Gustav Voigts

Gustav Voigts and his brothers

Gustav Voigts (* 1866 in Meerdorf ; † April 14, 1934 in Windhoek ) was one of the first German farmers in what was then German South West Africa (now Namibia ) and mayor of Windhoek .

Life

Cattle in front of the Wecke & Voigts store in Windhoek (around 1900)

Gustav Voigts came to the German colony of South West Africa as a merchant with his brothers Albert and Richard at the end of the 19th century . He traded with the Herero , an ethnic group who at that time mostly ran cattle. To this end, he founded the trading company “ Wecke & Voigts ” on September 3, 1892 in Windhoek with Fritz Wecke , who had been his employer until then .

The Herero paid for goods such as spades, buckets or saucepans with cattle that Voigts sold to South Africa. He bought land from the Herero so that he could keep the cattle there before they were transported. The German traders and the Herero leaders (e.g. Samuel Maharero ) treated each other with mutual respect. During the war against the Herero from 1904 to 1908, the members of the trading house were kept out of the conflict because of the good relations. At the beginning of the uprising Gustav Voigts served as a reserve officer in the train of the German protection force .

Gustav Voigts and his family (wife and five children) stayed in Europe from 1914 to 1920. At the age of fifty he was used as a lieutenant in the Landwehr on the Eastern Front during the First World War . Then he lived again in South West Africa .

Today the Voigts family is still co-owner of the company "Wecke & Voigts", one of the large chain stores in Namibia. The company's head office, the “Wecke & Voigts” department store, has existed in Windhoek since 1894. In 2006 Dieter Voigts (grandson of Gustav Voigts) became head of this department store, which is part of the large business and shopping center Gustav Voigts Center on Independence Avenue .

The story of his family in Namibia was exemplified in a documentary film by the Evangelical Center for Development-Related Cooperation in 1995 .

After Windhoek was granted city status in 1909, Gustav Voigts became the first elected mayor of Windhoek . In 1913 Peter Müller became his successor.

literature

• Hans Grimm : Gustav Voigts - A life in German Southwest . ( Small field post series ) Gütersloh, 2nd edition 1942, Bertelsmann-Verlag
• Rolf Ahlers : Meerdorf, the roots of the Voigts family . Verlag Uwe Krebs, Wendeburg, ISBN 978-3-932030-10-9

Web links

• Photo by Gustav Voigts in the Federal Archives . at www.bild.bundesarchiv.de
• Description of the film about two family chronicles: The Zaires and the Voigts . on www.ezef.de
• Story about Gustav Voigts . at www.weckevoigts.com (English)

Individual evidence

• Who's who of Southern Africa, Volume 54 , Ken Donaldson (Pty.) Ltd. 1967, p. 1007

1. ^ Hans Grimm : Gustav Voigts - A life in German Southwest , 3rd edition, Bertelsmann-Verlag; Gütersloh 1942, p. 13
2. ^ Hans Grimm: Gustav Voigts - A life in German Southwest , 3rd edition, Bertelsmann-Verlag; Gütersloh 1942, p. 53ff.
3. ^ Stefan Loose: Namibia . DuMont Reiseverlag 2011
4. ^ GVK: bibliographical evidence .