Preface A number of people have been involved in bringing this volume to fruition� I would like to thank first and foremost Marianne Klemm of Hamburg for her support for this unique edition of Karl Hanssen’s memoirs of his time in German Samoa under New Zealand occupation and his incarceration and internment in New Zealand� Marianne Klemm, Karl Hanssen’s granddaughter, made available Karl Hanssen’s memoirs to us along with his photograph collection, and gener- ously contributed to the printing costs of this edition� I would also like to thank the Research Committee of the School of Cultures, Languages, and Linguistics for their support in contributing to the printing costs of this edition� The transcrip- tion and translation of Hanssen’s memoirs were undertaken by Faculty of Arts Summer Scholars Elizabeth Eltze and Judit Tunde McPherson in the summer of 2012–2013 and were revised by Dr James Braund in 2015� The Historical and Political Background section is based on Bronwyn Chapman’s M�A� thesis sub- mitted to the University of Auckland in March 2015 entitled “The Background to Karl Hanssen’s Great War Memoirs, 1915–1916”, which I have abridged and edited for the purposes of this edition� Professor James N� Bade Director, Research Centre for Germanic Connections with New Zealand and the Pacific University of Auckland December 2015 The Historical and Political Background to Karl Hanssen’s Memoirs Bronwyn Chapman 1. Introductory Remarks1 At the end of October 1915, as the First World War raged on the battlefields of Europe, Karl Hanssen, manager of the Deutsche Handels- und Plantagengesells- chaft (DHPG), a large copra production company, was on his way from Samoa to New Zealand aboard the SS Talune. Along with fourteen other Samoan Ger- mans, he spent the fifteen-day journey in anticipation and uncertainty over what would greet him at his destination� Hanssen had visited New Zealand before on business trips, as a guest of the Union Steam Ship Company, but this time would be very different� Instead of being welcomed by business representatives, he expected to be taken immediately into military detention to serve a six-month sentence imposed by a military court in Samoa for bypassing censorship regula- tions� After the expiry of this sentence, he would be held indefinitely as a prisoner of war, until the termination of hostilities, which it was then hoped would not be far away� Little did Hanssen know that would be another three years before the war rag- ing in Europe would come to its bloody close, and even longer before German prisoners would be allowed to return to their homeland� Nor would he spend the next six months in military detention� Instead he would be held alongside crimi- nals in the New Zealand state prison system, administered by the Department of Justice, with two months of his sentence to be served in the country’s most noto- rious high-security prison, Mt Eden� Meanwhile, in Samoa, the copra business he hoped to return to after the war would be placed in liquidation and lose its stock to Australasian companies�2 He would also never again see the islands that had been his home for over twenty years, and would instead watch from afar as New Zealand was given a mandate to govern Samoa under a civil administration� 1 This background section is based on Bronwyn Chapman’s M�A� thesis for the Uni- versity of Auckland entitled “The Background to Karl Hanssen’s Great War Memoirs, 1915–1916”, abridged and edited by James Bade� 2 Hermann Hiery, The Neglected War: the German South Pacific and the Influence of World War One, Honolulu, University of Hawai’i Press 1995, pp� 154–6� 10 Bronwyn Chapman War had reached German Samoa in August 1914, with the arrival of a New Zealand military force, tasked with seizing the colony in the name of Great Brit- ain and her Allies� Hanssen meticulously recorded the subsequent military occu- pation in his personal diary, which was published in 2011 as Volume 8 of the Germanica Pacifica series�3 This diary, which has proved to be such a valuable contribution to the literature exploring New Zealand’s military occupation of Samoa, was – ironically – responsible for Hanssen’s four-year imprisonment at the hands of the New Zealand authorities� Hanssen had regularly been smuggling correspondence to Germany, and it was the discovery of his diary secreted on a ship en route to Amsterdam that led to his arrest and conviction for bypassing censorship in 1915� The publication of this diary also led to the granddaughter of Karl Hanssen, Marianne Klemm, contacting the Research Centre for German Connections with New Zealand and the Pacific with a manuscript, written by her grandfather, in which he records his experiences of his imprisonment in New Zealand� This document, Karl Hanssen’s Kriegserlebnisse, is truly unique, in that it provides a German prisoner’s perspective of life in New Zealand state prisons during the First World War� Although Hanssen was by no means the only Ger- man to be incarcerated in the New Zealand prison system during this period, his appears to be the only surviving account to record these experiences in any detail�4 This section of the edition will draw on Hanssen’s memoirs to explore the historical and political background to the events surrounding his imprisonment� The first part will focus on Hanssen’s description of the military occupation of Samoa, looking at the effects that the change in administration had on the day- to-day life of the islands’ German settlers, as well as the devastating impact on German business� It will also examine native Samoan attitudes towards both the New Zealand administration and the deposed German colonial government� 3 Karl Hanssen’s Samoan War Diaries, August 1914–May 1915: A German Perspective on New Zealand’s Military Occupation of German Samoa, edited by James N� Bade with the assistance of James Braund, Alexandra Jespersen, and Nicola Pienaar (Germanica Pacifica, vol� 8), Frankfurt a� M�, Peter Lang 2011� Henceforth referred to as Karl Hans- sen’s Samoan War Diaries. 4 Felix von Luckner includes a brief account of his stay in Mt Eden prison in January 1918 in his autobiography Seeteufel. This is discussed by James N� Bade in Von Luckner: A Reassessment: Count Felix von Luckner in New Zealand and the South Pacific, 1917–1919 and 1938 (Germanica Pacifica, Vol� 3) Frankfurt, Peter Lang 2004, pp� 95–99, and in Sea Devil: Count von Luckner in New Zealand and the Pacific, Wellington, Steele Roberts 2006, pp� 75f� Historical and Political Background to K� Hanssen’s Memoirs 11 The second part will concentrate on Hanssen’s experiences as a military pris- oner in New Zealand, both in the state prison system and in military-run intern- ment camps, and attempt to answer questions about whether his treatment at the hands of the New Zealand authorities was fair, or in fact legal� The third part will explore the background to Hanssen’s comments on New Zealand responses to the First World War� 2. Samoa under New Zealand Military Occupation Samoa was colonised relatively late compared to its Pacific neighbours� In 1900, after decades of rivalry between three colonial powers, the islands were parti- tioned between Germany and the United States, with Britain withdrawing her claim in return for German claims in Tonga and elsewhere, a solution that caused some disquiet and consternation in New Zealand� For some time New Zealand had been harbouring its own colonial aspirations towards Samoa and elsewhere in the Pacific� Some early premiers, such as George Grey, Robert Stout and Julius Vogel, had hoped that a Samoan colony could be a strong economic asset, help to secure the nation’s defences, and be part of a potential New Zealand South Pacific colonial empire�1 In November 1899, at the news of the tripartite agree- ment, the New Zealand Herald ran an editorial which captured the public mood: We confess that that was a somewhat bitter pill for us to swallow� Ever since New Zealand became a colony we have had frequent intercourse with the islands of the Pacific, and es- pecially with Samoa� Long before the complications had arisen which have compelled the present settlement, the settlers of New Zealand urged that England should take possession of Samoa� We looked forward to the time when New Zealand would be at the head of an island confederation, of which Samoa would be an important part�2 No wonder then that New Zealand, at the outbreak of the First World War, was so eager to fulfil Britain’s request to seize and occupy German Samoa for the Allies� By sending troops to capture the islands, New Zealand could achieve a dual goal� Having been granted the “consolation prize” of colonies in the Cook Islands and Niue after the disappointment of the 1899 settlement, New Zealand could now secure what would be the jewel in its burgeoning Pacific empire, while also taking the opportunity to prove its loyalty and capability to mother Britain� 1 Ministry for Culture and Heritage, “Capture of German Samoa”, NZ History, http:// www�nzhistory�net�nz/war/capture-of-samoa/background, accessed 3 September 2015� See also Angus Ross, New Zealand Aspirations in the Pacific in the Nineteenth Century, Oxford, Clarendon Press 1964� 2 Editorial, New Zealand Herald, 24 November 1899� 12 Bronwyn Chapman However, despite the years spent hoping for such an opportunity, the 1400-strong Advance Party of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force (NZEF) that sailed for Samoa on 15 August was poorly prepared to administer a colony� The initial seizure of government buildings and property