Visiting Tanzania this week, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier asked for forgiveness for Germany’s brutal quelling of the Maji Maji uprising over a century ago. Around 300,000 Tanzanians died during this dark episode of Germany’s colonial history; some combattants beheaded and their remains yet to be returned to Tanzania.
Steinmeier visited the southern Tanzanian town of Songea and paid respect to the graves of fallen local warriors on Wednesday, as part of a three-day visit to Germany’s former colony.
Journalist Ezekiel Kamwaga told RFI that Steinmeier is the first foreign leader, and first German head of state, to visit Songea, capital of one of the poorest regions of Tanzania.
The trip has its roots 118 years ago, at the time of the Maji Maji uprising, in southern Tanzania, against the German colonial rule. And, further back to the Berlin Conference of 1884-1885, when European powers partitioned the African continent among themselves.
Germany then laid claim to today’s Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, Namibia, Togo, Ghana and Cameroon.
By the end of the 19th century, Germany had established firm control over German East Africa, which covered the territories of Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi and part of Mozambique. The African population was subjected to high taxation, forced to build roads and grow cotton as a cash crop for export.
Harsh German policies produced suffering and resentment that culminated in the Maji Maji uprising from 1905 to 1907.
🇹🇿 Federal President Frank-Walter #Steinmeier ended his #Tanzania trip on Wednesday with a contribution to coming to terms with Germany's colonial past.
— All about Germany | deutschland.de (@en_germany) November 2, 2023
💬 "It is important to me that we come to terms with this dark chapter, that we come to terms with it together." 👇#NewsDE pic.twitter.com/nCQsBuDsBs
Magic Maji
The name Maji Maji was coined by Kinjekitile Ngwale, a spiritual leader of the revolt. “Maji” means water in Kiswahili, and Ngwale provided the combatants with a “charmed” water of his making which, he said, could turn German bullets into water when sprinkled over their bodies.
Even though the fighters were not immune to German fire, the charm helped provide the courage needed to rise up against the colonial power. The rebellion managed to unify around 20 different tribes of animist and Muslim faith.
German forces responded brutally. In 1905, one of the leaders of the colonial troops, Captain Hauptmann Curt von Wangenheim, wrote to the German governor, Count Gustav Adolf von Götzen, explaining why forced starvation was a good strategy: “Only hunger and want can bring about a final submission. Military actions alone will remain more or less a drop in the ocean.”
By 1907, when the uprising had been quashed, 300,000 Africans died – mostly as a result of mass starvation.
“Young mothers were unable to feed their newborn babies, and infant mortality rose dramatically,” according to historian Klaus Bachmann and law professor Gerhard Kemp, who wrote in a 2021 paper that there was strong evidence Germany’s actions could be considered genocide.
Germany 'ashamed'
Tanzania's parliament formally demanded an apology and compensation for “colonial atrocities” from Germany in 2017.
Six years later, when President Steinmeier visited Songea, he laid a rose at the grave of Chief Songea Mbano and a wreath at a monument bearing the names of 66 other fighters from the Ngoni ethnic group, executed with their leader in the Maji Maji uprising.
They were hung and beheaded in February 1906. The head of Chief Mbano was taken to Germany, making him one of several leaders and kings whose remains were taken from Tanzania to German institutes.
“I sense how deeply the pain of his death, and how he was murdered, is felt to this day,” Steinmeier said in Songea.
He told the remaining members of the Mbano family that he was “aware of the great burden... and anguish” the fate of their forefather caused them.
“I am ashamed about what German colonial soldiers did to your forefather, his fellow warriors and many others in what is now Tanzania,” Steinmeier said.
“As Germany’s federal president, I want to ask for forgiveness for what Germans did to your forefathers.”
Restitution
Tanzanian journalist Kamwaga told RFI that the missing human remains must be returned to the families for a proper burial. He said it is important for the resting peace of the departed souls as well as for their remaining families.
“The people in Songea asked the German president what happened to the heads and where are they now?”, he said.
Steinmeier promised that the German authorities would work together with the Tanzanians “to find Chief Songea’s skull in Germany… and to return it”. But he also warned that it threatened to be a long and "very difficult process even with the expertise of qualified scientists”.
“The missing head of Ngoni leader Songea Mbano haunts the future of German–Tanzanian relations...,” wrote researcher Yann LeGall.
Steinmeier told Tanzania’s President Samia Suluhu Hassan that Germany was ready to cooperate on the repatriation of cultural property and human remains.
“We have discussed this in detail and we are ready to open negotiations to see how we are going to agree on the German colonial legacy,” Suluhu said.
For Kamwaga, Germany’s apology needs to go beyond words.
The scars of German repression can still be felt in Songea today, over 100 years later. The region is one of the poorest of Tanzania.
“The people want to be employed, they want better opportunities, better education. Doing something about that will go a long distance and mean something,” Kamwaga said.
