Spieker, Johannes, Mein Tagebuch: Erfahrungen eines deutschen Missionars in Deutsch-Südwestafrika 1905-1907 (Berlin, Germany: Simon-Verl. für Bibliothekswissen, 2013);
Steenken, Helmuth, Kult Sammlung Stammeskunst, www.kult-sammlung-stammeskunst.de;
Tonchi, Victor and others, Historical Dictionary of Namibia (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2012);
Unknown, Koloniales Hand- und Adreßbuch 1926-1927 (Berlin: Verlag Kolonialkriegerdank E.V., 1926);
Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, www.wikipedia.org;
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Front cover photograph Namibia, with thanks to Simon Murgatroyd.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/nomissimon/
Front cover image: plaque showing the German imperial arms; an inscription on the reverse states that it hung in the Post Office at Lüderitzbucht until it was taken as a souvenir by Major F. A. Jones of the First South African Infantry Brigade in October 1915.
Rear cover image: Eugen Mansfeld in his sitting room at Spitzkopje, c1901.
Translation copyright © Jeppestown Press 2017
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[1] Now known as Děčín, in the Czech Republic
[2] Hermann Malcomess (1848-1921). Malcomess was a German migrant and served as German consul in East London. The engineering firm he founded still exists.
[3] Near Queenstown in the Eastern Cape
[4] Cape Cross was the site of a stone cross erected by the fifteenth century navigator Diego Câo, and was noted for its huge deposits of guano.
[5] Walter Matthews (d.1899), the itinerant explorer who first discovered and exploited the Cape Cross guano deposits.
[6] John James Cleverly (1856-1906).
[7] Joseph Sichel (1856-1921).
[8] A Namibian ethnic group of mixed African and European heritage.
[9] A derogatory name for the Khoekhoe people of southern Africa.
[10] Wörmann was a major German shipping line operating between Hamburg and German colonies in Africa.
[11] DKG, the German Colonial Society for Southwest Africa—this colonial exploration company held a monopoly on most mineral rights in the region.
[12] Dr Max Rhode.
[13] Carl Schlettwein (1866-1940), a leading representative of the settler community.
[14] Probably Edward Sabatta (1854-1917), who is buried at Karibib Cemetery.
[15] This is most likely Hugo von François, who was a junior officer in German South-West Africa.
[16] King Cornelius Goreseb (1844-1910) of Okombahe, who was installed as a Damara chief by the German administration in 1894.
[17] The oral history of the Gorasen royal house identifies Mansfeld’s housekeeper as Christina |Gamiros Goreses, sister of Cornelius Goreseb. She is said to have walked 80km from Spitzkoppe to Okombahe when she realised that the mad German at Spitzkoppe killed black people and cooked their heads.
[18] Mansfeld used the name Lüderitzbucht, which strictly speaking refers only to Angra Pequena bay, to refer to the town known as Lüderitz.
[19] Hermann Ritter (b. 1873).
[20] Rudolf von Bennigsen (1859-1912).
[21] Teplice, a spa town in the Czech Republic
[22] Adolf and Henriette Diekmann and their baby son are buried at the Rhenish Cemetery in Gross Barmen.
[23] Wilhelm Rickmann (b. 1869). Rickmann came to Namibia as a government veterinary officer in 1898 and was decorated for his work to combat rinderpest. He retired due to ill-health in 1907 and returned to Germany.
[24] Oberleutnant Ralf Zürn
[25] Theodor Kurt Hartwig von Zülow
[26] This was probably the Railway Hotel, whose proprietor was Fritz Gelhar.
[27] Chief of the Herero people of Okahandja, and leader of the Herero Rebellion. Following the end of the conflict he went to Bechuanaland (now Botswana) where he died in 1923. He is a Namibian national hero.
[28] Victor Franke (1865-1936). Franke was the last commander of the Schutztruppe in German South-West Africa, surrendering to South African troops in 1915.
[29] Leutnant der Reserve Raimund Boysen, who had settled in the colony with his parents. The other dead soldiers were Ünteroffizier Päch, Gefreiters August Rudolph and Josef Zülot, and Reiter Wilhelm Gerwinsky.
[30] Probably Claude Wecke, who was the son of Fredrick Christian Wecke, one of the founders of the Namibian department store Wecke & Voigts. Claude Wecke was almost eleven years old.
[31] Ralf Zürn was the Distriktschef in Okahandja. Samuel Maherero specifically named him as the main instigator of the conflict between the settlers and Hereros.
[32] Franz Georg von Glasenapp (1857-1914), later commander in chief of the German colonial forces.
[33] Hans Gygas (1872-1963); the First Officer of Habicht, which had put in for repairs at Cape Town. When the rebellion began, the ship was ordered to Swakopmund and Gygas put in charge of a force to help fight the Herero. Gygas saw active service in the First World War and retired in 1919 with the rank of Konteradmiral.
[34] Probably Oberleutnant Paschen of the Marine Infantry.
[35] The 8.08mm bullet fired by the Gewehr 88 German army rifle.
[36] Probably Otto Rosenthal, whose grave at Gross Barmen states that he was killed on 12 January 1904.
[37] Probably Karl Dürr, who was the commander of the marine units sent from Germany.
[38] Wilhelm Rümann (1881-1946). After a career in the German Navy in which he rose to the rank of Konteradmiral, Rümann joined the Nazi Party, becoming a SS-Oberführer and serving on Himmler’s staff.
[39] Harry Puder (1862-1933). Puder spent much of his army career in the German colonies, with service in German East Africa, German South-West Africa and German Cameroon.
[40] Otto Dempwolff (1871-1938). After the Herero War, Dempwolff’s field of professional interest shifted from medicine to linguistics. In 1918 he became professor at the University of Hamburg, where he was head of the Department of Indonesian and South Pacific languages.
[41] Unteroffizier Andr. Waleciak, Albert Saar and Hermann Zöllner, and Reiter Emil Mykitta are buried at the cemetery in Gross Barmen.
[42] The brothers Hans and Herman Lange, who were killed on 12 January 1904 and are buried on the farm Klein-Barmen.
[43] i.e. the British South African colonies
[44] Probably Hans Kaufmann (1878-1914) who later served as a deputy district commissioner in the Caprivi Strip. Kaufmann was killed in the first weeks of the First World War during the Battle of Tannenberg in East Prussia.
[45] A German impo
rt-export company based in Hamburg.
[46] Mansfeld was thirty-five years old.
[47] David Radford, a sailor who settled in Namibia in 1862.
[48] Robert Blank (1869-?). Farmer and member of the Legislative Assembly.
[49] Now Daniel Tjongarero Street
[50] The discoverer was a Coloured labourer named Zacharias Lewala, who was shovelling sand when he spotted a crystal; he had worked in Kimberley and immediately recognised it as a diamond.
[51] August Stauch (1878-1947). Stauch was a railway worker, the supervisor of Zacharias Lewala. Stauch became a millionaire, but was forced into bankruptcy following the collapse of his investments after the First World War.
[52] The Diamanten-Regie-Gesellschaft Des Südwestafrikanischen Schutzgebiets, founded in Berlin in 1909, which created a monopoly for diamond sales.
[53] Ernst Reuning (1881-1961). Later an associate professor at the University of Giessen, moving to South Africa in 1935. He was interned during the Second World War, and retired to Stellenbosch.
[54] Fritz Brenner, German pathologist (1877-1969)
[55] Louis Botha had been a Boer leader during the Anglo-Boer War, and became Prime Minister of South Africa in 1911.
[56] The Otavi Mining and Railway Company (Otavi Minen- und Eisenbahn Gesellschaft)
[57] Karl Wehle was a Bezirksamtmann serving in several districts in colonial Namibia.
[58] Hauptmann Baron Hiller von Gärtringen, was the German Bezirksamtmann (magistrate) of Rehoboth. All able-bodied Baster men were called up, in the face of fierce opposition from Baster leaders; this was mitigated somewhat by German assurances that Baster troops would only be used in non-combatant roles in the Rehoboth district, and the conscripts became increasingly displeased after they were moved outside the district.
[59] The inference is that the artilleryman was Jewish; in Nazi Germany Jews were forbidden to go horseback riding.
[60] On 19 October 1914, German troops crossed into Angola without authorisation from the Portuguese. The Portuguese escorted the column to Fort Naulila, a border post, where a dispute between the Portuguese and Germans ended in the death of three German officers. On 31 October German soldiers carried out a punitive raid on the Portuguese outpost at Cuangar, killing eight.
[61] The ‘Blue Max’, a Prussian military award with which Franke was honoured for his services during the Herero War.
[62] Oscar Scultetus (1879-1950).
[63] This is probably C. L. Hans Hundsdörfer (1883-1959) whose gravestone at Swakopmund shows that he was a Reserve Hauptmann during the First World War.
[64] Freiherr Leutnant Hans von Milkau died at Rehoboth 27 April 1916.
[65] This is probably Reserve Oberleutnant Carry Venuleth, who was tried after the war for condemning to death in a hastily-convened court an elderly Bushman couple whom one of his patrols had captured.
[66] Theodor Woker (1889-?), later the managing director of Wörmann Lines and mayor of Swakopmund.
[67] This refers to kilometre distance points on the railway line.
[68] A dairy farm just outside Nonidas.
[69] Probably Sgt Friedrich Adomeit (1887-1918) who died while a prisoner of war and is buried at the cemetery at Aus near Karas.
[70] Probably Heinrich Freiherr von Könitz.
[71] Georg Trainer; an artillery officer, he was present at the Naulila incident on the Angolan border in 1914.
[72] Wilhelm von Watter (1880-1915), a German nobleman who died from wounds sustained at Trekkopje.
[73] Dr Gustav Ohlenschlager (1867-1915), who was in civilian life a lawyer from Omaruru and mayor of Swakopmund.
[74] Hans von Weiher (1885-1915), killed that day and buried in Swakopmund.
[75] Hans Bauszus (1871-1955). An enthusiastic Nazi, he became an SS-Brigadeführer in the 1930s.
[76] The Austrian pilot Paul Fiedler (1884-1955) crashed his Roland biplane on 17 April 1915. He returned to South-West Africa after the war to manage a farm.
[77] Erich von Loßnitzer (1886-1942) became one of the leaders of the Nazi party in South-West Africa in the 1930s before being deported to Germany.
[78] Görgens was district officer for Omaruru and director of surveys of German South-West Africa.
[79] Frans Hümann succeeded Görgens as director of surveys of German South-West Africa in 1912.
[80] Alexander von Scheele (1894-1942), German military aviation pioneer.
[81] Okaputa is still owned by the Erpf family.
[82] Probably Dr . W. Gumprecht, who was a lawyer in Swakopmund.
[83] Still owned by the Schneider family, now part of the Waterberg conservancy.
[84] Richard Graf zu Bentheim-Tecklenburg-Rheda (1840-1921), a German nobleman who retired to South-West Africa after a career in the East Indies.
[85] Probably Joachim von Prittwitz (1876-1952), whose son was later mayor of Swakopmund.
[86] Probably Ernst Hecht.
[87] W. Märtins had a restaurant at Nonidas and may have provided refreshments at other railway stations near Swakopund.
[88] The hotel that Rösemann built is still standing in Karibib.
[89] Schulze ran an advertising bureau.
[90] On this day the German cabinet resigned en masse over whether or not to accept the terms of the Treaty of Versailles.
[91] Erich Lübbert (1883-1963).
[92] i.e. the Sperrgebiet.
[93] Consolidated Diamond Mines of South-West Africa.
[94] Perhaps the wife of Arno Weitzenberg, a former Schutztruppe officer who farmed ostriches near Swakopmund.
[95] Alfred August Hoheisen (1878-1965), prominent colonial building contractor, responsible for the Wolmarans Street synagogue in Johannesburg and Groote Schuur Medical School in Cape Town.
The Autobiography of Eugen Mansfeld Page 15