Panorama: Trade in human skulls – our dark legacy on ARD on October 10, 2024

The Minister of State in the Foreign Office, Katja Keul (Alliance 90/The Greens), wants to ban the private trade in human skulls and bones. The trigger for this was “Panorama” research into the online trade in skulls from the German colonial period. According to research by the ARD magazine “Panorama” (NDR), there is an extensive market on the social network Instagram with hundreds of skulls that are suspected to come from the colonial period. The company responsible for Instagram, Meta, emphasizes that the trade in human body parts is prohibited in its community guidelines. Meta did not comment specifically on the “Panorama” research after this trade continued to take place. Dealer Henry Scragg, who also offers hundreds of human skulls on Instagram, doesn’t see this as a problem: “To be honest, people no longer need their skulls and bones when they’re dead,” he commented on the brisk buying and selling. According to “Panorama” research, his items for sale also include skulls from the colonial era. For descendants, however, trading the skulls of their ancestors often poses a big problem: “You are not allowed to sell them,” says Peter Kipma from Papua New Guinea. The Germans stole skulls that are still important to his village today: “They were sacred. These are the spirits of our heroes.” In principle, the possession and trade of human skulls is not illegal unless criminal offenses associated with it can be proven. However, the federal government had already committed itself to supporting the “return of objects from a colonial context”. This is primarily about holdings from state museums and collections, for example, and not about the previously unknown private trade. Now State Minister Katja Keul, who is responsible for tasks relating to colonial heritage at the Foreign Office, explains in response to the “Panorama” research on the extent of the private trade in skulls: “This is unacceptable. This is not interaction. These are people. They are often victims of crime. They will now improve the law to ban private trading. Numerous European nations have occupied foreign territories since the 15th century and subjected them to their rule by force; Germany also occupied other countries as “colonies” for around 30 years. During this time, explorers and traders systematically plundered graves and ancestral sites and also took skulls of victims, which were separated specifically for this purpose. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, tens of thousands of human skulls came to Germany in this way.