fighters.

Mr. Aikins, a longtime proponent of renaming, said the name changes were a start. “We need a citywide concept of commemoration that actually enacts this shift of perspective,” he said. “Moving away from remembering through the colonial lens to remembering through the perspective of remembering anticolonial resistance.”

This year, Germany’s federal governing coalition for the first time called for an examination of the country’s colonial history, which includes researching whether African artifacts housed at cultural institutions were illegally acquired during the colonial era.

The German government is in its third year of negotiations with Namibia over how to make up for crimes against the former colony, where tens of thousands died under German occupation.

Ruprecht Polenz, a former member of Parliament who is representing Germany in the negotiations, said the two sides were closing in on an agreement that could lay the groundwork for an official apology.

The agreement would call the German killings a genocide; outline the creation of a foundation to increase social and cultural engagement between the countries; and call for extra support for Namibian communities particularly affected by the genocide with programs that, for example, provide job training, housing and access to electricity.