German scholarly expeditions started in the 1820s, but mostly reached only the northern regions, Massawa and Tigray. The first were the prominent natural scientists Ehrenberg and Hemprich in 1825. Eduard Rüppell carried out meteorological, zoological and ethnographical studies (1830-34). In 1837 he was followed by the botanist Wilhelm Schimper. He even settled permanently in Tigray and became the governor of Enticco (called “Antitschau” in German sources) under the ruler of Tigray and Simén, dejjazmach Wubé. He and his assistant, the painter Eduard Zander, later entered into the services of atse Tewodros II. According to his biography, which depended on his letters sent from Ethiopia, Zander became the military instructor of Wubé and introduced a flag to be carried by his troops, which was an almost exact copy of the flag of his fatherland, the Dukedom of Anhalt, one of the German states – and strikingly similar to the flag carried later by the troops of unified Ethiopia. Together with Schimper, he also built the palace and church of Debre-Egzi in Simén for Wubé. Later, after Wubé’s defeat in 1855, Tewodros II held his coronation ceremony in this church.

The Deutsche Afrika-Expedition of 1861, led by Theodor von Heuglin from Württemberg and the Swiss Werner Munzinger, was mainly carried out in Bogos in today’s Eritrea, in Tigray, Kunama and Sudanese areas, and was followed by the publication of detailed ethnographic and cartographic material in Gotha. Gotha thus again became a centre of research on Ethiopia. Shortly thereafter, this expedition was followed in 1862 by the first visit of a head of state to the region, Duke Ernst II of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (brother-in-law of Queen Victoria) to the northern borderlands of “Abyssinia”, accompanied by several scholars like the zoologist Brehm and the medical doctor Bilharz, the discoverer of “bilharzia”. Indirectly, this “touristic” expedition also had political implications. His nephew Hohenlohe-Langenburg, who had also participated in the expedition, later became one of the prominent promoters of German colonialism. However, the 1880s’ idea to “lease” the Eritrean coast from the Ottoman Empire, circulated by such circles, was never taken up by the German leadership.