In today's colonial historiography, as far as the colonial rule in Togo is concerned, two names certainly stand out: Dr. habil. Peter Sebald († 2018) and Prof. Dr. Trutz von Trotha († 2013). The research of these two scholars provides a detailed study of German rule in Togo 1884–1914. Numerous archival sources, monographs, anthologies, courses, journal articles, lectures from their estates now serve as a valuable source of information for current research.
Dr. habil. Peter Sebald and Prof. Trutz von Trotha estate
Photos: On June 1, 2018, at the Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient (ZMO), Alisher Karabaev presented the archival papers of Dr. habil. Peter Sebald († 5.3.2018) on the colonial history of Togo. The event was organized by the Gesellschaft zur Förderung des ZMO e.V, which also pledged a generous donation of 1000 euros for the archive on this occasion. Through the mediation of Prof. Ulrich van der Heyden, the library of the ZMO received the bequests of Dr. habil. Peter Sebald and Prof. Trutz von Trotha on the history of German colonialism and Togo in particular. 40 meters of running files and books were roughly sorted out by Peter Sebald's family in about 50 cartons to be forwarded to the ZMO.
The first and most important part consists of the documents sorted out by Sebald himself. These were housed by Sebald in 149 folders and placed in a rotating shelf. These documents can be assigned several times according to chronological, geographic-regional, thematic aspects as well as according to authors and the archive signatures.
The second part was an unsorted pile of documents dedicated to a wide variety of topics from personal political views to scientific papers by other authors and final theses by students. These documents were sorted and organized from November 2017 to April 2018. During the processing of the second part of the estate, different materials came to light: flyers, brochures and copies of published Togo literature, file materials from the archives, numerous manuscripts of own works, newspaper articles, invitations to events related to the region, a large number of photographs from the period of colonialism to the present, correspondence on various topics related to Togo.
A part of the file estate is accessible via an electronic finding aid. Individual documents can be found here using keywords.
Alisher Karabaev