Eduard Robert Flegel

Eduard Robert Flegel

Eduard Robert Flegel (born October 1 ^{. Jul} / 13. October  1852 ^greg. In Vilnius ; †  11. September 1886 in Brass , Nigeria ) was a German explorer and explorer .

biography

Overview map of Eduard Robert Flegel's travels in Haussa and Adamaua

From 1869 Flegel worked in a bookstore in Riga , attended the commercial school in Munich in 1872 and in the same year turned to Hamburg to work in a wholesaler for tobacco products . 1875 he took a position in a Faktorei the Hamburg trading house Gaiser and Witt in Lagos to (Nigeria).

In 1879 Flegel went on an expedition to the Cameroon Mountains. In July of this year he sailed on the English mission steamer Henry Venn the Benuë , where he came about 200 km further up than the most successful traveler to date William Balfour Baikie in 1854. His work was of great importance for the study of the river.

With the support of the German African Society, Flegel visited Nupe and Sokoto in 1880 in order to have the rulers there issue letters of recommendation for visiting the countries on the Benuë. In April 1881 he returned to Rabba . From there he made a land trip to Lako am Benu in November and, after a temporary return to the coast, reached Yola , the capital of Adamawa, on July 31, 1882 . On August 18, he finally discovered on Ngaundere the sources of Benue. In March 1883 he was back in Lagos.

A new voyage, on which he hoped to penetrate south to the Congo , took him a second time to the southern watershed of the Benuë, but could not continue deeper inland because of the outbreak of hostilities.

In mid-1884 Flegel returned to Europe, where he agitated for German trading branches in the Niger-Benuë area. In trade circles he found no understanding for the new requirements, but he did find the African Society and the German Colonial Association . Funds for a new venture were granted to him from the Reich Fund for African Research, and Kaiser Wilhelm I commissioned him to deliver gifts to the Caliph of Sokoto.

With the beginning of German colonial rule over Cameroon in 1884, Flegel placed himself in the service of German interests and sought to extend German sovereignty as far as possible into the interior. In April 1885 Flegel began his third trip to Africa, but the low water level of the Benuë prevented him from making rapid progress. Paul Staudinger led an independent expedition up the Niger in Flegel's place. But the English had already established themselves with the Royal Niger Company on the Niger and Benuë, so that neither Flegel nor Staudinger achieved any colonial-political results. On the way to Yola, Flegel was recalled to Europe in July 1886.

Eduard Robert Flegel died on September 11, 1886 on the coast in Brass .

Works (selection)

• Karl Flegel (Ed.): Letters from Africa . Leipzig (1890)
• Loose leaves from the diary of my Haussa friends . Hamburg (1885)

literature

• Friedrich Wilhelm Schaafhausen:  Flegel, Eduard Robert. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 5, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1961, ISBN 3-428-00186-9 , p. 229 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Conrad Weidmann : German men in Africa - Lexicon of the most outstanding German Africa researchers, missionaries, etc. Bernhard Nöhring, Lübeck 1894, p. 41 f. ( Online versions ).

Web links

• Flegel, Eduard Robert, in: Heinrich Schnee (Ed.): Deutsches Kolonial-Lexikon , Volume 1, Quelle & Meyer, Leipzig 1920, p. 640.