More than a century ago, Steinmeier asked the surviving relatives of hundreds of thousands of violent victims for forgiveness.
As a first step toward "communal healing" of the terrible past, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier apologized for colonial-era executions that took place in Tanzania during Germany's authority and committed to increase awareness of the atrocities in his nation.
During a visit to the Maji Maji Museum in Songea, southern Tanzania, Steinmeier said, "I would like to ask for forgiveness for what Germans did to your ancestors here." "I want to reassure you that we Germans will look for answers with you to the questions that remain unanswered and prevent you from living in peace."
Tanzania endured decades of German colonial domination both before and after the turn of the 20th century, and from 1905 to 1907 it witnessed one of the worst uprisings in the region.
Experts estimate that between 200,000 and 300,000 Indigenous people were killed during the uprising, also known as the Maji Maji Rebellion, as German forces methodically destroyed farmland and villages.
The Tanzanian government announced in 2017 that it was considering taking Germany to court to get restitution for the people that its soldiers had starved, tortured, and murdered.
"Participatory processing"
During a meeting with the grandchildren of a killed rebel leader from the colonial era, Steinmeier declared that Germany was prepared to start a "communal processing" of the past.
"This is our common past - the chronicles of your forefathers and our forefathers in Germany," Steinmeier declared, promising to "carry these tales back to Germany, to increase awareness of them among the people in my nation."
According to Steinmeier, Germany will also search for and return the skull of Chief Songea Mbano, a leader of the colonial era, and other people whose remains were taken and sent to Berlin more than a century ago.
Steinmeier visited Chief Songea's grave and placed a flower there, referring to him as a "brave leader."
John Mbano, a Chief Songea descendant who met with the German president, expressed his gratitude for the gift and expressed hopes that Tanzania and Germany could forge a solid partnership.
"It's time to stop crying, we've been crying for years," the 36-year-old attorney said to AFP.
Taking up colonial crimes
The Holocaust saw the murder of six million Jews and other minorities, and these tragedies have always been at the centre of Germany's long-standing dedication to historical commemoration.
But in recent decades, the nation has also started to confront some of the horrors committed during the colonial era, notably those in Tanzania and Namibia.
Many historians have referred to Germany's wholesale murder of Nigeria's Indigenous Herero and Nama people in the early 1900s as the 20th century's first genocide.
Namibia's atrocities during the colonial era were officially recognized as genocide by Germany in 2021, and the deal included reparations.
to the affected communities, without making official apologies. The Herero and Nama people's organizations expressed worry over the pact, which has not yet received formal approval.
Approximately 1,100 skulls that were taken from ancient German East Africa and brought to Germany are the subject of research in the Museum of Prehistory and Early History in Berlin. It was reported in September that researchers had located living relatives of victims of Tanzanian skull looting.
German East Africa, which includes what are now Tanzania, Rwanda, and Burundi, was a part of Germany from 1885 until the Treaty of Versailles caused Germany to lose its colonies at the end of World War I.