Museum Wiesbaden prepares to return human remains to Indonesia
Museum Wiesbaden will hand over 10 human skulls to Indonesia at a ceremony on 10 November, following years of research into their colonial-era removal. The investigation links the collection to military physician Ernst Albert Fritze and has involved specialists in forensic medicine and Dutch studies, supported by the German Lost Art Foundation.
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A November ceremony will hand over the remains
Museum Wiesbaden, a museum in the German state of Hesse, is returning human remains from the colonial era to Indonesia. The restitution follows an investigation into the origins of skulls held in its collections and their removal from the country.[1], [2]
The formal handover of 10 skulls is scheduled for 10 November. Hesse’s science and culture ministry describes this as the first return of human remains from the Dutch colonial era to Indonesia by a German museum. During the ceremony the remains will be covered with a cloth as a mark of respect for the deceased. Wiesbaden is located west of Frankfurt.[1]
Research traces the collection to a military physician
The skulls reached Germany in the 19th century. Andy Reymann, the museum’s curator of cultural anthropology, has spent several years investigating the collection. His research links its removal from Indonesia to military physician Ernst Albert Fritze. From 1833, Fritze donated natural history objects to the Nassau Society for Natural History, the predecessor institution to the present museum.[1]
The investigation received support from the German Lost Art Foundation in 2023. Specialists from the Institute of Forensic Medicine at Frankfurt University Hospital and Dutch Studies researchers at the University of Cologne took part. The project description notes that relatively little information has been assembled about Fritze himself, despite his reputation in his lifetime, and that uncertainties remain about the provenance of the remains.[1]
The museum examines its colonial acquisitions
Hesse’s ministry places the restitution within a systematic examination of unlawful colonial acquisitions by the state’s institutions. The museum’s founding holdings came from the collections of Johann Christian Gerning and his son Johann Isaac Freiherr von Gerning, spanning paintings, maps, insects and coins. Those holdings were divided between institutions before their move to Wiesbaden in 1900. The museum has operated under state management as Museum Wiesbaden since 1973, carrying collections from those earlier institutions into its present structure.[1]
