WELT author Torsten Krauel
Source: Claudius Pflug
Yes, says Torsten Krauel
display
Not only museums should return looted property, and not just to “Africa”, as the ethnically, geographically and culturally diverse continent is simply called.
The Benin bronzes for the Humboldt Forum come from the destruction and looting of the capital of the Kingdom of Benin on the south coast of today's Nigeria.
It was a British act of revenge for the previous massacre of a concealed armed British delegation who wanted to break Benin's regional trade monopoly.
By auctioning the bronzes, London wanted to finance the punitive expedition.
How would one judge it if, conversely, Benin had invaded what was then Prussia in order to remove its tariffs, if the Prussians had killed this troop and Benin then destroyed Berlin and taken all Dürers, Holbeins and Cranachs with them to auction in Lagos and Kinshasa ?
The bronzes that German museums bought at the auctions of looted property have at least this cultural significance for Nigeria.
The planned Museum of West African Art in Benin City has full rights to the originals.
Precise copies of these works of art fulfill the purpose of the Humboldt Forum to be a place for dialogue between world cultures.
It is about right and wrong, about respect for property and international law.
Germany, which for good reason elevated the treaty-based world order to the raison d'état, can now set a milestone on a question that is important for many states: historical stolen goods are returned.
Germany's influence in the UN will grow considerably as a result.
The states and peoples to whom Germany shows through the restitution of art that they are of course completely equal in this world order will recognize this.
France has already taken such a step.
Even the chaos of war does not speak against a return
display
One might argue that art is not safe outside of Europe.
But not even the destruction of the museum in Mosul by IS, the break-ins into the Egyptian National Museum during the Arab Spring 2011 or Mao's iconoclasm during the Cultural Revolution speak against its return.
Nowhere else have so many works of art been destroyed as in Europe's revolutions and in World War II.
Speaking of war, revolution and property rights: It is very good that Berlin's Senator for Culture Klaus Lederer of the Left Party complains about the “great colonial raid” and therefore expressly supports the return of the bronzes to Nigeria.
The left advocates historical property rights without any ifs or buts?
Then it will also find ways to condemn the raid that the SED committed after 1946 against the middle class and the nobility, manufacturers, craftsmen and “refugees from the republic”.
Property law and international law are indivisible worldwide.
The author loves museums, but not the right of the fittest.
WELT author Rainer Haubrich
Source: Claudius Pflug
No, says Rainer Haubrich
display
The lasting memories of my childhood in Brussels include the regular trips to the park of Tervuren and visits to the Congo Museum there.
It was a huge palace in which a strange, fascinating, and sometimes creepy world opened up to us children: There were stuffed animals, some depicted as they were killing their prey, there were replica huts, hunting and war weapons, and terrifying masks , Statues, instruments, colorful jewelry, everyday objects.
In one of the largest halls there was an endless dugout canoe.
With every visit I stepped off the boat and ran one hand over the beautifully crafted dark flanks.
I learned a lot about Africa there.
Today, in view of the return debates, I wonder what would be gained if this museum no longer existed - or had never existed?
A few years ago the house was redesigned, the presentation cleared out and a critical look at the inglorious Belgian colonial history was added.
Today it is called the Africa Museum.
Restitutions are now being considered there too, the director of the house, Guido Gryseels (white, Flemish), is open to it, but says: "It is useless to say, everything should go back to Africa."
display
The example of the Democratic Republic of the Congo shows that such maximum demands, which are almost exclusively made by Europeans, have little to do with the reality on the ground.
The director of the National Museum in Kinshasa would be happy to be helped to secure and inventory his 85,000 objects.
There are no repositories and no restoration workshops.
He is less concerned with returns than with access to Western collections in order to organize exhibitions.
Artifacts from Africa are mainly attributable to tribes, whose descendants are now often spread across different countries.
Who would be the official contact person there?
Also, some governments only want certain objects back that correspond to their partisan view of national history;
this should not be encouraged.
And then there are countries with civil wars where there is a risk that the opponent's cultural assets will be deliberately destroyed.
Ownership could be reversed
Around one million objects are stored in German ethnological museums, the provenance of which has not been clarified in many cases.
It is impossible to return them in full.
Most experts therefore advocate individual solutions.
Parts could be returned, ownership could be reversed and the objects displayed as loans from the countries of origin, collections should be digitized and thus made accessible worldwide.
But the radical position of returning all objects ever stolen in Africa does not do justice to the complicated reality.
The author had a soft spot for Central Africa early on: his favorite animal was the elephant.