Hermann von Wissmann

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Hermann von Wissmann
Signature Hermann von Wissmann.PNG

Hermann Wilhelm Leopold Ludwig Wissmann , von Wissmann since 1890 (born September 4, 1853 in Frankfurt (Oder) , † June 15, 1905 in Weißenbach near Liezen , Styria ) was a German Africa explorer , officer and colonial official.

As Reich Commissioner and commander of the first German colonial troops, he was responsible for suppressing the resistance of the East African coastal population in 1889 and 1890 . From April 26, 1895 to December 3, 1896 he was governor of German East Africa . Before this time he worked as an Africa explorer, among others on behalf of the Belgian King Leopold II. In Central Africa and crossed the continent twice by land.

Early years

Hermann was a member of the noble family von Wissmann . His parents were the government councilor Hermann Ludwig Wissmann (* December 28, 1820 - February 21, 1869) and his wife Elise, née Schach von Wittenau (* 1829 - November 1910 in Lauterberg in the Harz ).

After attending grammar school in Erfurt , Wissmann graduated from the cadet corps and joined the Grand Ducal Mecklenburg Fusilier Regiment “Kaiser Wilhelm” No. 90 on April 28, 1872 as portepeef ensign . Here he was promoted to second lieutenant on January 15, 1874 .

Expeditions in Central Africa

Postcard from Tanga with the portrait of Major Hermann von Wissmann
Major von Wissmann, 1891

As a traveler on behalf of geographical societies and European rulers, Wissmann was involved in the European mapping of Central Africa in the immediate run-up to and during the race for Africa .

The exploratory Africa geography experienced a pan-European boom from the second half of the 19th century. It was not only in Germany that new African societies were founded , which promoted a growing number of expeditions.

At the same time, economic interest in Africa grew in Europe. During the Great Depression of 1873–1896 , the idea grew that with access to new markets and consumers in the interior of Africa, the European economies could overcome their crises. In this context, the publications of explorers provided topographical, economic and political information that influenced the perception of economic potential in Africa.

Control of trade with the Congo Basin - the area in which Wissmann primarily traveled - became one of the many arenas of the race for Africa from the late 1870s.

Pogge / Wissmann expedition (1880–1883)

Wissmann accompanied the Africa explorer Paul Pogge on his second expedition to Central Africa. The expedition was funded by the African Society in Germany, the German branch of the International Africa Association founded by Leopold II .

The expedition started in 1881 in the Portuguese colonial city of Luanda in Angola. The aim was to reach the Congo Basin and to cross the continent from west to east. Europeans had not been able to do this before due to existing trade and power structures.

Before the establishment of territorial colonial empires, European presence in Africa was primarily limited to coastal towns. The volume of trade depended on African producers as well as African and Arab middlemen. African middleman communities saw European travelers as a threat to their position in established trade structures and had successfully "blocked access to the interior of the Congo Basin for earlier caravans from the west coast". As economic interest grew, Europeans increasingly sought to eliminate and replace African and Arab middlemen. The anthropologist Johannes Fabian argues that it was the initially good relationship with the Bena Riamba that enabled Wissmann and Pogge to cross the continent in this conflict-ridden context.

The expedition reached Kimbundo via Malanje and, after crossing the Kasai, in the area of ​​the Tuschilange on the Lulua. From there they came to the Mukamba Lake, the true extent of which was determined, then to the Bassongo, passed the Sankuru (Lubilasch) and after reaching the swollen Luubu continued their journey in boats to the Lualaba. The researchers split up in Nyangwe: after Pogge returned to the west coast, Wissmann took over the management of the expedition. Wissmann traveled further east and, accompanied by the slave trader Tippu-Tip, reached the east coast of Africa on November 15 at Saadani .

At the same time as the Wissmann / Pogge expedition, Henry Morton Stanley traveled up the Congo to prepare an informal Belgian Empire in Central Africa on behalf of Leopold II. Brazza signed a contract with the Teke on his own , which, if ratified, threatened to isolate Leopold's domestic stations. In order to counteract a control of the Congo trade by France, Great Britain took up talks with Portugal in 1882, which could control the Congo estuary with British help. The European race for informal control of the Congo was now in full swing.

Congo expedition on behalf of Leopold II. (1883–1885)

In 1883, Wissmann took - apparently mediated by the Crown Prince Friedrich III. - an order from Leopold II to undertake a research trip to the Kasai region in the southern Congo Basin. He restored the ruined Lu-buku station and founded the Luluaburg station , which later became a strategic post for the Congo Free State .

During the expedition the Congo Conference took place in Berlin . The controversial access to the Congo Basin and the establishment of the Congo Free State were central parts of the negotiations.

Second expedition in the Congo Free State (1886–1887)

After Wissmann spent the winter of 1885/1886 to relax in Madeira, he joined Friedrich III. with the question of whether he could enter the service of the German colonies that have now been established in Africa. Instead, he was advised to start his last outstanding year of service for Leopold. In 1886, Wissmann traveled again to the south of the now established Congo Free State.

Commander of the "Wissmann Troop"

When the German East African Society (DOAG) tried to enforce its de facto rule in the Zanzibari coastal strip, there was an uprising of the coastal population under Buschiri bin Salim in the late summer of 1888 . The loose rule of the DOAG collapsed; only the port cities of Bagamoyo and Dar es Salaam could be held. After the use of a cruiser squadron had not been able to end the resistance, Bismarck decided to send a land force.

Bismarck appointed Wissmann as Reich Commissioner and entrusted him with the military suppression. The “Wissmann Troop”, composed of German officers and African mercenaries, was the first German colonial force to wage a land war in Africa.

Wissmann's troops mostly showered the rebels with short, violent fire. He had conquered places plundered, set on fire and the fields devastated. This warfare was used by some contemporaries - u. a. by the left-liberal Reichstag member Eugen Richter - criticized as cruel. Other voices in Germany celebrated Wissmann because of his military success. After the conquest of the entire East African coast Wissmann was founded in 1890 by Wilhelm II. In the hereditary nobility raised.

Further assignments outside of Germany

On May 1, 1895, Wissmann was appointed governor of German East Africa , but returned to Germany in mid-1896 due to illness. During his time as governor he prepared a. a. proposed taxing the colonized population with a “hut tax”, which years later became a reason for the Maji-Maji uprising .

After his retirement at the end of 1896, he was assigned to the Foreign Office , Section IV (Colonies), and worked as an advisor to the department director. He took part in a trip to Siberia in 1897 and a trip to South Africa in 1898/99.

Private life

Grave cemetery Melaten (Cologne)
Wissmann-Gut in Weißenbach near Liezen

Wissmann married Hedwig Langen on November 20, 1894 in Cologne, daughter of the secret commercial councilor and industrialist Eugen Langen . In addition to their son Hermann , who later became a well-known researcher on Arabia, there were also three daughters from the marriage .

After his recovery in Italy and Switzerland, Wissmann lived in Berlin at the end of 1896. In December 1896, he was given temporary retirement at his request . In 1899 Wissmann retired to his country estate in Weissenbach near Liezen in Styria, where he lost his life on June 15, 1905 at the age of 51 in a hunting accident. His grave is located in the Melaten cemetery in Cologne (hall 60a).

Reception and memory

Monument to Hermann von Wissmann in Bad Lauterberg, created by Johannes Götz

He was an honorary member of the Thuringian-Saxon Association for Geography. After his death, monuments were erected in Weißenbach near Liezen , Bad Lauterberg in the Harz Mountains and Daressalam (later in Hamburg , currently in storage ).

In more than 20 cities, u. a. in Berlin-Neukölln , Hamburg, Düsseldorf , Kassel , Cologne and Munich , there are streets that were named after him. Some of these streets were named during his lifetime, some after his death and many not until the 1920s and during the Nazi era . Wissmannstrasse in Hanover was rededicated unanimously on March 18, 2009 by the district council of Südstadt-Bult. For the same reason, on May 18, 2009, Wissmannstrasse in Stuttgart-Stammheim was renamed into Wolle-Kriwanek-Strasse .

For the colonial commemorative year of 1934, the Deutsche Reichspost issued a series of stamps with portraits of well-known people from German colonial history. In addition to von Wissmann, the more controversial Carl Peters was honored in the same series .

Contemporary biographers saw him as “Germany's greatest African”, according to Joachim Zeller he was “the largely undisputed figure of the public opinion of the time and even popular beyond colonial circles”, for Thomas Morlang, however, he was “an extremely controversial colonial hero ". Gisela Graichen and Horst founders certify that he “had an emotional connection with the locals”, and Mubabinge Bilolo from the DR Congo even praised him as a “great African” in his speech on the 100th anniversary of his death.

Because of his cruel punitive expeditions (Wissmann allegedly killed 200 people because their chief had torn the imperial flag from the mast), Spiegel Online placed him in a row with other colonial criminals such as Lothar von Trotha , Carl Peters and Hans Dominik . He is also referred to as the “main actor” of “one of the worst crimes in German colonial history”, which is estimated to have killed 300,000 Tanzanian (and 16 German) people. Bilolo rejects this criticism as an evil speech and points out a clear dating error: The Maji Maji uprising began on July 20, 1905 and lasted until 1907/1908, but Wissmann had already traveled from Africa to Germany in 1896 and on June 15, 1905 deceased.

This refutes a connection to the Maji Maji uprising, but not its role in the suppression of the Wahehe uprising (1891–1899). In the first years of the uprising, Wissmann was still responsible for the suppression. This resulted in "mass executions, which Hermann von Wissmann [...] sometimes also attended." As a result, as well as through "a famine after the end of the war, caused by looting by the protection forces and a rinderpest brought in by the Europeans", around 700,000 people are said to have lost their lives .

On the other hand, it de facto ended the enslavement of the native population by the local Arab upper class and the slave trade.

Works

  • In the interior of Africa. Research into the Kassai during 1883, 1884 and 1885 , Leipzig 1888 (edited by Ludwig Wolf, Curt von François, Hans Mueller, Hans).
  • Under the German flag across Africa from west to east. Executed from 1880 to 1883 by Paul Pogge and Hermann Wissmann , Berlin 1888 (numerous new editions).
  • My second crossing of Equatorial Africa from the Congo to the Zambesi during 1886 and 1887 , Frankfurt an der Oder 1890, Reprint: Salzwasser Verlag, ISBN 978-3-86444-509-5 , Paderborn, 2012
  • Africa. Descriptions and advice to prepare for the stay and service in the German protected areas , Berlin ( Ernst Siegfried Mittler and Son ) 1895 (special print from the military weekly paper 1894), 2nd unaltered edition 1903.
  • In the wilds of Africa and Asia. Hunting experiences by Hermann von Wissmann, Berlin 1901. ( digitized and full text in the German text archive )

Honors, prizes and awards

literature

  • Alexander Becker , Conradin von Perbandt , Georg Richelmann , Rochus Schmidt , Werner Steuber : Herrmann von Wissmann. Germany's largest African. His life and work using the estate . Schall, Berlin 1906 (several new editions, admiring, glorifying and colonial-romantic biography) digitized
  • Johannes Fabian: In tropical fever. Science and madness in the exploration of Central Africa . Beck, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-406-47397-0 (on the expedition trips of Wissmann and others)
  • Kanundowi Kabongo, Mubabinge Bilolo: La Conception Bantu de l'Autorité. Suivie de Baluba: Bumfume ne Bulongolodi . (Académie de la Pensée Africaine. Section VI: Sciences Sociales et Politiques, Vol. 2), Publications Universitaires Africaines, Kinshasa, Munich, Paris 1993.
  • Hans Lehr: "In the wilderness of Africa and Asia", Kleins, Lengerich / Westphalia 1959.
  • Thomas Morlang: “If I can't find a way, I'll find one.” The controversial “colonial hero” Hermann von Wissmann . In: Ulrich van der Heyden, Joachim Zeller (ed.): “… Power and share in world domination.” Berlin and German colonialism. Unrast, Münster 2005, ISBN 3-89771-024-2 .
  • Rochus Schmidt: Hermann von Wissmann and Germany's colonial work . Klemm, Berlin-Grunewald 1925.
  • Joachim Zeller: Colonial Monuments and Awareness of History. An examination of the colonial German culture of remembrance . IRO, Frankfurt am Main 1999 (on the monuments for Wissmann and others)
  • Hartmut Pogge von Strandmann: Imperialism from the Green Table. German colonial policy between economic exploitation and "civilizational" efforts . Ch.Links, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-86153-501-0 .
  • Handbook of the Prussian Nobility, Volume 1, p. 619.

Web links

Commons : Hermann von Wissmann  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Thomas Morlang: "If I can't find a way, I'll find one." The controversial "colonial hero" Hermann von Wissmann. Retrieved April 4, 2020 .
  2. ^ Marcelli Janecki (Red.): Handbook of the Prussian nobility. Volume 1, Mittler & Sohn, Berlin 1892, p. 616.
  3. ^ Freiherr von Bock: list of the officers' corps of the 2nd Guards Regiment on foot June 19, 1813– May 15, 1913. Publisher R. Eisenschmidt. Berlin 1913. p. 226.
  4. ↑ Carsten Gräbel: The exploration of the colonies. Expeditions and the colonial culture of knowledge of German geographers, 1884-1919 . transcript, Bielefeld 2015, ISBN 978-3-8376-2924-8 , pp. 24; 30 .
  5. ^ GN Sanderson: The European Partition of Africa: Origins and Dynamics . In: Roland Oliver, GN Sanderson (Ed.): The Cambridge History of Africa . Vol. 6 From 1870 to 1905. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1985, ISBN 0-521-22803-4 , pp. 96-98 .
  6. ^ GN Sanderson: The European Partition of Africa: Origins and Dynamics . In: Roland Oliver, GN Sanderson (Ed.): The Cambridge History of Africa . Vol. 6 From 1870 to 1905. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1985, ISBN 0-521-22803-4 , pp. 101-103 .
  7. ↑ Johannes Fabian: In tropical fever. Science and madness in the exploration of Central Africa . Beck, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-406-47397-0 , pp. 32 .
  8. ^ AE Atmore: Africa on the Eve of Partition . In: Roland Oliver, GN Sanderson (Ed.): The Cambridge History of Africa . Vol. 6 From 1870 to 1905. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1985, ISBN 0-521-22803-4 , pp. 77 .
  9. ^ Anthony Atmore, Roland Oliver: Africa Since 1800 . 5th edition. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2004, ISBN 0-521-83615-8 , pp. 78-80 .
  10. ↑ a b Johannes Fabian: In tropical fever. Science and madness in the exploration of Central Africa . Beck, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-406-47397-0 , pp. 212 .
  11. ^ AE Atmore: Africa on the Eve of Partition . In: Roland Oliver, GN Sanderson (Ed.): The Cambridge History of Africa . Vol. 6 From 1870 to 1905. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1985, ISBN 0-521-22803-4 , pp. 69 .
  12. ^ GN Sanderson: The European Partition of Africa: Origins and Dynamics . In: Roland Oliver, GN Sanderson (Ed.): The Cambridge History of Africa . Vol. 6 From 1870 to 1905. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1985, ISBN 0-521-22803-4 , pp. 127-129 .
  13. ↑ Johannes Fabian: In tropical fever. Science and madness in the exploration of Central Africa . Beck, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-406-47397-0 , pp. 233 .
  14. ↑ Johannes Fabian: In tropical fever. Science and madness in the exploration of Central Africa . Beck, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-406-47397-0 , pp. 205 .
  15. ^ Hermann von Wissmann: My second crossing of equatorial Africa from the Congo to the Zambesi during the years 1886 and 1887 . Trowitzsch, Frankfurt (Oder) 1890, p. 2 .
  16. ↑ a b Bernd Isphording, Gerhard Keiper, Martin Kröger: Biographical Handbook of the German Foreign Service 1871-1945: Volume 5: TZ . F. Schöningh, 2000, ISBN 978-3-506-71844-0 , pp. 307 ( google.de [accessed June 26, 2020]).
  17. ^ Directory of the members of the Thuringian-Saxon Geography Association on March 31, 1885 ( Memento from December 1, 2017 in the Internet Archive )
  18. ↑ https://e-government.hannover-stadt.de/lhhsimwebre.nsf/Tagesordnung/18DE307E760E7EFFC12575A20014C6F2?OpenDocument
  19. ↑ Archive link ( Memento from June 23, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  20. ↑ Andrea Böhm: Rebellion on the plantations . In: Christian Staas, Dr. Volker Ullrich (ed.): TIME history: The Germans and their colonies . tape 4/2019 . Zeitverlag Gerd Bucerius, Hamburg July 2019, p. 80-85 .
personal data
SURNAME Wissmann, Hermann von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Wissmann, Hermann Wilhelm Leopold Ludwig
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Africa explorer
DATE OF BIRTH September 4, 1853
PLACE OF BIRTH Frankfurt (Oder)
DATE OF DEATH June 15, 1905
Place of death Weißenbach near Liezen , Styria