– 53 –
Little is known about Hubert Geisler,
colonial administrator in German
New Guinea: recent sources from
2024 mention him in connection
with his brother Bruno and their
joint ornithological collecting and
research trips to Ceylon and Borneo,
where they worked from 1887 to
1889 on behalf of the natural histo-
ry dealer Wilhelm Schlüter in Halle
(Saale) and the Royal Zoological and
Anthropological-Ethnographic Mu-
seum in Dresden. [2]
This will be followed by a joint trip
to New Guinea. While his brother
continued his ornithological collect-
ing, Hubert traveled on to German
New Guinea (Finschhafen 1890)
and in 1891 he entered the service
of the Berlin planting and trading
company „Neuguinea-Kompagnie”
in Herbertshöhe, initially as plan-
tation supervisor and director, and
from 1899 as administrator for the
Bismarck Archipelago. [3]
From the business correspondence,
which was donated to the State Mu-
seum of Ethnology (SMfVM, now the
Museum Fünf Kontinente - Museum
of Five Continents) by his heirs in
2004 along with his photographic
collection [4], it emerges that until
1920 he served as an administrator,
primarily on the Bismarck Archi-
pelago in Rabaul and Herbertshöhe
(once the colony’s capital, today’s
Kokopo), and from 1909 until the
reorganization of the operations in
1913, he was also responsible for the
administrative districts of Stephan-
sort and Bogadjim in New Guinea. [5]
He remained loyal to the trading
company for over three decades, ex-
periencing the ups and downs of the
distant and then still young German
South Sea colony: the challenges and
difficulties of successfully manag-
ing remote administrative districts,
crop failures, the harsh consequenc-
es of the First World War, and pro-
found personal upheavals (divorce
from his wife in 1912, departure of
his beloved niece in 1914, and her
death in 1917).
In 1919 and 1920, he submitted sever-
al requests to the Berlin administra-
tion to return to Germany, citing his
“long, uninterrupted stay in the trop-
ics” and “what has happened in recent
years. [...] If I add that I no longer fit in
with the circumstances here. [...] Any-
one who has lived through almost an
entire colonial era is happy to leave
the scene at its conclusion.” Several
more months would pass before the
Australian occupation forces grant-
ed the Germans their exit after clar-
ifying the expropriation procedures.
Finally, Hubert Geisler returned to
Oceania in the Hubert Geisler Collection
1863 Mittelwalde / Schlesien – 1943 Würzburg [1]
Germany – via Batavia and Rotter-
dam – at the end of September 1921.
[6]
Unlike the written documents and
photographs, a few ethnographic
objects have remained in the fam-
ily’s possession to this day, as well
as this ancient “tatanua” mask from
New Ireland (Bismarck Archipelago)
presented here.
Photos: Private Archive
[1] Divergent information on biographical data
in Münchner Beiträge zur Völkerkunde, Year-
book of the State Museum of Ethnology Mu-
nich (SMfVM), Vol. 11, 2007:284 and at https://
de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruno_Geisler
[2] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubert_
Geisler
[3] References and all quotations from the re-
cords in the SMfVM, Geisler collection
[4] 100 glass plate negatives and some 20
large-format slides, realised by him, bear
witness to life in the area.
[5] Münchner Beiträge zur Völkerkunde,
Yearbook of the State Museum of Ethnology
Munich, Vol. 10, 2006:54, Vol. 11, 2007:284ff
[6] Biographisches Handbuch Deutsch-Neu-
guinea 1882-1922, Berlin 2002:111