August Einwald

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August Einwald, signature

August Einwald (born April 8, 1846 in Heidelberg , † 1933 in Braunschweig ) was a German traveler to Africa.

Life

Einwald was originally a photographer in Heidelberg am Neckar and started traveling in 1867. His first big trip took him to Mexico, the Caribbean and the United States. Among other things, Einwald visited the gold fields of California. In 1879 Einwald traveled to Natal in southern Africa . Until 1882 he visited Greater Namaland in the south of what is now Namibia and crossed the Kalahari . He later worked as a craftsman in Port Elizabeth . Einwald also toured the Cape Colony as well as Basuto , Pondo and Zululand . He paid particular attention to the mineral resources of the areas visited. Some areas were not yet fully owned by Great Britain or the Boer republics . He advised the Bremen colonial trader and founder of German South West Africa , Adolf Lüderitz , to found a colony on the Indian Ocean and place it under the protection of the German Empire.

The Santa Lucia Bay

On May 21, 1884, Einwald concluded an agreement with Lüderitz according to which Einwald was to travel to the Zululand at the expense of the Lüderitz house in order to acquire as large an area as possible for the trading house, if it was no man's land according to the then opinion . Einwald was able to secure the purchase of Santa Lucia Bay through Adolf Schiel - a colonel in the service of the Boers and confidante of the Zulu king Dinuzulu . Einwald let Lüderitz announce the "lawful" acquisition of the stretch of coast and announced further acquisitions . Lüderitz then called Einwald back to Europe. He arrived in London on January 1, 1885, to personally assert the alleged claims of his company against the British government, which, however, received little attention. Einwald was refused an audience. Einwald, who was ordered to Berlin shortly afterwards, and Schiel later argued about the purchase of land in Germany. After diplomatic exchanges between Great Britain and Germany, the area was not placed under German protection, unlike South West Africa. The German press accused Einwald of a lack of discretion and made him responsible for the failure of the colonial foundation.

Crocodile order first class

The popular magazine Die Gartenlaube reported in 1887 under the heading Leaves and Flowers more friendly about Einwald. The magazine showed an image of the first class crocodile order donated by King Dinuzulu and given to Einwald, who traveled to Africa, according to his information, and which was to be worn on a green, red and yellow ribbon. Such a second-class medal was awarded to a Leipzig bookseller Ludwig Fischer.

More colonial projects and return

In the years 1886 to 1890 Einwald appeared again as a colonial agent: In Amatongaland north of Santa Lucia Bay, he tried to buy Kosi Bay. In Pondoland, Einwald found "... copper, coal, asbestos and some gold", according to his own statements . Einwald received similar to the Baden lieutenant a. D. Emil Nagel has a private mining and land concession, but no protection agreement . In Bulawayo he tried in vain to make contact with Lobengula , the king of the Matabele kingdom . In 1895, Einwald founded the South African Colonization Society together with Max Schubert, member of the Saxon state parliament, and traveled with several members to Lourenço Marques , Barberton and Pretoria . In 1898 and 1900 he made further trips to manage a copper mine in Zululand for a London syndicate. As a result of the Boer War , Einwald was captured and expelled from the country by the British authorities. After the turn of the century, Einwald gave lectures in Germany and described his travel experiences in the book Twenty Years in South Africa . He spent his old age at the Marienstift in Braunschweig, where he died in 1933 at the age of 85.

Fonts (selection)

  • Twenty years in South Africa - traveling, experiences and observations. Jänecke Brothers, Hanover 1901.
  • The inhabitants of the African kingdom of heaven. In: Geopraphische Rundschau , Volume IX, No. 6, 1887, p. 241.
  • For the colonization of German South West Africa. In: Geopraphische Rundschau , Volume IX, No. 9, 1887, p. 413.
  • About southern extra-tropical Africa. In: Communications of the Saxon-Thuringian Association for Geography , 1883.

Individual evidence

  1. a b c August Einwald: Twenty years in South Africa. Jänecke, Hanover 1901, p. VII f.
  2. ^ Wilhelm Schüssler : Adolf Lüderitz - a German fight for South Africa 1883-1886. C. Schünemann, Bremen 1936, p. 146.
  3. ^ Conrad Weidmann : German Men in Africa - Lexicon of the most outstanding German Africa researchers, missionaries, etc. Bernhard Nöhring, Lübeck 1894, p. 38.
  4. ^ Werner Schmidt-Pretoria: German migration to South Africa in the 19th century. D. Reimer, Berlin 1955, p. 274 ( name register online ).
  5. Ewald Banse : Our great Africans - The life of German explorers and colonial pioneers. Haude & Spenersche Verlagbuchhandlung Max Paschke, Berlin 1942. P. 265 ff.
  6. Hans-Ulrich Wehler : Bismarck and Imperialism. 4th edition, Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, Munich 1976, ISBN 3-423-04187-0 , p. 293 ff.
  7. ^ Norbert B. Wagner (ed.): Archive of German Colonial Law. Brühl / Wesseling 2008, p. 337 ( online version , PDF; 2.0 MB).
  8. ^ A b Max von Koschitzky: German Colonial History. Volume 2 - Acquisition of the Reich Protected Areas until the Carolinen Dispute is settled, Paul Frohberg's publishing house, Leipzig 1888, p. 180 ff. ( Online, PDF; 83.0 MB ).
  9. August Totzke: Germany's colonies and its colonial policy. Bruns: Minden i. W. 1885, p. 213 ff. ( Digital collection of the University and State Library of Münster ).
  10. Die Gartenlaube from 1887, No. 40, page 667
  11. Agnes M. Hutton: Pondoland - Her Cape And Natal Neighbors 1878-1894. University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg 2013 (original from 1935), p. 69 ff.
  12. Werner Schmidt: Rhodesia. Volume 40 of countries of Africa , Schroeder, Bonn 1970, p. 29.
  13. ^ Jeff Bowersox: Raising Germans in the Age of Empire: Youth and Colonial Culture, 1871-1914. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2013, ISBN 978-0-19-964109-3 , pp. 110 ff.
  14. ^ P. Gauss: Geographical News, in: Geographische Zeitschrift . Volume 39, Issue 1 (1933), p. 45.

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