"It's not too late for this project", according to Tanzanian historian Philemon Mtoi. "It's the right time to reconnect, reconcile people and build a common future."
Mtoi says Germany's leaders should approach the task critically and think carefully about how to bring the objects back, asking that their gestures be "authentic".
For Katja Keul, German Minister of State at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “not enough is known about what happened, both in Tanzania and in Germany”.
However, the German Foreign Ministry and the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation in Berlin want the remains to be returned to Tanzania or buried in an appropriate place.
The foundation took over the large collection of human remains from the Charité Medical History Museum in 2011, according to its president, Hermann Parzinger, adding that “the entire inventory of looted remains must be returned”.
“There was an obligation to collect information in advance in order to determine the exact origin of the bones as accurately as possible. Some information was kept in archives in East African countries,” he said.
In addition to the return of the bones, East African countries such as Tanzania are increasing pressure on the German government to assume responsibility for the atrocities of the German colonial era.
In early 2020, Tanzania's ambassador to Berlin, Abdallah Possi, called on the German government to "negotiate reparations" for these crimes.
The Tanzanian government is preparing to work together with the German government and has created a special dinner for this purpose, according to Said Othman Yakubu, permanent secretary of the Ministry of Culture, Arts and Sports of Tanzania.
