Germans in the Pacific

Did you know that the German settlers around Nelson originally arrived in the hope of settling in what they thought would be a new German colony in the Chatham Islands? Or that in 1900 half the European population in Tonga was German?

© Wendy Thomson

Tracing this far-flung German presence in the Pacific has been of interest to Professor James Bade for over 20 years, and on 23 April he gave us an engrossing overview of his research, in a presentation called “German Interest in the Pacific 1840-1918 with Special Reference to Tonga”.  

James is Professor of German and Director of the University of Auckland Research Centre for Germanic Connections with New Zealand and the Pacific at the University of Auckland. 

One of his publications, Zehn Jahre auf den Inseln der Südsee 1887-1897: Aus dem Tagebuch der Paula David, was offered for sale to members and guests after the presentation. Paula David was from a German Jewish family in Sondershausen in Thuringia, but spent a decade in Tonga and Samoa before eventually moving to Australia. Meanwhile several of her siblings settled in Auckland, followed several decades later by other family members fleeing Nazi Germany. This critical edition (in English and German) of Paula David's diaries from her time in the Pacific includes many photos from her own collection, as well as fascinating background chapters on her family history and the links between Germany and Tonga.

Felix Delbrück