Germany on Wednesday asked for “forgiveness” for abuses committed by its colonial troops in Tanzania, continuing the work of remembering this dark period of its history long obscured by the world wars and the Shoah.
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This meaculpa, which occurred during the German President’s visit to Tanzania, parallels King Charles III’s condemnation of the colonial abuses of his country, the United Kingdom, in Kenya. along.
Maji Maji massacre
In Songea (in the south of the country), the site of a Maji-Maji (May-May) massacre at the beginning of the 20th century, the German head of state Frank-Walter Steinmeier declared his “bow to the victims of German colonial rule”. , in a speech on site.
“As Federal President, I would like to ask for forgiveness for what the Germans did to your ancestors here,” added the President, whose function in Germany is essentially honorary, but who has the role of the country’s moral guarantor.
Between 1905 and 1907, historians estimate that German colonial troops massacred between 200,000 and 300,000 representatives of the Maji-Maji following an uprising by the latter.
Chief hanged and beheaded
During his visit, Mr. Steinmeier met the descendants of Chief Songea Mbano, a then-rebellion leader who was hanged and beheaded by the Germans along with 66 of his fighters.
His descendants are still searching for this leader’s skull, which, like many bones of Africans in colonial times, was then transported to a museum or ethnological collection in Germany to be studied.
“I promise you that we will do our best to find him in Germany. But I don’t promise you success,” said Mr. Steinmeier, emphasizing the difficulty of identifying bones.
John Mbano, a 36-year-old lawyer from Songea, welcomed the president’s speech in a telephone interview with AFP.
“We cried for years. Now is the time to stop crying and start a new chapter of good relations between Tanzania and Germany,” said John Mbano after meeting Mr Steinmeier with other family members, including his brother Michael Mbano, Mayor of Songea.
AFP
In his speech, Mr. Steinmeier personally addressed the descendants and said he was “ashamed of what the German colonial soldiers did.”
He paid tribute to the “courageous” chief Songea Mbano, who refused to betray his people: the German colonists had offered to let him live on the condition that he serve them.
The Federal President was also committed to better remembrance of the colonial era in his country: especially in schools, it has long since moved into the background due to the very intensive discussion of the dictatorship of the Third Reich and the atrocities committed there.
“Horrified by the extent of the cruelty”
“Anyone in Germany who knows more about German colonial history must be horrified by the level of cruelty” with which they acted, Steinmeier said.
The German colonial empire was smaller than the French or British and spanned several African countries, including Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Namibia and Cameroon. It ceased to exist after the German defeat in the First World War.
Nevertheless, over the last two decades, Germany has begun work on remembrance, which has led to reparations.
In particular, she brought back bones of members of the Herero and Nama tribes in Namibia, colonized from 1884 to 1915, where Berlin admitted in May 2021 that it had committed a “genocide”.
“We … have to face this history so that we can build a better future together,” said Steinmeier.
“That’s also the reason why I came here to Songea: to take these stories with me to Germany so that more people in my country know about them. “What happened here is our common history – the history of your ancestors and the history of our ancestors in Germany,” the head of state added.