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Hugo Carl Theodor Skopnik (Bromberg, 29 December 1857 – Gleiwitz, 14 July 1943) was a German colonial official, Berlin notary and (acting) governor of the German New Guinea Company.

Life

Comparatively little is known about Hugo Skopnik. He was a son of the District Court Judge in Bromberg Theodor Skopnik, who came from Königsberg, and his wife Adele (née Raabe, widowed Henning). At his baptism on 9 February 1858, the godparents were August Geßler [de], district physician Dr. Junker, government assessor le Juge, and Lina Deekens, Rosa Pohl and Emma Raabe.

Hugo Skopnik was married twice. On 29 November 1902, he married Franziska Kirchenwitz, a native of Oerden (today Uradz), Neustettin District [de].

On 19 August 1886, the Thorner Presse [de] announced: "The lawyer Skopnik in Mewe is admitted to the bar at the regional court in Stolp."

Hugo Skopnik died on 14 July 1943 in the Municipal Hospital of Gliwice. At that time he lived with his wife Franziska in the house at Seminarstraße 10 in Myslowitz, Kattowitz District.

German New Guinea Company period

After Governor Curt von Hagen, General Director of the German New Guinea Company, was murdered by natives on a trip through the protectorate, Hugo Skopnik, who had previously worked as a lawyer in Stolp, was chosen as his successor. He left Genoa on 27 July 1897.

Skopnik served as governor of the German New Guinea Company on an interim basis from 11 September 1897 to 16 October 1898. The German New Guinea Company was founded in 1884 in Berlin by banker Adolph von Hansemann to acquire colonial property in the western part of the South Seas. According to the recollections of the judge and deputy governor of German New Guinea, Heinrich Schnee, Skopnik had to work according to his instructions.

Hugo Skopnik was the last governor of the German New Guinea Company. According to the memories of contemporaries, the choice of him was not the best. Lieutenant (ret.) Hans Blum later wrote:

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"The affairs of the previous provincial government of the New Guinea Company were handed over to me by the general director and previous provincial governor of the New Guinea Company, Mr. Skopnik, who had come over from Stephansort [de] to Herbertshöhe for this purpose", Heinrich Schnee later recalled.

In the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung of 6 October 1909, Hugo Skopnik advertised: "I am admitted as a lawyer at the Royal Regional Court II Berlin, office: W. 57, Bülowstr. 73, I. 9700 / Justice Counsel Hugo Skopnik, until July 1908 Kgs.-Wusterhausen."

Hugo Skopnik applied for a job at the Reich Colonial Office in 1910. In the meantime, he was living in Friedenau, Hähnelstr. 20.

In July 1912, Skopnik was appointed notary in the Berlin-Schöneberg District Court for the duration of his admission to the bar. He was still practicing in 1939, now in Berlin-Charlottenburg, Leibnizstraße 44, as can be seen from a public notice in the German Reichsanzeiger and Preußischer Staatsanzeiger of November 3, 1939.

Notes

1. The investigation into the murder of travel writer Otto Ehrenfried Ehlers (1895) not only cost the life of Curt von Hagen, but also of Ehlers's alleged murderers, two police soldiers from Buka (Solomon Islands), who were killed with spears as punishment and their heads were placed in Stephansort as a deterrent.
2. Hans Blum was a former employee of the German New Guinea Company, which operated plantations in Kaiser-Wilhelmsland. He wrote his doctoral thesis on the "population problem".

Bibliography

• (in German) Joachim Schultz-Naumann: Unter Kaisers Flagge. Deutschlands Schutzgebiete im Pazifik und in China einst und heute. München 1985.
• (in German) Wolfgang Boochs: Deutsche Kolonien: Neuguinea und Samoa. BoD – Books on Demand, 2021.
• (in German) Jürgen Kilian: Des Kaisers Gouverneure: Sozialprofil, Deutungsmuster und Praktiken einer kolonialen Positionselite, 1885–1914. Global- und Kolonialgeschichte, Bd. 21, 2024, ISBN 978-3-8376-7205-3.
• (in German) Hans-Jürgen Bauer: Des Kaisers Platz an der Sonne: Die Kolonie Deutsch Neuguinea. 2024 (ebook).

References

1. (in German) Hermann Joseph Hiery (Hrsg.): Die Deutsche Südsee 1884–1914. Ein Handbuch. Ferdinand Schönigh Verlag, Paderborn 2001, S. 281.
2. (in German) Vgl. Michael Fröhlich: Imperialismus – Deutsche Kolonial- und Weltpolitik 1880–1914. Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag dtv, München 1994, S. 211.
3. (in German) Heinrich Schnee: Erinnerungen. Als letzter Gouverneur in Deutsch-Ostafrika. Quelle und Meyer, Heidelberg 1964, S. 26.
4. (in German) Heinrich Schnee, früher Kaiserlicher Ritter in Deutsch-Neu-Guinea: Bilder aus der Südsee: Unter den kannibalischen Stämmen des Bismarck-Archipels. Reimer, Berlin 1904.
5. (in German) Berliner Börsen-Zeitung, 7. Juli 1912.

External links

• (in German) Deutsche Südsee-Schutzgebiete, Deutsche Schutzgebiete.de

v t e Governors of German New Guinea (1885–1914)
Commissioner	Gustav von Oertzen [de] (1885–1887)
Landeshauptleute of the German New Guinea Company	Georg von Schleinitz (1886–1888) Reinhold Kraetke [de] (1888–1889)
Commissioner	Fritz Rose [de] (1889–1892)
Landeshauptleute of the German New Guinea Company	Georg Schmiele [de] (1892–1895) Hugo Rüdiger [de] (1895–1896) Curt von Hagen (1896–1897) Albert Hahl (1897)* Hugo Skopnik (1897–1898)*
Governors	Rudolf von Bennigsen (1899–1901) Albert Hahl (1901–1914) Eduard Haber (1914)*
*acting

• 1857 births
• 1943 deaths
• People from Bydgoszcz
• People from West Prussia
• German lawyers
• German people in German New Guinea
• Colonial governors and administrators