Menschlicher Zoo Berlin: Forgotten chapter at the carp pond

If you've seen our video on our Instagram page, you'll know that a piece of dark history is hidden at the Karpfenteich, a pond in the Alt-Treptow area. The pond is located directly behind the largest Soviet memorial in Berlin. There are signs around the pond prohibiting fishing and swimming. What is missing, however, is any indication that a human zoo took place here in the summer of 1896. Few people are aware of this disturbing history, and even fewer acknowledge the suffering of those who were once displayed here like exhibits in a museum.

The First German Colonial Exhibition 1896: The human zoo in Treptower Park

Part of the First German Colonial Exhibition took place from May 1 to October 15, 1896 on a piece of land around this lake. This was no ordinary exhibition showcasing art, culture or technological advances. Instead, 106 Black women, children and men from the then German colonies in Africa were paraded before a German audience as a means to bolster support for the colonial expansion of the German Empire.

People lived in makeshift villages, from thatched mud huts in a so-called „Togo village“ to stilt houses adorned with skulls. This so-called exhibition was, in all clarity, nothing more than a „human zoo“.

Historical context of German colonialism

In the late 19th century, the German Empire was relatively late to enter the race for Overseas colonies compared to Great Britain or France, but its ambitions grew rapidly between the 1880s and the First World War. The German colonies in Africa included territories that are now Togo, Cameroon, Namibia and Tanzania (then German East Africa), and smaller protectorates in the Pacific and Asia. This expansion was driven by a belief in European superiority, nationalist ideology and the desire for economic resources; typical motivations of imperial powers of the time.

Within Germany, there was a belief that the acquisition of colonies would enhance the nation's global status and secure raw materials and markets for emerging industries. Colonial rule brought with it new political structures and exploited the local population through forced labor and expropriation of land and resources. In German South West Africa (now Namibia), for example, punitive expeditions against the Herero and Nama populations escalated into what many historians now recognize as genocide, with up to 100,000 deaths and the annihilation of entire communities.

The effects of colonial conquest were profound: resistance was suppressed with overwhelming military force, and the resulting violence led to long-lasting demographic, political and cultural disruption. Despite its relatively short duration (1884-1918), German colonialism left its mark both on the former colonies and on Germany itself.

Remembrance and recognition of this past were unevenly distributed in Germany for a long time; colonial crimes have only received wider public attention in recent years through exhibitions, activism and critical research. This makes the First German Colonial Exhibition of 1896 not only a spectacle in Berlin's history, but also an expression of the imperial ideologies that shaped German actions abroad.

Human zoo in Treptower Park: a spectacle of colonial exploitation

For 50 pfennigs, German families and school groups were allowed to stroll through the exhibition and marvel at Black children, women and men who were forced to put on a show, pose for photos and were not even allowed to eat their meals in peace. Artisans from the colonies even had to demonstrate traditional crafts such as pottery or weaving in these makeshift villages. To add to the spectacle, „war games“ were even staged between Swahili and Maasai people.

The exhibition attracted over two million visitors during its run, cementing its place as one of the largest and most visited spectacles in Germany at the time. But at what cost?

Carl Hagenbeck and the commercialization of human zoos

Carl Hagenbeck, a German animal dealer and zoo entrepreneur from Hamburg, played a key role in turning colonial curiosity into a commercial spectacle in Europe. From the 1870s onwards, Hagenbeck developed the so-called Völkerschauen, in which indigenous people from colonized areas were presented to European spectators alongside or separately from exotic animals. These exhibitions were staged as „native villages“, complete with clothing, tools and landscapes intended to suggest distant homelands.

What distinguished Hagenbeck's presentations from previous exhibitions was both the scope and the the targeted stagingThey were widely advertised, toured cities and appealed to public interest in „exotic“ peoples who were considered primitive or fascinating. Contemporary reports document that groups such as the „Firelanders“ from southern South America were brought to Europe between 1881 and 1882 and exhibited in large cities, attracting large crowds and sensational press reports.

Hagenbeck's shows blurred the line between entertainment and pseudo-ethnographic representation; their popularity contributed to the normalization of racist notions of „civilized“ versus „primitive“ peoples in the European imagination.

Exploitation and inequality

Despite the humiliation, the „participants“ only received measly wages, no more than 20 German marks per month. By comparison, exhibition guides earned 10 German marks a day. The power imbalance was overwhelming and the injustice obvious. Many of the people brought from Africa did not know what to expect in Berlin. Most believed they were part of a cultural exchange or were recruited under false promises. Some even paid their own way to Berlin, unaware that they would be exhibited as part of this degrading colonial spectacle.

Racist pseudoscience and anthropology

During the period of colonial exhibitions and human zoos, racial pseudoscience gained influence in European academic and scientific circles, often under the guise of anthropology. One of the most notorious figures in this context was Felix von Luschan, Von Luschan was an Austrian-born doctor, explorer and ethnographer who worked in Berlin at the turn of the century. Von Luschan was head of the Africa and Oceania department at the Berlin Ethnological Museum and developed the Chromatic Scale of Luschan, a method of classifying skin colors using 36 opaque glass plates.

Although von Luschan later rejected many extreme claims of scientific racism and emphasized human equality in some works, methods such as his chromatic scale were used in the first half of the 20th century to categorize human populations hierarchically. In the context of colonial exhibitions, such tools helped to portray colonial subjects as objects of scientific study rather than as human beings with their own dignity. Moreover, his institutional position enabled him to procure artifacts and human remains from colonial territories for European museums: Acts that are strongly criticized today as part of the violent material legacy of colonization.

Fate of the participants

Three participants died after the end of the exhibition. Most of the others returned to the German colonies, their lives forever marked by this dehumanizing experience. However, human zoos and their practice continued in Germany and other European countries for years until they were finally banned.

Those who stayed: The story of Quane Martin Dibobe

Of the 106 Africans exhibited at the human zoo in Treptower Park in 1896, around 20 remained in Germany. One of them was Quane Martin Dibobe from Cameroon. Despite the degrading circumstances, Dibobe managed to build a life for himself in Germany. He successfully completed an apprenticeship as a locksmith and later became Berlin's first black train driver for the BVG. His story is a testimony to resilience in the face of racism and exploitation.

Berlin's culture of remembrance and its gaps

Berlin often prides itself on its culture of remembrance, but this dark chapter remained largely hidden until the 2020s. And even then, it was not through institutional recognition, but through the tireless efforts of black activists and organizations that brought this history to light. One key initiative was the „Looking Back“ exhibition at the Treptow Museum. The exhibition dedicates an entire room to the biographies of most of the participants of the 1896 human zoo. Their stories, struggles and resilience are presented openly and offer an insight into the deep wounds caused by the German colonial past.

Learning and remembering

When we stand in places like the carp pond, where history has been made and forgotten, we have to ask ourselves: How do we ensure that these stories are not erased? How do we ensure that the people who suffered here are remembered not just as part of a tragic past, but as individuals whose experiences still shape conversations about racism, colonialism and memory today?

To find out more about German colonial history, you can take part in a tour of the African Quarter, which takes place every weekend. Understanding this past is not just a historical exercise: it is a crucial step in recognizing and addressing the lasting effects of colonialism and racism. History is not just the past; it shapes our present and future. Let's make sure we remember it properly.