Ponape district

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German Micronesia with district boundaries: Ponape district in the middle (map from 1905).

The district of Ponape , also the district of the Ostkarolinen , was from 1899 to 1918 an administrative unit of the German colonial empire on the Karolinen with seat on Ponape .

District

Ponape was officially part of the Spanish East Indies since the 16th century . With the German-Spanish Treaty of 1899 , the island became a German colony and part of the German New Guinea protected area .

The newly created Ponape district was responsible for the eastern Carolines. The border with the Jap District , which covered the West Carolines, was 148 degrees east.

The seat of the district office was in the north of the island in Messenieng. A district administrator was at the head of the administration. Until 1907, he was also Vice Governor of German New Guinea. In 1907 this title passed to the District Administrator of Jap .

District officials were:

The Ponape District Court existed on site. However, no professional judge was stationed on Ponape, the task of district judge was carried out by the district administrator in personal union. The court was subordinate to the Rabaul High Court . From January 1, 1901, only the whites were subject to his jurisdiction, but not the indigenous population . The district official was responsible for these as judge, provided that the chiefs did not speak their own courts. In 1911, the Jaluit District Court was overturned and the Ponape Judicial District expanded to include the Marshall Islands .

In 1911 about 4,000 people lived on Ponape, including 38 white people (32 of them German) and three Japanese.

On Ponape there was also a port and police master, a hospital, a pharmacy, a stranding office, a registry office, a seafaring office, a post office and mission stations. The security service was initially provided by a force of 38 Malays and later of 50 Melanesians from the Bismarck Archipelago .

With the Treaty of Versailles , Germany had to cede its colonies.

Truk station district

In 1909 a separate station was built on Truk , which was subordinate to the Ponape district. About 11,000 people lived on the 20 or so islands of the station district, including 24 white people, 9 of them German, and 9 Japanese. The station manager's seat was in Toloas on the island of Moen . The infrastructure consisted of a hospital, a pharmacy and mission stations. Station manager was Max Scharlauch from 1909 to 1911, and Mr. 1911 to 1913. Gentner and from 1913 to 1914 Mr. Paulisch.

See also

literature

  • Walther Hubatsch (Ed.): Outline of German administrative history: 1815-1945 , Vol. 22. Federal and Reich authorities, 1983, ISBN 3-87969-156-8 , pp. 531-535
  • Helmut Christmann, Peter John Hempenstall, Dirk Anthony Ballendorf: The Karolinen Islands in German times. A colonial history case study. (= Bremen Asia-Pacific Studies ; 1). LIT, Hamburg 1991, ISBN 3-89473-118-4
  • Gerd Hardach: The German rule in Micronesia. In: Hermann Joseph Hiery (ed.): The German South Sea 1884–1914. A manual. Schöningh, Paderborn 2001, ISBN 3-506-73912-3 , pp. 508-534

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Krauss: East Carolines . In: Deutsches Kolonial-Lexikon , Vol. II, Leipzig 1920, pp. 690f.
  2. ^ Announcement of April 30, 1901; in: Collection of Laws, Official Gazette for the New Guinea Protected Area, 1909, p. 19.
  3. ^ Peter Sack: The German legal system in Micronesia. In: Hermann Joseph Hiery (ed.): The German South Sea 1884-1914. A manual. Schöningh, Paderborn 2001, ISBN 3-506-73912-3 , pp. 535-557.
  4. ↑ Gerd Hardach: Colonial rule in the field of tension between repression and legitimate order in Micronesia 1885-1914 . In: Kolonialisierung des Rechts , 2001, ISBN 3-7890-7347-4 , pp. 106-107.
  5. ^ Official Journal for the New Guinea Protected Area. 1, 1909, p. 26.