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Ada Schnee
Ada Schnee, c. 1918
Born
Ada Adeline Woodhill

(1872-10-17)17 October 1872.
Naseby, New Zealand
Died11 May 1969(1969-05-11) (aged 96)
Berlin
Other namesBibi Mkubwa (in Swahili)
CitizenshipUnited Kingdom, Germany
Occupation(s)Actress and author
Known forMemoir of her life in German East Africa
Notable workBibi Mkuba: My experiences in German East Africa during World War I
SpouseHeinrich Schnee

Ada Schnee, née Ada Adeline Woodhill, was a naturalized German author, born to British parents in 1872 New Zealand. Her autobiographical writings about life in German East Africa as the wife of the last German governor, Heinrich Schnee, were published in 1918. In this memoir, she wrote about her experience as an eye witness of the East African campaign of World War I and her captivity as a female alien enemy.

Following the publication of her memoir, Ada Schnee gained public attention and gave talks in post-war Germany propagating German colonial past. An English translation of her memoir was published in 1995, and both the original as well as the translated version have been discussed by scholarly studies of literary and military history. They have mainly focussed on her experiences as a woman writer and the broader implications of her narrative for the German colonial context.

Biography

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Early life

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Ada Schnee was born Ada Adeline Woodhill in 1872 in Naseby, New Zealand, to an English father and an Irish mother. In 1879, her family moved to Sydney, Australia, where she later started a career as theatre actress, with her first professional role at Her Majesty's Theater in 1895. After several tours and growing success as actress in Australia and New Zealand, she left Sydney in October 1900, looking for engagements first in San Francisco and then in New York City. On the same steamer, she became acquainted with the 29-year-old German colonial official Heinrich Schnee (1871–1949), who had just spent two years in German New Guinea.[1]

At their reunion the following year, they married in New York City on 7 November 1901.[2] The couple spent their honeymoon travelling westwards across the United States and finally arrived in German Samoa, where Heinrich Schnee began his appointment as acting governor.[1]

Married life

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Heinrich and Ada Schnee in Apia, Samoa, 1902

Family alliances in commercial German centres with other important cities on either side of the North Sea were a common occurrence at the time. However, German officials would usually select their wives from a suitable social background, whereas Woodhill came from a modest background of immigrants to Australia and had worked as an actress.[2] An intelligent and able woman, Ada Schnee embellished her biography by inventing a past that would correspond with the standards expected by her husband, his colleagues and superiors. This whitewashed version of her personal background was eventually published in 1931 as the last chapter of a Festschrift on the occasion of Heinrich Schnee's 60th birthday.[1]

After Samoa, Heinrich Schnee served in diplomatic positions in Berlin and London, and in 1912 was appointed governor of German East Africa (GEA).[3] In Schnee's first two years of service, the colony developed through the completion of the central railway line between Lake Tanganyika and Dar es Salaam on the east coast, advances in public and animal health, as well as improved relations between settlers and the colonial administration. During his official activities, Ada Schnee accompanied her husband, for example on visits to the German communities in Tanga and other northern regions of the country in December 1913.[4]

World War I

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When World War I broke out in August 1914 and German and British troops were fighting the East African campaign, Ada Schnee was in a difficult position. Born and raised in New Zealand and Australia, she was proud of her British background. Nevertheless, she was loyal to her husband and decided to support the German side. A self-asserted woman of British background, who would advise her husband in full confidence, she was met with resentment by the conservatives in the German colony. This was particularly true with regard to the military officers closest to the commander of the German Schutztruppe, Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck. Heinrich Schnee's deputy, Wilhelm Methner, later wrote about her predicament during the war:

The wife of the governor, who was English by birth, suffered the bitter fate of seeing the sons of her fatherland and of her adoptive country in battle against each other. This brave and upright woman had to bear with much hostility.

— Wilhelm Methner, Unter drei Gouverneuren: 16 Jahre Dienst in deutschen Tropen, [5]

As governor, her husband stayed with the German troops during the campaign, but was overshadowed by Lettow-Vorbeck. In the absence of her husband, Ada Schnee assumed a leading role for German civilians. When Allied troops advanced, she and other civilians were evacuated to Tabora, a town in the interior, which was captured by colonial forces from Belgian Congo in September 1916.[6] Along with 140 German women and children, Ada Schnee was interned as a civilian prisoner.[7][8] Subsequently, she and most of the other German women and children were allowed to leave the colony and transferred to camps in Belgian Congo. Eventually sent by ship to France,[9] they were handed over to British authorities, who released Ada Schnee back to Germany in September 1917.[10]

Memoir about German East Africa during World War I

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Meine Erlebnisse während der Kriegszeit in Deutsch-Ostafrika, 1918
Main article: Bibi Mkuba: My experiences in German East Africa during World War I

Completed in July 1918, Ada Schnee's memoir was published just before the armistice of 11 November 1918.[11][12] An English translation published in 1995 was titled Bibi Mkuba: My experiences in German East Africa during World War I.[13] Differing from the German original, the English title was preceded by the Swahili honorific ‘Bibi Mkuba’ [sic] – a form of address reserved for older or high-ranking women.[14][15]

Ada Schnee’s memoir recounts her experiences as the wife of the governor of GEA during World War I. On less than 200 pages, she describes the outbreak of war, British attacks on Dar es Salaam, and tensions between civilian and military leadership. As Allied offensives intensify, she gives detailed information about the collapse of the colonial administration, civilian hardships, and her efforts organizing medical and relief work. Following the fall of Tabora, where she and other German civilians had been evacuated, Schnee is interned by Belgian forces and later repatriated to Germany via the Belgian Congo and France.

Later life in Germany

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Following the publication of her memoir, Ada Schnee became known as an eyewitness of German colonial rule and the East African campaign. Already in August 1918, Ada Schnee published an article in the newspaper of the German Colonial Society, claiming that the German colony had educated the native African population in government schools and "lifted them out of their primitive original state."[16] In the following years, she was repeatedly invited to speak about her colonial experience as a German woman,[17] for example by the Women's Welfare Association (Verein Frauenwohl), an organization that continued to promote German colonial past.[18]: 280  In the 1930s, she gave further talks as chairperson of the women's section of the Association of Germans living abroad (Bund der Auslandsdeutschen) in Berlin.[19]

Gravestone of Heinrich and Ada Schnee, Heerstraße cemetery, Berlin

During the 1920s and 1930s, her husband Heinrich Schnee was a long-serving member of the Reichstag, first during the Weimar Republic, and having joined the Nazi party in 1933, in the Reichstag of Nazi Germany.[20] After World War II, the Allies considered Schnee incriminated because he had held this seat for the Nazis. During his retirement, he had a car accident and died in Berlin in 1949.[21]

Final years

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In 1964, Ada Schnee edited her late husband's memoir about his years as last governor in GEA, titled Als letzter Gouverneur in Deutsch-Ostafrika – Erinnerungen.[22] Ada Schnee died aged 96 on 11 May 1969 in Berlin and was buried next to her husband in the Heerstraße cemetery.

Reception

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Scholarly publications

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Until the 1980s, studies on the lives and work of women in the former German colonies were neglected compared to those on male actors in colonial contexts. As a result, biographies written by women were only marginally considered in German colonial history. This period was primarily understood and published as the history of white men, portrayed as explorers and discoverers, soldiers, missionaries and traders. The prevalent focus was on colonial policy and its justification, as well as on aspects of power, economic and military history.[23] Published in 2010, an encyclopedia of German-language autobiographies by 2000 women authors born in the 19th century included an entry about Ada Schnee.[24]

British scholar Dorothy Goldman opined that the literary scholarship of World War I disregarded works by women, even though the literature about this period has been "celebrated for realising the experience of an entire generation."[25]: 1  Referring to Ada Schnee's and other women's writings, Goldman stated that women experienced, suffered and wrote about war in a different way from their husbands and other male writers.[25]: 43 

In postcolonial studies of the 21st century, Ada Schnee was described as "a cosmopolitan, intelligent and self-confident woman",[26] who refused to correspond to the common gender role of a dependent spouse.[27]: 126  A 2010 article discussing gender relations among former German colonialists and attitudes opposed to the Treaty of Versailles in the Weimar Republic included references to Ada Schnee's writings and public appearance.[28] In a 2017 biography about her husband, she was said to have strongly supported him in his official role, including in practical ways. As he was a poor public speaker, and she a trained actress, she could help him with his breathing technique, articulation and rhetorical skills. In his memoirs, Heinrich Schnee is said to have written about how much he relied on his wife's advice, and her influence was recorded as significant in his German East African policies.[14]: 231  Another study noted her central message that German women were patriotic and able to protect themselves, even without the presence of their husbands. This was exemplified by how she stood up to British and Belgian officials by simply ignoring their orders.[18]

Apart from Ada Schnee's reports of German achievements and bravery, scholars have noted that she also expressed disillusionment of the war that invalidated the European claim of bringing peace to Africa.[29] For example, she referred to African Christians “to whom we, whether as British, German or French missionaries taught the lesson of brotherly love, and now the Whites slaughter each other."[30]: 41  With regard to the fate of German settlers, she described how British troops had been engaged in plundering and executions. Moreover, she wrote that German interned civilians had to walk over extended distances, suffering arbitrary treatment and that hostile European colonists threw stones at them. Referring to her fear of sexual aggression, she was described mentioning that indigenous soldiers from the Belgian Congo had raped African women, while German women were spared of such violence.[31] In a German historical account of the "myth and reality" of Lettow-Vorbeck's military campaign, Ada Schnee's memoir was cited commenting on the hardships suffered by the native population. For example, she had written about punitive expeditions and that the Maasai, contrary to other ethnic groups, actively had opposed German rule.[32]

A 1999 article published by the Military Historical Society of Australia about Australians in German East Africa quoted the wartime memoir of British General C. P. Fendall with a description of Ada Schnee's reaction to the British Navy having destroyed the governor's palace in Dar es Salaam with all her personal belongings on 30 November 1914:

The Governor's wife, a native of Australia or New Zealand, was indignant at the destruction of her home, and as General Wahle, in his diary, says that she was so angry that she said she would never have anything more to do with the English. She kept her word, for when taken prisoner by the Belgians on their occupation of Tabora, she was sent, at her own request to Germany, in exchange for some Belgian women then in German hands.

— Charles Pears Fendall, The East African Force 1915–1919, [33]

A 2001 PhD thesis on WW I in East Africa called Ada Schnee's memoir "a less traditional source for military history, but nonetheless a useful one [...] as it gives a clear picture, but also focuses on the economic and medical systems that underlay the fighting force."[34] Among other references to Ada Schnee's book, the 2007 study Tip and run: the untold tragedy of the Great War in Africa quoted her view of how Africans were treated by Germans in comparison to the British administration: "[...] she wrote that the ‘weak point of British administration ‘is that it gives in to the natives too much. Because of this they become insolent and lazy which is not permitted under German doctrine’."[35]: 356  This statement was contrasted in the same study saying that an estimated 300,000 African civilians lost their lives because of the German scorched earth policy.[35]: 356 

Referring to Heinrich Schnee's later role as a deputy for the Nazi Party,[36] the US-American historian Lewis H. Gann wrote that he was disrespected by the Nazis and that

(...) his 'denazification file', compiled for the Allied Commission for Denazification in 1947, contains a number of genuinely moving letters from opponents of the regime who certified that he and his wife had assisted them and had taken some risk in so doing.

— Lewis H. Gann, "Heinrich Schnee (1871–1949)", [37]

Archives

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The German Historical Museum[38] and the German Federal Archives hold copies of her memoir as part of propaganda publications from the Reich's Foreign Office.[39] In November 1918, the Foreign Office had ordered more than 3000 copies to be sent to German embassies in Bern, The Hague, Stockholm and Copenhagen. In order to counter British allegations, the embassies were instructed to disseminate the book to all neutral states to "prove that the Germans are indeed capable of fostering a positive colonial spirit."[12] Copies of the German original edition are also held by more than 60 scientific libraries, mainly in Germany and other European countries, but also by the Library of Congress and universities in the US and Canada.[40] The English translation has been collected by 30 scientific libraries.[41]

The Prussian Privy State Archives in Berlin hold personal correspondence and notes about her travels and historical events from 1896 to 1951, as well as a 2-metre oil painting of Ada Schnee.[42][43]

Fiction

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A literary rendering of Ada Schnee in German East Africa is part of the novel A Matter of Time by Swiss writer Alex Capus.[44] Further, she appears as a character in the 2015 novel The Ghosts of Africa by Canadian author William Stevenson.[45]

Works

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See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b c Hans Draeger, "Ada Schnee, die Gattin" [Ada Schnee, the spouse]. Hans Draeger (ed.), Gouverneur Schnee: ein Künder und Mehrer deutscher Geltung. Berlin: Stilke, 1931, pp.115–136. (in German)
  2. ^ a b Blackburn, Geoff (June 1999). "German Australians in von Lettow's Army, 1915–1918, or, The Governor's Wife Was an Australian Actress". www.mhsa.org.au. Sabretache. Military Historical Society of Australia. pp. 23–25. Retrieved 31 July 2025.
  3. ^ Gann, Lewis H. (1977). The rulers of German Africa, 1884–1914. Internet Archive. Stanford, Calif. : Stanford University Press. pp. 93–95. ISBN 978-0-8047-0938-5.
  4. ^ "DFG-Viewer: Schnee, Heinrich". dfg-viewer.de (in German). Retrieved 22 July 2025.
  5. ^ Methner, Wilhelm (1938). Unter drei Gouverneuren: 16 jahre Dienst in deutschen Tropen [Under three Governors: 16 years of service in German tropical countries] (in German). Breslau: W. G. Korn. pp. 348–349.
  6. ^ Samson, Anne (2016). Daniel, Ute; Gatrell, Peter; Janz, Oliver; Jones, Heather; Keene, Jennifer; Kramer, Alan; Nasson, Bill (eds.). East and Central Africa. 1914-1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War. Freie Universität Berlin. doi:10.15463/IE1418.10851. Retrieved 30 July 2025.
  7. ^ Löschnigg, Martin; Sokolowska-Paryz, Marzena (14 October 2014). The Great War in Post-Memory Literature and Film. Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. p. 400. ISBN 978-3-11-036302-9.
  8. ^ Gladding, R. G. (3 March 2022). The Kaiser's Last General: The East Africa Campaign and the Hunt for Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, 1914–1918. McFarland. p. 109. ISBN 978-1-4766-8599-1.
  9. ^ "DFG-Viewer: Schnee, Heinrich". dfg-viewer.de (in German). Retrieved 22 July 2025.
  10. ^ "Die Helden von Dt. Ostafrika" [The Heroes of German East Africa]. sammlungen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de (in German). Frankfurter Nachrichten und Intelligenzblatt. 29 September 1917. Retrieved 28 July 2025.
  11. ^ Official documents by the German Foreign Office of 9 November 1918 already had given a favourable assessment of the book and ordered more copies from the publisher.
  12. ^ a b "BArch R 901/71548". invenio.bundesarchiv.de (in German). Retrieved 31 July 2025.
  13. ^ OpenLibrary.org. "Bibi Mkuba by Ada Schnee | Open Library". Open Library. Retrieved 22 July 2025.
  14. ^ a b Abermeth, Katharina (2017). Heinrich Schnee: Karrierewege und Erfahrungswelten eines deutschen Kolonialbeamten (in German). Solivagus-Verlag Stefan Eick e.K. ISBN 978-3-9817079-4-6.
  15. ^ The English title's "Bibi Mkuba" is an incorrect spelling, missing a letter in the correct Swahili form "Bibi Mkubwa".
  16. ^ Nöhre, Joachim (1998). Das Selbstverständnis der Weimarer Kolonialbewegung im Spiegel ihrer Zeitschriftenliteratur (in German). LIT Verlag Münster. p. 24. ISBN 978-3-8258-3764-8.
  17. ^ ""Ada Schnee" – Deutsches Zeitungsportal". www.deutsche-digitale-bibliothek.de (in German). Berliner Börsen-Zeitung. 9 April 1930. Retrieved 23 July 2025.
  18. ^ a b Wildenthal, Lora (28 November 2001). German Women for Empire, 1884–1945. Duke University Press. pp. 186–187, 280. ISBN 978-0-8223-8095-5.
  19. ^ "Deutsche allgemeine Zeitung – Deutsches Zeitungsportal". www.deutsche-digitale-bibliothek.de (in German). 9 April 1930. Retrieved 23 July 2025.
  20. ^ "Verhandlungen des Deutschen Reichstags". www.reichstag-abgeordnetendatenbank.de (in German). Retrieved 21 July 2025.
  21. ^ "Digitale Bibliothek – Münchener Digitalisierungszentrum". daten.digitale-sammlungen.de (in German). Retrieved 21 July 2025.
  22. ^ Schnee, Heinrich (1964). Als letzter Gouverneur in Deutsch-Ostafrika: Erinnerungen (in German). Quelle & Meyer.
  23. ^ Gippert, Wolfgang (2009), Frauen und Kolonialismus: Einblicke in deutschsprachige Forschungsfelder (in German), Humboldt-Universität Zu Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, doi:10.25595/1856, retrieved 24 July 2025
  24. ^ Wedel, Gudrun (2010). Autobiographien von Frauen: ein Lexikon (in German). Böhlau Verlag. p. 759. ISBN 978-3-412-20585-0.
  25. ^ a b Goldman, Dorothy, ed. (15 January 1993). Women and World War 1: The Written Response. Springer. ISBN 978-1-349-22555-2.
  26. ^ Jensz, Felicity (2 May 2025). "Making Enemies: British and German Missionary Personnel in East African Internment Camps during the First World War". German History ghaf017. doi:10.1093/gerhis/ghaf017. ISSN 0266-3554.
  27. ^ Kilian, Jürgen (4 March 2024). Des Kaisers Gouverneure: Sozialprofil, Deutungsmuster und Praktiken einer kolonialen Positionselite, 1885–1914 (in German). transcript Verlag. ISBN 978-3-8394-7205-7.
  28. ^ Wildenthal, Lora (2010). Gender and Colonial Politics after the Versailles Treaty. In Kathleen Canning, Kerstin Barndt, and Kristin McGuire (eds.), Weimar Publics/Weimar Subjects. Rethinking the Political Culture of Germany in the 1920s. New York: Berghahn, pp. 339–359.
  29. ^ Michael Pesek (2011). "Colonial Heroes: German Colonial Identities in Wartime, 1914–18". In Perraudin, Michael; Zimmerer, Jürgen (eds.). German colonialism and national identity. Routledge studies in modern European history. New York: Routledge. p. 7. ISBN 978-0-415-96477-7.
  30. ^ Schnee, Ada (1918). "Meine Erlebnisse während der Kriegszeit in Deutsch-Ostafrika". scholarsarchive.byu.edu (in German). Retrieved 21 July 2025.
  31. ^ Canning, Kathleen; Barndt, Kerstin; McGuire, Kristin (1 August 2010). Weimar Publics/Weimar Subjects: Rethinking the Political Culture of Germany in the 1920s. Berghahn Books. p. 347. ISBN 978-1-84545-846-1.
  32. ^ Schulte-Varendorff, Uwe (2006). Kolonialheld für Kaiser und Führer: General Lettow-Vorbeck – Mythos und Wirklichkeit (in German). Ch. Links Verlag. p. 40. ISBN 978-3-86153-412-9.
  33. ^ Fendall, C P The East African Force 1915–1919." (1921) Battery Press Reprint, Nashville, p 227.
  34. ^ Anderson, Ross (2001). World War I in East Africa 1916–1918 (PhD thesis). University of Glasgow. p. 6.
  35. ^ a b Paice, Edward (2008). Tip and run: the untold tragedy of the Great War in Africa. Internet Archive. London : Phoenix. ISBN 978-0-7538-2349-1.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)
  36. ^ "Schnee, Heinrich – Deutsche Biographie". www.deutsche-biographie.de (in German). Retrieved 17 July 2025.
  37. ^ L.H. Gann, "Heinrich Schnee (1871–1949)" in L.H. Gann and Peter Duignan (eds.), African Proconsuls: European Governors in Africa, New York: Free Press, 1978, p.498.
  38. ^ "Bericht über die Ereignisse in Deutsch-Ostafrika während des Ersten Weltkriegs – Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek". www.deutsche-digitale-bibliothek.de (in German). Retrieved 17 July 2025.
  39. ^ ""Meine Erlebnisse während der Kriegszeit in Deutsch-Ostafrika" von Ada Schnee – Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek". www.deutsche-digitale-bibliothek.de. Retrieved 31 July 2025.
  40. ^ "Meine Erlebnisse während der Kriegszeit in Deutsch-Ostafrika | WorldCat.org". search.worldcat.org. Retrieved 31 July 2025.
  41. ^ "Bibi Mkuba : my experiences in German East Africa during World War I | WorldCat.org". search.worldcat.org. Retrieved 31 July 2025.
  42. ^ "Manuskript "Aufzeichnungen" mit einem Vorwort von Frau Ada Schnee, geb. Woodhill – Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek". www.deutsche-digitale-bibliothek.de. Retrieved 17 July 2025.
  43. ^ "Ölporträt Ada Schnee – Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek". www.deutsche-digitale-bibliothek.de (in German). Retrieved 17 July 2025.
  44. ^ Capus, Alex (12 November 2013). A Matter of Time. Haus Publishing. ISBN 978-1-907822-90-2.
  45. ^ Stevenson, William (27 January 2015). The Ghosts of Africa. Skyhorse. ISBN 978-1-62914-963-9.
  46. ^ Schnee, Ada (1918). Meine Erlebnisse während der Kriegszeit in Deutsch-Ostafrika (in German). Quelle und Meyer.

Further reading

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