Scientific Racism and Genocide: Germany’s Forgotten Colonies

by Lucas Cahow

Even though it is rarely mentioned, Germany did indeed have colonies. These included territories in modern-day Tanzania, Namibia, Rwanda, Burundi, Cameroon, Togo, and Ghana.  

Germany’s colonies were taken away as World War One came to an end and were distributed to other European powers - making the German Colonial Empire last a mere 30 years.  

During those 30 years, the Germans did many despicable things.  

Perhaps the most peculiar was the cultivation of the skulls of colonized Africans for research purposes. Many of these skulls were gathered after an uprising by the Nama and Herero peoples was quashed by the colonizers, who then starved tens of thousands of tribal people in the desert. 

Around 300 skulls were transported to Germany from 1909 to 1914.  

These skulls laid the foundation for so-called “scientific racism.” German scientists (the first of whom was Eugene Fischer) analyzed the skulls and compared them to others coming from white Europeans.  

It was falsely determined that black Africans were biologically inferior to their European counterparts. These studies planted the seeds for future Nazi racial theories, not only damaging generations of black Africans, but a wide variety of non-white people.  

These skulls have an extremely bloody history that dates back more than a century. Only recently has something been done with the remaining skulls. 

 In 2009, a German reporter found 20 skulls sitting in a medical history museum in southwestern Germany. 

After public outcry, the country gave the skulls to Namibian tribal leaders (the skulls could be traced back to Namibia and their descendants have been identified) in 2011. However, many demonstrators were still not content and demanded reparations and acknowledgement of the past genocide.  

Germany has previously outright refused the idea of paying “reparations,” but in 2021, Germany officially acknowledged it committed genocide in Namibia by its starvation of the Nama and Herero tribes. 

The European country promised €1Bn in financial support to Namibia and the descendants of the victims. Germany made it clear that this was a gesture of reconciliation, not legally binding reparations. Some speculate that they didn’t want to use language like “reparations,” for fear of setting a legal precedent for other European countries to give back to their former colonies. 

The money will go towards projects relating to land reform, rural infrastructure, water supply and professional training in the once-colonized areas. A percentage of the total €1Bn has been allocated specifically for cultural projects and youth exchange programs.  

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Edited by Laura Sheikh