Tom from Prince

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Tom von Prince and his wife Magdalene with child, before 1908

Tom von Prince , born as Tom Prince (born January 9, 1866 in Port Louis , Mauritius ; † November 4, 1914 at Tanga , German East Africa ) was a German colonialist , plantation owner and officer in the protection force for German East Africa .

Live and act

Tom Prince was born in 1866 as the son of British police officer Thomas Henry Prince and a German mother, b. Ansorge, the daughter of a missionary, was born on the island of Mauritius . After the early death of his father, he traveled to Europe with his mother. He spent his youth in Liegnitz in what was then Silesia , where he attended the knight academy . In Liegnitz he also met his future wife, Magdalene von Massow .

In 1887 he joined the German Army and served in the Prussian Infantry Regiment No. 99 , which was stationed near Strasbourg . In 1889 he retired from the army as a lieutenant and in 1890 joined the so-called Wissmann troop , from which the protection force for German East Africa developed.

Prince's mansion at the Sakkarani plantation (Usambara, German East Africa)

In East Africa, Prince initially helped to put down the coastal rebellion . In the following years he commanded military expeditions to subjugate the Hehe . He persecuted their ruler, Chief Mkwawa , until he finally took his own life.

The Prince, suffering from tropical diseases, interrupted his service in Africa by several stays in Germany. On January 4, 1896, he married Magdalene von Massow in Militsch, who went to Africa with him. In 1896 he was promoted to the rank of captain . Prince also worked in the district authorities of German East Africa, including as government commissioner on Lake Nyassa and later in the Iringa region .

Around 1900 Prince left the protection force and colonial administration to settle as a landowner in East Africa. Together with his wife he founded a plantation near Sakkarani in the Usambara Mountains . In 1906 Prince was raised to the (Prussian) hereditary nobility . When the First World War broke out, Prince returned to active military service and commanded two European companies of the German protection force. He fell as commander of the 14th Company in the battle of Tanga in the fight against the British 2nd Loyal North Lancashire Regiment on November 4, 1914. He was buried in Tanga together with twelve other German officers.

Honor and memory

In 1906, Prince was raised to the Prussian hereditary nobility for his contribution to the establishment of the German East Africa colony.

The story of Prince's couple is part of the ZDF documentary Kopfjagd in East Africa from the series Das Weltreich der Deutschen (Germany, 2010).

Works

literature

  • Herbert Viktor Patera : The white man without fear - The life of the Schutztruppe Captain Tom von Prince . German publisher, Berlin 1939.
  • Hans Schmiedel: "Bwana Sakkarani - The Schutztruppe Captain Tom von Prince and his time" . Handwritten manuscript.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Keyword: Tom Prince. In: Deutsches Koloniallexikon (1920). Retrieved October 29, 2015 .
  2. ↑ Commemorative plaque in thong with the names of the fallen (including Tom von Prince) , picture collection of the German Colonial Society in the University Library in Frankfurt am Main

Web links

Commons : Sakkarani  - album with pictures, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Prince, Tom of
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Colonial officer in German East Africa
DATE OF BIRTH January 9, 1866
PLACE OF BIRTH Port Louis , Mauritius
DATE OF DEATH November 4, 1914
Place of death Tanga , German East Africa