For German colonial crimes
Steinmeier asks for forgiveness in Tanzania
November 1, 2023, 1:42 p.m
German colonial rule in East Africa cost hundreds of thousands of lives. During a visit to Tanzania, Federal President Steinmeier now asks for forgiveness for the crimes. Germany is ready to work through it together.
Around 100 years after the end of the bloody German colonial rule in East Africa, Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier apologized to the descendants of the several hundred thousand victims. “As German Federal President, I would like to ask for forgiveness for what Germans did to their ancestors here,” he said during a visit to the Tanzanian city of Songea. He assured his descendants that Germany was ready to come to terms with the past together. Steinmeier received applause for this.
On the second day of his trip to Tanzania, Steinmeier met in Songea with a family whose ancestor – Chief Songea Mbano – was executed by the German colonial rulers in 1906 along with 66 other leaders. Today he is considered a national hero. At that time, the occupying power crushed an uprising of the oppressed people in their colony of German East Africa in a brutal war. According to Tanzanian estimates, the so-called Maji-Maji War from 1905 to 1907 cost up to 300,000 people their lives. German colonial history ended in 1918 with the defeat of the Empire in the First World War.
Steinmeier visited the Maji Maji Museum in Songea, one of the main theaters of the war, and laid a red rose at the grave of Chief Songea Mbano and a wreath at the collective grave of the other fighters. The meeting with the descendants took place in a very small circle without journalists. The Federal President then said: “I mourn with you for Chief Songea and the other executed people. I bow to the victims of German colonial rule.”
He is ashamed of what German colonial soldiers did to the people here. At the same time, Steinmeier assured the descendants: “I promise you that we will work with you to find Chief Songea’s skull in Germany.” Unfortunately, he cannot promise that this will be successful because it is scientifically difficult. There are still many skulls and bones of victims of the colonial war in German museums and collections. Their descendants would like them to come back to Tanzania so that their ancestors can finally be properly buried.