Albert Hahl

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Albert Hahl (1905)
Hale among the locals of Ponape

Albert Hahl (born September 10, 1868 in Gern ; † December 25, 1945 ibid) was a German colonial official and governor of German New Guinea .

Life

Albert Hahl was the son of a Protestant brewer. After attending grammar school in Freising , he studied law and economics in Würzburg from 1887 . During his studies he became a member of the AMV zu Würzburg . After being appointed government assessor in 1894, he worked in the Bavarian Ministry of the Interior in Bayreuth . 1895 came Hahl in the Colonial Department of the Foreign Office . From January 1896 to December 1898 he was an imperial judge and civil servant in the Bismarck Archipelago ( Herbertshöhe ), as well as an administrative officer in Stephansort in what was then the “ protected area ” of the New Guinea Company . After the sudden death of Curt von Hagen , Albert Hahl served as the acting provisional governor of the New Guinea company from August 15, 1897 to September 11, 1897. After a brief employment in the colonial department of the Foreign Office, he was entrusted in 1899 as Vice-Governor of the East Carolines based in Ponape with the administration of the newly acquired island area of German Micronesia east of the 148th degree of longitude including the Marshall Islands and Nauru with the German-Spanish Treaty in 1899 .

After the resignation of Rudolf von Bennigsen , Albert Hahl was appointed acting governor on July 10, 1901. He returned to Germany in June 1902 because of blackwater fever , where he was finally appointed governor of German New Guinea on November 20, 1902. He held this office until April 13, 1914. Hahl took part in the exploration of the country and in 1908, accompanied by two other Europeans, first crossed Bougainville . Shortly after his arrival in New Guinea, he had already lived among the Tolai people and learned their language.

During his tenure as governor of New Guinea, Hahl was in a relationship with a native Tolai woman with whom he had a child.

Luluai system

In order to introduce an effective and conflict-free administration, Hahl appointed indigenous mayor ("Luluai"), who should represent the bridge between the German administration and the locals. The Luluai were responsible for local administration. Jurisdictions on land issues etc. only took place through the imperial judges. The Luluai earned up to 300  marks a month. In return they had to meet quotas for unpaid work and collect the poll tax (since 1906), of which they were allowed to use 10% for themselves. This form of indirect administration reduced the influence of traditional powers and tied the local population to the colonial economic system. The Luluai system could not be operated without conflicts because of its privileges for individuals and the suspension of the former village order. With the establishment helped u. a. Sacred Heart missionaries who, because of their knowledge of the country, were able to help the process of colonization, but also came into conflict with local people, which led to the "Baining massacre" in 1904, among other things. The later addition of several government stations to the Luluai system was intended to reduce punitive expeditions, as was common with Hahl's predecessor Rudolf von Bennigsen .

Land ownership rights and economic policy

As early as 1899, Hahl had ensured that the right to purchase land from the local village communities or simply to take possession of uninhabited areas belonged exclusively to the governorate, which carefully ensured that no property rights of the locals were violated when reselling. Since 1903, the existing ownership structure has also been checked for correctness. Between 1903 and 1914, over 5,740  hectares , which had already become the property of European planters, were returned to the village communities and a total of 70 inalienable reserves with a total size of 13,115 hectares were created. The real potential for conflict, however, lay in the huge areas that had been acquired by the New Guinea Company and which were never officially measured or assessed to determine how far the acquisition had curtailed local rights.

Every New Guinean had to have at least one hectare of land available for settlement and cultivation. In this country, so-called " cash crops ", v. a. Coconut palms, are grown. In this way, Hahl wanted to ensure that the New Guineans could participate in the colonial economic system themselves and were not forced to work on European plantations. In 1914, almost half of the copra exports came from the Gazelle Peninsula from the cultivation of the locals , while the mainland population around Madang was forced to work on the plantations of the New Guinea Company due to the loss of their land.

However, Hahl was never able to fully enforce the detailed provisions that had been drawn up for local workers with regard to wages, length of work and medical care, as well as the abolition of female forced labor against the New Guinea company and other German plantation owners.

Education and medical care

During Hahl's reign, three government and two mission hospitals were built, in which, in addition to caring for the population, young locals received basic medical training and returned to their villages after a few months as medical Luluais.

Education also grew rapidly, and when Hahl left New Guinea in 1914 there were over 600 elementary schools, six craft schools, and one interpreting school. The enrollment rate of 3.2% was higher than in most of the African colonies.

retirement

After his retirement he became director of the New Guinea Company in 1918, a more formal position after the loss of the colonies in the First World War .

During the Weimar Republic , Hahl was a strong advocate of colonial revisionism. During the time of National Socialism , Hahl maintained contact with the Solf Circle , which was formed around the widow of the former governor of German Samoa , Wilhelm Solf , and which can be assigned to the resistance against National Socialism . The NSDAP never joined Hahl.

Fonts

  • German New Guinea , Berlin 1936.
  • Gubernatorial years in New Guinea . Berlin 1937.
    • Governor in New Guinea . Edited and translated by Dymphna Clark. Australian National University Press, Canberra 1981, ISBN 0-7081-1820-8 .

literature

  • Peter Biskup, Dr. Albert Hahl - Sketch of a German Colonial Official , in: The Australian Journal of Politics and History 14 (1968), pp. 342-357.
  • Peter Biskup: Hahl at Herbertshoehe, 1896-1898: The Genesis of German Native Administration in New Guinea , in: KS Inglis (ed.): History of Melanesia , Canberra - Port Moresby 1969, 2nd ed. 1971, 77-99.
  • Norbert Fischer:  Hahl, Albert. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 7, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1966, ISBN 3-428-00188-5 , p. 495 ( digitized version ).
  • N. Gash - J. Whittaker, Pictorial History of New Guinea , Jacaranda Press: Milton, Queensland 1975, ISBN 186273-025-3 .
  • Ingrid Moses, The Extension of Colonial Rule in Kaiser Wilhelmsland , in: John A. Moses and Paul M. Kennedy (Eds.), Germany in the Pacific and Far East, 1870-1914 , St. Lucia 1977, 288-312.
  • Peter J. Hempenstall: Pacific Islanders under German Rule. Australian National University Presses; Canberra 1978, 264 pp., ISBN 9780708113509
  • Stewart Firth: New Guinea under Germans. Melbourne University Press, 1983, ISBN 978-0522842203
  • Hermann Joseph Hiery : The Neglected War. The German South Pacific and the Influence of Word War I , University of Hawai'i Press: Honolulu 1995, 387 pp., ISBN 0-8248-1668-4 .
  • Horst founder: history of the German colonies. Schöningh 5th edition, Paderborn 2004, ISBN 3-8252-1332-3
  • Hermann Joseph Hiery (ed.): Die Deutsche Südsee 1884–1914 . 2nd Edition. Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn 2001, ISBN 3-506-73912-3
  • Clive Moore; Jacqueline Leckie; Doug Munro (ed.): Labor in the South Pacific. James Cook University, Townsville 1990
  • Gerdi Kempfler: With pleasure - New Guinea and back: Dr. Albert Hahl - Imperial judge and governor 1896 - 1914 , self-published, Gern 2002.

Literarization

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Association of Alter SVer (VASV): Address book. Membership directory of all old men. As of October 1, 1937. Hanover 1937, p. 226.
  2. ↑ Guido Knopp : The world empire of the Germans . Munich / Zurich: Piper-Verlag, 2011, pp. 179f., ISBN 978-3-492-26489-1 .
  3. ^ W. Westphal: History of the German colonies . Licensed edition for Gondrom Verlag, C. Bertelsmann, 1991, ISBN 3-8112-0905-1
  4. ↑ Founder, p. 173
  5. ↑ Founder, p. 174
  6. ^ Founder, p. 177
personal data
SURNAME Hahl, Albert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German colonial official, governor of German New Guinea (1902–1914)
DATE OF BIRTH September 10, 1868
PLACE OF BIRTH Gladly
DATE OF DEATH December 25, 1945
Place of death Gladly