German New Guinea
Encyclopedia
German New Guinea was the first part of the German colonial empire
. It was a protectorate
from 1884 until 1914 when it fell to Australia following the outbreak of the First World War. It consisted of the northeastern part of New Guinea
and several nearby island groups. The mainland part of German New Guinea and the nearby islands of the Bismarck Archipelago
are now part of Papua New Guinea
.
The main part of German New Guinea was formed by Kaiser-Wilhelmsland
, the northeastern part of New Guinea
. The islands to the east of Kaiser-Wilhelmsland, on annexation, were renamed the Bismarck Archipelago
(formerly the New Britannia Archipelago) and the two largest islands renamed Neu-Pommern (or New Pomerania
, today's New Britain
) and Neu-Mecklenburg (New Ireland).
With the exception of German Samoa
, the German islands in the Western Pacific
formed the 'Imperial German Pacific Protectorates'. These were administered as part of German New Guinea and they included the German Solomon Islands (Buka
, Bougainville
and several smaller islands), the Carolines, Palau
, the Marianas (except for Guam
), the Marshall Islands
and Nauru
.
The total land area of German New Guinea was 249,500 km².
were probably sailors on the crew of ships of the Dutch East India Company
: during Abel Tasman
's first voyage, the captain of the Heemskerck was one Holleman (or Holman), born in Jever
in northwest Germany. Hanseatic League
merchant houses were the first to establish footholds: Johann Cesar Godeffroy & Sohn of Hamburg
, headquartered at Samoa
from 1857, operated a South Seas
network of trading stations especially dominating the copra
trade and carrying German immigrants to various South Pacific settlements; in 1877 another Hamburg firm, Hernsheim and Robertson, established a German community on Matupi Island, in Blanche Bay (the north-east coast of New Britain) from which it traded in New Britain
, the Caroline
and Marshall Islands
. By the end of 1875, one German trader reported: "German trade and German ships are encountered everywhere, almost at the exclusion of any other nation".
and Free Conservative
background, had organized various colonial societies all over Germany in order to persuade Chancellor Bismarck
to embark on a colonial policy. The most important ones were the "Kolonialverein of 1882" and the Gesellschaft für Deutsche Kolonisation
founded in 1884. Bismarck's initial response may be summed up by a marginal note he wrote in 1881: "Colonies demand a fatherland in which the national feeling is stronger than the hatred of the parties [for each other]".
On 24 April 1884, Bismarck signalled a change in policy by placing German trading interests
in southwestern Africa
under the protection of the German Empire. Bismarck told the Reichstag
on 23 June 1884 of the change of German colonial policy: annexations would now proceed but by grants of charters to private companies.
carried an article which the Colonial Secretary
of the British
colony of New South Wales
drew to the attention of the editor of the Sydney Morning Herald and, on 7 February 1883, the paper published a summary of the article under the heading German annexation of New Guinea. The argument lifted from the German paper began by stating that New Guinea fell into the Australian sphere but had been neglected; although the Portuguese had explored in the 16th century, it was the Dutch from the 17th century "who seemed better satisfied with the country than other European nations had been" but they had overreached themselves and had fallen back towards Java, Sumatra and Celebes. Recent explorations had given the basis for reconsideration: it "is considered useful by geology and biology people as holding in its forests the key to solve problems... a profitable field for cultivation" but London had only sent missionaries to save souls. "As we Germans have learnt a little about conducting colonial policy, and as our wishes and plans turn with a certain vivacity towards New Guinea... according to our opinion it might be possible to create out of the island a German Java, a great trade and plantation colony, which would form a stately foundation stone for a German colonial kingdom of the future."
The publication of the Sydney Morning Herald article caused a sensation and not just in the colony of New South Wales: over the border, in the British
colony of Queensland
where the shipping lanes of the Torres Strait
and the beche-de-mer
trade were of commercial significance, the Queensland Premier, Sir Thomas McIlwraith
who led a political party "considered to represent the interests of the plantation owners in Queensland", drew it to the attention of the Queensland Governor together with the general situation in New Guinea and urged annexation of the island. He also instructed the London Agent for Queensland to urge the Imperial Colonial Office to an act of annexation.
"Impatient with the lack of results from this procedure" Premier McIlwraith on his own authority ordered a Queensland Police Magistrate in March 1883 to proclaim the annexation on behalf of the Queensland government of New Guinea east of the Dutch boundary at 141E. When news of this reached London, the Secretary of State for the Colonies
, Lord Derby
promptly repudiated the act. When the matter came before Parliament, Lord Derby advised that the British Imperial Government "were not ready to annex New Guinea in view of its vast size and unknown interior, the certainty of native objections and administrative expense".
joined a small, informal group interested in German colonial expansion into the South Seas led by the banker, Adolph von Hansemann
. Finsch encouraged them to pursue the founding of a colony on the north-east coast of New Guinea and the New Britain Archipelago
even providing them with an estimate of the costs of such a venture.
On 3 November 1884, under the auspices of the Deutsche Neuguinea-Compagnie (New Guinea Company), the German flag was flown over Kaiser-Wilhelmsland, the Bismarck Archipelago and the German Solomon Islands.
To obtain a local labour force and expand plantation agriculture, the colonial officials sent the army to control tribal areas. They then imposed new laws required the natives to provide four weeks of labour a year, and pay a poll tax in cash. Often workers were rounded up and had little choice, but for the first time were paid wages. Some colonial officials, especially Albert Hahl, worried about a drastic depopulation of natives, so they tried to recruit workers from Southeast Asia. They had little success. After 1910 Hahl tried to minimize the negative effects of aggressive labour mobilization by prohibiting the recruitment of women in northern New Ireland and closing other areas to recruiting. The German planters protested and Hahl was forced to extend colonial control to unconquered areas to obtain additional workers.
In the German–Spanish Treaty of 1899, the German government agreed to pay Spain 25,000,000 Pesetas (equivalent to 16,600,000 goldmarks
) for the Caroline Islands
and the Mariana Islands
(excluding Guam
, which had been ceded to the USA after the 1898 Spanish-American War
). These islands became a protectorate and were administered from German New Guinea. The Marshall Islands were added in 1906.
, Australian troops captured Kaiser-Wilhelmsland and the nearby islands in 1914, after a short resistance led by Captain Carl von Klewitz and Lt. Robert "Lord Bob" von Blumenthal
, while Japan
occupied most of the remaining German possessions in the Pacific. The only significant battle occurred on 11 September 1914 when the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force
attacked the low-power wireless station at Bitapaka
(near Rabaul) on the island of New Britain, then Neu Pommern. The Australians suffered six dead and four wounded — the first Australian military casualties of the First World War. The German forces fared much worse, with one German officer and 30 native police killed and one German officer and ten native police wounded. On 21 September all German forces in the colony surrendered.
However, Leutnant (later Hauptmann) Hermann Detzner
, a German officer, and some 20 native police evaded capture in the interior of New Guinea for the entire war. Detzner was on a surveying expedition to map the border with Australian-held Papua at the outbreak of war, and remained outside militarised areas. Detzner claimed to have penetrated the interior of the German portion (Kaiser Wilhelmsland) in his 1920 book Vier Jahre unter Kannibalen ("Four Years Among Cannibals"). These claims were heavily disputed by various German missionaries, and Detzner recanted most of his claims in 1932.
After the Treaty of Versailles
of 1919, Germany lost all its colonial possessions, including German New Guinea. It became the Territory of New Guinea
, a League of Nations
Mandate Territory
under Australian administration until 1949 (interrupted by Japanese occupation during the New Guinea campaign
) when it was merged with the Australia
n territory of Papua
to become the Territory of Papua and New Guinea
, which eventually became modern Papua New Guinea
.
The first postage stamps of the colony were issued in 1897, as overprint
s reading "Deutsch – / Neu-Guinea" on the contemporary stamps of Germany. In 1901, the Yacht issue
included stamps for the colony, inscribed "DEUTSCH-NEU-GUINEA." The 5pf, 10pf, and 5m values were reprinted in 1914 on watermark
ed paper and inscribed "DEUTSCH-NEUGUINEA," but these did not reach the colony before it was occupied and were never put in use, nor was the reprint of the 3pf value made in 1919.
The stamps are available to collectors today at prices ranging from about $1 US, up to $500 for a validly used 5m stamp. Very few stamps of the higher values were ever used, and their prices are 10–20 times higher than for mint copies. Fake cancellations exist.
After the Australian occupation, stocks of the unwatermarked stamps, along with some registration
labels, were overprinted with "G.R.I." and a value in pence or shillings; see New Britain
for further details.
German colonial empire
The German colonial empire was an overseas domain formed in the late 19th century as part of the German Empire. Short-lived colonial efforts by individual German states had occurred in preceding centuries, but Imperial Germany's colonial efforts began in 1884...
. It was a protectorate
Protectorate
In history, the term protectorate has two different meanings. In its earliest inception, which has been adopted by modern international law, it is an autonomous territory that is protected diplomatically or militarily against third parties by a stronger state or entity...
from 1884 until 1914 when it fell to Australia following the outbreak of the First World War. It consisted of the northeastern part of New Guinea
New Guinea
New Guinea is the world's second largest island, after Greenland, covering a land area of 786,000 km2. Located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, it lies geographically to the east of the Malay Archipelago, with which it is sometimes included as part of a greater Indo-Australian Archipelago...
and several nearby island groups. The mainland part of German New Guinea and the nearby islands of the Bismarck Archipelago
Bismarck Archipelago
The Bismarck Archipelago is a group of islands off the northeastern coast of New Guinea in the western Pacific Ocean and is part of the Islands Region of Papua New Guinea.-History:...
are now part of Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea , officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is a country in Oceania, occupying the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and numerous offshore islands...
.
The main part of German New Guinea was formed by Kaiser-Wilhelmsland
Kaiser-Wilhelmsland
Kaiser-Wilhelmsland was part of the German New Guinea, the South Pacific protectorate of the German Empire. Named in honor of Wilhelm II, who was the German Emperor and King of Prussia, it included the north-eastern part of the present day Papua New Guinea. From 1884 until 1918, the territory...
, the northeastern part of New Guinea
New Guinea
New Guinea is the world's second largest island, after Greenland, covering a land area of 786,000 km2. Located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, it lies geographically to the east of the Malay Archipelago, with which it is sometimes included as part of a greater Indo-Australian Archipelago...
. The islands to the east of Kaiser-Wilhelmsland, on annexation, were renamed the Bismarck Archipelago
Bismarck Archipelago
The Bismarck Archipelago is a group of islands off the northeastern coast of New Guinea in the western Pacific Ocean and is part of the Islands Region of Papua New Guinea.-History:...
(formerly the New Britannia Archipelago) and the two largest islands renamed Neu-Pommern (or New Pomerania
Pomerania
Pomerania is a historical region on the south shore of the Baltic Sea. Divided between Germany and Poland, it stretches roughly from the Recknitz River near Stralsund in the West, via the Oder River delta near Szczecin, to the mouth of the Vistula River near Gdańsk in the East...
, today's New Britain
New Britain
New Britain, or Niu Briten, is the largest island in the Bismarck Archipelago of Papua New Guinea. It is separated from the island of New Guinea by the Dampier and Vitiaz Straits and from New Ireland by St. George's Channel...
) and Neu-Mecklenburg (New Ireland).
With the exception of German Samoa
German Samoa
German Samoa was a German protectorate from 1900 to 1914, consisting of the islands of Upolu, Savai'i, Apolima and Manono, now wholly within the independent state Samoa, formerly Western Samoa...
, the German islands in the Western Pacific
Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.At 165.2 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World...
formed the 'Imperial German Pacific Protectorates'. These were administered as part of German New Guinea and they included the German Solomon Islands (Buka
Buka Island
Buka Island is the second largest island in the Papua New Guinean province of Bougainville.- History :Buka was first occupied by humans in paleolithic times, some 30,000 years ago...
, Bougainville
Bougainville Island
Bougainville Island is the main island of the Autonomous Region of Bougainville of Papua New Guinea. This region is also known as Bougainville Province or the North Solomons. The population of the province is 175,160 , which includes the adjacent island of Buka and assorted outlying islands...
and several smaller islands), the Carolines, Palau
Palau
Palau , officially the Republic of Palau , is an island nation in the Pacific Ocean, east of the Philippines and south of Tokyo. In 1978, after three decades as being part of the United Nations trusteeship, Palau chose independence instead of becoming part of the Federated States of Micronesia, a...
, the Marianas (except for Guam
Guam
Guam is an organized, unincorporated territory of the United States located in the western Pacific Ocean. It is one of five U.S. territories with an established civilian government. Guam is listed as one of 16 Non-Self-Governing Territories by the Special Committee on Decolonization of the United...
), the Marshall Islands
Marshall Islands
The Republic of the Marshall Islands , , is a Micronesian nation of atolls and islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, just west of the International Date Line and just north of the Equator. As of July 2011 the population was 67,182...
and Nauru
Nauru
Nauru , officially the Republic of Nauru and formerly known as Pleasant Island, is an island country in Micronesia in the South Pacific. Its nearest neighbour is Banaba Island in Kiribati, to the east. Nauru is the world's smallest republic, covering just...
.
The total land area of German New Guinea was 249,500 km².
Early German South Pacific presence
The first Germans in the South PacificPacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.At 165.2 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World...
were probably sailors on the crew of ships of the Dutch East India Company
Dutch East India Company
The Dutch East India Company was a chartered company established in 1602, when the States-General of the Netherlands granted it a 21-year monopoly to carry out colonial activities in Asia...
: during Abel Tasman
Abel Tasman
Abel Janszoon Tasman was a Dutch seafarer, explorer, and merchant, best known for his voyages of 1642 and 1644 in the service of the VOC . His was the first known European expedition to reach the islands of Van Diemen's Land and New Zealand and to sight the Fiji islands...
's first voyage, the captain of the Heemskerck was one Holleman (or Holman), born in Jever
Jever
Jever is the capital of the district of Friesland in Lower Saxony, Germany. The name Jever is usually associated with a major brand of beer which is produced here, the city is also a popular holiday resort. Jever was granted city status in 1536. Unofficially Jever is sometimes referred to as...
in northwest Germany. Hanseatic League
Hanseatic League
The Hanseatic League was an economic alliance of trading cities and their merchant guilds that dominated trade along the coast of Northern Europe...
merchant houses were the first to establish footholds: Johann Cesar Godeffroy & Sohn of Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
, headquartered at Samoa
Samoa
Samoa , officially the Independent State of Samoa, formerly known as Western Samoa is a country encompassing the western part of the Samoan Islands in the South Pacific Ocean. It became independent from New Zealand in 1962. The two main islands of Samoa are Upolu and one of the biggest islands in...
from 1857, operated a South Seas
Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.At 165.2 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World...
network of trading stations especially dominating the copra
Copra
Copra is the dried meat, or kernel, of the coconut. Coconut oil extracted from it has made copra an important agricultural commodity for many coconut-producing countries. It also yields coconut cake which is mainly used as feed for livestock.-Production:...
trade and carrying German immigrants to various South Pacific settlements; in 1877 another Hamburg firm, Hernsheim and Robertson, established a German community on Matupi Island, in Blanche Bay (the north-east coast of New Britain) from which it traded in New Britain
New Britain
New Britain, or Niu Briten, is the largest island in the Bismarck Archipelago of Papua New Guinea. It is separated from the island of New Guinea by the Dampier and Vitiaz Straits and from New Ireland by St. George's Channel...
, the Caroline
Caroline Islands
The Caroline Islands are a widely scattered archipelago of tiny islands in the western Pacific Ocean, to the north of New Guinea. Politically they are divided between the Federated States of Micronesia in the eastern part of the group, and Palau at the extreme western end...
and Marshall Islands
Marshall Islands
The Republic of the Marshall Islands , , is a Micronesian nation of atolls and islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, just west of the International Date Line and just north of the Equator. As of July 2011 the population was 67,182...
. By the end of 1875, one German trader reported: "German trade and German ships are encountered everywhere, almost at the exclusion of any other nation".
German colonial policy under Bismarck
In the late 1870s and early 1880s, an active minority, stemming mainly from a right-wing National LiberalNational Liberal Party (Germany)
The National Liberal Party was a German political party which flourished between 1867 and 1918. It was formed by Prussian liberals who put aside their differences with Bismarck over domestic policy due to their support for his highly successful foreign policy, which resulted in the unification of...
and Free Conservative
Free Conservative Party
The Free Conservative Party was a right-wing political party in Prussia and the German Empire, which emerged from the Conservatives in the Prussian Landtag in 1866...
background, had organized various colonial societies all over Germany in order to persuade Chancellor Bismarck
Otto von Bismarck
Otto Eduard Leopold, Prince of Bismarck, Duke of Lauenburg , simply known as Otto von Bismarck, was a Prussian-German statesman whose actions unified Germany, made it a major player in world affairs, and created a balance of power that kept Europe at peace after 1871.As Minister President of...
to embark on a colonial policy. The most important ones were the "Kolonialverein of 1882" and the Gesellschaft für Deutsche Kolonisation
Society for German Colonization
The Society for German Colonization was founded on March 28, 1884, by Dr. Karl Peters. The goal of the Gesellschaft für Deutsche Kolonisation was to acquire German colonial territories in overseas countries.In the autumn of 1884 Dr. Peters proceeded, together with Count Joachim von Pfeil und Klein...
founded in 1884. Bismarck's initial response may be summed up by a marginal note he wrote in 1881: "Colonies demand a fatherland in which the national feeling is stronger than the hatred of the parties [for each other]".
On 24 April 1884, Bismarck signalled a change in policy by placing German trading interests
Angra Pequena
Angra Pequena was a small coastal area in what is now known as Lüderitz, Namibia.First discovered by Europeans in 1487 by the Portuguese explorer Bartolomeu Dias. On April 10, 1883 Heinrich Vogelsang first landed at Angra Pequena...
in southwestern Africa
German South-West Africa
German South West Africa was a colony of Germany from 1884 until 1915, when it was taken over by South Africa and administered as South West Africa, finally becoming Namibia in 1990...
under the protection of the German Empire. Bismarck told the Reichstag
Reichstag (German Empire)
The Reichstag was the parliament of the North German Confederation , and of the German Reich ....
on 23 June 1884 of the change of German colonial policy: annexations would now proceed but by grants of charters to private companies.
Australian aspiration and British uninterest
The 27 November 1882 edition of the Augsburg Allgemeine ZeitungAllgemeine Zeitung
The Allgemeine Zeitung was in the first part of the 19th century the leading political daily journal in Germany. It has been widely recognised as the first world class German journal and is a symbol of the German press abroad....
carried an article which the Colonial Secretary
Chief Secretary
The Chief Secretary is the title of a senior civil servant in members of the Commonwealth of Nations, and, historically, in the British Empire. Prior to the dissolution of the colonies, the Chief Secretary was the second most important official in a colony of the British Empire after the...
of the British
British Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...
colony of New South Wales
New South Wales
New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...
drew to the attention of the editor of the Sydney Morning Herald and, on 7 February 1883, the paper published a summary of the article under the heading German annexation of New Guinea. The argument lifted from the German paper began by stating that New Guinea fell into the Australian sphere but had been neglected; although the Portuguese had explored in the 16th century, it was the Dutch from the 17th century "who seemed better satisfied with the country than other European nations had been" but they had overreached themselves and had fallen back towards Java, Sumatra and Celebes. Recent explorations had given the basis for reconsideration: it "is considered useful by geology and biology people as holding in its forests the key to solve problems... a profitable field for cultivation" but London had only sent missionaries to save souls. "As we Germans have learnt a little about conducting colonial policy, and as our wishes and plans turn with a certain vivacity towards New Guinea... according to our opinion it might be possible to create out of the island a German Java, a great trade and plantation colony, which would form a stately foundation stone for a German colonial kingdom of the future."
The publication of the Sydney Morning Herald article caused a sensation and not just in the colony of New South Wales: over the border, in the British
British Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...
colony of Queensland
Queensland
Queensland is a state of Australia, occupying the north-eastern section of the mainland continent. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and Pacific Ocean...
where the shipping lanes of the Torres Strait
Torres Strait
The Torres Strait is a body of water which lies between Australia and the Melanesian island of New Guinea. It is approximately wide at its narrowest extent. To the south is Cape York Peninsula, the northernmost continental extremity of the Australian state of Queensland...
and the beche-de-mer
Bêche-de-mer
Bêche-de-mer can refer to:* Bislama; Vanuatu Pidgin English* Sea cucumber...
trade were of commercial significance, the Queensland Premier, Sir Thomas McIlwraith
Thomas McIlwraith
Sir Thomas McIlwraith KCMG was for many years the dominant figure of colonial politics in Queensland. He was Premier of Queensland from 1877 to 1883, again in 1888, and for a third time in 1893...
who led a political party "considered to represent the interests of the plantation owners in Queensland", drew it to the attention of the Queensland Governor together with the general situation in New Guinea and urged annexation of the island. He also instructed the London Agent for Queensland to urge the Imperial Colonial Office to an act of annexation.
"Impatient with the lack of results from this procedure" Premier McIlwraith on his own authority ordered a Queensland Police Magistrate in March 1883 to proclaim the annexation on behalf of the Queensland government of New Guinea east of the Dutch boundary at 141E. When news of this reached London, the Secretary of State for the Colonies
Secretary of State for the Colonies
The Secretary of State for the Colonies or Colonial Secretary was the British Cabinet minister in charge of managing the United Kingdom's various colonial dependencies....
, Lord Derby
Edward Stanley, 15th Earl of Derby
Edward Henry Stanley, 15th Earl of Derby KG, PC, FRS , known as Lord Stanley from 1844 to 1869, was a British statesman...
promptly repudiated the act. When the matter came before Parliament, Lord Derby advised that the British Imperial Government "were not ready to annex New Guinea in view of its vast size and unknown interior, the certainty of native objections and administrative expense".
German New Guinea Company
On his return to Germany from his 1879–1882 Pacific expedition, Otto FinschOtto Finsch
Friedrich Hermann Otto Finsch was a German ethnographer, naturalist and colonial explorer.-Biography:...
joined a small, informal group interested in German colonial expansion into the South Seas led by the banker, Adolph von Hansemann
Adolph von Hansemann
Adolph von Hansemann was an Imperial German businessman and banker.- Life :Born in Aachen in 1826 to German banker and railroad entrepreneur David Hansemann, Adolph Hansemann developed an early interest in business administration. He left home for Hamburg in 1841...
. Finsch encouraged them to pursue the founding of a colony on the north-east coast of New Guinea and the New Britain Archipelago
Bismarck Archipelago
The Bismarck Archipelago is a group of islands off the northeastern coast of New Guinea in the western Pacific Ocean and is part of the Islands Region of Papua New Guinea.-History:...
even providing them with an estimate of the costs of such a venture.
On 3 November 1884, under the auspices of the Deutsche Neuguinea-Compagnie (New Guinea Company), the German flag was flown over Kaiser-Wilhelmsland, the Bismarck Archipelago and the German Solomon Islands.
To obtain a local labour force and expand plantation agriculture, the colonial officials sent the army to control tribal areas. They then imposed new laws required the natives to provide four weeks of labour a year, and pay a poll tax in cash. Often workers were rounded up and had little choice, but for the first time were paid wages. Some colonial officials, especially Albert Hahl, worried about a drastic depopulation of natives, so they tried to recruit workers from Southeast Asia. They had little success. After 1910 Hahl tried to minimize the negative effects of aggressive labour mobilization by prohibiting the recruitment of women in northern New Ireland and closing other areas to recruiting. The German planters protested and Hahl was forced to extend colonial control to unconquered areas to obtain additional workers.
Imperial German Protectorate
German gold mark
The Goldmark was the currency used in the German Empire from 1873 to 1914.-History:Before unification, the different German states issued a variety of different currencies, though most were linked to the Vereinsthaler, a silver coin containing 16⅔ grams of pure silver...
) for the Caroline Islands
Caroline Islands
The Caroline Islands are a widely scattered archipelago of tiny islands in the western Pacific Ocean, to the north of New Guinea. Politically they are divided between the Federated States of Micronesia in the eastern part of the group, and Palau at the extreme western end...
and the Mariana Islands
Mariana Islands
The Mariana Islands are an arc-shaped archipelago made up by the summits of 15 volcanic mountains in the north-western Pacific Ocean between the 12th and 21st parallels north and along the 145th meridian east...
(excluding Guam
Guam
Guam is an organized, unincorporated territory of the United States located in the western Pacific Ocean. It is one of five U.S. territories with an established civilian government. Guam is listed as one of 16 Non-Self-Governing Territories by the Special Committee on Decolonization of the United...
, which had been ceded to the USA after the 1898 Spanish-American War
Spanish-American War
The Spanish–American War was a conflict in 1898 between Spain and the United States, effectively the result of American intervention in the ongoing Cuban War of Independence...
). These islands became a protectorate and were administered from German New Guinea. The Marshall Islands were added in 1906.
World War I
Following the outbreak of World War IWorld War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, Australian troops captured Kaiser-Wilhelmsland and the nearby islands in 1914, after a short resistance led by Captain Carl von Klewitz and Lt. Robert "Lord Bob" von Blumenthal
Von Blumenthal
The von Blumenthal family are German nobility from Brandenburg-Prussia. Other, unrelated, families of this name exist in Switzerland and formerly in Russia, and many unrelated families called "Blumenthal" without "von" are to be found worldwide.The family was already noble from earliest times ,...
, while Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
occupied most of the remaining German possessions in the Pacific. The only significant battle occurred on 11 September 1914 when the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force
Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force
The Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force was a small volunteer force of approximately 2,000 men, raised in Australia shortly after the outbreak of the First World War to seize and destroy German wireless stations in German New Guinea in the south-west Pacific...
attacked the low-power wireless station at Bitapaka
Battle of Bita Paka
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 shortly after the outbreak of the First World War...
(near Rabaul) on the island of New Britain, then Neu Pommern. The Australians suffered six dead and four wounded — the first Australian military casualties of the First World War. The German forces fared much worse, with one German officer and 30 native police killed and one German officer and ten native police wounded. On 21 September all German forces in the colony surrendered.
Hermann Detzner
Hermann Philipp Detzner was an officer in the German colonial security force in Kamerun and German New Guinea, as well as a surveyor, an engineer, an adventurer, and a writer....
, a German officer, and some 20 native police evaded capture in the interior of New Guinea for the entire war. Detzner was on a surveying expedition to map the border with Australian-held Papua at the outbreak of war, and remained outside militarised areas. Detzner claimed to have penetrated the interior of the German portion (Kaiser Wilhelmsland) in his 1920 book Vier Jahre unter Kannibalen ("Four Years Among Cannibals"). These claims were heavily disputed by various German missionaries, and Detzner recanted most of his claims in 1932.
After the Treaty of Versailles
Treaty of Versailles
The Treaty of Versailles was one of the peace treaties at the end of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June 1919, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The other Central Powers on the German side of...
of 1919, Germany lost all its colonial possessions, including German New Guinea. It became the Territory of New Guinea
Territory of New Guinea
The Territory of New Guinea was the Australia-controlled, League of Nations-mandated territory in the north eastern part of the island of New Guinea, and surrounding islands, between 1920 and 1949...
, a League of Nations
League of Nations
The League of Nations was an intergovernmental organization founded as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. It was the first permanent international organization whose principal mission was to maintain world peace...
Mandate Territory
League of Nations mandate
A League of Nations mandate was a legal status for certain territories transferred from the control of one country to another following World War I, or the legal instruments that contained the internationally agreed-upon terms for administering the territory on behalf of the League...
under Australian administration until 1949 (interrupted by Japanese occupation during the New Guinea campaign
New Guinea campaign
The New Guinea campaign was one of the major military campaigns of World War II.Before the war, the island of New Guinea was split between:...
) when it was merged with the Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n territory of Papua
Papua (Australian territory)
The Territory of Papua comprised the southeastern quarter of the island of New Guinea from 1883 to 1949. It became a British Protectorate in the year 1884, and four years later it was formally annexed as British New Guinea...
to become the Territory of Papua and New Guinea
Territory of Papua and New Guinea
The Territory of Papua and New Guinea was established by an administrative union between the Australian-administered territories of Papua and New Guinea in 1949...
, which eventually became modern Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea , officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is a country in Oceania, occupying the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and numerous offshore islands...
.
Postage stamps
Overprint
An overprint is an additional layer of text or graphics added to the face of a postage stamp or banknote after it has been printed. Post offices most often use overprints for internal administrative purposes such as accounting but they are also employed in public mail...
s reading "Deutsch – / Neu-Guinea" on the contemporary stamps of Germany. In 1901, the Yacht issue
Yacht issue
The Yacht issue was a series of postage stamps, bearing the image of the German Kaiser's yacht, SMY Hohenzollern II, that were used in all of Germany's overseas colonies. Millions of the stamps were produced and they were the principal means of postage for all German imperial overseas possessions...
included stamps for the colony, inscribed "DEUTSCH-NEU-GUINEA." The 5pf, 10pf, and 5m values were reprinted in 1914 on watermark
Watermark
A watermark is a recognizable image or pattern in paper that appears as various shades of lightness/darkness when viewed by transmitted light , caused by thickness or density variations in the paper...
ed paper and inscribed "DEUTSCH-NEUGUINEA," but these did not reach the colony before it was occupied and were never put in use, nor was the reprint of the 3pf value made in 1919.
The stamps are available to collectors today at prices ranging from about $1 US, up to $500 for a validly used 5m stamp. Very few stamps of the higher values were ever used, and their prices are 10–20 times higher than for mint copies. Fake cancellations exist.
After the Australian occupation, stocks of the unwatermarked stamps, along with some registration
Registered mail
Registered mail describes letters, packets or other postal documents considered valuable and need a chain of custody that provides more control than regular mail. The posted item has its details recorded in a register to enable its location to be tracked, sometimes with added insurance to cover loss...
labels, were overprinted with "G.R.I." and a value in pence or shillings; see New Britain
New Britain
New Britain, or Niu Briten, is the largest island in the Bismarck Archipelago of Papua New Guinea. It is separated from the island of New Guinea by the Dampier and Vitiaz Straits and from New Ireland by St. George's Channel...
for further details.
See also
- New GuineaNew GuineaNew Guinea is the world's second largest island, after Greenland, covering a land area of 786,000 km2. Located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, it lies geographically to the east of the Malay Archipelago, with which it is sometimes included as part of a greater Indo-Australian Archipelago...
- List of colonial heads of New Guinea
- Papua (Indonesian province)Papua (Indonesian province)Papua comprises most of the western half of the island of New Guinea and nearby islands. Its capital is Jayapura. It's the largest and easternmost province of Indonesia. The province originally covered the entire western half of New Guinea...
- Irian Jaya
- Western New GuineaWestern New GuineaWest Papua informally refers to the Indonesian western half of the island of New Guinea and other smaller islands to its west. The region is officially administered as two provinces: Papua and West Papua. The eastern half of New Guinea is Papua New Guinea.The population of approximately 3 million...
- British New Guinea
- Dutch New Guinea
- Unserdeutsch languageUnserdeutsch languageUnserdeutsch , or Rabaul Creole German, is a German-based creole language spoken primarily in Papua New Guinea. It was formed among the New Guinean children residing in a German-run orphanage...
- Kaiser-WilhelmslandKaiser-WilhelmslandKaiser-Wilhelmsland was part of the German New Guinea, the South Pacific protectorate of the German Empire. Named in honor of Wilhelm II, who was the German Emperor and King of Prussia, it included the north-eastern part of the present day Papua New Guinea. From 1884 until 1918, the territory...
- HMAS AE1HMAS AE1HMAS AE1 was an E-class submarine of the Royal Australian Navy . She was the first submarine to serve in the RAN, and was lost at sea with all hands near East New Britain, Papua New Guinea, on 14 September 1914, after less than seven months in service...
(first Australian submarine)