Karl Hanssen's Samoan War Diaries, August 1914-May 1915 ― A German Perspective on New Zealand's Military Occupation of German Samoa

With the arrival of 1,400 New Zealand troops in Apia at the beginning of World War I, the government of Samoa was transformed peacefully from a German «protectorate» to a New Zealand military administration. The New Zealand administrator, Colonel Robert Logan, who now found himself in charge of not just hundreds of bored New Zealand troops, but an entire country and its colonial apparatus was, however, completely out of his depth. This is borne out by ensuing events, all documented in detail by Karl Hanssen, manager of the large DHPG German copra production company. Hanssen’s complete diaries from August 1914 to May 1915, compiled from the original manuscripts held at the Berlin Federal Archives and the Auckland War Memorial Museum, are presented here for the first time, both in English translation and in the German original. This annotated edition provides a rare and unique insight into the experience of World War I in the South Pacific.

James N. Bade, Associate Professor of German at the University of Auckland, is Head of the Department of German and Slavonic Studies at the University of Auckland and Director of the University of Auckland Research Centre for Germanic Connections with New Zealand and the Pacific. He has published widely on German literature and the German connection with New Zealand and the Pacific.