Wilhelm Matzat¶

Audio Video Dolor Documents Consectetur

*Year Event*
1922 The Berlin Missionary Society sends Willy and Dorothea Matzat as missionaries to Shantung, where they took over the mission station in the county town Tsimo.
1922 Johannes Matzat born. Dies of tuberculosis in 1942.Only 19 years old.
1923 After a hyper inflation in Germany which destroyed the then German currency, the Berlin Mission had high financial losses and could not upkeep anymore all their mission stations in Africa and China.
1925 Jan 1 January 1 st the 3 mission stations Tsingtao, Tsimo and Kiaochow were sold to the United Lutheran Church in America and their Amercian Lutheran Mission society. The German missionaries (Voskamp in Tsingtao, also Miss Strecker and Voget, Scholz in Kiaochow, Matzat in Tsimo) were taken over by the American Lutheran Mission, because they were acquainted with the local conditions and spoke the Shantung dialect. The new incoming American missionaries (Krueger, Anspach etc.) had first to learn the Chinese language, which took at least 2 years. This is the reason why my parents were working for the American Lutheran Mission since 1925.
1927 Hellmut Matzat
1930 Sept Father, Willy Matzat dies suddenly of embolism.
1930 Wilhelm Matzat born.
1931 Mother, Dorothea, & 4 sons move from Tsimo to Tsingtao, where she did mission work among Chinese women.
1931 - 1936 As my mother had a profession and not much time to care for us 4 brothers, from 1931 until March 1936 I was in the care of a Chinese amah.

1936 March Since March 1936 my mother had a one year furlough and we went by train via Sibiria to Germany. We 2 youngest brothers lived with our grandmother in a small village, were we attended the local grammar school.
1937 - 1938 Because of the war between Japan and China since June 1937 we could not immediately return to China but had to wait until 1938. In July 1938 my other, Hellmut and I returned to Tsingtao, this time by boat via the Suez Canal. From autumn 1938
1941 until 1944 2 families Rinell (Oscar & Egron) from Kiaohsien then came to Tsingtao and stayed for some days in Matzat's house
1942 Traugott Mazat serves as soldier in the war and fell in the Soviet Union, also only 19 years old.Wilhelm only about 12 years old.
1941 - 1945 As the colleagues of my mother were American missionaries, we had contact with them and their children, but this ceased in December 1941 because of the war between Japan and the USA. The Americans and British were either repatriated or interned in Weihsien.
1942 Johannes Matzat dies of tuberculosis. Wilhelm only about 12 years old.
1945 - Autumn Chinese communists try to occupy Kiaochow but fail.
1946 June until June 1946 I attended the German school there, so you see, I got a thorough German education, with little contact with Chinese or Japanese children.
1945 end of or 1946 beginning Photo from left to right: my mother, Hellmut (he had been operated on his meniscus in the knee) , myself, Lally, Chuck Adams. My official first name is Wilhelm, but as a boy in Tsingtao I was called Willi.
1946 March Mother, Dorothea, struck & killed by car
1946 April Last visit, together with my brother Hellmut to Kiaochow stayed with the Egron Rinell family.
1946 June Wilhelm & Hellmut leave China.& go to Germany.
1946 - March to June As my mother was killed in a car accident in March 1946, my brother and I boarded in June 1946 an US troop transporter, which brought 1100 Germans, who had lived in China, back to Germany.
1955-1961 Hellmut becomes a missionary in Malaysia, but his wife couldn't stand the tropical climate, and so they returned to Germany and Hellmut was pastor of a congregation in the town of Hamm. Dies September, 2010, 83 years old.
1969 - 1995 Wilhelm Matzat becomes professor of geography at the University of Bonn, Germany, from 1969 till 1995.

Footnotes

CHAPTER

Foreign Devils: A Swedish Family in China 1894 to 1951
© 2012-14 Lennart Holmquist
Lorum • Ipsum• Dolor • Sic Amet • Consectetur

Updated: 10-Feb-2017

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