HERMANN VON WISSMANN
(4 September 1853 – 15 June 1905)
Leopold Wilhelm Ludwig Hermann Wissmann was a German explorer, officer and
colonial administrator. He worked as an explorer of Africa, among other things
on behalf of the Belgian king from 1883 to 1885, and crossed Africa from the
Congo to the Zambezi River estuary.
Born in Frankfurt an der Oder, a town in Brandenburg, Germany, Wissmann was
enlisted in the Army in 1870 and was commissioned a Lieutenant four years later.
Wissmann served Mecklenburg in Füsilierregiment "Fusilier regiment" No. 90
posted at Rostock. During this time he had to serve a four month prison sentence
for wounding an opponent in a duel. An 1879 chance meeting with the explore Dr.
Paul Pogge changed his life.
Granted a leave of absence from the army, in 1880, Wissmann accompanied
explorer Paul Pogge on a journey through the Congo Basin. In the eastern Congo,
Pogge and Wissmann parted company. Pogge stayed to build an agricultural
research station for a Congolese chief, while Wissmann trekked to the Indian
Ocean via present-day Tanzania. Afterwards Wissmann was in the employ of King
Leopold II of Belgium, who was in the process of creating his personal African
empire, known as the Congo Free State.
In March 1883 Wissmann gave the name "Zappo Zap" to a Songye leader known as
Nsapu Nsapu who ruled over the town of Mpengie, part of the Ben'Eki kingdom in
the eastern Kasai region. This was a settlement with more than a thousand
people, many of them slave warriors, to the east of the Sankuru River between
Kabinda and Lusambo. Zappo Zap's people became allies and auxiliaries of the
Congo Free State authorities. In 1899 they were sent out by the colonial
administration to collect taxes. They massacred many villagers, causing an
international outcry.
When in 1888 the attempts of the German East Africa Company to start a
dominion collapsed in face of African resistance, it asked Bismarck for help,
which was at first refused. In 1889, Wissmann was promoted to Captain and
appointed as Reichskommissar (Imperial Commissioner) for the German East Africa
region where he was tasked with suppression of the Abushiri Revolt led by
Abushiri ibn Salim al-Harthi. Wissmann was only given one order:
"Victory".
On his way to East Africa Wissmann hired a mercenary force of mostly Sudanese
soldiers from decommissioned units of the Anglo-Egyptian army to whom later a
number of Zulus from South Africa were added, all under the command of German
officers. The German forces, along with British naval assistance, fortified
Bagamoyo, Dar es Salaam and retook Tanga and Pangani.
Wissmann's forces with superior firepower also retook the rest of the Coastal
Strip. They fortified the interior garrison of Mpwapwa and reopened the main
caravan route. Soon afterwards, Abushiri was arrested and executed in Pangani on
16 December 1889. In January 1890, Wissmann issued a general pardon to the
remaining rebels.
Wissmann was promoted to Major in 1890 and given a hero's welcome on his
return to Germany. In 1891 he was nammed Commissioner for the western region of
German East Africa and became Governor in 1895. Ill health forced him to return
to Germany in 1896 where he authored several books and lectured throughout
Germany.
He died in a hunting accident in Weissbach near Liezen, Styria, on 15 June
1905.
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