Emin Pasha

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Eduard Schnitzer (1875)

Eduard Karl Oskar Theodor Schnitzer , known as Emin Pascha (born March 28, 1840 as Isaak Eduard Schnitzer in Opole , Upper Silesia ; †  October 23, 1892 in Kinena in the Congo region ), was an Africa explorer and governor of the Equatoria province in the Turkish-Egyptian Sudan . He was best known for his role during the Mahdi uprising and the Emin Pascha expedition sent to his rescue .

Life

youth

Emin Pascha was born as the son of the Jewish businessman Louis Schnitzer, named Isaak Eduard Schnitzer. After the death of his father, he moved to Neisse with his mother Pauline (née Schweitzer) in 1842 . There he and his mother converted to Protestantism on April 7, 1846 when she married a Christian for the second time . After attending the Catholic grammar school there, he studied medicine in Breslau , Berlin and Königsberg between 1858 and 1864 . During his studies in Breslau he joined the Arminia fraternity in Breslau in 1858 .

When he was refused admission to the state examination in Germany, he left the country and went to the Ottoman Empire .

In the Ottoman Empire

In Antivari (today Bar in Montenegro ) he became a port and district doctor. After a year he was promoted to captain . During this time he met the Governor General of Albania, Ismail Hakki Pascha . After he fell out of favor and was banished to Trebizond , Schnitzer followed him. After the banishment was lifted in September 1872, Ismail Hakki Pascha was appointed governor of Janina , where Schnitzer also followed him. The governor appointed Schnitzer chief physician of the province and personal advisor. After Ismail Hakki Pasha's death in 1873, he took care of his widow, a Hungarian from Transylvania . Together with this he first tried to gain a foothold in Arco , in the Italian-speaking part of Tyrol , and then in 1874 in Neisse in Upper Silesia . However, he did not succeed, which is why he secretly left Ismail Hakki Pasha's widow, taking her valuables with her, to go to Egypt . In the meantime he had not only mastered French , English , Italian , various Slavic languages, Ottoman , Arabic and Persian , he had also appropriated the oriental customs and traditions in such a way that no one noticed his Western European origins; he was also converted to Islam .

In Africa

Governor of Equatoria

Map of the provinces of Bahr al-Ghazal and Equatoria on the eve of the Mahdist invasion
Eduard Schnitzer (right) and the Italian explorer Gaetano Casati

Muhammad Ali Pascha , the governor of the autonomous Ottoman province of Egypt, conquered large parts of Sudan: around 1820 Sennar , Kordofan and Dongola , and in 1840 Taka . Ismail Pascha continued the Egyptian expansion in the 1870s: On behalf of Ismail, Samuel Baker conquered the region south of Gondokoro in 1871 and thus created the province of Equatoria .

In 1875 Schnitzer placed himself in Egyptian services, received the title Efendi and became chief physician to Charles Gordon , who was governor of the province of Equatoria from 1874. In June 1876, Schnitzer was given the task of leading an expedition to King Mutesa I of Buganda , from which he returned in September. In June 1877 Schnitzer led an expedition to a sultanate east of Lake Albert .

In July 1878 Schnitzer was appointed governor of the province of Equatoria and was given the title of Bey . Schnitzer went from Rubagha to Ukerewesee and via Mruli and Fauvera back to Magungo. In Unyoro, where he also met the resident Omukama Kabalega in Mparo , he learned that Beatricegolf, discovered by Henry Morton Stanley , did not belong to Mwutan, as the latter believed, but to a more southerly lake basin.

In 1879 he undertook a trip to the previously never visited western shore of the Mwutan; In 1880 he visited the Makrakaland. In 1881 the areas of Rohl and Amadi, parts of the Niam-Niam lands and all of Monbuttu lands were added to his province.

Schnitzer worked tirelessly to organize these areas and to explore the surrounding as yet unknown landscapes. So he gathered the residents scattered by the slave hunts in new settlements, introduced numerous new cultivated plants and expanded the road system as best he could. The province, which he had taken over with an annual deficit of 780,000 marks, produced a surplus of 240,000 marks for the Egyptian government in 1883.

Expeditions to the rescue of Emin Pasha

The encounter between Emin Pasha and Stanley
The path of Stanley's rescue expedition

The uprising of the Mahdi and the destruction of Egyptian rule in the districts north of his province suddenly cut Schnitzer off completely from any connection with his government and put him in an extremely vulnerable position.

Since Wilhelm Junker was with Schnitzer from 1884 and Gaetano Casati from 1885 , at the instigation of the Saint Petersburg- based brother of Casati and through the mediation of Adolf Bastian, the Masai researcher Fischer was sent to lead an expedition in 1886 to free them. But it was impossible to get permission to go through from the ruler of Buganda , and Fischer had to turn back. Junker made it safely to the coast anyway - he started his voyage on January 2, 1886 - but Schnitzer stayed at his post in Wadelai .

An expedition was now organized in England at Felkin's suggestion, headed by Henry Morton Stanley . He had to ask King Leopold of Belgium to release him from his obligations towards him. He did this on the condition that Stanley did not take the shortest route but had to travel through an as yet unknown part of the Congo. The expedition, which had already set out for Zanzibar , was therefore diverted to the mouth of the Congo . Never before had such an important and so carefully equipped expedition set out. Stanley had 9 Europeans, 61 Sudanese, 13  Somali and 620 Zanzibarites, 50 donkeys and, in addition to modern rifles, a Maxim machine gun with him. Stanley was also able to win the Arab slave trader Tippu-Tip , who accepted the post of governor in the upper Congo.

In the meantime Schnitzer had been supplied with ample supplies by Junkers from Uganda.

Stanley drove up the Congo on steamers from the Congo State to the Aruwimi , where he began the land journey. Schnitzer continued his research trips and undertook an expedition to investigate the Kakibbi, the southern tributary of the Albert Nyanza . When he received news of a dispatched relief expedition, he also declared quite resolutely that he would not leave his post in Wadelai and hoped to be able to maintain order in his province himself.

However, since Stanley did not get any news to Europe until the end of 1888, instead reports of a conquest of the province of Schnitzers, who had been appointed Pasha by the Egyptian government in 1885 , and his capture by the Mahdi, aid expeditions began to be equipped from various quarters. Lieutenant Shufeldt set out from America, an expedition under Lieutenant Swaine was to start from England, an advance guard under Hermann von Wissmann was to be sent from Germany , while the main expedition was to be headed by the German explorer and colonial politician Carl Peters . For this purpose, collections for a German Emin Pascha expedition were carried out throughout the German Empire .

In the meantime an uprising of the coastal population against the rule of the German-East African Society broke out in the coastal area of ​​the Indian Ocean , which led to the evacuation of almost all stations. Nevertheless, it was decided on the German side not to refrain from sending an auxiliary expedition, and since Wissmann accepted the position of Reich Commissioner for East Africa, Peters was entrusted with the sole management of the expedition.

On April 29, 1888, Stanley and Schnitzer, who had driven to meet him on his steamer, met. During the entire time of the rescue expeditions, Schnitzer was never in serious danger and ultimately even saved Stanley's life by escorting the sick man to German East Africa . Arrived there in December 1889, he was now recruited by the German Empire to continue his research on Africa.

Death by slave traders

On April 26, 1890, Schnitzer and Franz Stuhlmann started an expedition on behalf of Reich Commissioner Hermann von Wissmann , responsible for German East Africa , to secure areas around Lake Victoria for the German Empire . He was murdered by slave traders on October 23, 1892 in Kinena, an Arab trading post.

Honors

In 1889 he was elected a member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina . In 1890 he was elected a corresponding member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences . He was an honorary member of the Thuringian-Saxon Association for Geography.

The plant genus Eminia Taub is named after him . from the legume family (Fabaceae) and Eminium (Blume) Schott from the arum family (Araceae).

Daughter Ferida

From his marriage to the Abyssinian Safaran, Schnitzer had a daughter Ferida (born November 26, 1884). In 1890 he left his then six-year-old daughter to carry out his last expedition, on which he was killed. Ferida, now an orphan, was brought to Germany and taken in and raised by Emin's sister Melanie Schnitzer. Ferida died on May 2, 1923 in Berlin. Emin's sister Melanie was 90 years old and died on November 11, 1931.

Fonts (selection)

literature

In chronological order:

  • Georg Schweitzer : Emin Pascha - a representation of his life and work using his diaries, letters and scientific records. Berlin: Walther 1898
  • Friedrich Ratzel:  Emin Pascha . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 48, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1904, pp. 346-353.
  • Arthur Berger: The Holy Nile. With 16 pictures based on the author's own photos. Volksverband der Bücherfreunde Wegweiser-Verlag Berlin, 1924.
  • Ehm withered : The black sun - life, work and death of German colonial heroes (biography Emin Paschas), Ullstein publishing house, Berlin 1933.
  • Laszlo Vajda:  Emin Pasha. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 4, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1959, ISBN 3-428-00185-0 , pp. 479-482 ( digitized version ).
  • Felix Aaron Theilhaber : The fate of the Jews: eight biographies. Ed. Olympia, Tel Aviv around 1939.
  • Hans-Otto Meissner : At the sources of the Nile. The adventures of Emin Pasha. Cotta, Stuttgart 1969; New edition: Klett, Stuttgart 1986, ISBN 3-12-920042-8 .
  • Rudolf Kraft: Emin Pascha - a German doctor as governor of Equatoria. Turris, Darmstadt 1976.
  • Hans-Jürgen Kornrumpf: Schnitzer, Eduard Carl Oscar Theodor . In: Biographical Lexicon on the History of Southeast Europe . Volume 4. Munich 1981, p. 97 f.
  • Helge Dvorak: Biographical Lexicon of the German Burschenschaft. Volume I Politicians, Part 1: A – E. Winter, Heidelberg 1996, ISBN 3-8253-0339-X , pp. 252-253.
  • Harald Lordick: Isaak Eduard Schnitzer - Emin Pascha. Memory fragments from a century of literature. In: Birgit E. Klein , Christiane E. Müller (Eds.): Memoria. Ways of Jewish Remembrance. Festschrift for Michael Brocke on his 65th birthday . Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-938690-04-6 , pp. 431-442.
  • Harald Lordick: "Only I miss Christmas very much". Eduard Schnitzer (1840–1892), Governor of the Equatorial Province . In: Kalonymos , contributions to German-Jewish history, Salomon Ludwig Steinheim Institute (ed.), Issue 4/2007, pp. 13–15; steinheim-institut.de (PDF).
  • Patricia Clough: Emin Pasha, Lord of Equatoria. An eccentric German doctor and the race for Africa . Translated from the English by Peter Torberg . Deutsche Verlagsanstalt, Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-421-04376-4 .
  • Christian churches: Emin Pascha. Doctor - adventurer - Africa explorer. Schöningh, Paderborn 2014, ISBN 978-3-506-77850-5 .
  • The Lord of Equatoria . In: Die Zeit , No. 44/2005
  • The role model for Karl May . In: The world

Web links

Commons : Illustrations from In Darkest Africa by HM Stanley 1890  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Notes and individual references

  1. ↑ On December 19, 1888, the royal superintendent and pastor Schumann announced not only the official date of baptism, but also the date of confirmation: Palmarum April 1, 1855 in the Protestant parish church in Neisse.
  2. ^ Helge Dvorak: Biographical Lexicon of the German Burschenschaft. Volume I Politicians, Part 1: AE. Heidelberg 1996, p. 252.
  3. ↑ Jürgen W. Schmidt: A dark episode from the life of the Silesian doctor and explorer Eduard Schnitzer (Emin Pascha). In: Yearbook of the Schlesische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität zu Breslau L / 2009 (2011), p. 316–328, here: p. 319 ff.
  4. ↑ Hans-Otto Meissner : At the sources of the Nile. The adventures of Emin Pasha. Ernst Klett Verlag, Stuttgart 1986, p. 19ff.
  5. ↑ Hans-Otto Meissner : At the sources of the Nile: the adventures of Emin Pascha . Ernst Klett Verlag, Stuttgart 1986, p. 39 ff.
  6. ↑ Member entry of Eduard Schnitzer at the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina , accessed on June 21, 2016.
  7. ↑ Holger Krahnke: The members of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen 1751-2001 (= Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Philological-Historical Class. Volume 3, Volume 246 = Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Mathematical-Physical Class. Series 3, volume 50). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-525-82516-1 , p. 216.
  8. ^ Directory of the members of the Thuringian-Saxon Geography Association on March 31, 1885 ( Memento from December 1, 2017 in the Internet Archive )
  9. ↑ Lotte Burkhardt: Directory of eponymous plant names - Extended Edition. Part I and II. Botanic Garden and Botanical Museum Berlin , Freie Universität Berlin , Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-946292-26-5 doi: 10.3372 / epolist2018 .
  10. ↑ Emin Pasha's daughter . In: The Gazebo . Issue 40, 43, 1893, pp. 688, 730-732 ( full text [ Wikisource ]).
  11. ↑ Review by Andreas Eckert: On Expedition to Equatoria , FAZ of November 18, 2010, faz.net .
predecessor Office successor
Charles George Gordon Governor of the Province of Equatoria
1878–1889 		Mahdi uprising
personal data
SURNAME Emin Pasha
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Mehmed Emin Pasha; Schnitzer, Eduard; Schnitzer, Eduard Karl Oskar Theodor
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Africa explorer
DATE OF BIRTH March 28, 1840
PLACE OF BIRTH Opole
DATE OF DEATH October 23, 1892
Place of death Kinena (Congo area)