Wollerman Family Collection , restored T . Brunt 2015
Alfred Schultz Album , photographer Reinhold Hofmann , photo right cropped
Mr Richard Hirsch ( shown at left ) was the project leader for the construction of the Government wireless station in Apia , which had just been completed several weeks before the New Zealand capture of Samoa . It linked Apia closely with the outside world for the first time . Prior to its construction it was impossible to get urgent cable messages or telegrams to Samoa . Cable messages from Europe or other countries could reach Auckland , Honolulu or Suva but for the last leg of the journey to Samoa the messages had to be carried by the postal system using visiting ships . The Apia wireless station ended this isolation , enabling these messages to be received from other transmitters in the Pacific using Morse code . Urgent messages could also be transmitted from Apia to the outside world . International news now came within hours rather than weeks .
Mr Hirsch was a technical expert who had set up radio stations for the Germans in a number of other colonies , including in Africa and the Caroline Islands . In the hours after the New Zealand invaders arrived in port , Mr Hirsch and his workers had sabotaged and booby-trapped the new radio equipment but they didn ’ t do a very good job ; the kiwis ( shown above encamped at the station ) soon had the transmitter up and running again . After internment and repatriation to Germany Mr Hirsch served as a radio engineer in Berlin .
| To Walk Under Palm Trees - The Germans in Samoa : Snapshots from Albums | Tony Brunt
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