Werner Munzinger

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Johann Albert Werner Munzinger (born April 21, 1832 in Olten , Switzerland ; † November 16, 1875 near Awsa , Ethiopia ) was a Swiss explorer of Africa .

Werner Munzinger (1832–1875) painted by Franz Buchser (1852)
Werner Munzinger, 1852
Werner Munzinger

Origin and education

Werner Munzinger was the son of Federal Councilor Josef Munzinger and brother of canon lawyer Walther Munzinger . Werner Munzinger studied natural sciences and history at the University of Bern , later Oriental studies at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich and at the Sorbonne in Paris . In 1852 he went to Cairo to continue his oriental studies . Ultimately, he is said to have spoken 25 languages.

family

During his stay in Keren in 1855 he married Nafa, a local, and adopted her son Kifle (later Kifle Bey).

Africa

First ventures

In 1853 he entered a French trading house in Alexandria . He was sent to the Red Sea in 1854 as head of a trade expedition . He spent a year in Massaua , today: Eritrea . From there he moved to Keren , where he also met his wife, a member of the Bilen . He used the time for geographical and ethnological studies.

Heuglin expedition

In 1859 he published the book On the Morals and Law of the Bogos , which identified him as a connoisseur of the country. He then became a member of the German expedition under Theodor von Heuglin , which was supposed to search for the missing Africa explorer Eduard Vogel in Inner Africa . On July 1, 1861, he met the expedition in Massaua, but separated from it on November 11 in northern Ethiopia . He traveled with Gottlob Kinzelbach to the land of Bases, which had never been entered by Europeans before, and reached Khartoum on March 1, 1862 . Appointed leader of the expedition in his place of Heuglin, Munzinger then went to Kurdufan , but could not reach Darfur and Wadai . He returned to Europe via Massaua. Here he wrote his travel books East African Studies and The German Expedition in East Africa as well as a Vocabulaire de la langue Tigré .

Second stay in Africa

From 1864 Munzinger stayed again in the port city of Massaua, which then belonged to the Ottoman Empire , initially as a representative of the trading house Kohler, Nägeli & Cie. From October 1865 he was acting as a representative for the British consulate , and shortly afterwards also the French one . He took part in the British Ethiopia expedition of 1868 against the Neguse Negest Tewodros II . After the withdrawal of the British troops in June 1868, Munzinger stayed in Massaua, where he continued to administer the French consulate and was formally appointed vice consul. In 1870 he traveled to the south-eastern coastal countries of the Arabian Peninsula .

In Egyptian service

At the end of 1871 Munzinger entered Egyptian service and succeeded Samuel Baker as governor of Massaua with the title of Bey . In April 1872 he also took over the governorship of Suakin and was awarded the Pasha title. On October 30, 1873 Munzinger were transferred to other governorships and these were combined to form a major province of the Red Sea and eastern Sudan , of which he became Governor General. The area of ​​this province extended roughly along the Red Sea coast from Sawakin to Berbera and inland to Berber and Kassala . In 1875 Zayla was added. In this capacity he expanded the port, which was to serve as the basis for the further conquest of the country by Egypt. For himself, he expanded the residence of the highest Ottoman administrative officials in Massaua, which later became the Imperial Palace of Massaua . He also built a water supply for Massaua and the two dams that connect the two islands off the mainland on which the city is located, Massaua and Taulud , to the mainland. As an Egyptian representative he took part in the World Exhibition in Vienna in 1873 .

Munzinger Pascha acquired large estates inland and in 1872 also conquered his former residence, Keren, for Egypt. At the end of October 1875 Munzinger, together with the Swiss Gustav Adolf Haggenmacher, embarked on a settler and military expedition to the independent Ethiopian kingdom of Shewa , where Munzinger - contrary to Egyptian orders - planned to enter the service of King Menelik, the future emperor Menelik II of Abyssinia. This expedition also had the Egyptian order to formally annex the Afar Sultanate of Awsa , which was on the way . The Sultan, who had found out about it, then ordered the expedition to be destroyed. There was a battle near Awsa on November 14th, in which Werner Munzinger was seriously wounded. He died two days later. His wife was also killed.

Works

Monographs

  • About the customs and law of the Bogos . Winterthur 1859.
  • East African Studies . Schaffhausen 1864.
  • The German expedition in East Africa . Gotha 1865.
  • Vocabulaire de la langue Tigré . Leipzig 1865.

Essays

  • The island town of Massua in Rothen Meer . In: Das Auslands 37 (1864), pp. 1079f.
  • The northern continuation of the Abyssinian highlands; new research in the areas of Beni-Amer and Habab . In: Petermanns Geographische Mitteilungen 18 (1872), pp. 201-206.
  • The north-eastern border countries of Habesch . In: Journal for general geography 3 (1857), pp. 177–205.
  • The Schohos and the Beduan at Massaua . In: Journal for General Geography 10 (1859), pp. 89–110.
  • A hunting trip from Keren in the land of the Bogos to the Zad'amba mountain on the upper course of the Barka River . In: Journal of the Society for Geography in Berlin 8 (1860), pp. 141–151.
  • Letter . In: Petermanns Geographische Mitteilungen 19 (1873), pp. 35f.
  • Mixed notes from Munzinger's East African Studies . In: Das Auslands 37 (1864), pp. 1150f.

literature

Literary reception

Alex Capus : Munzinger Pascha . Novel. Diogenes Verlag, Zurich 1997; Revised new edition: dtv, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-423-13076-8

Web links

Commons : Werner Munzinger  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Dictionary of the Tigrè
  2. ↑ Divergent information on the times of this in: Dan Connell.
personal data
SURNAME Munzinger, Werner
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss African explorer
DATE OF BIRTH April 21, 1832
PLACE OF BIRTH Olten
DATE OF DEATH November 16, 1875
Place of death near Awsa , Ethiopia