Minister of State Katja Keul issued the following statement on the occasion of the 110th anniversary of the death of King Rudolf Douala Manga Bell and Adolf Ngoso Din:

Background information:

In the first half of the 1910s, Rudolf Douala Manga Bell and Adolf Ngoso Din campaigned against measures pursued by the German colonial administration to expropriate and expel the Douala people from the area that is now the conurbation of the port city of Douala. King Rudolf Douala Manga Bell had, among other things, submitted a petition to the German Reichstag to this end. In order to put a stop to these increasingly effective efforts, both of them were subsequently charged with high treason and sentenced to death on 8 August 1914. They were executed by the German colonial administration on the very same day.

We know today that the charges against Manga Bell and Ngoso Din were fabricated by the German colonial administration in order to suppress the peaceful political resistance demonstrated by the two men. Even by the standards of the time, the criminal proceedings that were conducted did not comply with the applicable principles of the rule of law. A general appraisal of all known historical circumstances necessitates the conclusion that King Rudolf Douala Manga Bell and Adolf Ngoso Din did not commit any offences punishable under the regulations of the time and that they were unjustly executed.

Katja Keul, Minister of State at the Federal Foreign Office, travelled to Douala in November 2022, visited the graves of Manga Bell and Ngoso Din and gave a speech on political rehabilitation at the site of their execution.

The rehabilitation of King Rudolf Douala Manga Bell and Adolf Ngoso Din after such a long time is no longer possible from a legal point of view. The German legal system does not envisage a procedure of this kind for such historical cases. This is another reason why it was important to ensure their political rehabilitation after so many years.