The Poacher from German East Africa

German East Africa 1912

One day, as police sergeant Molinaeus is performing routine duties at the boma, the district office, a black man enters his room and drops a poisonous puff adder from his head onto the floor in front of Molinaeus. The strange intruder, a snake wizard with only nine toes, is the prelude to a difficult case for the sergeant that takes him deep into the African wilderness in search of a dangerous poacher who preys on elephants. Amidst the dangers of the jungle, a game of cat and mouse begins between Molinaeus and the poacher, a game of life and death...

Who was police sergeant Molinaeus?

Among the works of Rudolf de Haas, "The Poacher from German East Africa" is the only crime story. How did he come to write this book? When he became a prisoner of war in East Africa, he was taken to a camp in Egypt, where he made the acquaintance of the police sergeant Hans Moll from Mpapua in German East Africa. The dedication in the book "Der jüngste Reiter" (The Youngest Rider) to Hans Moll shows that this was far more than just a fleeting acquaintance. Since the two got along well, it is only natural that the police sergeant told stories from his everyday working life, which de Haas turned into a novel.

In the appendix of the book are 24 pages of information, pictures and postcards about police sergeant Hans Moll (Molinaeus), compiled by his great-nephew Hans-Heinrich Moll.

Rudolf de Haas

Rudolf de Haas was born in the Rhineland in 1870. He was a Protestant pastor - among other things in a German Protestant congregation in Australia and later as a divisional pastor for two years in China - and a successful writer. He lived in Australia at the beginning of the 20th century. He described his experiences there in "The Nugget. Tales from the Australian Gold Rush", "Around the Gold of the South Seas - A Tale of Australia's Rough Days" and "Fata Morgana. Experiences in the Australian Bush".

In 1909 he married Thea Gnade and undertook a long honeymoon trip to Africa through Tunisia, into the desert and the oases. After this trip he wrote the book "An Lagerfeuern der Sahara" with many interesting photographs. After the trip, he got a pastorate in Nazza in Thuringia in 1912.

Since Rudolf de Haas was also a member of the German Fleet Association and the German Colonial Society, he was sent on a second trip to German East Africa in 1914 for about half a year to promote the German Fleet Association as a well-known good speaker in the colonies. He took his wife and Theodor Klinkhardt with him, an intelligent young man from Nazza whom he had confirmed and about whom he wrote in his books "Theodor the Hunter" and "The Youngest Rider". He himself appears in several books under the pseudonym "Konrad".

In the wake of the outbreak of the First World War, the journey turned into a stay of several years. Rudolf de Haas and Theodor - who became the youngest rider in the Schutztruppe - were drafted and went through the war until they were taken prisoner two years before the end of the war and were sent to the large prison camp at Maadi near Cairo. Here he met a police sergeant Hans Moll from Mpapua in German East Africa, who is one of the main characters under the name of police sergeant Molinäus in the gripping crime novel " The Poacher from German East Africa". The novel itself is largely based on Hans Moll's experiences.

He described his experiences from this time in several works, such as "The Poacher from German East Africa", "The Victim of the Wagogo", and "Der Lion of Mosambique".