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This article examines whether – and how – gender-based violence formed part of the quotidian activity of State-building. As the most visible representatives of the State, policemen in German South-West Africa aspired to a specific type of masculinity that was honourable, martial, and professional in nature. Their individual honour simultaneously reflected the honour of the colonial State as a whole. Hence, when rape – a distinctively masculine form of violence – was committed by State representatives, this posed a problem with regard to State legitimacy. In the case examined here, colonial administrative representatives expressed what masculine honour and fellowship meant to them. Discussions of what constituted “honourable” behaviour were always implicitly also a dialogue on the nature of the colonial State and its agenda.