Let us credit Reinhold Hofmann , shown at left , who took most of the fine photos from Motuihe Island that are featured in this book . He was a certified male nurse with the DH & PG , in Samoa , with a special interest in the health and welfare of the company ’ s Melanesian workers . Hofmann would have made an excellent professional photographer . The photos he took on Motuihe and at the low-security internment camp at Narrowneck , on Auckland ’ s North Shore , after the end of the war are one of the rediscovered treasures of South Pacific photography . Their recent emergence into the public realm through the generosity of Auckland ’ s Kronfeld-Parr family is gratefully acknowledged .
Mr Hofmann was interned for the war years along with many other DH & PG Germans . He fell foul of the New Zealand forces two weeks after the New Zealand occupation began when he and Wilhelm Hagedorn rowed out to visiting German warships at Mulifanua and spoke with Admiral Graf Spee . Despite a full report to the NZ Administrator their escapade earned banishment to New Zealand two weeks later .
Mr Hofmann used a large ‘ glass plate ’ camera for many of his photographs . More than 100 images are preserved in the Alfred Schultz Album , held by Schultz descendants , the Kronfeld-Parr family . Schultz was the DH & PG manager in Vava ’ u , Tonga , and was a Motuihe internee . A number of other Hofmann images from wartime internment are also held by the Stünzer and Bunge families , in Auckland , who had family members on Motuihe . They have also generously shared images for this volume and enabled a fuller picture of Hofmann ’ s photographic endeavours . Many Hofmann images are also preserved in the album of DH & PG internee Adolf Ohle . His album is held by the Museum für Völkerkunde , in Hamburg . ( A fuller portrait of Reinhold Hofmann is included in a separate chapter on pages 216-233 ).
Alfred Schultz Album , Photographer R . Hofmann
| To Walk Under Palm Trees - The Germans in Samoa : Snapshots from Albums | Tony Brunt
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