Adolf Lüderitz

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Adolf Lüderitz (around 1885)

Franz Adolf Eduard von Lüderitz , mostly just Adolf Lüderitz (* July 16, 1834 in Bremen , † October 24, 1886 in the Oranje in German South West Africa , today Namibia ), was a German wholesale merchant and the first German landowner in what is now Namibia.

Life

Youth and education

Adolf Lüderitz was a son of the wealthy Bremen tobacco dealer F. A. E. Lüderitz, who came from Hanover . After normal school education, he graduated from the commercial school in Bremen and began an apprenticeship in his father's business in 1851. In April 1854 he went to the United States to learn about tobacco growing in the southern states. He then leased a farm in Mexico, which was soon destroyed in the turmoil of the revolution. Completely penniless, he returned to his father's company in Bremen in 1859. In 1866 he married the wealthy Bremen Emilie Elise "Emmy" von Lingen, with whom he had three children: Franz Adolf Eduard Lüderitz (junior), George Lüderitz and Carl August Lüderitz.

Merchant in Bremen and Africa

After his father's death in 1878, Lüderitz took over his tobacco business. However, he still had little luck with his foreign ventures. A branch founded in Lagos in 1881 , in what was then British West Africa , could not prevail against foreign competition. Despite this failure, Lüderitz stuck to his Africa plans and found support from the young Bremen businessman Heinrich Vogelsang . Both made the decision to found a German colony in South West Africa , as this area had not been occupied by any other colonial power.

Branch in South West Africa / "Meilenschwindel"

Contract between Frederiks and Vogelsang dated August 25, 1883, page 1

In December 1882, Lüderitz sent Vogelsang to Cape Town , South Africa , in order to explore options for settling in the southwest from there. He was advised there by the son of the missionary Carl Hugo Hahn , who worked in South West Africa , who pointed out the Bay of Angra Pequena as a favorable landing place. Vogelsang also learned that in South West Africa with mineral resources such. B. copper , is to be expected.

After Vogelsang had the first accommodations built for his expedition in the Bay of Angra Pequena in April 1883, he concluded a contract on May 1 with the Nama - Captain Josef Frederiks II , in which the Bay of Angra Pequena and the land in A radius of five geographical miles was sold to the Lüderitz company for 100 pounds in gold and 200 rifles. Vogelsang left it open as to whether it should be German miles of around 7.5 km or the shorter English miles of around 1.6 km. Since Lüderitz later assumed the German unit of measurement, the Nama were deceived, but could not enforce their point of view despite violent protests. In August of the same year, a second contract was signed in which Lüderitz, the coastal strip between the Orange River and the 26th parallel, and an area 20 miles inland from any point on the coast, was sold for an additional £ 500 and 60 rifles. Lüderitz wrote to his agent Vogelsang: "For the time being, let Joseph Fredericks believe that it is 20 English miles." The questionable contractual basis for the acquisitions, commonly known as " mile fraud ", gave Lüderitz the nickname Lügenfritz early on .

Thereupon Lüderitz turned to the German Foreign Office with a request for protection for his possessions. Since Chancellor Otto von Bismarck was skeptical of German colonial efforts, Lüderitz only received a vague promise that he would be granted the usual protection like every German abroad.

In 1884, Lüderitz failed when his negotiators, including his brother August , tried to expand his property by acquiring land from the Herero .

Colony of German South West Africa and advance to South East Africa

Lüderitzort, Lüderitzbucht and Lüderitzland on a German colonial map from 1905 (excerpt)
Location of Santa Lucia Bay in Zulu country around 1885 ( property of the House of FAE Lüderitz )

In 1884 the British Colonial Minister Lord Derby instructed the British administration of the Cape Colony to immediately take possession of the coast from South West Africa to the border of Portuguese West Africa .

Lüderitz was now heard by the German government. After another conversation with Bismarck, in which Adolph Woermann , who had acquired possessions in Cameroon and Togo, also took part, the Reich Chancellor finally agreed to appoint a Reich Commissioner for West Africa to exercise German sovereignty over the German branches in West Africa . He was appointed in the person of Gustav Nachtigal that same year . The German admiralty dispatched the warships Elisabeth and Leipzig . Landing troops with the participation of representatives of the Lüderitz company and the Nama- Kaptein Josef Frederiks and his councilors hoisted the German flag on August 7, 1884 and placed the area under German protection. German South West Africa was a German colony from 1884 to 1915 .

After this success, Lüderitz acquired further territories from the Nama Kapteins Cornelius Swartbooi, Jan Uixamab and Jan Jonker Afrikaner in 1885 , whereby the upper Kapsteine ​​that signed the treaty were in part not even owned by the territories concerned. With the exception of the British enclave Walvis Bay , the entire coastal area of ​​what is now Namibia was in his possession.

Lüderitz, however, had even more far- reaching plans: he wanted to create a coherent settlement colony from the Atlantic coast of southwest Africa via the Boer republic of the Transvaal , which would extend to the Indian Ocean . In November 1884, agent August Einwald, sent by Lüderitz, signed a treaty with the Zulu king Dinizulu , which was supposed to secure the German Reich a local claim to the Santa Lucia Bay in Zululand . In the course of a settlement with Great Britain, however, the claim was finally dropped in May 1885 when the British invoked a treaty with King Phunga that had already been concluded in 1843 . The colonial expansion with which Lüderitz wanted to direct the flow of German emigration to southern Africa also failed because of the reluctance of Bismarck, who refused a direct confrontation with Great Britain.

Lüderitz also secured mining concessions because he wanted to start exploiting the mineral resources he suspected. To do this, he sent three expeditions with mining experts. However, the explorations did not lead to any satisfactory results, and Lüderitz gradually ran out of funds. He publicly lamented the loss of 500,000  Reichsmarks and came to the conclusion that as a private citizen he could not further advance the development of South West Africa. After several banks refused to take over his branches, Lüderitz found accommodation with the German Colonial Association - which later became the German Colonial Society . On April 3, 1885, the German Colonial Society for South West Africa took over the Lüderitzland acquired by Adolf Lüderitz, as well as the associated liabilities and rights. The company was founded at the instigation of business leaders and the German government to prevent the German branches in South West Africa from falling into English hands. A purchase agreement was concluded that guaranteed Lüderitz 500,000 Reichsmarks (of which 200,000 marks in share certificates) and shares in the commercial rights.

With the financial support of the colonial society, Lüderitz put together a new expedition in 1886 to explore the possibilities of a new settlement at the mouth of the Orange River. He himself took part in the exploration trips. On October 23, 1886, together with his companion Steingröver, he boarded a folding boat with which he wanted to examine the coast off the Oranje estuary. Apparently the boat crashed, neither of the occupants returned and were never found.

Former honor and today's classification

Street sign of Lüderitzstrasse in the African Quarter in Berlin-Wedding

In memory of the founder of German claims in South West Africa, the colonial society gave the Bay of Angra Pequena ('Little Bay') the name Lüderitz Bay . The town that developed there later was also called Lüderitz . Initially, all the areas on the southwest coast of Africa acquired by Lüderitz were grouped under the name Lüderitzland . In 1934 the German Reichspost issued a series of stamps in honor of several people in German colonial history. Among them was Adolf Lüderitz. The German Navy named a speedboat escort ship launched in 1939 , the Adolf Lüderitz , after him.

The plant genera Bisluederitzia Kuntze and Neoluederitzia Schinz from the yoke leaf family (Zygophyllaceae) are named after him.

In numerous German cities streets were named after him in memory or honor. In the meantime, this has been critically discussed in view of today's factual knowledge of the German colonial era and the reassessment of the behavior of individual people and led to applications to rename these streets. Several times in Bremen and 1990 in Cologne. In 1998, Lüderitzstrasse was also renamed Bochum. In Berlin, Koblenz, Duisburg and Düsseldorf-Urdenbach as well as u. a. in Windhoek in Namibia streets are still named after him. The Berlin-Mitte district council announced in April 2018 that Lüderitzstrasse would be renamed Cornelius-Frederiks- Strasse. Instead, it is honoring one of the leaders in the Nama uprising against the German colonial occupation. The renaming of the city of Lüderitz to Namibia was also controversial from 2013 to 2015, but has not yet been implemented (as of August 2020).

literature

Reception under National Socialism:

  • Holst, Meno: Lüderitz fought southwest. Berlin: German publishing house, 1941.

Web links

Commons : Adolf Lüderitz  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Wilfried Westphal: History of the German colonies . Bindlach: Gondrom, 1991, ISBN 3-8112-0905-1 , p. 21.
  2. ↑ Jochen Bölsche : The Whip of the Bender , in: Der Spiegel , No. 3, 2004, pp. 102-109.
  3. ↑ The SMS Elisabeth had taken August Lüderitz and a staff of his employees on board in Largos and brought them with them.
  4. ↑ Helmuth Stoecker: Drang nach Afrika - The German colonial expansion policy and rule in Africa from the beginning to the loss of the colonies . 2. revised Ed., Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1991, ISBN 3-05-000825-3 , p. 102.
  5. ^ W. Schüßler: Kolonialgeschichte , in: Annual reports for German history . Edited by Albert Brackmann u. Fritz Hartung. Leipzig: Koehler. Born in 1937–1939. Vol. XXI, pp. 700f .; made available by the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences.
  6. ↑ Santa Lucīa , in: Meyers Großes Konversations-Lexikon . Volume 17, Leipzig 1909, p. 587.
  7. ^ Horst founder: History of the German colonies . 5th edition, Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn / Munich / Vienna / Zurich 2004, ISBN 3-8252-1332-3 , pp. 80f.
  8. ↑ Gisela Graichen and Horst Founders: German Colonies - Dream and Trauma. Ullstein, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-550-07637-1 , p. 74.
  9. ^ Rochus Schmidt: Germany's colonies . Volume 2, Berlin: Verlag des Verein der Buchfreunde Schall & Grund, 1898, p. 262 (reprint by Weltbild Verlag, Augsburg 1998, ISBN 3-8289-0301-0 ).
  10. ↑ Lotte Burkhardt: Directory of eponymous plant names . Extended Edition. Botanic Garden and Botanical Museum Berlin, Free University Berlin Berlin 2018. [1]
  11. ↑ Who we honor - In German cities streets are still called after colonial criminals and slave traders. Why? Christian Kopp in DIE ZEIT of March 10, 2016, p. 11
  12. ^ Schwachhausen and the SWAPO . In: die tageszeitung , January 2, 2002. Accessed December 24, 2011. 
  13. ^ Cologne: Renaming of Lüderitzstrasse
  14. ↑ Jasmin Rietdorf: Colonial Past Street names are not just signposts in both cities Tagesspiegel, February 22, 2008
  15. ↑ Laura Hofmann: New street names for the African quarter found. In: Der Tagesspiegel . April 11, 2018. Retrieved April 11, 2018 .
personal data
SURNAME Lüderitz, Adolf
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Lüderitz von, Franz Adolf Eduard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German wholesale merchant and founder of the German South West Africa colony
DATE OF BIRTH July 16, 1834
PLACE OF BIRTH Bremen
DATE OF DEATH October 24, 1886
Place of death Orange River , South West Africa