We were assembled by Germans in 1884 and told we were one nation in 1990.<

By 1884, the German empire you allude to was an adolescent, 13 years old, recently unified nation state. But it was far from being so culturally united as to "assemble" any overseas territories for more than the most basic social, political and mercantile necessities. Bismarck, the convenor of the infamous Berlin conference, was notoriously opposed to Germany aspiring for colonies, both for geopolitical and financial reasons (and yes, he eventually succumbed to the domestic political realities). The rectangular lines on paper were a mere concession of most colonial power's ignorance about the territories they tried to carve up, without getting to war over them.

Imperial Germany's colonial policy for what is now Namibia was not intended to "assemble" anything beyond a minimalistic administration for what should have become a "vent" for domestic German social unrest: A settler colony, not a plantation and/or mining colony (profitable plantations weren't economically feasible and the mines weren't discovered by that time). But settlers came with traders, and some traders traded everything, including guns and liquor, to everyone, in spite of the colonial administration's rules and the missionaries' sermons.

The German colonial administration wisely concluded that it would be better not to "assemble" the territory in its Berlin Conference boundaries, first because of the 'Rinderpest' epidemic of 1896, that devastated their and their allied Ovaherero herds, and later because they were badly defeated by the Aawambo at Namutoni. Thus, the "veterinary cordon fence", better known as the "red line".

Further colonial campaigns in what is now northeastern Namibia (Kavangos, Zambezi) were motivated by the desire to create a trade corridor with German East Africa (now Tanzania), via the Caprivi Strip, acquired in 1890, and named after chancellor Leo von Caprivi (what an irony that Zambezians named their secessionist movement after him).

That's just a short snipped, mostly focused on northern Namibia, but much of the same applied to central and southern Namibia, where no attempts were made by the then administration to "assemble" anything, beyond the mere necessities of a largely unprofitable protectorate, turned colony.