According to a copy of his address, Steinmeier stated, “I would like to ask for forgiveness for what Germans did to your ancestors here,” while touring the Maji Maji Museum in Songea, a city in southern Germany.
Tanzania was a part of German East Africa, which between 1905 and 1907 witnessed one of the bloodiest revolutions in colonial history.
According to experts, during the so-called Maji Maji Rebellion, between 200,000 and 300,000 indigenous people were ruthlessly killed, primarily as a result of German troops’ methodical devastation of communities and farmland.
According to Steinmeier, Tanzania and Germany were prepared to collaborate on a “communal processing” of the past.
“What happened here is our shared history — the history of your ancestors and the history of our ancestors in Germany,” he said, promising to “take these stories with me to Germany, so that more people in my country will know about them”.
“I want to assure you that we Germans will search with you for answers to the unanswered questions that give you no peace,” he added.
Steinmeier made the museum visit on the last day of his three-day trip to Tanzania. On Tuesday, he also made it possible for objects that had been looted during the colonial era to be returned to Tanzania.
Following his meeting with President Samia Suluhu Hassan in Dar es Salaam, he declared that Germany is prepared to work with Tanzania on “the repatriation of cultural property and human remains”.
Steinmeier’s journey takes place concurrently with King Charles III of Britain’s visit to Kenya, which is likewise anticipated to be dominated by discussions regarding the colonial past.
Germany has been progressively beginning to discuss more about the crimes it committed during colonial times during the past 20 years.
Germany committed the mass killings of indigenous Herero and Nama people in German South West Africa, which is now Namibia, which many historians consider to be the first genocide of the 20th century.
Skulls and other human remains that Namibia had received from Germany during that time were returned to Berlin.
The nation formally admitted to committing genocide in Namibia in 2021 and offered to provide the victims’ descendants with one billion euros ($1.06 billion) in financial support.
Additionally, Germany has been returning cultural objects that were taken during the colonial era.
It started shipping back artefacts to Nigeria from its collections of Benin Bronzes, which are historic sculptures from the Kingdom of Benin, last year.
After being plundered by the British at the end of the 19th century, the highly prized metal sculptures and plaques from the 16th and 18th centuries—which are considered some of the best examples of African art—are now dispersed among museums in Europe.
Since 2017, the Museum of Prehistory and Early History in Berlin has also been conducting studies on over 1,100 skulls from German East Africa with the ultimate goal of repatriating the remains to their respective nations.
The head of the city’s museum announced in September that researchers had located the living families of the victims of the skull looting in Tanzania.
