Mencke expedition

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The Mencke expedition was a private research and collecting trip to German New Guinea and the Bismarck Archipelago . Bruno Mencke, the initiator, financier and head of the company, declared it the First German South Sea Expedition .

Background and preparations

The fortune of his father Eberhard Mencke, a wealthy owner of chocolate and sugar factories in Braunschweig , enabled the 29-year-old researcher and adventurer Bruno Mencke in 1901 to plan a large-scale expedition. Mencke equipped the research vessel Eberhard for a two-year voyage. The steam yacht , rigged as a three-masted topsail schooner, was owned by Prince Albert I of Monaco under the name Princesse Alice (I) and used for deep-sea zoological research . The ship was equipped with the most modern scientific laboratories , nets and safety gears of the time.

As a naturalist accompanied Mencke, mainly ethnological interests pursued, the zoologist Oskar Heinroth , Georg Duncker as an expert in marine zoology and the taxidermist Paul Kothe. Duncker left the expedition immediately after arriving in Herbertshöhe in German New Guinea , Kothe fell ill and began his journey home in April 1901. Other participants in the expedition were Mencke's secretary Ludwig Caro (born August 29, 1877 in Striesen , † March 31, 1901 on St. Matthias in the Bismarck Archipelago ) and the seaman Hugo Krebs. 29-year-old Caro was the secretary of the governor of German New Guinea, Rudolf von Bennigsen , before joining Mencke's expedition.

Arrival and establishment of the camp

In July 1900 the Eberhard left the port of Hamburg . The explorers came to Colombo on September 8, 1900 via Naples , Port Said , the Red Sea and Aden . Here Mencke and Heinroth made a multi-day excursion to the northeast coast of Ceylon . On September 29th, the steam yacht reached Singapore . From October 1 to October 28, 1900, several excursions were made and collections made. In December 1900 the expedition arrived in Herbertshöhe on New Pomerania .

In mid-March 1901, the researchers landed with 40 locals, including twelve police soldiers , on Mussau , the main island of the St. Matthias Islands . Camp was set up on a hill on the south coast. While the expedition members went on a tour around the island, the police cleared the vegetation within a radius of 100 m from the camp, and several coconut trees were felled or damaged. A few days after the arrival of the Expedition drove Eberhard after Herbertshöhe to coal bunkering and bring more equipment.

Dramatic ending

Memorial plaque for Ludwig Caro in Dresden
The Caro family grave in the Johannisfriedhof in Dresden

On the evening of March 30th, Caro ordered all Mauser rifles to be cleaned . When the locals attacked the camp on the morning of April 1, 1901, the weapons were not ready because they had been dismantled by the police. Mencke and Caro were still sleeping in their tent while Heinroth had already got up. The sergeant Tapitan woke Mencke to tell him that islanders were seen in the vicinity of the camp. Mencke misjudged the seriousness of the situation, appeased Tapitan and lay down again. Immediately afterwards, the locals attacked the European tent with spears . Caro was killed and Mencke seriously injured. Heinroth defended himself with his pistol despite a leg injury . Krebs, who was also wounded, was able to carry Mencke to the beach and put him in one of the boats. The police officers, who have meanwhile been able to get their rifles ready to fire, covered the retreat of the expedition, during which the bodies of Caro and two police soldiers had to be left behind. There were around 17 injured among the attackers. In Kaleu, a trading post on a neighboring island, Mencke died of his injuries on April 2, 1901. He was buried in the immediate vicinity of the station. Tapitan, who returned to the camp with some police officers on the same day, found that the three bodies had disappeared. According to contemporary views, it must be assumed that they were consumed , but proof and thus the ultimate certainty are missing. After Eberhard's return , Heinroth left the island. The research trip had come to an early end. Caro's family put a memorial plaque for Caro on the Caro family grave at the Johannisfriedhof in Dresden .

Punitive expedition

In the summer of 1901, members of the police force and a landing division of the cruiser SMS Cormoran under the command of Corvette Captain Max Grapow on Mussau massacred the island's inhabitants. They drove numerous people into a cave system and shot anyone who tried to leave the caves. 81 local people, including many women and children, were killed.

When Governor Albert Hahl visited the island in September 1903, he found Mencke's grave open. The researcher's remains had been removed. Only one upper jawbone with molars could still be found. Mencke was identified from the gold fillings .

Results

Oskar Heinroth returned to Germany in October 1901 with important zoological collections. In 1902 he published the article in Journal for Ornithology No. 50: Ornithological results of the 1st German South Sea Expedition by Br. Mencke.

literature

  • Oskar Heinroth: Ornithological results of the I. German South Sea Expedition by Br. Mencke. Journal für Ornithologie 50, 1902, pp. 390-457
  • Heinrich Schnee: "Pictures from the South Seas", Reimer, Berlin 1904.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ News ornithological monthly reports, R. Friedländer & Sohn, Berlin 1901, vol. 9 p. 95
  2. ↑ a b Sächsische Zeitung: Grave of a cannibal victim discovered on July 6, 2013, accessed on July 6, 2013
  3. ↑ Heinroth, Katharina: Oskar Heinroth: Father of Behavioral Research, 1971 book with Google Books
  4. ^ The New Britain Massacre . In: The Poverty Bay Herald . Volume XXVIII, Issue 9143. Gisborne May 10, 1901, p. 4 (English, online ).
  5. ^ Oskar Heinroth: On the previous course of the South Seas expedition by B. Mencke Ornithological Monthly Reports, R. Friedländer & Sohn, Berlin 1901, Vol. 9 p. 31
  6. ↑ a b c P. Kothe: On the downfall of Mencke's research company Ornithological Monthly Reports, R. Friedländer & Sohn, Berlin 1901, vol. 9 p. 111
  7. ↑ a b c d e f g Richard Parkinson, Kenneth John Dennison, John Peter White: Thirty years in the South Seas: Land and People, Customs and Traditions in the Bismarck Archipelago and on the German Solomon Islands University of Hawaii Press, 1999, P. 139 / p. 140, ISBN 0-8248-2245-5
  8. ↑ a b c d Simon Haberberger: Colonialism and cannibalism. Cases from German New Guinea and British New Guinea 1884-1914 Sources and research on the South Seas. Series B. Research 3. Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 2007. S. 74 / S. 75 ISBN 3-447-05578-2