Paul Reichard

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Paul Reichard (born December 2, 1854 in Neuwied am Rhein , † buried September 19, 1938 ) was a German explorer of Africa .

Life

Reichard studied at the Polytechnic School in Munich, today's TU Munich, and was a member of the Corps Rheno-Palatia since 1873 . After graduating, he worked as an industrialist in Kaiserslautern and in 1880 joined an expedition of the "African Society in Germany" as a (volunteer) , which was equipped and prepared for the establishment of a scientific station in East Africa , including Kiswahili lessons with the widowed Sultan's sister Emily Ruete aka Salme binti Said belonged to. Reichard himself spent 50,000 marks on the expedition from his own resources as a "cost contribution". This expedition was headed by Captain von Schoeler, who however soon returned to Europe . The expedition also included the zoologist Richard Böhm and the topographer Emil Kaiser . In July 1880, the expedition participants began their journey into the interior of Bagamoyo . In November they founded the Kakoma station in what is now Tanzania (in Unjamwesi ) and stayed there for nine months. Then the station was moved to Igonda .

Research expeditions in Central Africa with the travel routes of Böhm, Kaiser and Reichard (map around 1890)

Emil Kaiser died in October 1882 on a research trip to Lake Rukwasee . In December Reichard and Böhm left Igonda and spent six months on Lake Tanganyika , partly in Karema and partly in Mpala, to explore the areas of the Congo west of Tanganyika . Reichard's expedition supported the construction of a Belgian colonial station in Mpala. Then they turned to the southwest, crossed the Luapula in October 1883 and discovered the Upemba lake in Katanga , where Boehm died on March 27, 1884 of a fever. After his death, Reichard discovered the copper deposit of Katanga, about 11 ° south latitude and between 26 ° and 27 ° east longitude . With many dangers in Msidi's empire , he fought his way east back to Lake Tanganyika, which he reached again on November 30, 1884. On the way back there was also fighting until he reached the coast of the Indian Ocean and after five years and seven months of absence he was back in Zanzibar.

Böhm and Reichard had made “land acquisitions” in the regions through which they came, according to the European understanding. Reichard therefore requested a German protectorate over parts of Katanga in February 1886 . The area west of Lake Tanganyika was awarded the so-called Congo Free State by the German government , so that no "Reich protection" was granted. He wrote numerous expedition reports in the "Messages of the African Society in Germany". After his return, Reichard lived temporarily in Nice and later in Berlin-Charlottenburg .

Paul Reichard died in 1938 at the age of 83 and was first buried in the Old St. Matthew Cemetery in Schöneberg . In the course of the leveling of the cemetery carried out by the National Socialists at that time, Reichard's remains were reburied in the south-west cemetery in Stahnsdorf near Berlin within a year . His grave there has been preserved.

His daughter may have been the actress Garda Irmen .

Publications

  • Report on a trip to Urua and Katanga . In: Globus. Zeitschrift für Länder- und Völkerkunde, 48 (1885), pp. 23–26.
  • Die Wanjanuesi , In: Zeitschrift für Erdkunde 24 (1889), pp. 246–331.
  • African ivory and its trade . In: Deutsche Geographische Blätter 12 (1889), pp. 132f.
  • What should happen to the freed slaves . In: Deutsche Kolonialzeitung 6 (1889), pp. 281f.
  • Proposals for practical travel equipment for East and Central Africa , Berlin 1889.
  • Dr. Emin Pasha. A pioneer of culture in the interior of Africa , Leipzig 1891.
  • German East Africa. The country and its people. Its political and economic development , Leipzig 1892: ND Bremen 2010.
  • Stanley , Berlin 1897. (= Geisteshelden Vol. 24)

Awards and prizes (selection)

literature

  • F. Karsch : About a new one from the African traveler Mr. Paul Reichard in East Africa discovered Harlequin crab spider (=  Berlin Entomological magazine . No. 30 ). 1886, p. 95-96 .
  • Heinrich Schnee : German Colonial Lexicon . tape III . Leipzig 1920, p. 146 (Reprint Wiesbaden 1996).
  • Reichard, Paul . In: Robert Volz (Ed.): Reichs Handbuch der Deutschen Gesellschaft . The handbook of personalities in words and pictures . tape 2 : L-Z. . Deutscher Wirtschaftsverlag, Berlin 1931, DNB  453960294 , p. 398 .
  • Heinz Kullnick: Berliner and Berliner by choice . People u. Personalities in Berlin from 1640–1914 . Berlin 1960, p. 429 .
  • Jutta Bückendorf: "Black-White-Red" about East Africa. German colonial plans and African reality . Münster 1997, p. 143-144 .
  • Conrad Weidmann : Reichard, Paul . In: Bernhard Nöhring (Ed.): German men in Africa - Lexicon of the most outstanding German Africa researchers, missionaries, etc. Lübeck 1894, p. 145 f .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Kösener Corpslisten 1960, 113 , 125
  2. ^ Reichard, Paul , in: Deutsches Kolonial-Lexikon. Volume III, p. 146.
  3. ^ Hans-Jürgen Mende: Lexicon of Berlin tombs . Haude & Spener, Berlin 2006. pp. 307, 476.
  4. ^ Ludwig Eisenberg : Large biographical lexicon of the German stage in the 19th century . List, Leipzig 1903, p. 465

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Reichard, Paul
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Africa explorer
DATE OF BIRTH December 2, 1854
PLACE OF BIRTH Neuwied on the Rhine
DATE OF DEATH buried September 19, 1938