German Samoa was a German protectorate from 1900 to 1920, consisting of the islands of Upolu, Savai'i, Apolima and Manono, now wholly within the Independent State of Samoa, formerly Western Samoa. Samoa was the last German colonial acquisition in the Pacific basin, received following the Tripartite Convention signed at Washington on 2 December 1899 with ratifications exchanged on 16 February 1900. It was the only German colony in the Pacific, aside from the Jiaozhou Bay Leased Territory in China, that was administered separately from German New Guinea.
Rabaul is a township in the East New Britain province of Papua New Guinea, on the island of New Britain. It lies about 600 kilometres to the east of the island of New Guinea. Rabaul was the provincial capital and most important settlement in the province until it was destroyed in 1994 by falling ash from a volcanic eruption in its harbor. During the eruption, ash was sent thousands of metres into the air, and the subsequent rain of ash caused 80% of the buildings in Rabaul to collapse. After the eruption the capital was moved to Kokopo, about 20 kilometres (12 mi) away. Rabaul is continually threatened by volcanic activity, because it is on the edge of the Rabaul caldera, a flooded caldera of a large pyroclastic shield.
German New Guinea consisted of the northeastern part of the island of New Guinea and several nearby island groups and was the first part of the German colonial empire. The mainland part of the territory, called Kaiser-Wilhelmsland, became a German protectorate in 1884. Other island groups were added subsequently. The Bismarck Archipelago, and the North Solomon Islands were declared a German protectorate in 1885. The Caroline Islands, Palau, and the Mariana Islands were bought from Spain in 1899. German New Guinea annexed the formerly separate German Protectorate of Marshall Islands, which also included Nauru, in 1906. German Samoa, though part of the German colonial empire, was not part of German New Guinea.
The German colonial empire constituted the overseas colonies, dependencies, and territories of the German Empire. Unified in 1871, the chancellor of this time period was Otto von Bismarck. Short-lived attempts at colonization by individual German states had occurred in preceding centuries, but Bismarck resisted pressure to construct a colonial empire until the Scramble for Africa in 1884. Claiming much of the remaining uncolonized areas of Africa, Germany built the third-largest colonial empire at the time, after the British and French. The German colonial empire encompassed parts of several African countries, including parts of present-day Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Namibia, Cameroon, Gabon, Congo, Central African Republic, Chad, Nigeria, Togo, Ghana, as well as northeastern New Guinea, Samoa and numerous Micronesian islands.
Wilhelm Heinrich Solf was a German scholar, diplomat, jurist and statesman.
Morobe Province is a province on the northern coast of Papua New Guinea. The provincial capital and largest city is Lae. The province covers 33,705 km2, with a population of 674,810, and since the division of Southern Highlands Province in May 2012 it is the most populous province. It includes the Huon Peninsula, the Markham River, and delta, and coastal territories along the Huon Gulf. The province has nine administrative districts. At least 101 languages are spoken, including Kâte and Yabem language. English and Tok Pisin are common languages in the urban areas, and in some areas pidgin forms of German are mixed with the native language.
The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Papua New Guinea is a Protestant church denomination located in Papua New Guinea that professes the Lutheran branch of the Christian faith. The Church is incorporated by a 1991 Act of the Parliament of Papua New Guinea and it has a baptized membership of approximately 900,000 members.
The Tolai are the indigenous people of the Gazelle Peninsula and the Duke of York Islands of East New Britain in the New Guinea Islands region of Papua New Guinea. They are ethnically close kin to the peoples of adjacent New Ireland and tribes like the Tanga people and are thought to have migrated to the Gazelle Peninsula in relatively recent times, displacing the Baining people who were driven westwards.
The Territory of New Guinea was an Australian-administered League of Nations and then United Nations trust territory on the island of New Guinea from 1914 until 1975. In 1949, the Territory and the Territory of Papua were established in an administrative union by the name of the Territory of Papua and New Guinea. That administrative union was renamed as Papua New Guinea in 1971. Notwithstanding that it was part of an administrative union, the Territory of New Guinea at all times retained a distinct legal status and identity until the advent of the Independent State of Papua New Guinea.
Bezirksamtmann is a German administrative title of gubernatorial or lower rank, roughly translating as equivalent to the British District Officer. It is derived from Bezirk ("district") + Amtmann ("official").
Jack Emanuel was an Australian colonial administrator who served as district commissioner in the East New Britain district of Papua New Guinea who was posthumously awarded the George Cross, the highest British award for bravery out of combat, for gallantry displayed between July 1969 and 19 August 1971. Emanuel served as a police officer and fireman in Australia before accepting a posting as patrol officer (kiap) to the Australian-administered United Nations trust territory of New Guinea, shortly after the Second World War. Emanuel was appointed acting district commissioner for East New Britain in 1969, and was confirmed in this role in 1971. He was well-respected as a local government official and noted for his willingness to negotiate resolutions to local disputes without police escort. Emanuel was trying to discuss a resolution to a land dispute between European settlers and the Tolai people in August 1971 when he was stabbed to death during negotiations. His killers were brought to trial and his death shocked the Tolai who largely abandoned the dispute.
The Battle of Bita Paka was fought south of Kabakaul, on the island of New Britain, and was a part of the invasion and subsequent occupation of German New Guinea by the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force (AN&MEF) shortly after the outbreak of the First World War. Similar to New Zealand's operation against German Samoa in August, the main target of the operation was a strategically important wireless station—one of several used by the German East Asia Squadron—which the Australians believed to be located in the area. The powerful German naval fleet threatened British interests and its elimination was an early priority of the British and Australian governments during the war.
Hermann Philipp Detzner was a German engineer and surveyor, who served as an officer in the German colonial security force (Schutztruppe) in Kamerun (Cameroon) and German New Guinea. He gained fame for evading capture after Australian troops invaded German New Guinea at the start of World War I.
Japanese settlement in the Territory of Papua and German New Guinea dates back to the early 20th century when migrants from Japan established copra plantations and trading businesses in the islands, specifically Rabaul. The Japanese community remained small throughout the first half of the 20th century, although there were Japanese migrating in and out of New Guinea in different years from 1901 to 1945, it generally never exceeded more than 100 as a whole community. Some Japanese stayed for short terms and were replaced by newer emigrants from Japan, others stayed for longer periods depending on their roles. Most Japanese in Papua were businessmen and plantation managers, although a few became fishermen. As almost all the migrants were men, many of them married local Papuan wives and raised mixed-race Japanese-Papuan families while other Japanese men staying only for short periods also had sexual cohabitations with local Papuan women, but in most cases without marrying. Many of them did produce offspring but they were generally abandoned by their Japanese fathers and raised by their single Papuan mothers or sent to the orphanage. These abandoned mixed-race children's were recorded as ethnic Papuans in the census as the ethnicity of their fathers was unknown.
Johann Karl Emil Eduard Haber was a German mining engineer, civil servant and diplomat, who served as the last Governor of German New Guinea.
Events in the year 1901 in Germany.
As the township of Lae, in Morobe Province, Papua New Guinea is a relatively new entity, the history of the Lae environs is much older.
Bruno Mencke was a wealthy German explorer and collector. Born in Braunschweig to Eberhard and Charlotte, he was famous for undertaking the First German South Sea Expedition at the age of 24. He fitted out his 300-ton steam yacht Eberhard—purchased from the Prince of Monaco—and sailed to German New Guinea, accompanied by naturalists and anthropologists including Oskar Heinroth, Paul Kothe, and Georg Duncker. After reaching Herbertshōhe, he brought on board a former German colonial official, Ludwig Caro, as a secretary.
Max von Grapow was a German navy Admiral and colonial officer who served in the German colonies in Melanesia, most notably New Guinea.
Rudolf von Bennigsen was a German colonial official. He was the governor of German New Guinea from 1 April 1899 to 10 July 1901.
