Settlement history of German-speaking immigrants in New Zealand

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The settlement history of German-speaking immigrants in New Zealand begins in 1836/37, when the German-born whaler George Hempleman settled in Peraki Bay , in the southern part of the Banks Peninsula , as the first German-speaking settler.

introduction

In the first half of the 19th century, the population in Europe grew by an average of 43%, in the second half of the century the increase was already 50%. The countries of Europe were affected in various ways by this development, which in some cases caused major social problems. While the population in Germany and Austria simply doubled in the 19th century , it quadrupled in Great Britain over the same period. The social and political tensions of this time were the reason for emigrations overseas, the majority of which took place in the United States , Argentina , South Africa , but also in the south of Australia and only to a lesser extent in New Zealand. In relation to emigration to New Zealand, the British New Zealand Company played an important, if not laudable, role here.

In the 19th century, German immigrants to New Zealand were by far the second largest immigrant group behind the British , whereas immigrants from Austria and German-speaking Switzerland only occurred sporadically. At that time Austria's interest in New Zealand was more in exploring the islands than in colonization. The Novara expedition with its stay from December 22, 1858 to January 8, 1859 in Auckland in New Zealand was the most important expedition of its kind for the Alpine country.

Immigration from Germany

Evidently the first settler of German origin was George Hempleman. He set up a whaling station in Peraki Bay in 1836, and one year later he and his wife settled in the bay. He was followed four years later by a small group of Germans who settled with French emigrants in Akaroa on the Banks Peninsula . Small mission stations that were opened by German missionaries came into being on Ruapuke Island , in the Foveaux Strait , on the Chathamineln , in Warea , in the Taranaki region and in the town of Port Chalmers . However, the main times of German immigration to New Zealand took place in the 19th century

instead of.

By 1867, the number of immigrants of German descent had grown to 2,838. In 1886 there were already more than 5,000 who moved to the New Zealand islands in the South Pacific . But their share of immigrants in New Zealand was never more than 1.3% overall. Most of them came from the Protestant north, such as the Kingdom of Prussia , the Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin , the Prussian province of Hanover and the Polish territories annexed by Prussia. But there were also isolated immigrants or small groups of immigrants from the Rhineland and what was then the Kingdom of Bavaria .

By the beginning of the 20th century, the number of German immigrants in New Zealand had grown to over 10,000, but when Germany entered the First World War and Great Britain declared war on Germany on August 4, 1914, the Germans living in New Zealand were also viewed as enemies, and many interned by them on Somes Island and Motuihe Island . As a result, immigration came to an abrupt halt. During the Second World War , a few Germans came who had to get to safety from Nazi Germany . Most of them were people of the Jewish faith, artists and academics who had to fear for their lives in Germany.

Immigration from Germany only increased noticeably again in the 1970s and reached its peak in the 1990s. In the early 2000s, German immigrants again represented the largest group of newly arriving immigrants from the European continent for the first time. The 2006 census showed 10,761 New Zealand citizens born in Germany, although it is now estimated that more than 200,000 New Zealanders have German ancestors.

Immigration from Austria

The number of New Zealanders who were assigned to Austrian nationality in the 19th century rose only slightly from 257 in 1874 to 1,874 by the turn of the century. Bohemian settlers came to New Zealand from Bohemia, which was then part of Austria, between 1863 and 1872 and settled around Puhoi . In the 1870s, settlers came from Moravia and settled in the Oxford area in the Waimakariri District . At the end of the 19th century, more and more young people came from what was then the crown land of Dalmatia . Still belonging to Austria, the emigrants from Dalmatia tried to evade military service. They settled north of Kaipara Harbor and worked there on the plantations where the raw material for rubber was extracted. Their main settlement was Dargaville . In 2006, the census showed 1,338 people born in Austria in its statistics.

Immigration from Switzerland

In 1874, when the first census was carried out in New Zealand, 183 people said they were born in Switzerland. In the 1901 census it was slightly more at 333 people. The first Swiss to stay in New Zealand were prospectors and adventurers. Later, the area around Mount Taranaki was a settlement focus for Swiss citizens. Felix Hunger , who was the first Swiss settler in Taranaki in 1870 and four years later was able to convince other Swiss people to come to New Zealand and settle in the Taranaki region, played a major role in this . Most of them settled in Normanby and Kaponga , a small place that is still called the " Swiss center of New Zealand " today . In 1916 half of New Zealand's Swiss settlers lived in the South Taranaki District . The 2006 census showed 3,012 Swiss citizens for the whole of New Zealand.

German plan to colonize the Chatham islands

The first attempt to settle German settlers in New Zealand through a settlement project was the attempt to colonize the Chatham Islands . On September 12, 1841, the Hamburg Senate Syndicus Karl Sieveking signed a contract with the New Zealand Company to acquire the Chatham Islands . Sieveking was a representative of a group of Hamburg merchants who wanted to turn the islands into a German colony. They founded the German Colonization Society specifically for the project . John Nicholas Beit was the representative of the New Zealand Company in Hamburg, who tried everything to implement the settlement project with the Hamburg residents and created a 71-page pamphlet especially for it. But the plan failed. On April 4, 1842, the islands were annexed by the British Crown by means of a royal letters patent, thus preventing the New Zealand Company from selling them to Hamburg merchants.

St. Pauli expedition

After the Chatham Island project failed, Beit tried to get Germans willing to settle in Nelson . Beit and De Chapeaurouge & Co , a company of the Hanseatic Chapeaurouge family , came to an agreement and chartered the Bark St. Pauli to bring almost 120 settlers with their children, mainly from Northern Germany and Lutheran faith, to New Zealand. With the arrival in Nelson on June 14, 1843 , however, it became apparent that the promised land was not available. Arthur Wakefield , the representative of the New Zealand Company in Nelson , defused the settlers' conflict with Beit by giving them land in the Moutere Valley , a good 20 km west of Nelson . There the settlers founded the Schachtstal settlements , named in honor of the captain of the St. Pauli, and St. Paulidorf , named after the ship of the settlers. But the settlements were too often hit by floods, so that in October 1844 the settlements were finally given up again. Some families settled in Nelson and Waimae Valley and others immigrated to Adelaide , Australia . The missionaries who traveled with them, Riemenschneider , Wohlers , Heine and Trost , also left the area by the end of the year at the latest.

Skjold expedition

Hiding the unsuccessful settlement of the first group of settlers, the New Zealand Company tried to start a new settlement expedition to Nelson with the Schleswig-Holstein investor Kuno zu Rantzau-Breitenburg . But even before a ship could set sail, it became known that the New Zealand Company was in financial difficulties and Kuno zu Rantzau-Breitenburg could only implement the settlement project at his own risk. He did this, hired the Kelling brothers (see below) and Johann Benoit as representatives of the expedition and on April 21, 1844 sent a good 140 people willing to settle with the Skiold , a Danish barque, under the command of Captain C. Claussen. Arrived in Nelson on September 1, 1844 , the settlers founded the settlements of Ranzau , Sarau , Rosental and Neudorf and thus revitalized the German settlement west of Nelson . Attracted by their success, many of the "early" settlers who had emigrated to Adelaide returned in the 1870s and strengthened the new settlements. Due to the rising German hostility during the First World War, the German place names were officially eliminated and the places Ranzau renamed Hope , Sarau into Upper Moutere and Rosental into Rosedale .

Bohemian settlers in Puhoi

On March 12, 1863, the first of four ships with Bohemian settlers was sent on the voyage to New Zealand. The initiator of the settlement project was Martin Krippner , a Bohemian son of a blacksmith who had emigrated to New Zealand with his wife in 1860. Krippner, who had been in good contact with Governor George Edward Gray , recognized the problems of the still young colony in getting reliable workers and arranged the settlement with his brother, who was still living in Bohemia, with land promises from the then Provincial Council of Auckland. The first ship, the War Spirit under Captain Lückes, reached Auckland on June 27, 1863 with 83 passengers. The settlers, who came from different parts of Bohemia, established their settlement in Puhoi . The hilly bushland, which the Provincial Council had granted them under the Waste Land Act , was about 40 km north of Auckland and was extremely difficult to work with. Survival could only be ensured there with the support of the local Māori . In 1866 reinforcements came with the Liverpool and two more groups of settlers were to follow in 1872 with the Queen Bee and in 1876 with the Shakespeare . At the beginning of the 1880s, the settlement could be considered complete. The connection to the telephone network in 1887 rounded off the convenience for that time. The place Puhoi has not lost the signs of its Bohemian origin to this day. The Bohemian settlement was also spared from the wave of internments against New Zealanders of German origin during the First World War.

German emigrants

19th century

Year of emigration

20th century

Austrian emigrants

19th century

  • 1860 - Martin Krippner (1817–1894), soldier, founder of Puhoi , postmaster and teacher

20th century

Year of emigration

Swiss emigrants

19th century

Year of emigration

  • 1870 - Felix Hunger (1837? –1918), prospector, blacksmith, farmer and settler

literature

  • James N. Bade et al. a .: The German Connection - New Zealand and the German-speaking Europe in the Nineteenth Century . Ed .: James N. Bade. Oxford University Press , Auckland 1993, ISBN 0-19-558283-7 (English).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ PL Berry : Germans in New Zealand - 1840 to 1870 . Ed .: University of Canterbury . Christchurch 1964 (English, (online) (PDF; 7.3 MB) [accessed August 19, 2011] A work degree of Master of Arts in History in the University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand.).
  2. ↑ Klaus J. Bade: Europe in Motion - Migration from the late 18th century to the present . CH Beck, Munich 2000, ISBN 3-406-46720-2 , p. 64-65 .
  3. ^ Karl Scherzer: Narrative of the Circumnavigation of the Globe by the Austrian Frigate Novara . Ed .: Sounders, Otley and Co. Band 3 . London 1863, p. 93 ff . (English).
  4. ^ Georg Hempleman: The Piraki Log . Mana-Verlag, Berlin 2003 (English).
  5. ↑ a b Marian Minson: Trends in German Immigration to New Zealand . In: James N. Bade (Ed.): The German Connection - New Zealand and the German-speaking Europe in the Nineteenth Century . Chapter 4. Oxford University Press, Auckland 1993, ISBN 0-19-558283-7 , pp. 40-45 (English).
  6. ↑ a b James N. Bade: Germans - First arrivals . Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand , accessed August 19, 2011 .
  7. ↑ James N. Bade: Germans - Immigration after 1914 . Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand , accessed August 19, 2011 .
  8. ↑ James N. Bade: Germans - Facts and figures . Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand , accessed August 19, 2011 .
  9. ^ Gertraud Maria Stoffel: The Austrian Connection with New Zealand in the Nineteenth Century . In: James N. Bade (Ed.): The German Connection - New Zealand and the German-speaking Europe in the Nineteenth Century . Chapter 3 . Oxford University Press , Auckland 1993, pp. 21-34 (English).
  10. ^ John Wilson : Central and South-eastern Europeans - Facts and figures . Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand , accessed August 19, 2011 .
  11. ^ Hans-Peter Stoffel: Swiss Settlers in New Zealand . In: James N. Bade (Ed.): The German Connection - New Zealand and the German-speaking Europe in the Nineteenth Century . Chapter 11 . Oxford University Press , Auckland 1993, pp. 88-98 (English).
  12. ↑ Helen Baumer : Swiss Settlements - First immigrants . Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand , accessed August 19, 2011 .
  13. ^ Ron Lambert : Taranaki Region - Pākehā settlement . Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand , accessed August 19, 2011 .
  14. ↑ Helen Baumer : Swiss - Facts and figures . Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand , accessed August 19, 2011 .
  15. ^ English Extracts - Settlement of the Chatham Islands . In: Samuel Revans (Ed.): New Zealand Gazette and Wellington Spectator . Volume III, Issue 139 . Wellington May 7, 1842, p.  2 (English, online [accessed August 19, 2011]).
  16. ↑ John Nicholas Beit : Emigration and Colonization - with special regard to the establishment of their first Colony on the Chatham Islands intended by the German Colonization Society - together with the latest chart of the same and a view of the Waitangui Bay - with an appendix containing the development of the Wakefield system, the New Zealand Company's balances, and a scheme of necessary diets for emigrants . Ed .: Perthes-Besser and Mauke. Hamburg 1842 (71-page pamphlet).
  17. ↑ a b James N. Bade: The Nelson German Settlements . In: James N. Bade (Ed.): The German Connection - New Zealand and the German-speaking Europe in the Nineteenth Century . Chapter 6 . Oxford University Press , Auckland 1993, pp. 52-59 (English).
  18. ^ Nancy Swarbrick : Martin Krippner (1817-1894). In: Dictionary of New Zealand Biography . Ministry for Culture & Heritage , accessed August 22, 2011 .
  19. ^ Judith Williams : Puhoi, the Bohemian Settlement . In: James N. Bade (Ed.): The German Connection - New Zealand and the German-speaking Europe in the Nineteenth Century . Chapter 8 . Oxford University Press , Auckland 1993, pp.  65-72 (English).