Namibia Urges Germany to Unconditionally Return Skulls

Namibian Prime Minister Nahas Angula said on Monday that Namibia would not issue an official request to the German government to return colonial era skulls from massacred Namibians which are being kept at Berlin’s Medical History Museum in the German capital.

Angula said that Germany had the moral responsibility to bring back the skulls to his country, adding that his government wanted to properly bury the fallen heroes of resistance against colonial German occupation in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Former Namibian ambassador to Germany, Peter Katjavivi, ignited the debate of the skulls when he told the German public broadcaster ARD that the Germans should return the skulls taken during the colonization of Namibia by Germany.

The skulls were taken to Germany after the 1904 massacre of more than 80,000 Hereros for “scientific research” aimed at proving racial superiority of whites over blacks.

Germany’s public broadcaster ARD reported two weeks ago that 47 skulls are still stored at the Medical History Museum at the Charite Teaching Hospital in Berlin and a dozen more at Freiburg University in south-western Germany.

Reacting to Katjavivi’s comments, an unnamed German foreign affairs spokesperson reportedly said that Namibia would have to make an “official request” to get back the skulls.

But Angula said that Germany did not get permission to take the skulls from Namibia, which was known as Southwest Africa during the occupation. “When they took the skulls, who gave them permission. Whom did they ask,” Angula told state owned daily, New Era.

Germany should bring back the skulls with no preconditions and ensure that these Namibians are given a proper burial, he said, adding that the German government should ensure that the skull of Nama chief Cornelius Frederick is returned to his homeland.

Chief Fredericks, whose death is still being commemorated up until today, died in 1904 at the hands of the German colonial forces. He was the war leader of the soldiers who fought against the colonial occupation troops in Bethanie District near the coastal town of Luderitz, 900 km south of Windhoek the capital.

Source African Press Agency

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