Bensemann Family - War and Peace

The First World War was a difficult time for Bensemann descendants who were living in New Zealand, Australia and other parts of the old British Empire.

My Aunty Dorothy was a young girl just after war was declared. She recalled waiting for the school bus by the side of the road near her home at Mahana, Nelson province. The bus pulled up next to her but did not open the doors. Instead the driver and the other children shouted abuse at her out the windows - 'we don't pick up huns' etc and they all clapped when the bus left her behind. She had to walk to Mahana School and was told off for being late.

Her brother, my Uncle Hans, was held down on the ground in the school playground at Mahana by a group of boys who apparently were doing the equivalent of bayonet practice. They called him a 'dirty hun' and stabbed his eye with a stick. His eye became infected and he lost it, replacing it with a glass eye. Most people with German surnames in the Upper Moutere area kept a low profile during the war, and a few Bensemanns dropped the last 'n' on their name to appear less German.

However my grandfather 'E C' Bensemann had a strong sense of injustice about the anti-German hype in the news media.

Aunty Dorothy said E C was a follower of the pacifist British journalist and politician Edmund Morel, who had campaigned against slavery in the Congo Free State and then argued for neutrality by Britain before the outbreak of the First World War. Morel’s writing’s had appeared occasionally in the Nelson Evening Mail, but this stopped before Morel was imprisoned under the Defence of the Realm Act in 1917.

After the war Morel (right) was director of the magazine Foreign Affairs, a significant voice of 'the English left'. E C argued with the Nelson Evening Mail editor, asserting that Morel had provided the only balanced view of the war. Morel died in 1924 and in late February 1925, just after my father Ranginui Morel Bensemann was born, E C barged into the editor’s office and said, 'I’ve just had a son, and named him "Morel:" so take that!'

E C and his wife Esther (nee Eggers) did however follow the general move in the Moutere to replace English in the home, school and church. Those of their six siblings who were born pre-war were quite fluent in German. Those born during and afterwards were not.

When the war started in 1914, E C was initially in demand as a speaker at patriotic meetings. He was an advocate for local farmers; for example organising hop-growers into an association that could negotiate higher prices with brewers. He was also a pioneer of the local apple industry, writing a book on apple culture and conducting successful experiments on cool storage.

However at one patriotic meeting (date and place unknown) someone in the audience called him 'a bloody hun'. He did not speak publicly again during the war and after the meeting gathered up old family records in the German language and burnt them in a bonfire.

(With thanks to Hans, Lawrence, Ranginui and Roy Bensemann, Arnold Heine, Brian Hunter, Jeanne Macaskill, Dororthy Priest, Marjorie Shannon and Sam Stocker.)

In regard to the First World War, one of the most fascinating stories was that of soldier Lawrence Bensemann. An older brother, Albert, and a younger brother, Norman, also served overseas in the First World War. All three returned, but Albert was wounded. Lawrence was the only officer of the three.

Lawrence started his overseas service on March 27, 1915, when he sailed on the Talune with the NZ Field Artillery from Auckland to Apia as part of the Samoa Relief Force. Western Samoa had been a German colony from 1900 to 1914 but New Zealand troops took over, just after war was declared in August 1914, without a shot being fired. Lawrence’s German language skills were in demand because the German population had generally stayed in Samoa during the war, and New Zealand needed to confer especially with German business owners and those German administrators who had been kept on in their positions.

Lawrence (also spelt "Laurence"), the tenth of fourteen children, was born on March 4, 1891 in what was then the German community of Sarau (Upper Moutere).

His parents Johann Diedrich ('Dick') Bensemann and Maria Johanne Eggers and his grandparents were all of full German descent and he grew up speaking both German and English. Lawrence attended Nelson College from 1904 to 1906 and then shifted to Wellington where he had two contrasting jobs – one as an accountancy clerk for J. B. McEwan & Co and the other as a professional rugby league player. He was a 'second rower' (ie number 11 or 12) during the era of contested scrums and represented New Zealand against New South Wales in 1913.

However Lawrence had his loyalty questioned, and his father Dick was also accused of being traitorous, not by the army but by Motueka politicians. Motueka Member of Parliament Richard Hudson wrote to Defence Minister James Allen on April 30, 1918 saying: 'I have been informed on very reliable authority that a careful watch should be kept on 19/307 Lieut. Lawrence Otto Bensemann.... who has lately been writing some of his friends in this neighbourhood that he is making fast friends amongst the Germans in Samoa. I believe this man's father got into trouble at the beginning of the War owing to his disloyal attitude and utterances'.

No letter from Lawrence or any other evidence was produced but Hudson implied a relative of James Wallace, the Mayor of Motueka had seen it. Mr Hudson did not appear to know that one of Lawrence's tasks in Samoa was communicating with local Germans, nor that Lawrence was no longer in Samoa. On March 27, 1917, Lawrence had left Samoa for New Zealand, arriving on April 3, 1917. After leave and further training he left on the Athenic on December 31, 1917 as part of the 33rd Reinforcements Specialist Company, NZ Expeditionary Force, arriving in Glasgow on February 25, 1918. From there he went to France.

Allen checked with the Commander-in-Chief in Samoa, Colonel Robert Logan, and then wrote back to Hudson MP on July 1, 1918 saying the officer under question had left Samoa a year before and was now in France. 'It would appear therefore that there was no foundation for the statement that he had lately been writing to some of his friends stating that he was making fast friends amongst the Germans in Samoa.'

The title-tattle at home did not prevented Lawrence’s promotion from Sergeant to Lieutenant while in Europe.

After the war, Lawrence settled back in Wellington with his wife Charlotte (nee Newbury) and returned to his accountancy career. He died on September 23, 1969, survived by two sons and eight grandchildren. The previous year, on November 16, 1968, one of Lawrence’s great nephews, and Dick’s great grandsons, Lance Corporal Donald Bensemann, 41383, Royal NZ Infantry Regiment, was shot to death in Vietnam during an engagement with the Viet Cong. See Donald Bensemann and Lawrence Bensemann

Bensemanns and other German descendants found it difficult explaining to those of British descent that Germany as a country had not been formed at the time of emigration. It was an especially bitter experience during the First World War because, while many in Upper Moutere spoke German, their strong allegiance to the British Crown went back generations. Similar links to the Kaiser did not exist.

As one Bensemann family historian poignantly described it: 'As they [far northern Germans] had been under British sovereignty for over a century... they had been more or less apart from the political turmoil existing in the Europe of that period and so wished to retain their allegiance to the British Crown. When Queen Victoria came to the throne in 1836, the association... was broken as the laws of Hanover prohibited a woman becoming their ruler. This no doubt being the reason why Hanoverians tended to emigrate to British colonies rather than to the more popular countries such as USA and South America.'

Under the Naturalisation Ordinance of 1844 of the General Legislative Council of New Zealand, most German settlers were 'deemed and be taken to be and to have been from the 14^th day of June 1843 natural-born subjects of Her Majesty as if they had been born within the realm of England'.

A letter to the Nelson Evening Mail by Upper Moutere’s Lutheran Church Minister G F Hoyer and three other community leaders, dated August 13, 1914 was headed Upper Moutere Residents and the War with subheadings Farewell to departing volunteers. Declaration of loyalty to British flag. It reminded readers of this naturalisation: 'Over 30 residents were assembled in the hotel dining room, listening to patriotic speeches and songs, and expressing their good wishes to our departing boys, the New Zealand contingent and the Empire's forces on land and sea. The following toasts were honoured "The King"; "The Army, including our Contingent" "The Navy" and "Our Departing Comrades".

'At this gathering it was mentioned by various speakers that they had been questioned by a number of people outside the district about the attitude of the Moutere German residents, and that some doubts and misgivings seemed to be entertained as to their loyalty. The assembly therefore unanimously requested the undersigned (two of whom are English born and two of German extraction) to explain the matter through the press, and expressed the hope that this would once [and] for all remove any anxiety or misunderstanding that might exist. First of all we would like to emphasise the fact that the application ‘German’ to any resident of Moutere refers only to language. There is not a single person of German extraction in the whole district who is not a naturalised British subject...

'The residents of German extraction... will stand shoulder to shoulder, man for man, with any other inhabitants of the colony to defend its shores and institutions, their homes and families against any foe whatsoever.'

The truth is that families such as the Bensemanns, while professing their backing to Britain had mixed loyalties during the war. Many Upper Moutere settlers had relatives in Germany they had been keeping in contact with. These links, while broken for several generations, have since been somewhat restored. A number of young New Zealand Bensemanns have lived in Germany in recent years on exchange schemes, while German Bensemanns have visited and stayed with distant New Zealand cousins. These links, which have included recent intermarriage between German and New Zealand Bensemanns, have given local families a wider perspective about both world wars.

While Rev. Hoyer and his congregation appeared to be unequivocal in their letter to the Nelson Evening Mail; in private the talk was very different. My uncle Hans recalled during the First World War listening to Hoyer and others at a small dinner party in the earth house that still stands at Mahana. Hans slept in the loft with his siblings but occasionally crept into the edges of the large downstairs fireplace beside the warm ashes, feigning sleep while listening to the adults talk. At the dinner party he heard Hoyer say to my grandparents in German, 'Don’t worry, Germany shall endure'.