August Engelhardt

August Engelhardt
Born 27 November 1875
Nuremberg, Germany
Died 6 May 1919 (aged 43)
Kabakon, Papua New Guinea
Fields Cocoivorism, Sun Worship

August Engelhardt (27 November 1875 Nuremberg, Germany – 6 May 1919, Kabakon, Papua New Guinea), was a German author and founder of a sect.

Background

Health reformer August Moritz Engelhardt de:August Engelhardt wrote a book called A Carefree Future in 1898, which described a colony of fruit and vegetable eaters, specifically cocoivores (coconut eaters) he was founding in the then Bismarck Archipelago (now Papua New Guinea) in the South Pacific a place known for its headhunters.[1] After graduating from Erlangen University in Physics and Chemistry, he conducted an 18 year experiment on Kabakon island, living a natural life on coconuts.[2] According to Johnny Lovewisdom, World War I brought Engelhardt's death, not the coconut diet, which Walter Siegmeister claimed,[3] when British Authorities incarcerated Engelhardt, divorcing him from his natural way of life.[4] However, in the writings of Engelhardt's contemporary Arnold Ehret,[5][6][7] a pioneer of Vitalism, the lack of transition diet contributed to his weakened vitality.[8]

Biography

Life before 1902

Engelhardt was born on 27 November 1875 in Nuremberg, the son of a factory owner manufacturing paints and varnish. He left Gymnasium, to study physics and chemistry at Erlangen University, before working as a pharmacy assistant. Due to employment reasons, he developed an interest in healthy lifestyle issues, that were being promoted by the lifestyle reform movement, which included writers such as Gustav Schlickeysen who wrote Obst und Brod: eine wissenschaftliche Diätetik (Fruit And Bread: A Scientific Diet) in 1877. The book proposed that a frugivorous diet was the rational and natural diet for man. In particular, he heard of a new philosophy developing in the United States called Cocoivorism.[9]

Coconut vision

In the fall of 1899, Engelhardt joined the Jungborn ("Fountain of Youth") in the Harz mountains, Eckental, an association for wild living, which was founded by brothers Adolf Just and Rudolf Just and whose basic principles were vegetarianism and nudism. There, he preached his idea that humans might live best in a "natural state" eating only coconuts, and gave public lectures in Leipzig and Nuremberg, where he was ridiculed. The Jungborn later experienced legal complications that led to its dissolution, as the practice of nudism was considered illegal and immoral. Adolf Just was convicted of improper activities as a naturopath and sent to jail. It is likely that these events led Engelhardt to a place away from the constraints and conventions of Europe where he could realize his ideas of natural living. Engelhardt was also part of the Monte Verità movement.[10]

In German New Guinea

After serving for one year in the 14th Infantry Regiment, with a substantial inheritance, the 24-year-old took a trip on board the mail steamer "Empire" in July 1902. On 15 September 1902, Engelhardt arrived in German New Guinea in the South Pacific via Ceylon.[11] There he hoped to find the conditions that he had envisaged to conduct a coconut eating and tropical living experiment. He obtained on 2 October 1902, from Queen Emma Kolbe's, Forsayth Company, a coconut and banana plantation of 75 hectares on the coral island Kaka Kon island (Kabakon) for 41,000 Marks. Kabakon was a Duke of York island, close to Neu-Lauenburg, in the Bismarck Archipelago, (now Papua New Guinea) and 28 miles from Herbertshöhe (today Kokopo), where the German New Guinea imperial administration was based at that time. The other 50 hectares were a protected nature reservation inhabited by natives.

Island life

On Kabakon, the only white man among 40 melanesians, he built a 3 room hut, and began implementing his ideas of living close to nature. He gave up clothes completely and fed exclusively on a vegetarian diet, mostly from coconuts. With sun and coconuts as the main pillars, Engelhardt developed a philosophy adopted on increasingly religious lines. Assuming that the sun was the venerable source of all life, he claimed that the coconut was the fruit that grows nearest the sun, and therefore the most perfect food for people. This view, called Cocoivorism, culminated in Engelhardt's statement that the constant consumption of coconuts leads man into a divine state of immortality. Engelhardt also made a living trading in coconuts, dried coconut and sought after coconut oil. After developing an ulcer (yaws) on his right leg, he adopted a coconut monodiet, blaming tropical fruits for his condition.[12]

Evolving philosophy

According to the New York Times (October 15, 1905): "His plan was to have his sect worship the sun. He held that man was a tropical animal, not intended to live in caves called houses, but to wander, as Adam did, with the sun beating upon him all day and the dews of heaven for a mantle at night. Living such a life, he believed that the healing and curative powers of the sun would in time render a man so immune that sickness could be overcome".[2] The further Engelhardt's philosophy developed, the more dramatic was his testimony. He claimed that the noblest organ of the human body was the brain, because it is nearest to the sun, and he denied that such a noble part of the body receives its strength from the deep and dirty digestive tract. He suggested instead that the brain receives its energy from the hair roots, which in turn are fed by sunlight. For this reason the wearing of any head covering would be harmful. He was convinced, that, by eating only coconuts, he would achieve a higher state of mind, almost divine, and a place in a kind of paradise.

New arrivals

Although he had brought 1,200 books with him, Engelhardt felt isolated, and so expanded his views, declaring that he wanted a community of like-minded people to gather around him on the island, which he called Sunshine North. To this end, he wrote promotional literature for Europe, to found an 'Order of the Sun'. He could afford to support followers by financing their passage, due to his inheritance. In 1903, the first newcomers arrived on the island, including nature writer August von Bethmann-Alsleben (born 21 April 1864), from Heligoland in the North Sea,[13] with whom Engelhardt wrote his main book The Carefree Future published in 1898, all about "the Sorcerer's Stone". The settlers were to be later known as the coconut cult, Sonnenorden, or Order of the Sun. According to the New Zealand Herald: "The long-haired, naked vegetarians, thought to number no more than 30, were a stark contrast to Kaiser Wilhelm's rigid turn-of-the-century Germany – and modern-day perceptions of German colonisers in the Pacific as military men, traders or administrators." [14] In June 1905, Heinrich Conrad, joined Engelhardt. Conrad returned to Germany in October 1905. Wilhelm Heine joined the colony in November 1905, but died 2 months later.

Tropical fruits

Together with Bethmann, Engelhardt set out to re-propagate his teachings. Bethmann wrote enthusiastic accounts of life on Kabakon, which were published in Germany. Engelhardt and Bethmann believed the coconut diet protected all tropical diseases, without the need for quinine. Bethmann later started to have doubts about the nudist living on Kabakon. He told a German civil servant of the government, that by June 1906 he would leave on the next available steamer to New Guinea for Germany, but before that date Bethmann died of unknown causes, in September 1906, possibly of malaria. It is not exactly known what happened, but there seems to have been a quarrel between Engelhardt and Bethmann, probably about Bethmann's wife. Anna Schwab, whom Bethmann married after her arrival in mid-1906, had encouraged him to eat tropical fruits rather than just coconuts. Engelhardt believed the fruits were the catalyst for his demise. She returned to Germany 2 months later, to criticise the "Blazing Sun" Order. As a result, eventually, the Governor of the island, ordered a stop to new migrants to the colony. Engelhardt was again alone on the island.

Early departures

After inviting a Berlin doctor to join Engelhardt, without success, two notable arrivals were Heinrich Eukens and Max Lutzow. Heinrich Eukens, was a 24-year-old vegetarian, student of Bavaria and native of Heligoland. Lutzow was a conductor, violinist and pianist with the well-known Lutzow Orchestra of Berlin. Lutzow talked in glowing letters to Germany about his experience on Kabakon describing a sudden interest in angels. After 2 months, he wrote an enthusiastic letter to the most-read vegetarian magazine in Germany. Other newcomers arrived until the community at its peak, consisted of up to 30 members. However, disillusion quickly set in, with the members experiencing disease and accidents. Six weeks after his arrival, Eukens had died, after developing a cold then a fever, although the cause of death was undetermined.[2] Max Lutzow later became seriously ill after being stranded for 2 days in a boat during a storm. After returning to the island, he wanted to visit the hospital in Herbertshöhe, once he could reach the island Lamassa, but had succumbed to the effects of the storm.[2] Other members later left, so that the nudist community was near its end.

Change of weather

In 1904, Engelhardt became ill, after a drought reduced the fruit crop in 1903 with the remaining fruit crop wiped out in a storm in spring 1904.[2] Only at the insistence of Bethmann, who had not yet departed, Engelhardt went to the hospital in Herbertshöhe where he was found in alarmingly poor health: Engelhardt, at a height of 1.66 meters, was only 39 kilos. His whole body was itching and he had skin ulcers, as well as being exhausted and unable to walk. In summer 1905, he was taken to Herbershohe to be treated by Dr Wendland. With intensive care, he recovered before fleeing the hospital returning to Kabakon. Dempwolff, a German doctor at the hospital in Herbertshöhe, judged Engelhardt "a paranoid wreck". According to the New York Times (October 15, 1905), "For nearly two years more he continued to live the 'pure, natural life'" .[2] He only attended to his plantation, but the coconut apostle became a point of interest for tourists in German New Guinea including painter Emil Nolde.[9] It was a "must" for everybody to go to Kabakon and be photographed with the only remaining cocoivore.

Evolving writings

On recovery, Engelhardt founded "Sonnenorden Kabakon" (A Way of Life in the Sun), at Kabakon, but this was to be refused official status by the island's German Governor. Nevertheless, Ernst Schweizer from Switzerland arrived in 1908, but died a month later. Engelhardt continued to publish promotional literature including the bi-monthly "Für Sonne, Tropen u(nd) Kokosnuss!" between 1909 and 1913, co-funded by plantation manager, Wilhelm Bradtke, but his writings seemed increasingly confused.[15] Engelhardt again started a publicity campaign to find followers, but now the German government was cautious. A new follower of Engelhardt had first to deposit 1,400 Goldmarks for possible cost of hospital and the trip back. He announced he wanted to establish an "international tropical colonial empire of frugivores" for nudism and sun-worship, which should include the entire Pacific, South America, Southeast Asia and Central Africa. All civil servants were requested to warn every newly arriving settler of Kabakon, since Engelhardt had become unmistakably insane. The German colonial administration wanted to ensure that no further arrivals reach his island.

Island developments

In 1909, Engelhardt closed down his "Order of the Sun" colony and visited German New Guinea. His plantation operated since 1909 as Engelhardt & Company, was farmed by manager Wilhelm Bradtke, a vegetarian who had arrived in Kabakon in March 1905 After nearly 3 months, Bradtke had decided against the lifestyle and began working for Queen Emma, as a manager of the Ralum Plantation. Writing in a vegetarian magazine in 1906, Bradtke had documented Engelhardt's major leg wounds, gout in the fingers, skin rashes, fever and seizures. 4 weeks later, Bradtke experienced similar symptoms, due to the mosquitoes and sandflies.[9] He tried to convince Engelhardt to eat meat to improve his health.[12] Bradkte’s motto was "better to eat pork and live, than to eat coconuts and die." Engelhardt’s health became worse and he allegedly began to follow Bradkte's ideals. Bradkte managed to make the plantation profitable in 1909. In 1910, Engelhardt tried to register a plot of 50 hectares on the island Towalik (west of Kabakon) as his property, in the land register. By 1913, Engelhardt had lost money on the magazine, and he fell into a depression. An admission fee of 3,000 Marks had been imposed to prospective members of the colony, by Wilhelm Bradtke, causing a shortage of newcomers. Engelhardt and Bradtke separated. Other plantation managers and converts arrived, then returned or died.

Benedict Lust

According to the New Zealand Herald: "After Engelhardt fell seriously ill, the group's numbers dwindled; by 1913, before the outbreak of World War One, he was alone. He turned his attention to the cultivation of plants and their healing powers, interviewing many of the local people on the subject." In 1914, Engelhardt received a letter from Benedict Lust, leader of an American society of Vegetarians about possible migration, as he and his followers were disillusioned with the ideals of Adolf Just, but World War One then stopped their plans. In 1913, Lust had published Engelhardt’s book in English.

World War One

German New Guinea was captured on 11 September 1914. In early, 1915, during World War I, Engelhardt was interned for 3 weeks in an Australian camp in Rabaul as a prisoner of war, but was dismissed as a crank. He then returned to Kabakon now occupied by Australia, where Gordon Thomas of the Rabaul Times visited him, also in 1915. His plantation was now managed by another German planter Wilhelm Mirow, who later sold it to his Australian wife to escape expropriation by the Australians. Engelhardt continued to study the indigenous medicinal plants and homeopathy, and sent a lot of specimens to the Botanic Gardens of Brisbane and Sydney.

Engelhardt departs

Engelhardt continued to advocate sun worship and coconuts until he died in early May 1919, in his mid-40s. His body was found on the sixth of May, ending his dream based on the "Holy Coconut". He was buried in Inabui Cemetery on Mioko, Duke of York islands, but there is no burial site, which was possibly destroyed in World War Two. Bradtke, his final follower, died on May 10 in Bitalolo Hospital near Herbertshohe. Bradtke is buried in the German cemetery in Herbertshöhe (now Kokopo).

In the article Failure of a Womanless Eden in the Pacific – Strange Story from the South Seas in the New York Times, 15 October 1905, Engelhardt is said to have died sometime after 1904, aboard a German government ship, near Herbertshohe: "Engelhardt refused all nourishment to the last, refused all medicine, and accused the missionary of interfering with his convictions. He wrought himself up to a great frenzy, fell upon the deck and was restrained only with difficulty from flinging himself overboard and swimming back to the island. Before the beach had sunk below the horizon the man was dead." [2] According to the New York Times, "Wrapped in a German flag, Engelhardt, founder and survivor of the sun worshippers, was laid to rest beside Lutzow and Eukens on the beach at Kahakua (Kabakon)".

Expropriation

Mirow, on 26 July 1919, was appointed as executor. Through the Australian law on expropriation of German property (expropriation ordinance), the plantation and remaining assets of £6 fell on 6 May 1920 to the Australian State. Engelhardt’s plantation was worthless. He left all his personal possessions, writings and paintings to Dr. Berewenger in Berlin. Despite requests for these, nothing was ever received by 1938.

Legacy

One of the last people Engelhardt met was the Australian Captain Jones, who wrote, after leaving Kabakon "Is it Engelhardt, who is mad or is it we? And yet – could the world do without living examples in self-sacrifice – even if their ideals are wrong? And would we not all fall asleep, if it were not for a sprinkling of extremists?"

Engelhardt is the subject of a number of books about German New Guinea including one by Professor Hermann Hiery, a specialist in German colonial history at the University of Bayreuth, with Dieter Klein.

Swiss author Christian Kracht's 2012 fictional novel Imperium is inspired by and to a large degree centers around the life of August Engelhardt. An English translation, entitled Imperium - A Fiction of the South Seas will be published by Farrar Straus Giroux in 2015[16]

Criticisms

Arnold Ehret maintained that Engelhardt’s ill-health resulted from a failure to transition to a fruit diet.[17][18][19]

Quotes

"Naked cocovorism is God's will. The pure coconut diet makes man immortal and united with God."

"The sun cocovore man is the man, as he should be. The coconut is the Philosopher's Stone. What are universities in comparison to such a lifestyle?"

"The Sun Order will settle first in Kabakon, and from there, the Bismarck Archipelago, New Guinea and then the islands of the Pacific, including the tropical Central and South America, tropical Asia and equatorial Africa. I urge all frugivores and friends of the nature-friendly lifestyle, to help with the construction of the Palm Temple, and to participate in the creation of the frugivorous Empire."

Works

Related writings

See also

References

  1. ↑ Some Head-Hunting Traditions of Southern New Guinea, by Justus M. van der Kroef, American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 54, No. 2 (April – June 1952), pp. 221-235
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=990CEFDF1438EF32A25756C1A9669D946497D6CF Failure of a Womanless Eden in the Pacific – Strange Story from the South Seas, New York Times, 15 October 1905
  3. ↑ "The experiements of August Engelhart were publicized, telling of his living on coconuts; but Dr. Siegmeister reported Engelhart to have died with his skin consumed by tropical ulcers trying to live on coconuts 'on a coconut island'.", page 9, The History Of Naturalistic Colonization, Johnny Lovewisdom, Connecticut: O'Mango Press, 1970s
  4. ↑ "Dr J. M. Gehman, American Naturopathic Association President, told J. M. Sheppard, 'August Engelhardt, a University Professor, in an experiment covering 28 years on the Island of Kakakon in the South Pacific, lived a natural life. It was only after interference of World War I that brought his death.' (Not a coconut diet, as Dr. Siegmeister claimed). He was incarcerated and divorced from his natural way of life by British authorities and died as a result.", page 25, The History Of Naturalistic Colonization, Johnny Lovewisdom, Connecticut: OMango d'Press, 1970s
  5. ↑ Rational Fasting, Arnold Ehret, ELPC Inc, 1994
  6. ↑ The Story Of My Life as told to Anita Bauer, Arnold Ehret, Beneficial Books, 1980
  7. ↑ Lebensfragen: Gesammelte Aufsätze, Arnold Ehret, Carl Kuhn Publishers, 1923
  8. ↑ Lebensfragen: Gesammelte Aufsätze, Arnold Ehret, Carl Kuhn Publishers, 1923, section A 49 Day Fasting Experiment
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 http://www.nn-online.de/artikel.asp?art=1145928&kat=10 Der Ritter der Kokosnuss kommt aus Nürnberg – Vor 100 Jahren: August Engelhardt gründet Sonnenorden in Südsee, Christina Horsten, 24 December 2009
  10. ↑ "One of the most interesting members of our organization was a brilliant author by the name of Engelhart.", The Story Of My Life, Anita Bauer, Beneficial Books, 1980
  11. ↑ August Engelhardt, Karl Baumann and Maxwell Hayes
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 http://www.wissenschaft-online.de/artikel/959520 Der Apothekenhelfer August Engelhardt, Angelica Jacobs
  13. ↑ http://www.carl-huter.ch/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=138, August Bethmann (Oktober 1899), Carl Huter Archive
  14. ↑ Middleton, Julie (2 January 2006). "The X-pert Files: Sven Monter". The New Zealand Herald. Retrieved 17 September 2011.
  15. ↑ "dwelt there several years editing a journal titled, 'Sun, Coconut and Grapes'", The Story Of My Life, Anita Bauer, Beneficial Books, 1980, page 1980
  16. ↑ http://us.macmillan.com/imperium/christiankracht
  17. ↑ Lebensfragen, Arnold Ehret, Carl Kuhn Publishers
  18. ↑ The Story Of My Life as told to Anita Bauer, Arnold Ehret, Beneficial Books, 1983
  19. ↑ Rational Fasting, Arnold Ehret, USA: ELPC Inc, 1994, page 15, "Man is so perfect that he can live on one kind of fruit only, at least for quite some time. This has been conclusively proven by the Mono-diet system of August Engelhardt who solved by his great philosophy and practice of natural life all problems of mankind. But a self-evident truth preached by nature must not be discarded just because no one has been able to apply it in actual practice on account of civilizational considerations. From the eating of fruit only, one gets first a crisis, i.e. cleansing."
  20. ↑ August Engelhardt by Karl Baumann, Una Voce, June 2005, page 37-39

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