MfN - Berlin´s Australian Archive

Berlin's Australian Archive. Addressing the Colonial Legacies of Natural History.

Content Warning

The Museum für Naturkunde Berlin (MfN) offers free and open access to collections, archive and library holdings. In doing so, it aims to ensure that these collections are part of a global scientific infrastructure and can be used by multiple people with a wide range of varying perspectives and questions.

At the same time, however, natural history collections are interwoven with political, cultural and economic power structures, past and present, and the discourses associated with them.

This is reflected in the description of museum holdings and practices in a language that can be disturbing and hurtful. These historical terms are reproduced here unchanged (verbatim) to ensure that no information or context is lost or erased from documentation.

The transcribed files contain Indigenous names for places, descriptions of totems (especially bats), and racist terms. When skulls are mentioned, the files presented here refer exclusively to animals.

Please also note that the texts contain names of deceased persons.