Gustav Adolf von Götzen
| Gustav Adolf von Götzen | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
12 May 1866 Scharfeneck Castle, Kingdom of Prussia, German Confederation |
| Died | 2 December 1910 (aged 44) Hamburg, German Empire |
| Nationality | German |
Count Gustav Adolf von Götzen (12 May 1866 – 2 December 1910) was a German explorer and Governor of German East Africa. He came to Rwanda in 1894 at the head of a troop of 620 soldiers, becoming the second European to set foot in Rwanda, after Dr Oscar Baumann, and later became the first European to cross the length of Rwanda. Götzen was the first governor of German East Africa.
Götzen was born into a comital family at their main residence, Scharfeneck Castle, back then in the Kingdom of Prussia, German Confederation. In present-day Poland and now called Sarny Court and Park, the castle and the adjoining summer palace, as well as the castle chapel in which he may have been baptized, still exist despite decades of disrepair in the communist era.
Götzen studied law at the universities of Paris, Berlin and Kiel between 1884 and 1887. He then joined the army, and became (in 1887) a Lieutenant in the 2nd Garde-Ulanen regiment. Between 1890 and 1891 he was stationed in Rome and it was from there that he made his first African trip, in a hunting expedition to Mount Kilimanjaro.
In 1892, having been made an officer in the War academy, Götzen travelled to Asia Minor with Major Walther von Diest.
From 1885, Karl Peters had begun claiming areas of East Africa for Germany. The Tanganyikan coast proved relatively easy, but conquest of the inland areas of the colony - right up to the Belgian Congo - was more difficult as large parts were still unexplored. For this reason, Götzen led an expedition to claim these hinterlands. He took with him Georg von Prittwitz and Hermann Kersting.
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