Hugo Skopnik

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.

After Landeshauptmann Curt von Hagen, general director of the German New Guinea Company, was murdered by the natives on a trip through the protectorate, Hugo Skopnik, who had previously worked as a lawyer in Stolp, was chosen as his successor.

[2] 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.

Hans Blum[b] later wrote: The death of Curt von Hagen was a hard blow for the young colony, which owes to his restless energy almost everything that has lasting value and is capable of development in New Guinea.

Not that there were not at times some very useful and capable officials among his predecessors, but admirals, senior postal counsellors and court assessors may be very useful in and of themselves, but in Kaiser-Wilhelmsland they were certainly not at home and only poorly compensated for their lack of expertise with endless paperwork and orders.

Thanks to his activity, the colony has been in complete stagnation for the past year and his personal companion is a Silenus, who has sprung from the train of Bacchus and who, with the sparkling water in his left hand and a maiden from Batavia pressed to his breast in his right, occasionally lets it be known that the Ramu expedition he has planned will soon begin despite the almost insurmountable difficulties.