Curt von Hagen

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Curt von Hagen.

Curt von Hagen (born September 12, 1859 in Schippenbeil , East Prussia , † August 13, 1897 near Yomba in German New Guinea ) was a Prussian officer, temporarily active as a tobacco grower in Sumatra , and finally a colonist in the newly developed New Guinea , where he worked for the German colonial administration last worked as governor.

family

Curt von Hagen was the son of the Prussian lieutenant general Heinrich von Hagen (1831-1905) and grandson of the novelist and first professor for aesthetics and art history at the Königsberg University Albertina, Ernst August Hagen (1797-1880). His great-grandfather was the court pharmacist, polymath and friend and discussant Immanuel Kant, Karl Gottfried Hagen (1749–1829).

In 1881 he married the daughter of a manufacturer, Helene Winkler. The daughter Else was the only child from this marriage in 1886.

Life path

Friedrich-Wilhelms-Hafen station, 1892

Curt von Hagen followed his father professionally and joined the Prussian army in 1878 as a field artillery officer. He had to retire from the army after a riding accident in 1886. As a fresh start, he tried his hand at becoming an independent tobacco grower. The limited company founded in Deli ( Sumatra ) soon went bankrupt . From 1893 he was the main administrator of the Jomba plantation for the Astrolabe-Compagnie near Friedrich-Wilhelms-Hafen (today Madang) in German New Guinea .

Just three years later, Hagen, who was considered a capable administrator, was general director for the New Guinea company . He gave up their station in Friedrich-Wilhelms-Hafen in the same year and moved them to Stephansort , where he had a new port facility and the Erima station built. This involved the move of all officials. All of this was his responsibility, since he had become provisional governor on September 22nd.

On a business trip to Herbertshöhe (Kokopo) in May 1897 , Hagen learned from Albert Hahl that the travel writer Otto Ehlers and some of the police soldiers who accompanied him were murdered in 1895 . In July 1897, the two ringleaders Ranga and Opia were arrested on Hagen's initiative and locked up in Stephansort. But the two managed to escape. They looted rifles in a robbery of a Chinese trader. At the beginning of August, Hagen organized a chase with other colonists. The group set out for the interior of the country near Yomba on the morning of August 13. A few hours later, Hagen was fatally shot by Rangas. After the Imperial Navy bombed the island with the small cruiser Falke , the locals killed the two murderers five days later and erected their heads on August 19 after they were handed over to the colonial administration in Stephansort to deter them.

Hagen's widow had difficulties getting a pension in 1899 because the New Guinea Company took the position that Hagen was to blame for his own death, since it was not his job to carry out punitive expeditions. Then 600 marks for the widow and 150 marks for the daughter were approved.

A memorial with a bronze eagle was erected for the murdered man. This eagle was dismantled in 1956 and placed on a new monument in Mount Hagen (5 ° 52′S 144 ° 13′E), now the capital of the Western Highlands province, named after it . An imprecise replica of the imperial eagle has been on this monument since around 1990 . The 3,363 m high volcanic mountain Mount Hagen (5.75 ° S, 144.33 ° E) is also named after him .

literature

  • W. Apitzsch: Curt v. Hagen: An East Prussian cultural pioneer in the South Seas . In: Col. Blätter , 1897
  • The punishment of the murderer of the governor of Hagen . In: Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger , December 12, 1897

Web links

Commons : Curt von Hagen  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Fritz Gause:  Hagen, Ernst August. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 7, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1966, ISBN 3-428-00188-5 , p. 470 f. ( Digitized version ).
  2. ↑ Traugott Farnbacher, Community Responsibility “Beginnings, Developments and Perspectives of Congregation and Offices of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Papua New Guinea”, Chapter Governor v. Hagen's killing as evidence of disproportionality, Münster 1999, page 112
  3. ^ Thomas Morlang: Askari and Fitafita. “Colored” mercenaries in the German colonies. Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 2008, ISBN 3-86153-476-2 . P. 99.
  4. ↑ Simon Haberberger: Colonialism and cannibalism. Cases from German New Guinea and British New Guinea 1884–1914. Otto Harrassowitz Verlag, Wiesbaden 2007, ISBN 3-447-05578-2 . P. 93.
  5. ↑ Photo in: Herrmann Hiery: The German South Seas . Paderborn 2001, ISBN 3-506-73912-3
  6. ↑ Biographical Handbook German New Guinea . 2nd Edition. Fassberg, 2002, p. 126
personal data
SURNAME Hagen, Curt von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hagen, Kurt von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German colonist and administrative officer in German New Guinea
DATE OF BIRTH September 12, 1859
PLACE OF BIRTH Schippenbeil , East Prussia
DATE OF DEATH August 13, 1897
Place of death near Yomba (New Guinea)