Hans Paasche

[1] An Imperial Navy officer and combative pacifist, Hans Paasche was also a big game hunter and nature conservationist, explorer of Africa and life reformer, alcohol abstainer and vegetarian, author and revolutionary.

His honeymoon trip brought him back to Africa, where he undertook a major expedition with his wife Ellen, who became the first European woman to reach the source of the Nile and the first to ascend Kilimanjaro, as well as the recently erupted volcano Nyiragongo.

Paasche published his first book: Im Morgenlicht ("In the Morning Light"), which contained impressions of war and of hunting in Africa, but also valuable ethnographical materials.

Hans Paasche became one of the most charismatic public figures of the German Empire, well known for openly advocating his provocative ideas.

A high treason prosecution was conducted against him by Abteilung IIIb, the intelligence service of the General Staff led by colonel Walter Nicolai.

After the sudden death of his wife Ellen at twenty nine, he retreated to his estate at Waldfrieden to take care of his four young children, Jochen, Nils, Helga and Ivan.

The soldiers had mounted the operation under an anonymous call with the pretense of finding a hidden weapons cache, which was never found.

In 1985, Helga Paasche removed the tombstone of her father from Waldfrieden to the archives of the German Youth Movement on Ludwigstein Castle, where it is part of a permanent Hans-Paasche-exhibition.