Germany's repressed colonial past
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| free admission |
| Duration: 60 min |
| 12 years and older |
| German |
| Mechanical Arena in the Foyer |
| Part of: Guestroom |
In November 2024, the Humboldt Forum opened the exhibition ‘Histories of Tanzania’, developed in close collaboration with the National Museum of Tanzania and communities from Tanzania. The consequences of oppression, exploitation and violence continue to have an impact today. During colonialism, thousands of cultural belongings were brought to Germany. The Ethnological Museum in Berlin houses more than 10,000 “objects” from what is now Tanzania. The exhibition uses various narratives, perspectives and cultural belongings to show the centuries-long interconnections of present-day Tanzania. A special focus is placed on the period of colonial oppression through wars and exploitation.
Previously, Federal President Steinmeier’s visit to the Maji Maji Museum in Songea in 2023 had raised awareness among a wider public of the boundless violence of German colonial rule. The forms of violence in the colonial context of East Africa (1885 to 1918) went beyond guerrilla tactics and scorched earth policies. They claimed hundreds of thousands of civilian victims.
In ‘Deutsch-Ostafrika’ (German East Africa), global historian Tanja Bührer describes decisive battles throughout the colonial period, from the Battle of Rugaro in 1891 to the Maji Maji Wars of 1905-1908. She describes how African warring parties took the initiative to attack the foreign invaders and places them in the broader context of European expansion at the fin de siècle. Her book ‘Colonial Wars in East Africa 1885–1914’ was published in November 2025 by Relcam Verlag.
Following the event everyone is invited to a small reception, sponsored by the Zentrum für Militärgeschichte und Sozialwissenschaften der Bundeswehr and Reclam Verlag.
Participants
Tanja Bührer studied history and philosophy at the University of Bern, where she obtained her doctorate in 2008 with a thesis on German colonial security policy and colonial troops. This was followed by positions as senior assistant for modern and contemporary history and as lecturer for migration history at the University of Bern, as well as substitute professorships at the Universities of Rostock, Potsdam and LMU Munich. Mobility grants from the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) took her to HU Berlin, the University of Dar es Salaam, the Oxford Centre for Global History, the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), the German Historical Institute London (GHIL) and Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), among others, as a visiting scholar. In 2019, she obtained her habilitation at the Faculty of Philosophy and History of the University of Bern with a thesis entitled ‘Intercultural Diplomacy and Empire in an Age of Global Reforms and Revolutions’.
In addition, since April 2022, she has been leading the sub-project ‘Illegitimate Violence in the French and Austrian Military during the French Revolutionary Wars and Napoleonic Wars (1789–1815)’ in the DFG research group ‘Military Cultures of Violence — Illegitimate Military Violence from the Early Modern Period to the Second World War’.
Research interests: Colonial and global history with a regional focus on East Africa and South Asia (18th–20th centuries), transnational history of Great Britain, Germany and France (18th–20th centuries), intercultural diplomacy history, history of violence and military history, migration history.
Maike Schimanowski is an art historian specialising in ancient African art and lives in Berlin. She worked as coordinating curator for the Humboldt Forum Foundation, where she co-curated the two exhibition projects ‘Leerstellen.Ausstellen’ (Exhibiting Voids) and ‘Histories of Tanzania’. She is currently working as a researcher at the Berlin Mission Society on the project ‘Initial Provenance Research of the African Holdings of the Berlin Mission Society’s Ethnological Collection,’ which is funded by the German Zentrum für Kulturgutverluste.
Frank Reichherzer has been co-project manager of the Volkswagen Foundation-funded project ‘Greening Military? On the transformation of the armed forces against the backdrop of security policy “turning points” and the “climate crisis”’ since 2024. Since 2018, he has been project manager of the key topic ‘Military and Violence’ as part of Agenda 2028 of the ZMSBw Centre for Military History and Social Sciences of the German Armed Forces. Since 2015, he has been working as a research assistant in the research area of military history up to 1945 at the Centre for Military History and Social Sciences of the German Armed Forces in Potsdam.
From 2013 to 2014, he was a fellow at the International Humanities College Work and Life in a Global Historical Perspective (re:work).
In 2011, he received his doctorate from the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen with a thesis entitled: ‘Everything is the Front!’ Military Science and the Militarisation of Society from the First World War to the Cold War.
From 2007 to 2014, he was a visiting scholar at the Universities of Bologna, Rennes II and Paris Sorbonne
From 2007 to 2014, he was a research assistant at Humboldt University in Berlin, Institute of History, Department of Western European History and Transatlantic Relations
From 2005 to 2007, he was a research assistant at SFB 437 ‘War Experiences. War and Society in Modern Times.’ Project area: War Experiences and Sciences, Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen.
From 1998 to 2005, he studied modern and contemporary history, political science and general rhetoric at the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen and the University of Florence.
Areas of work and research projects: temporality, war and the military, violence research, war and the military, intellectual history of war; 20th-century military history; Second World War; Cold War, science and war.