Friedrich Wilhelm Höhn

Wilhelm Höhn

Memorial stone in Tokyo

Friedrich Wilhelm Höhn (born March 4, 1839 in Güsterbiese ; died December 30, 1892 in Berlin ) was a Prussian police captain who did a great job building up the Japanese police system during the Meiji period .

life and work

Friedrich Wilhelm Höhn was the oldest of eight children of the oil miller Johann Heinrich Höhn. He was called up for military service and distinguished himself through particular bravery in the Battle of Königgrätz in 1866 . However, for health reasons he was unable to start a military career, so he decided to pursue an officer career with the Berlin police.

From 1861 he was "interim" police lieutenant , during the Franco-German War he was promoted to captain. He acted as a supervisor for six Japanese police officers who were in Germany for training. When it came time to help reform the Japanese police system, he was posted to Japan, where he arrived in March 1885. There he took up his service in the Ministry of the Interior, organized the education and training program for police officers as a teacher or police inspector. In total, he trained 553 police officers. His business trips took him from Hokkaidō to Amami-Ōshima , i.e. through all of Japan . His contract was initially valid for three years, was extended by two years, to which he added another year. In April 1891 he made his way home to Germany via America.

He was previously awarded the Order of the Rising Sun and the Order of the Sacred Treasure .

Back in Berlin, Höhn died after a serious illness on December 30, 1892. He was buried in the old Luisenstadt cemetery. The elaborately designed tomb, however, no longer exists.

Shortly after his untimely death, Yamagata Aritomo, President of the Secret State Council, and Kiyoura Keigo, Vice Minister of Justice, initiated a fundraiser among Höhn's 553 students for a three-meter-high memorial stone that was erected in 1894 in the Mimeguri Shrine (三 廻 神社, near today's Sky Tree ) was inaugurated. Höhn's mission reports and lecture transcripts can be viewed in the National Archives of Japan and are available as microfilm in the National Diet Library . Höhn is no longer mentioned in the historical part of the permanent exhibition of the new Tokyo Police Museum ( Kyōbashi (Tokyo) ). On the other hand, there is a document in the exhibition of the Police Headquarters of the Fukuoka Prefecture , which proves that Höhn was instrumental in maintaining the system of small police stations in the cities of Kōban and in the countryside of Chûzaisho in the course of the police reform - a type of community policing, which foreign tourists in Japan appreciate very much.

The immediate reason for the exhibition curated by Beate Wonde in the Mori-Ôgai memorial in 2018 was the processing of the private part of Höhn's estate, consisting of photos and three private diaries, in the archive of the police historical collection (Berlin) .

literature

• Beate Wonde: A Prussian police captain in Japan. Friedrich Wilhelm Höhn. A search for clues 1885–91. In: Museums-Journal 2018/3.
• A Prussian police captain in Japan. Friedrich Wilhelm Höhn. A search for clues 1885-91. Exhibition at the Mori-Ôgai Memorial , August 2 to December 20, 2018; then January 8 to March 29, 2019 in the Police History Collection (Berlin) ; July 9th to August 4th in the Altranft church in Oderbruch; Mid-September to November 2019 in Hohenschönhausen Castle.
• Ramming, Martin: Wilhelm Höhn . In: Japan Handbook. Steiniger-Verlage Berlin, 1941.

Remarks

1. ↑ It is a stone abrasion .
2. ↑ In the end the exhibition goes to Tokyo to the OAG where Höhn was a member

Web links

• Catalog raisonné in the National Diet Library

1. ↑ According to information from the Japanese cabinet office by email dated April 10, 2019 on behalf of Beate Wonde (curator of the Mori-Ôgai memorial )
2. ↑ https://beatewonde.de/exhibitions/ein-preussischer-polizeihauptmann-in-japan-friedrich-wilhelm-hoehn-eine-spurensuche-1885-91/