Alfred Schultz Album , photographer Reinhold Hofmann
The youngest and the oldest on Motuihe – Mr Otto Sperling , who celebrated his 70 th birthday in internment , and Albrecht Stünzner .
Mr Sperling , a single man , had been in New Zealand nearly 40 years when war broke out . His trading store at Kawhia on the west coast of the North Island had been boycotted by local residents due to anti-German sentiment . Financial ruin followed — then internment . He was loved by all on the island and when the time came for parole at the end of hostilities even the farm manager on Motuihe offered to employ him and provide residence . Recurring bouts of rheumatism convinced Mr Sperling that he should take up another kind offer that had been made : a German planter returning to Samoa offered employment and accommodation . The warmer climate convinced Otto that he should head for the tropics . A citizens directory for Samoa for 1923 indicates that he was resident on Vailele Plantation at that time . Then the trail goes cold . It is likely that Mr Sperling died in Samoa and is buried there , though no marked grave appears to exist in the public cemeteries . The identity of his benefactor is unknown .
Reinhold Hofmann Biography – 6
While on parole in 1920 , Mr Hofmann appeared to obtain some work but not in his chosen fields as a laboratory or X-ray technician . In early 1920 , Reinhold expressed a desire to be repatriated back to Samoa but then changed his mind and said that family circumstances had convinced him that he should return to Germany . His repatriation kept being delayed and he was one of the final internees to be returned to Germany when he sailed on the “ ss Wiltshire ” out of Auckland on 2 November , 1920 , bound for Southampton .
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