Hans Sauer (11 June 1857 - 28 August 1939) was an Orange Free State born medical doctor, lawyer, adventurer and businessman.
[1]: 328 His father, Johannes J. Sauer, moved the family to Aliwal North where he practised law and farming but died in 1870.
[1]: 328 A year later he left his position and joined Dr. Oskar Sommershield in a hunting trip that took him through the Transvaal and into Mozambique to Lourenco Marques.
[1]: 329 In 1886, he was employed by Cecil John Rhodes and Charles Rudd with a 15% share, and he headed to Johannesburg to join the Witwatersrand Gold Rush where Sauer bought up mining claims along the Main Reef on behalf of the men.
[1]: 330 [3]: 36 In a growing mining town, he soon had many interests but his main appointment was on 6 March 1887 as Johannesburg's first district surgeon with friend Ignatius Ferreira sometimes acting as his anaesthetist.
[1]: 330 He returned to Rhodesia in 1893 as head of the Rhodesian Exploration Company and arrived during the First Matabele War began and would eventually establish himself in Bulawayo.
After the raid failed, he was arrested and imprisoned by the South African Republic but paroled as the Second Matabele War broke out in 1896 and he need to return to Rhodesia to rescue his family.