Wilhelm Eich (missionary)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Friedrich Wilhelm Eich (born September 15, 1850 in Dierdorf , Neuwied district , Westphalia , † April 23, 1935 in Swakopmund ) was a German missionary and President of the Rhenish Mission Society in German South West Africa , today's Namibia . He was married to Emilie Jakobine Mohn (April 13, 1854 - November 26, 1924) and had five children.

Life

After completing a commercial apprenticeship in Freudenberg / Sieg , Eich became an employee of the Barmer Missions-Handelsgesellschaft. In 1871 he went to South West Africa, in 1877 he returned to Germany and entered the Barmer missionary seminar. He received his ordination on August 10, 1881. In 1883 Eich went again to South West Africa to the Otjiseva mission station near Windhoek , founded in 1883 by his older brother, the missionary Friedrich Eich . After his illness Wilhelm Eich took over this station in 1894. Soon afterwards the community moved to Osona, Eich lived in Okahandja . From 1889 to 1891 he represented the missionary Johann Jakob Irle at the Otjosazu station, and from 1891 to 1904 he took over the Otjozondjupa mission station as the successor to Heinrich Beiderbecke . When a post office was set up there on October 21, 1899, Eich was renamed its first administrator, the Otjozondjupa station in Waterberg .

Eich complained about the fault of the Herero after the rinderpest of 1897:
Debt has taken on worrying proportions in recent years: "If you don't want to give up credit, you can't sell anything," a trader recently told me. A few months ago I heard that the two local traders, one for 20,000 and the other for 15,000 Marks, had given credit in about 5 months and that a traveling trader in Otjenga was hiding goods for 1,500 Marks to very poor people on one day. Dependent people buy on account of their masters, and children on account of their parents, which gives rise to much quarrel and unrest.

On October 27, 1902, Eich reported that a local trader suddenly demanded the debts of the 250 existing debtors in the amount of 18,000 marks.

In a pastoral letter to the Herero communities, the mission society, concerned about the existence of the Herero people, tried to warn them of the consequences of indebtedness.

From 1904 to 1910 Eich was President of the Herero Mission. In Okahandja he founded an orphanage for mixed race children. In 1910 Wilhelm Eich ran the Swakopmund mission station. Between 1919 and 1925 he was again President of the Herero Mission, and in 1927 he retired.

Works

literature

  • Nikolai Mossolow: Waterberg. Contribution to the history of the mission station Otjozondjupa, the Kambazembi tribe and the Hereroland. , Windhoek, 1976, ISBN 0-620-05473-5 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Nikolai Mossolow: Waterberg. Contribution to the history of the mission station Otjozondjupa, the Kambazembi tribe and the Hereroland. Windhoek, page 24
  2. ^ Nikolai Mossolow: Waterberg. Contribution to the history of the mission station Otjozondjupa, the Kambazembi tribe and the Hereroland. Windhoek, page 24
personal data
SURNAME Eich, Wilhelm
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Eich, Friedrich Wilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German missionary in German South West Africa
DATE OF BIRTH September 15, 1850
PLACE OF BIRTH Dierdorf , Neuwied district , Westphalia
DATE OF DEATH April 23, 1935
Place of death Swakopmund