I’m once again visiting Hawaii, this time on the island of Maui. Since 2010 I’ve been on a continuing quest for Germanic-Hawaiian connections. Even here in the middle of the vast Pacific Ocean, 12 time zones away from Europe, there are many more than one might think. I first wanted to see if there were any direct historic ties between the Sandwich Islands (now better known as Hawai’i) and the German-speaking countries. I didn’t have to look very far. Aboard the Resolution, the ship that transported Capt. James Cook to his discovery of the Hawaiian archipelago in 1778, were a German-Swiss artist (Johann Waeber) and three German sailors.

Like Christopher Columbus before him, Cook is a controversial European explorer among the native inhabitants who managed to survive his “discovery”. Historians have recorded the damage wrought by Cook on these remote islands, but unlike Columbus, he did not survive his expedition. The Hawaiians had tired of the captain even before he left after 19 days. Upon returning to Hawaii following a storm in February 1779 to resupply and repair his two ships, the British seafarer was killed during a pointless skirmish over a stolen longboat.

Since Cook’s arrival, Hawaii has been influenced – positively and negatively – by other haoles (outsiders), including Americans, British, French, Germans, Portuguese and Asians. It turns out that people from the German-speaking parts of Europe have played some key roles in Hawaiian history. If you study Hawaii’s past, you’ll run across many German names: Hackfeld, Hillebrand, Isenberg, Chamisso, Lemke, Pflueger, Schäffer, Spreckels, and Zimmermann, to name just a few. At one time, the island of Kauai in particular had a sizable German population. The island’s main town, Lihue, was nicknamed “German Town” – in part because the German sugarcane planters on Kauai imported fellow Germans to work in the fields. The first of an estimated total of 1,400 Germans had arrived in Kauai in June 1881. There were German Lutheran churches and schools in Lihue and Honolulu (Oahu).

Pearl Harbor: The iconic USS Arizona Memorial (right) was designed by an Austrian-born architect. The USS Missouri (“Mighty Mo”) is anchored nearby (left) as a museum. The Missouri was the site of the Japanese surrender signing in Tokyo Bay on 2 September 1945. PHOTO: Hyde Flippo

During a previous visit to Kauai, I researched three historic forts built by Hawaiians in the early 1800s with the influence of a Bavarian-born adventurer named Georg Anton Schäffer. The largest of those forts was erroneously named “Russian Fort Elizabeth”, a mistake that was not corrected until June 2022, 206 years after the fort’s construction.

World War I pretty much put an end to the German presence in Hawaii, but I want to concentrate on several enduring legacies: some German ones and a more recent Austrian one.

Heinrich Berger and the Hawaiian State Song

Heinrich (Henry) Berger
PHOTO: Hawaii State Archives

In 1872 Berlin-born Heinrich August Wilhelm Berger (1844-1929), on loan from the Prussian king, became the director of the Royal Hawaiian Band, a post he would hold until his death in 1929. In 1874, King Kalakaua asked Berger to compose music to honor the prior King Kamehameha. The German composer adapted the melody of the Prussian anthem “Heil dir im Siegerkranz” (an oft-borrowed melody also heard as “God Save the Queen” and “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee”) for the “Hymn of Kamehameha I”. King David Kalakaua had written lyrics to honor Kamehameha, and those Hawaiian words, with music by Berger, became the royal anthem for Hawaii. The royal anthem later became the Hawaiian national anthem. Following statehood, “Hawai’i Pono’i” was declared the official state song by the Hawaii legislature in 1967. There are two sets of lyrics in Hawaiian and English.

In 1905 the Royal Hawaiian Band was taken over by the city of Honolulu, and it is today the oldest municipal band in the US. Berger, later known as Henry Berger, is also considered the father of the Honolulu Symphony. He proudly became a naturalized citizen of the Kingdom of Hawaii in 1879. Henry Berger helped preserve Hawaii’s musical heritage by printing out the music and words of traditional chants, hymns and other native music. His own compositions include: “The Hula March,” “Hilo March,” “Kohala March,” “Nu’uanu Valley Polka,” and “Sweet Lei Lehua” (written in honor of his daughter, who died in 2001). Heinrich Berger’s grave (marked “Henry Berger”) is located in the cemetery of the historic Kawaiaha’o Church in Honolulu, where Berger served as organist for many years.

The Royal Hawaiian Band performs in 2012. PHOTO: Hyde Flippo

Prussian Uniforms in Hawaii
One more thing, before we move on… The uniforms worn by King Kalakaua and the members of the Royal Hawaiian Band reflect a Prussian military style that was adapted by another German, a tailor named Paul Lemke (1851-1908), who had arrived in Hawaii in 1879 via New York from Berlin and his native town of Soldin, then in Brandenburg, now Myślibórz, Poland. Like many other emigrants, Lemke had sailed to New York from the port of Bremerhaven in 1874. Later he made his way to the Kingdom of Hawaii where he worked as a tailor in Honolulu. In 1886 Lemke made the long journey to return to Germany in order to marry Agnes Graumann, a cousin from Soldin. The couple made their home in Hawaii and had two boys and a girl, all born in Honolulu. Another daughter died in infancy. In 1881 Lemke had been appointed königlicher Hofschneider (Court Tailor to the King), upon the request of King Kalakaua, who admired the Prussian military’s uniforms. The king asked Lemke to design the uniforms for the Royal Hawaiian Band. Paul Lemke’s descendants can still be found living in Hawaii. His widow died in San Jose, California in 1929 at the age of 72.

Alfred Preis and the USS Arizona Memorial

Few of the 1.5 million tourists who annually visit the gleaming white USS Arizona Memorial in the waters of Pearl Harbor realize that it was designed by an Austrian-born architect. Ironically, Alfred Preis (1911-1993) had fled the Nazi takeover of his homeland before being imprisoned as an “enemy alien” in 1941, not very far from where his architectural gem now stands.

In 1929, the same year Heinrich Berger died in Honolulu, Alfred Preis graduated from a secondary school in Vienna, where he had been born. He went on to study architecture and work as an architect and freelance designer in Vienna. Although he had converted from Judaism to Catholicism in 1936, that did not protect him from the dangers caused by Hitler’s annexation of Austria in 1938. With the help of the Catholic Refugee Association, Alfred Preis and his wife Jana fled Austria and sailed to America in 1939.

The USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor was designed by Alfred Preis. PHOTO: Hyde Flippo

Soon he was in Hawaii working for the architectural offices of Dahl and Conrad in Honolulu. Preis worked there until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. After the attack, Preis and his wife, along with the Japanese and Germans then living in Hawaii (US citizens and non-citizens alike), were rounded up and imprisoned in special compounds surrounded by barbed wire fences and guards. Mr. and Mrs. Preis ended up living in a tent at the Sand Island “detainment camp” in Honolulu Harbor. They remained there for three months before being released. His son Jahn-Peter Preis, a Honolulu architect today, claims that Alfred never expressed any bitterness about his captivity during the period of post-attack hysteria.

Although Alfred Preis also designed several landmark buildings and many homes in the Honolulu area, he is best known for the USS Arizona Memorial, which was opened and dedicated by President John F. Kennedy in 1962. The design that Preis created, selected from among several others, had to meet the US Navy’s criteria, which called for a bridge-like structure that did not come into contact with the Arizona. As with almost any architectural project, Preis’ memorial also had its critics, but with time, most people agree that his design serves its purpose well. After his death in 1993, the Austrian-American architect’s ashes were scattered in the waters around the USS Arizona and its memorial.

The Honorary German Consul in Honolulu

Since 2012 the Federal Republic of Germany has had an honorary consul in Hawaii (Honolulu) who serves the needs of local and visiting German citizens who may need help with passports or other matters. Honorary Consul Denis Salle holds an M.A in Political Science from the University of Hamburg and a MBA from the University of Hawaii. Besides representing Germany in Hawaii, Salle owns and operates a medical IT services company.

The former TV journalist also serves as a spokesman for local German causes, most recently an effort to restore the historic Hackfeld Gate in downtown Honolulu near the Aloha Tower. It is one of the few remaining pieces of history of the German community in Hawaii. Funded by donations, a new historical information plaque was installed near the gate in February 2020. The estimated $50,000 required to restore the gate remains to be fully funded. Sea captain Heinrich (Henry) Hackfeld arrived in Honolulu with his wife, Marie, her 16-year-old brother Johann Carl Pflueger, and nephew B.F. Ehlers in September 1849. Hackfeld, along with partner and fellow German Paul Isenberg, founded a mercantile business that would later become Honolulu’s most successful department store, Liberty House, which was bought by Macy’s in 1974, and closed down in 2001.

More German-Hawaiian Connections

Below are links to more German-speaking people and related historic events in the Hawaiian islands.

German sugar barons in Hawaii: The small unincorporated community of Spreckelsville (pop. 460) on the island of Maui is named after the German-American “Sugar king” Claus Spreckels (1828-1908). Located not far from the Kahului airport, Spreckelsville was founded in 1878 as a company town for the Spreckels Sugar Company. Spreckels was active in both Hawaii and California. Today Spreckelsville Beach is a popular location for surfing and snorkeling.

Baltic Germans and the ‘Russian’ Fort on Kauai: The fort was neither Russian nor German. The Crazy Bavarian and Kauai’s ‘Russian’ Fort is the story of Georg Anton Schäffer, the controversial “Schäffer affair”, and a naming mistake that took 200 years to correct.

Science and Art by a French/German Botanist: Adalbert von Chamisso (1781-1838) was a writer and botanist who served with the Russian American Company. He visited Hawaii aboard the Russian brig Rurik as part of a scientific round-the-world voyage between 1815 and 1818. His Tagebuch (Journal), published in 1821, gave a detailed account of his voyage and the plant species he discovered. In 1837 Chamisso also published Über die Hawaiische Sprache, a volume about the Hawaiian language (available online).

– HF