Germany to create restitution council to return colonia-era acquired cultural artefacts

Germany has revealed plans to set up a body to repatriate artworks and artifacts, and human remains acquired in a colonial context.

The anticipated 'Coordination Council for Returns of Cultural Property and Human Remains from Colonial Contexts' will include representatives from the central government, the country's 16 states, and various municipalities.

“The aim is to make returns processes as transparent as possible and to coordinate communication with international partners,” reads the statement released by the German Federal Foreign Office. The statement follows a top-level meeting held in Berlin last week.

Owing to an agreement between German states and the central government in 2019, the country began active efforts to repatriate artifacts in public collections taken illegally in a colonial context.

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Recently, countries such as Cameroon, Tanzania, Ghana, and Togo, have set up return committees that are communicating with Germany for the return of varying artifacts to their homelands.

FILE: Officials from Germany and Nigeria beside two Benin Bronze sculptures after signing an agreement in Berlin, 2022. - AP Photo/Markus Schreiber

In 2022, Annalena Baerbock, the German Foreign Minister at the time visited Nigeria to return the first 20 Benin bronzes — a group of sculptures native to Nigeria that include decorated plaques, commemorative heads, and personal ornaments, among others — from five German collections.

“We are taking a long overdue step. It will not heal all the wounds of the past,” Baerbock said, regarding the return of the bronzes in 2022. “But together with the Länder, cities and museums we are showing that Germany is taking seriously its efforts to address its dark colonial history.”

The bronzes were initially taken from Nigeria by British troops in the 19th century, and some of them were bought by German collectors at auctions in London, according to the German Foreign Office.

Now, with the Coordination Council, Germany intends to “[send] an important message that we are serious about addressing our colonial past,” said Wolfram Weimer, Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media.