Good newsMuseum Wiesbaden Will Return Ten Colonial-Era Skulls to Indonesia in a German First
A German museum will hand ten human skulls taken from Indonesia in the Dutch colonial era to Indonesian government representatives on 10 November, the first such return from Germany, after years of provenance research.
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On 10 November a ceremony in Hesse will do something no German institution has done before. ARTnews reports that Museum Wiesbaden will return ten human skulls to Indonesia. The state culture ministry describes it as the first return of human remains from the Dutch colonial era to Indonesia by a German museum. Artforum calls it the first time a German institution has returned items taken during that period.
The skulls will be presented to representatives of the Indonesian government. Out of respect for the dead, they will be covered with a cloth during the ceremony, ARTnews says, and Artforum specifies black cloth. The handover follows several years of research by the museum itself.
How the skulls reached Germany
The remains were removed from Indonesia by Ernst Albert Fritze, a Hessian military physician who worked for the Dutch East India Company in Southeast Asia, according to Artforum. From 1833 he gave natural history objects to the Nassau Society for Natural History, the predecessor of today’s museum. ARTnews says the skulls entered Germany in the 19th century.
The museum’s curator of cultural anthropology, Andy Reymann, has researched Fritze’s skull collection for several years. His main finding is a limit. Very little is known about Fritze personally, even though he was well known in his time and is mentioned in the writings of his student, the geologist Franz Wilhelm Junghuhn. The provenance of the remains also remains unclear, a project description cited by ARTnews says. In plain terms, the museum is returning the skulls without being able to say where in Indonesia each one came from.
The research behind it
In 2023 the museum received funding from the German Lost Art Foundation to continue the work. Researchers from the Institute of Forensic Medicine at the University Hospital Frankfurt and from the Department of Dutch Studies at the University of Cologne joined the project.
| Year | Step |
|---|---|
| 1833 | Fritze begins donating natural history objects to the Nassau Society for Natural History |
| 2023 | German Lost Art Foundation funds the provenance research; a Toi Moko is returned to Māori and Moriori representatives |
| 5 November 2026 | Return of ten skulls reported |
| 10 November 2026 | Handover ceremony to Indonesian government representatives |
Source: ARTnews and Artforum, 4 and 5 November 2026.
Artforum adds that this is not the museum’s first return. Another skull acquired by Fritze, a Toi Moko or tattooed Māori head, was returned in 2023 to a delegation of Māori and Moriori representatives through New Zealand’s Karanga Aotearoa repatriation programme. The museum therefore has a track record, and the Indonesian return applies a similar process to a larger group.
What the state says
Timon Gremmels, the Hessian culture minister, said in a statement that the return is part of an effort by Hesse’s state institutions to examine their collections for unlawful colonial-era acquisitions. He said they intend to take responsibility for the history of their holdings. The state has managed the museum, which combines three institutions, since 1973, ARTnews notes.
The statement does not say how many other items in Hessian collections come from colonial contexts, and neither ARTnews nor Artforum gives a figure for human remains in German museums as a whole. Those numbers would show how large the task is. The ten skulls are a start, with a date and a recipient attached.
What is still unknown
Indonesia’s side of the handover is the part still to come. Neither source says which officials will accept the skulls, what Indonesia plans to do with them, or whether further returns from Germany are under discussion. Nor do they say whether the museum holds other human remains from the same collection.
