Only in few cases missionary collections were built up as ethnological museums; they were mostly gathered unsys-
tematically by missionaries for educational purposes, as souvenirs or for sale in favor of the mission as well as for art dealers and museums.

Presently, there are no claims for restitution from source communities. However, we are open for dialog; our restitution concept is published on the website.
Requests can be sent directly to the Missionsmuseum or to the German Contact Point for Collections from Colonial Contexts.

Available sources connected to the museum's inventory are incomplete museum entry books, index cards with different numbering systems, old object signs, a small amount of documents at St. Ottilien Archabbey's archives, remarks in the missionaries' diaries and chronicles of the monastery.

The majority of objects were collected until 1918 (in East Africa) resp. 1950 (in South Africa) and between 1909 and the late 1930ies (in Korea). Afterwards, the inventory was completed by some acquisitions from art dealers.
Since 1914, only objects connected with St. Ottilien’s mission history were added.

We identified around 9% of the museum's inventory as cultu-
rally sensitive objects.
This includes masks, items for initiation and ancestor worship, war and ceremonial weapons as well as healer's utensils in the Africa collections.
The Korea collection includes items with religious reference, too.

Sources provide as a maximum of information the acquisition region, ethnic group and in around 50% the purchaser. More information about con-
texts of acquisition is available for some Korean objects or purchases from art dealers.
As all available sources are already evaluated, the remaining gaps cannot be filled.

No human remains were collec-
ted at the Missionsmuseum. The aim of the collections was communicating everyday culture from areas where the Missionary Benedictines worked.
All bones, e.g. among the utensils of the healer or in jewelry, are clearly of animal origin.

Since 2019, we are involved with restitution and the colonial entanglements of mission and address these topics in our guided tours.
One element of decolonization work are planned interventions, which reflect our approach to the post-colonial discourse.

We understand the term not as a time-related "afterwards" in the sense of political indepen-
dence but as a concept that emphasizes, besides decoloni-
sation, as well a consciousness for the continued existence of imperial and Eurocentric struc-
tures in geographical, economic and religious fields up to the present day.

We completed scientific prove-
nance research in 2018, after evaluating all available sources. Research work was executed by experts of 5 Kontinente Museum Munich (East/South Africa) and the Overseas Korean Cultural Heritage Foundation, together with associated institutions (Korea).

For East Africa, we are currently negotiating a cooperation with Dar es Salaam University, where source communities are included in research work.
South Korea has due to its historic development and homo-
genous society no ethnic mino-
rities besides the foreigners living in the country.

The colonial conditions under which the items were collected are a fact we aim to meet with open, self-reflexive approach to history.

Moreover, we want to inform our visitors and increase their awareness for these topics.

We return/restitute objects to the government of sovereign nations that can then decide in favor of individual source com-
munities.
We are open for requests on restitution and consider returns in case an item is important for the cultural identity of a society, or is scientifically relevant or is a rare cultural heritage.

Since almost no acquisition context can be derived from the sources, there are open ques-
tions, especially for culturally sensitive objects such as spears, masks etc. During provenance research, no con-
texts of injustice were detected. However, due to the colonial power relations, we at least assume an inequality context.

Mission history and colonial history are intertwined; the Missionary Benedictines of St. Ottilien worked in the setting of colonial structures. The missionaries' relation to the colonial government ranged between closeness and distance; the latter especially whenever missionaries stood up for the local community.

Besides cooperation with
specialized bodies and imple-
mentation of the planned interventions regarding colonial discourse, we prepare for the exchange with source communities.
Here, we are expecting a high learning potential and decisive impulses for understanding the objects and their presentation.

German East African objects (protected area of the German Reich (1885-1918), exhibits from other formal colonial rules as South Africa (British protec-
torate, Commonwealth of Nations 1806-1931/61) and Korea (Japanese protectorate 1910-1945) are rated among this category - 98% of the inventory have colonial context.

A museum presentation in the form of a poly-cultural com-
parison of lifestyles may face accusation of enhancing culturalism / cultural racism. With some of our special exhi-
bitions, we we would like to set another focus and give insights into historic structures of power and their effects up to the present.

The museum's inventory is based on ethnology and natural history, but also outlines the work and history of the Missionary Benedictines and is characterized by its connection to St. Ottilien archabbey.
In our view, renaming would only be an undesirable disguise for the context of this missio-
nary collection.

We are aware that it is a con-
tradiction in itself to decolonize an ethnological collection with-
out breaking with the "museum" concept, which is not possible for us out of different reasons. We opt for a concept that supports our visitors and motivates learning without overwhelming them.