Echoes from Benin: The unrecognized profits of the German heavy metal industry from the transatlantic slave trade – a provocation

The study “German brass for Benin Bronzes,” published in 2023 with my colleagues, revealed how German metals played a significant role in the production of the Benin Bronzes, one of the most controversial cultural heritage issues of recent years.Footnote1 However, the extensive discussion surrounding the restitution of the stolen artworks completely ignored the historical data that explained the presence of German metals in the Bronzes. In view of the sensitivity and topicality of the debates on de-colonialization and German profits from the transatlantic slave trade, this is unacceptably problematical. This provocation challenges this lacuna in reference to the Benin Bronzes as a symptom of a repressed narrative about the German metal export economy to Africa and aims to provoke further studies of the larger contextualization of the German entanglement in the global metal trade well into the twentieth century.Footnote2