Gustav Neuhaus

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Gustav Neuhaus (born October 11, 1866 in Düsseldorf ; † February 28, 1942 ), Dr. jur., was a German lawyer and linguist specializing in African studies .

Life

Neuhaus, son of the married couple Eduard Neuhaus and Bertha Dellmann , studied law at the Universities of Munich , Königsberg and Berlin and began his professional career in Berlin in 1888 at the " Seminar for Oriental Languages ". There he learned the Swahili language (also: Swahili) from Carl Gotthilf Büttner (1848-1893 ).

In 1892 he was sent by the colonial department of the Foreign Office to German East Africa , where he was appointed " Dragoman " in 1893 and was initially appointed as civil adjutant by Governor Friedrich Radbod Freiherr von Scheele (1847–1904) . He was later employed in the administrative service and as a judge in Dar es Salaam and Pangani .

From 1895 to 1900 he worked as Büttner's successor in Berlin at the "Seminar for Oriental Languages" for Swahili. He was then sent again to East Africa, where he worked as a regular district magistrate and later as an imperial district judge.

After he retired in 1908 because of his unsuitability for the tropics, he became a lawyer in Berlin, but at the same time worked in a variety of ways. In 1931 he traveled to East Africa again, which he describes in his publication "Suaheliland, how I found it again" .

Science knows Neuhaus through the publication of Swahili documents in Arabic , which are now archived in the manuscript department of the Berlin State Library . With his textbook “Swahili manuscripts in photo-lithographed originals” , published in 1896 in the textbook series of the Seminar for Oriental Languages ​​in Berlin, Neuhaus wanted to prepare prospective German colonial officials for their administrative service in German East Africa. For this he had the facsimile (Swahili in Arabic script) printed and provided it with linguistic and historical comments.

He also became known through the translation and commentary of an old Swahili poem about Mohammed . Philatelists know him because of his studies of the problems of validity and recognition of the Swahili postage stamps issued in the formerly German Wituland (Deutsch-Witu).

Neuhaus was married to Margarete Schmolke , who survived him; he died in 1942.

literature

  • Ernst Dammann : Preliminary remark to the report of Pastor CG Büttner in DSWA to His Highness the Reich Chancellor Prince Bismarck . In: "Namibiana", issue 11, page 55f., SWA Scientific Society, Windhoek 1987, ISSN  0259-2010

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