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Germany returns skulls taken in colonial era to Namibia
30 September 2011 Last updated at 14:59
The Namibian delegation attended a service in Berlin Namibian tribal
leaders are visiting Berlin to collect the skulls of 20 compatriots
killed during Germany's colonial rule in the early 1900s.
German scientists took the heads to perform experiments seeking to
prove the racial superiority of white Europeans over black Africans.
The skulls were uncovered three years ago in medical archive exhibits.
A ceremony is being held in the German capital to return the remains
in what is seen as gesture of reconciliation.
"We have come first and foremost to receive the mortal human remains
of our forefathers and mothers and to return them to the land of their
ancestors," Ueriuka Festus Tjikuua, a member of the Namibian
delegation, told reporters.
Continue reading the main story
Analysis
Richard Hamilton
BBC News
In the 1880s, Germany acquired present-day Namibia, calling it German
South-West Africa. In 1904 the Herero, the largest of about 200 ethnic
groups, rose up against colonial rule killing more than a 120
civilians.
The German response was ruthless. Gen Lothar von Trotha signed a
notorious extermination order against the Herero, defeated them in
battle and drove them into the desert, where most died of thirst. Of
an estimated 65,000 Herero, only 15,000 survived. It is thought about
10,000 Nama people also died.
In 1985, a UN report classified the events as an attempt to
exterminate the Herero and Nama peoples of South-West Africa, and
therefore the earliest attempted genocide in the 20th Century. In
2004, Germany's ambassador to Namibia expressed regret for what
happened.
The skulls belong to 20 people who died after an uprising against
their German colonial rulers more than 100 years ago.
They were among hundreds who starved to death after being rounded up in camps.
Some of the dead had their heads removed and of these, about 300 were
taken to Germany, arriving between 1909 and 1914.
The skulls gathered dust in German archives until three years ago when
a German reporter uncovered them at the Medical History Museum of the
Charite hospital in Berlin, and at Freiburg University in the
south-west.
German researchers believe the skulls belong to 11 people from the
Nama ethnic group and nine from the Herero.
They were four women, 15 men and a boy.
Nazi forerunner
Mr Tjikuua said the mission intended to "extend a hand of friendship"
to Germans.
Namibians, he said, wished to encourage a dialogue "with the full
participation and involvement of the representatives of the
descendants of those that suffered heavily under dreadful and
atrocious German colonial rule".
The conflict dates back nearly a century Charite spokeswoman Claudia
Peter said the purported research on the skulls performed by German
scientists had been rooted in perverse racial theories that later
planted the seeds for the Nazis' genocidal ideology.
"They thought that they could prove that certain peoples were worth
less than they were," she told AFP news agency.
"What these anthropologists did to these people was wrong and their
descendants are still suffering for it."
The German foreign ministry praised co-operation between the German
and Namibian sides over the skull repatriation as "excellent".
Germany has consistently refused to pay reparations to its former
colony, pointing out that it does give the country development aid.
From: Baghdasarian
30 September 2011 Last updated at 14:59
The Namibian delegation attended a service in Berlin Namibian tribal
leaders are visiting Berlin to collect the skulls of 20 compatriots
killed during Germany's colonial rule in the early 1900s.
German scientists took the heads to perform experiments seeking to
prove the racial superiority of white Europeans over black Africans.
The skulls were uncovered three years ago in medical archive exhibits.
A ceremony is being held in the German capital to return the remains
in what is seen as gesture of reconciliation.
"We have come first and foremost to receive the mortal human remains
of our forefathers and mothers and to return them to the land of their
ancestors," Ueriuka Festus Tjikuua, a member of the Namibian
delegation, told reporters.
Continue reading the main story
Analysis
Richard Hamilton
BBC News
In the 1880s, Germany acquired present-day Namibia, calling it German
South-West Africa. In 1904 the Herero, the largest of about 200 ethnic
groups, rose up against colonial rule killing more than a 120
civilians.
The German response was ruthless. Gen Lothar von Trotha signed a
notorious extermination order against the Herero, defeated them in
battle and drove them into the desert, where most died of thirst. Of
an estimated 65,000 Herero, only 15,000 survived. It is thought about
10,000 Nama people also died.
In 1985, a UN report classified the events as an attempt to
exterminate the Herero and Nama peoples of South-West Africa, and
therefore the earliest attempted genocide in the 20th Century. In
2004, Germany's ambassador to Namibia expressed regret for what
happened.
The skulls belong to 20 people who died after an uprising against
their German colonial rulers more than 100 years ago.
They were among hundreds who starved to death after being rounded up in camps.
Some of the dead had their heads removed and of these, about 300 were
taken to Germany, arriving between 1909 and 1914.
The skulls gathered dust in German archives until three years ago when
a German reporter uncovered them at the Medical History Museum of the
Charite hospital in Berlin, and at Freiburg University in the
south-west.
German researchers believe the skulls belong to 11 people from the
Nama ethnic group and nine from the Herero.
They were four women, 15 men and a boy.
Nazi forerunner
Mr Tjikuua said the mission intended to "extend a hand of friendship"
to Germans.
Namibians, he said, wished to encourage a dialogue "with the full
participation and involvement of the representatives of the
descendants of those that suffered heavily under dreadful and
atrocious German colonial rule".
The conflict dates back nearly a century Charite spokeswoman Claudia
Peter said the purported research on the skulls performed by German
scientists had been rooted in perverse racial theories that later
planted the seeds for the Nazis' genocidal ideology.
"They thought that they could prove that certain peoples were worth
less than they were," she told AFP news agency.
"What these anthropologists did to these people was wrong and their
descendants are still suffering for it."
The German foreign ministry praised co-operation between the German
and Namibian sides over the skull repatriation as "excellent".
Germany has consistently refused to pay reparations to its former
colony, pointing out that it does give the country development aid.
From: Baghdasarian